Podcasts about Johnny Burnette

Derek explores statutory rape rock, aka the 1960s music genre. One musician stood out as a unique character who lived a crazy tragedy. June 1, 2025. Ep 138. LIMITED TIME OFFER!!! Download 21 Blitz and use promo code "DEREKIZZI" to get $5 free when you make your first deposit. Play 21 for real money against real people.

32.026 It's another huge blast of true-blue, all-American rockin' billy music delivered with style, grace and loud volume by the Aztec Werewolf, DJ Del Villarreal! You know it's real when it's 50's rock n' roll! Set your ears to 'stun' with an alarming assortment of killer vintage rock n' roll: we've got Vince Maloy, Dale Hawkins, Buddy Holly, Jack Scott, Billy Harlan, Warren Smith, Johnny Burnette and even Jerry Lee Lewis on board tonight's set list. We've got the future of the modern day rockin' scene well represented as well with entertaining tracks from current stars Jane Rose & The Deadends, J.S. & The Lockerbillies, Marcel Riesco, The Bad Fortunes, Union Avenue, Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish, Brandon Wayne & His Lonesome Drifters, Seatbbelt, The Spunyboys, Jimmy Dale Richardson, Sebastien Bordeaux and even hot newcomer Dani West! Only the finest ingredients go into each highly caloric roots rockabilly episode! Make a request for future shows with a fast email: del@motorbilly.com and we'll see YOU on the radio! "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!"  - good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

32.028 For the finest vintage and the greatest modern roots rockin'-billy music, you've just gotta listen to DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO!" We've got incredibly fresh and exclusive cuts to hear from the likes of Marcel Riesco, Angela Hoodoo, Joe Bombast, The Messer Chups, The Hot Rod Gang, The Hyperjax, The Chop Tops, The Pepperpot Bats, The Casinos, Mama's Hot Sauce, Willie Barry, Jane Rose & The Deadends, The Untamed Youth and Union Avenue to name a few! WOW! Plenty of reliably rocking's old school tunes included as well. You can hear selections from such classic rockin' artists as Pee Wee King, Gene Vincent, Lefty Frizzell, Sleepy LaBeef, Ben Hewitt, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Larry Collins & Joe Maphis, Johnny Burnette, Wanda Jackson, Charlie Feathers and even Nervous Norvus (oh my!). It's a midweek rockabilly smorgasbord at a Southern-Fried all-you-can-eat musical diner! The Aztec Werewolf™ is picking up the tab, so grab a bib, dig in and fill your ears -it's good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

32.029 The stars at night, are big and ROCKIN' deep in the heart of TEXAS! Enjoy our incredible 22nd Annual Lonestar Roundup episode of "Go Kat, GO!" featuring rockin' music from ALL of the band performing at the Lonestar Roundup. PLUS we get an up-close-and-personal interview with festival organizer Steve Wertheimer of the Continental Club. Hear fresh new rockin' music from Union Avenue, Bloodshot Bill, Tami Neilson & JD McPherson and The Hot Rod Gang plus plenty of powerful picks from the Motorbilly vaults including Johnny Burnette, Joe Poovey, Vince Taylor & The Playboys, Alvis Wayne, Jape Richardson, Roy Orbison & Jerry Lee Lewis. Enjoy a huge 3+ hour blast of retro-styled roots of rock n' roll with the Aztec Werewolf™, DJ Del Villarreal and his Wednesday night platter party, "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

32.019 It's always GREAT ROCKIN' when DJ Del is on the radio! Giving turntable #4 a rigorous workout tonight, digging cool platters from deep within the Motorbilly Vaults as well as hot new slabs that have made their way up to the Basement Penthouse! We're also taking some time to properly celebrate Johnny Burnette's 91st birthday, enjoying some rare cuts from the rowdy Memphis rockers' repertoire as well as some inspired covers by modern day rockabilly artists. Bask in the glow of the Mean Devils' scorching 7" disc, "Simmer Down," sop up your tears while digging Union Avenue's "All I Can Do Is Cry" and move on up the lane with the Whiskey Daredevils' "Further Down The Line"! Loads of great requests from the brilliant "Go Kat, GO!" listeners including some Reverend Horton Heat, Lucky Jones, The Stray Cats, The Relaxtrio, Glam Parson, Geoffrey Miller, Jeff Beck, Billy Blanks and Rusty & Doug Kershaw! Hot new cuts to debut from Marshall Scott Warner, Brandon Wayne & his Lonesome Drifters and Willie Barry! Over 3 hours of the finest retro-roots-rockin'roll ready for you to consume (commercial free!) on the latest episode of DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO ! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

32.018 Only the finest rockabilly selections go into each and every episode of DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO!" Enjoy the most succulent vintage tracks ever heard! We're cooking with Billy Lee Riley, Ricky Nelson, Warren Smith, Justin Tubb, Carl Perkins, Charlie Feathers, Marty Robbins, the Big Bopper and even Cliff Richard! We pair up these delicious musical entrees with some of the freshest modern concoctions available, including The Messer Chups, The Whiskey Daredevils, The Katmen, The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, The Voodoo Tones, Mike Bell & The Belltones, Willie Barry, The Chop Tops, J.S. & The Lockerbillies and MORE! We wish Johnny Burnette a happy 91st birthday and help to hype the local SE Michigan show with The Stomp Rockets appearing this Saturday, March 29th at Ziggy's of Ypsilanti! Loads of cool requests from YOU, the dedicated listeners -feel free to make a request for a future show: del@motorbilly.com The greatest rockin' radio show in the world, it's gotta be DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

Un nuevo especial cargado de rockocosas que contará con la rutilante presencia de monstruos del tupé tan venerados como Charlie Feathers, Johnny Burnette o Sonny Burguess, pero también con grandes semi desconocidos del calibre de Lucky Joe Almond o Willie Joe. A partir de las ocho de la mañana del sábado en la sintonía de Radio 3.Escuchar audio

248. The most phenomenal rockin' radio show in the world! Join the Aztec Werewolf™, DJ Del Villarreal for a big 3 hour journey through the world of 1950's rock & roll; enjoy the finest old school music played alongside the greatest modern roots acts in every episode of "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!"  Check out hot new cuts from Kitten And The Tonics (Grand Rapids, MI), Deke Dickerson and the Whippersnappers (Los Angeles, CA), The Ichi-Bons (Toronto, CAN), Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra (London, ENG), The Surfragettes (Toronto, CAN), JD McPherson (Broken Arrow, OK), The Howlin' Ramblers (Spain), The Honky Tonk Wranglers (Kentucky, USA) and The Bullets (London, ENG)! Fans of vintage music will enjoy hearing classics from George Jones, Webb Pierce, Dave Dudley, Werly Fairburn and Wayne Walker plus rockabilly gems from the likes of Johnny Burnette & The Rock N' Roll Trio, Mimi Roman, Carl Perkins, Ronnie Haig, Link Wray, Charlie Rich, Ricky Nelson, Jack Scott and Jerry Lee Lewis! Stay for some bonus cut from Neil Young (Happy birthday, Neil!). It's always good to the last bop!™ Make a request: del@motorbilly.comPlease follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

This week, we manage to talk about 7 songs in just over 2 hours - appropriately, all are versions of "Train Kept a Rollin'"! The original is by Tiny Bradshaw, a 1951 jump blues number that contains a rock n roll instro break that clearly caught the ears of  the next crew, namely Johnny Burnette & The Rock n Roll Trio. They take Tiny B's joyous number and inject it with some wild hillfolk hiccupin' and hollerin'.' The train somehow made it to England by 1965, and Screamin' Lord Sutch (with Ritchie Blackmore) left the station at a fevered pace, but later that same year, The Yardbirds caught up. Keith Relf and the boys even did a follow-up rendition for the movie Blow Up which they titled "Stroll On," but the lyrics are super stoopid! We close off the episode with two garage versions that take passengers to places far off the usual route - dig The Rogues (these ones from Buffalo) and Steve Walker and The Bold and their hyperspeeds! Real gone!!!Screamin' Lord SutchThe Yardbirds (TKAR and "Stroll On")The RoguesSteve Walker and the Bold

Come On In' by Paul Butterfield leads us off on R&R Circus and we want you to join us at the Circus Big Top! Our second song by LuLu 'Put a Little Love in your Heart' is what we hope you will do! We are currently rockin' at the SSA in Vegas @MGM! Great show and huge buzz for the safer4utravel.com gang and their $36.00 per month security Safer4r storage zone! Southern Culture On the Skids jammin' on Run Baby Run and lots of power in the Deuces with Supertramp and the Goo Goo Dolls doubling up on 'Give a Little Bit' and a reach out into the past for Johnny Burnette doing 'Rock Billy Boogie' from 1957. Fast forward to October 17th, 2021, for Ed Sheeran and his ‘Bad Habits' and then Ray Davies (Kinks) singing about his baby leaving him for a Disco man. Green Day ratchets it up again with Know your Enemy. Got some other monsters including Sheryl C. with 'Hole in My Pocket' request from Denise B. Wanting us to play Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots are made for Walking', Jethro Tull, Donnie Iris and we finish up our playlist with a two cocktailer by The Move, 'Feel Too Good' Big shouts to Anne 'The Hat Lady' Ballard for her Hall of Fame Induction!! Congratulations!!

Label: Coral 61651Year: 1956Condition: MLast Price: $400.00. Not currently available for sale.From a warehouse find, this is a new, unplayed stock copy, in its original factory sleeve. Yes, this is indeed a pristine mint copy that looks like it just walked out of a 1956 record store. And you just won't find any rockabilly singles that are more admired than this one. This was the group's first and best single... both sides are enduring keepers.

729. I got a feelin... that all those kats are boppin the blues, so, it must be goin' round! Be-bop daddies & hot rockin mamas are all invited to tune into DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" Emanating from the not-so-secret underground basement lair beneath the world-famous Motorbilly Building, here comes a wild rockin' radio program almost too good to be true! Amaze your ears with a super fine selection of modern day rockers such as  The Low Life Drifters, The Ceazars, The Rover Boys Trio, Marcel Bontempi, J.S. & The Lockerbillies, The Sirocco Bros., Dylan Kirk, Ray Black & The Flying Carpets, Seatbelt, Danny Fisher, The Supersonics, The Quakes, The Rock-A-Sonics, The Blue Velvets, Hillbilly Casino, La Perra Blanco, Jack Rabbit Slim, Charley Crockett, The Horton Brothers and even Nashville Luchadores de instrumentales, Los Straitjackets! Eddie Angel and his Los Straitjackets gang are on tour right now, celebrating 30 incredible years of low-fi masked instrumental madness! We aren't going to let you go without a savvy blend of vintage rockers added to the mix! Dig the classic rockin' sounds of Chuck Berry, The Collins Kids, Dale Hawkins, Benny Joy, Johnny Burnette & The Rock 'n' Roll Trio, Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps, The Cochran Brothers, Bill Haley & The Saddlemen, LaVern Baker, Roy Hall, Link Wray, Jack Scott AND... our birthday boy of the night, RnRoll & Rockabilly Hall of Famer, Ricky Nelson! If Rick were still with us, he'd be 84 years old today. Enjoy a far-reaching overview of the the legendary "Teen Idol," Rick Nelson's musical career all throughout tonite's program. Watch out for webs as we spin some silky smooth Spider-Man songs and we'll be honoring Marty Robbins as our Gator Rock Rockin' Kountry Kat of the Week! Believe what you hear: truly the rockin'est sounds abound when the Aztec Werewolf spins 'em! -good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

This week's show, after Jim sings a 1996 Sloan slab: brand new Fontaines D.C., J. Robbins, Belle & Sebastian, TV Smith, Real Estate, F.O.D., and Armoires, plus Johnny Burnette, Buck Owens, Gandalf, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Scientist, Lewis Pruitt, and...

Esse é o AutoRadio Podcast. Under The Covers 83 - The Train Kept A-Rollin Powered by Wisdomtech http://www.wisdomtech.com.br

718. Keep that rockabilly train rollin' for 3 hours long every Tuesday nite with DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" Celebrating legendary rocker Johnny Burnette's 90th birthday with a freight load of killer vintage 50's selections  all throughout this wild radio program. We're also highlighting great NEW cuts from the finest rockabilly bands in the world; dig the HOT new single from Portugal's Mean Devils, scorch your ears with the latest from Caifornia's Seatbelt, hang 10 with Michigan's Chris Casello and his twangtastic new Swelltune LP, "Surfin' Hayride," roast your ears with the latest from Germany's Red Lights Gang, burn rubber with the latest from UK sleaze-a-billy superstars Jack Rabbit Slim and shake it with New York Neo-billy pioneers The Quakes! Amazing old school cuts from Marvin Rainwater, Carl Perkins, Ronnie Dawson,  it has to be DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -broadcast LIVE from the Motorbilly Studios -listen LIVE on www.RockabillyRadio.net from 9 til Midnite EST / 6 til 11 pm PCT! Make a request from the Aztec Werewolf™: del@motorbilly.com and enjoy the best vintage & modern rockin' sounds around!Good to the last BOP!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

Music from Dusty Springfield, Dire Straits, Chuck Berry, Ziggy Marley, Cher, Johnny Burnette, Mud, Racey, Status Quo, Golden Earing and loads more!

One FM presenter Josh Revens and Steve Dowers present 'Whatever Happened To?' This week's topic is the singer Johnny Burnette. This program originally aired on Monday the 11th of March, 2024. Contact the station on admin@fm985.com.au or (+613) 58313131 The ONE FM 98.5 Community Radio podcast page operates under the license of Goulburn Valley Community Radio Inc. (ONE FM) Number 1385226/1. PRA AMCOS (Australasian Performing Right Association Limited and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society) that covers Simulcasting and Online content including podcasts with musical content, that we pay every year. This licence number is 1385226/1.

Good times, bad times…let's take a theme trip to schooldays past in music this week. Whether you were a product of the fifties, sixties or beyond, you remember your favorite music. We'll be zooming in on sounds from that era in the show today as we explore the high school theme with topics like ‘lettered sweaters'…what ever happened to those? Or maybe the reminder of the bell or buzzer in the hallways. Or maybe that favorite after school rendezvous spot. We'll be sharing music that celebrated school and affairs of the young at heart with tracks from The 5 Royals, Johnny Burnette, Gary US Bonds and some other favorites as well as some unknowns from some dusty 45s buried deep in the archives. Namely Nicky & The Nobles, Johnny & The Jammers, and Herbie Alpert & His Sextet. Quite the fun today so drop by.

Episode 170 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Astral Weeks", the early solo career of Van Morrison, and the death of Bert Berns.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-minute bonus episode available, on "Stoned Soul Picnic" by Laura Nyro. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata At one point I, ridiculously, misspeak the name of Charles Mingus' classic album. Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is not about dinner ladies. Also, I say Warren Smith Jr is on "Slim Slow Slider" when I meant to say Richard Davis (Smith is credited in some sources, but I only hear acoustic guitar, bass, and soprano sax on the finished track). Resources As usual, I've created Mixcloud playlists, with full versions of all the songs excerpted in this episode. As there are so many Van Morrison songs in this episode, the Mixcloud is split into three parts, one, two, and three. The information about Bert Berns comes from Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues by Joel Selvin. I've used several biographies of Van Morrison. Van Morrison: Into the Music by Ritchie Yorke is so sycophantic towards Morrison that the word “hagiography” would be, if anything, an understatement. Van Morrison: No Surrender by Johnny Rogan, on the other hand, is the kind of book that talks in the introduction about how the author has had to avoid discussing certain topics because of legal threats from the subject. Howard deWitt's Van Morrison: Astral Weeks to Stardom is over-thorough in the way some self-published books are, while Clinton Heylin's Can You Feel the Silence? is probably the best single volume on the artist. Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. Ryan Walsh's Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 is about more than Astral Weeks, but does cover Morrison's period in and around Boston in more detail than anything else. The album Astral Weeks is worth hearing in its entirety. Not all of the music on The Authorized Bang Collection is as listenable, but it's the most complete collection available of everything Morrison recorded for Bang. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick warning -- this episode contains discussion of organised crime activity, and of sudden death. It also contains excerpts of songs which hint at attraction to underage girls and discuss terminal illness. If those subjects might upset you, you might want to read the transcript rather than listen to the episode. Anyway, on with the show. Van Morrison could have been the co-writer of "Piece of My Heart". Bert Berns was one of the great collaborators in the music business, and almost every hit he ever had was co-written, and he was always on the lookout for new collaborators, and in 1967 he was once again working with Van Morrison, who he'd worked with a couple of years earlier when Morrison was still the lead singer of Them. Towards the beginning of 1967 he had come up with a chorus, but no verse. He had the hook, "Take another little piece of my heart" -- Berns was writing a lot of songs with "heart" in the title at the time -- and wanted Morrison to come up with a verse to go with it. Van Morrison declined. He wasn't interested in writing pop songs, or in collaborating with other writers, and so Berns turned to one of his regular collaborators, Jerry Ragavoy, and it was Ragavoy who added the verses to one of the biggest successes of Berns' career: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] The story of how Van Morrison came to make the album that's often considered his masterpiece is intimately tied up with the story we've been telling in the background for several episodes now, the story of Atlantic Records' sale to Warners, and the story of Bert Berns' departure from Atlantic. For that reason, some parts of the story I'm about to tell will be familiar to those of you who've been paying close attention to the earlier episodes, but as always I'm going to take you from there to somewhere we've never been before. In 1962, Bert Berns was a moderately successful songwriter, who had written or co-written songs for many artists, especially for artists on Atlantic Records. He'd written songs for Atlantic artists like LaVern Baker, and when Atlantic's top pop producers Leiber and Stoller started to distance themselves from the label in the early sixties, he had moved into production as well, writing and producing Solomon Burke's big hit "Cry to Me": [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Cry to Me"] He was the producer and writer or co-writer of most of Burke's hits from that point forward, but at first he was still a freelance producer, and also produced records for Scepter Records, like the Isley Brothers' version of "Twist and Shout", another song he'd co-written, that one with Phil Medley. And as a jobbing songwriter, of course his songs were picked up by other producers, so Leiber and Stoller produced a version of his song "Tell Him" for the Exciters on United Artists: [Excerpt: The Exciters, "Tell Him"] Berns did freelance work for Leiber and Stoller as well as the other people he was working for. For example, when their former protege Phil Spector released his hit version of "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah", they got Berns to come up with a knockoff arrangement of "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?", released as by Baby Jane and the Rockabyes, with a production credit "Produced by Leiber and Stoller, directed by Bert Berns": [Excerpt: Baby Jane and the Rockabyes, "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"] And when Leiber and Stoller stopped producing work for United Artists, Berns took over some of the artists they'd been producing for the label, like Marv Johnson, as well as producing his own new artists, like Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, who had been discovered by Berns' friend Jerry Ragovoy, with whom he co-wrote their "Cry Baby": [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, "Cry Baby"] Berns was an inveterate collaborator. He was one of the few people to get co-writing credits with Leiber and Stoller, and he would collaborate seemingly with everyone who spoke to him for five minutes. He would also routinely reuse material, cutting the same songs time and again with different artists, knowing that a song must be a hit for *someone*. One of his closest collaborators was Jerry Wexler, who also became one of his best friends, even though one of their earliest interactions had been when Wexler had supervised Phil Spector's production of Berns' "Twist and Shout" for the Top Notes, a record that Berns had thought had butchered the song. Berns was, in his deepest bones, a record man. Listening to the records that Berns made, there's a strong continuity in everything he does. There's a love there of simplicity -- almost none of his records have more than three chords. He loved Latin sounds and rhythms -- a love he shared with other people working in Brill Building R&B at the time, like Leiber and Stoller and Spector -- and great voices in emotional distress. There's a reason that the records he produced for Solomon Burke were the first R&B records to be labelled "soul". Berns was one of those people for whom feel and commercial success are inextricable. He was an artist -- the records he made were powerfully expressive -- but he was an artist for whom the biggest validation was *getting a hit*. Only a small proportion of the records he made became hits, but enough did that in the early sixties he was a name that could be spoken of in the same breath as Leiber and Stoller, Spector, and Bacharach and David. And Atlantic needed a record man. The only people producing hits for the label at this point were Leiber and Stoller, and they were in the process of stopping doing freelance work and setting up their own label, Red Bird, as we talked about in the episode on the Shangri-Las. And anyway, they wanted more money than they were getting, and Jerry Wexler was never very keen on producers wanting money that could have gone to the record label. Wexler decided to sign Bert Berns up as a staff producer for Atlantic towards the end of 1963, and by May 1964 it was paying off. Atlantic hadn't been having hits, and now Berns had four tracks he wrote and produced for Atlantic on the Hot One Hundred, of which the highest charting was "My Girl Sloopy" by the Vibrations: [Excerpt: The Vibrations, "My Girl Sloopy"] Even higher on the charts though was the Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout". That record, indeed, had been successful enough in the UK that Berns had already made exploratory trips to the UK and produced records for Dick Rowe at Decca, a partnership we heard about in the episode on "Here Comes the Night". Berns had made partnerships there which would have vast repercussions for the music industry in both countries, and one of them was with the arranger Mike Leander, who was the uncredited arranger for the Drifters session for "Under the Boardwalk", a song written by Artie Resnick and Kenny Young and produced by Berns, recorded the day after the group's lead singer Rudy Lewis died of an overdose: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Under the Boardwalk"] Berns was making hits on a regular basis by mid-1964, and the income from the label's new success allowed Jerry Wexler and the Ertegun brothers to buy out their other partners -- Ahmet Ertegun's old dentist, who had put up some of the initial money, and Miriam Bienstock, the ex-wife of their initial partner Herb Abramson, who'd got Abramson's share in the company after the divorce, and who was now married to Freddie Bienstock of Hill and Range publishing. Wexler and the Erteguns now owned the whole label. Berns also made regular trips to the UK to keep up his work with British musicians, and in one of those trips, as we heard in the episode on "Here Comes the Night", he produced several tracks for the group Them, including that track, written by Berns: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And a song written by the group's lead singer Van Morrison, "Gloria": [Excerpt: Them, "Gloria"] But Berns hadn't done much other work with them, because he had a new project. Part of the reason that Wexler and the Erteguns had gained total control of Atlantic was because, in a move pushed primarily by Wexler, they were looking at selling it. They'd already tried to merge with Leiber and Stoller's Red Bird Records, but lost the opportunity after a disastrous meeting, but they were in negotiations with several other labels, negotiations which would take another couple of years to bear fruit. But they weren't planning on getting out of the record business altogether. Whatever deal they made, they'd remain with Atlantic, but they were also planning on starting another label. Bert Berns had seen how successful Leiber and Stoller were with Red Bird, and wanted something similar. Wexler and the Erteguns didn't want to lose their one hit-maker, so they came up with an offer that would benefit all of them. Berns' publishing contract had just ended, so they would set up a new publishing company, WEB IV, named after the initials Wexler, Ertegun, and Berns, and the fact that there were four of them. Berns would own fifty percent of that, and the other three would own the other half. And they were going to start up a new label, with seventeen thousand dollars of the Atlantic partners' money. That label would be called Bang -- for Bert, Ahmet, Neshui, and Gerald -- and would be a separate company from Atlantic, so not affected by any sale. Berns would continue as a staff producer for Atlantic for now, but he'd have "his own" label, which he'd have a proper share in, and whether he was making hits for Atlantic or Bang, his partners would have a share of the profits. The first two records on Bang were "Shake and Jerk" by Billy Lamont, a track that they licensed from elsewhere and which didn't do much, and a more interesting track co-written by Berns. Bob Feldman, Richard Gottehrer, and Jerry Goldstein were Brill Building songwriters who had become known for writing "My Boyfriend's Back", a hit for the Angels, a couple of years earlier: [Excerpt: The Angels, "My Boyfriend's Back"] With the British invasion, the three of them had decided to create their own foreign beat group. As they couldn't do British accents, they pretended to be Australian, and as the Strangeloves -- named after the Stanley Kubrick film Dr  Strangelove -- they released one flop single. They cut another single, a version of "Bo Diddley", but the label they released their initial record through didn't want it. They then took the record to Atlantic, where Jerry Wexler said that they weren't interested in releasing some white men singing "Bo Diddley". But Ahmet Ertegun suggested they bring the track to Bert Berns to see what he thought. Berns pointed out that if they changed the lyrics and melody, but kept the same backing track, they could claim the copyright in the resulting song themselves. He worked with them on a new lyric, inspired by the novel Candy, a satirical pornographic novel co-written by Terry Southern, who had also co-written the screenplay to Dr Strangelove. Berns supervised some guitar overdubs, and the result went to number eleven: [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Berns had two other songs on the hot one hundred when that charted, too -- Them's version of "Here Comes the Night", and the version of Van McCoy's song "Baby I'm Yours" he'd produced for Barbara Lewis. Three records on the charts on three different labels. But despite the sheer number of charting records he'd had, he'd never had a number one, until the Strangeloves went on tour. Before the tour they'd cut a version of "My Girl Sloopy" for their album -- Berns always liked to reuse material -- and they started performing the song on the tour. The Dave Clark Five, who they were supporting, told them it sounded like a hit and they were going to do their own version when they got home. Feldman, Gottehrer, and Goldstein decided *they* might as well have the hit with it as anyone else. Rather than put it out as a Strangeloves record -- their own record was still rising up the charts, and there's no reason to be your own competition -- they decided to get a group of teenage musicians who supported them on the last date of the tour to sing new vocals to the backing track from the Strangeloves album. The group had been called Rick and the Raiders, but they argued so much that the Strangeloves nicknamed them the Hatfields and the McCoys, and when their version of "My Girl Sloopy", retitled "Hang on Sloopy", came out, it was under the band name The McCoys: [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] Berns was becoming a major success, and with major success in the New York music industry in the 1960s came Mafia involvement. We've talked a fair bit about Morris Levy's connection with the mob in many previous episodes, but mob influence was utterly pervasive throughout the New York part of the industry, and so for example Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves used to call Sonny Franzese of the Colombo crime family "Uncle John", they were so close. Franzese was big in the record business too, even after his conviction for bank robbery. Berns, unlike many of the other people in the industry, had no scruples at all about hanging out with Mafiosi. indeed his best friend in the mid sixties was Tommy Eboli, a member of the Genovese crime family who had been in the mob since the twenties, starting out working for "Lucky" Luciano. Berns was not himself a violent man, as far as anyone can tell, but he liked the glamour of hanging out with organised crime figures, and they liked hanging out with someone who was making so many hit records. And so while Leiber and Stoller, for example, ended up selling Red Bird Records to George Goldner for a single dollar in order to get away from the Mafiosi who were slowly muscling in on the label, Berns had no problems at all in keeping his own label going. Indeed, he would soon be doing so without the involvement of Atlantic Records. Berns' final work for Atlantic was in June 1966, when he cut a song he had co-written with Jeff Barry for the Drifters, inspired by the woman who would soon become Atlantic's biggest star: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Aretha"] The way Berns told the story in public, there was no real bad blood between him, Wexler, and the Erteguns -- he'd just decided to go his own way, and he said “I will always be grateful to them for the help they've given me in getting Bang started,” The way Berns' wife would later tell the story, Jerry Wexler had suggested that rather than Berns owning fifty percent of Web IV, they should start to split everything four ways, and she had been horrified by this suggestion, kicked up a stink about it, and Wexler had then said that either Berns needed to buy the other three out, or quit and give them everything, and demanded Berns pay them three hundred thousand dollars. According to other people, Berns decided he wanted one hundred percent control of Web IV, and raised a breach of contract lawsuit against Atlantic, over the usual royalty non-payments that were endemic in the industry at that point. When Atlantic decided to fight the lawsuit rather than settle, Berns' mob friends got involved and threatened to break the legs of Wexler's fourteen-year-old daughter, and the mob ended up with full control of Bang records, while Berns had full control of his publishing company. Given later events, and in particular given the way Wexler talked about Berns until the day he died, with a vitriol that he never used about any of the other people he had business disputes with, it seems likely to me that the latter story is closer to the truth than the former. But most people involved weren't talking about the details of what went on, and so Berns still retained his relationships with many of the people in the business, not least of them Jeff Barry, so when Barry and Ellie Greenwich had a new potential star, it was Berns they thought to bring him to, even though the artist was white and Berns had recently given an interview saying that he wanted to work with more Black artists, because white artists simply didn't have soul. Barry and Greenwich's marriage was breaking up at the time, but they were still working together professionally, as we discussed in the episode on "River Deep, Mountain High", and they had been the main production team at Red Bird. But with Red Bird in terminal decline, they turned elsewhere when they found a potential major star after Greenwich was asked to sing backing vocals on one of his songwriting demos. They'd signed the new songwriter, Neil Diamond, to Leiber and Stoller's company Trio Music at first, but they soon started up their own company, Tallyrand Music, and signed Diamond to that, giving Diamond fifty percent of the company and keeping twenty-five percent each for themselves, and placed one of his songs with Jay and the Americans in 1965: [Excerpt: Jay and the Americans, "Sunday and Me"] That record made the top twenty, and had established Diamond as a songwriter, but he was still not a major performer -- he'd released one flop single on Columbia Records before meeting Barry and Greenwich. But they thought he had something, and Bert Berns agreed. Diamond was signed to Bang records, and Berns had a series of pre-production meetings with Barry and Greenwich before they took Diamond into the studio -- Barry and Greenwich were going to produce Diamond for Bang, as they had previously produced tracks for Red Bird, but they were going to shape the records according to Berns' aesthetic. The first single released from Diamond's first session, "Solitary Man", only made number fifty-five, but it was the first thing Diamond had recorded to make the Hot One Hundred at all: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Solitary Man"] The second single, though, was much more Bert Berns' sort of thing -- a three-chord song that sounded like it could have been written by Berns himself, especially after Barry and Greenwich had added the Latin-style horns that Berns loved so much. Indeed according to some sources, Berns did make a songwriting suggestion -- Diamond's song had apparently been called "Money Money", and Berns had thought that was a ridiculous title, and suggested calling it "Cherry Cherry" instead: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry"] That became Diamond's first top ten hit. While Greenwich had been the one who had discovered Diamond, and Barry and Greenwich were the credited producers on all Diamond's records  as a result, Diamond soon found himself collaborating far more with Barry than with Greenwich, so for example the first number one he wrote, for the Monkees rather than himself, ended up having its production just credited to Barry. That record used a backing track recorded in New York by the same set of musicians used on most Bang records, like Al Gorgoni on lead guitar and Russ Savakus on bass: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "I'm a Believer"] Neil Diamond was becoming a solid hit-maker, but he started rubbing up badly against Berns. Berns wanted hits and only hits, and Diamond thought of himself as a serious artist. The crisis came when two songs were under contention for Diamond's next single in late 1967, after he'd had a whole run of hits for the label. The song Diamond wanted to release, "Shilo", was deeply personal to him: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Shilo"] But Bert Berns had other ideas. "Shilo" didn't sound like a hit, and he knew a hit when he heard one. No, the clear next single, the only choice, was "Kentucky Woman": [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Kentucky Woman"] But Berns tried to compromise as best he could. Diamond's contract was up for renewal, and you don't want to lose someone who has had, as Diamond had at that point, five top twenty hits in a row, and who was also writing songs like "I'm a Believer" and "Red Red Wine". He told Diamond that he'd let "Shilo" come out as a single if Diamond signed an extension to his contract. Diamond said that not only was he not going to do that, he'd taken legal advice and discovered that there were problems with his contract which let him record for other labels -- the word "exclusive" had been missed out of the text, among other things. He wasn't going to be recording for Bang at all any more. The lawsuits over this would stretch out for a decade, and Diamond would eventually win, but the first few months were very, very difficult for Diamond. When he played the Bitter End, a club in New York, stink bombs were thrown into the audience. The Bitter End's manager was assaulted and severely beaten. Diamond moved his wife and child out of Manhattan, borrowed a gun, and after his last business meeting with Berns was heard talking about how he needed to contact the District Attorney and hire a bodyguard. Of the many threats that were issued against Diamond, though, the least disturbing was probably the threat Berns made to Diamond's career. Berns pointed out to Diamond in no uncertain terms that he didn't need Diamond anyway -- he already had someone he could replace Diamond with, another white male solo singer with a guitar who could churn out guaranteed hits. He had Van Morrison: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] When we left Van Morrison, Them had just split up due to the problems they had been having with their management team. Indeed, the problems Morrison was having with his managers seem curiously similar to the issues that Diamond was having with Bert Berns -- something that could possibly have been a warning sign to everyone involved, if any of them had known the full details of everyone else's situation. Sadly for all of them, none of them did. Them had had some early singles success, notably with the tracks Berns had produced for them, but Morrison's opinion of their second album, Them Again, was less than complimentary, and in general that album is mostly only remembered for the version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", which is one of those cover versions that inspires subsequent covers more than the original ever did: [Excerpt: Them, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"] Them had toured the US around the time of the release of that album, but that tour had been a disaster. The group had gained a reputation for incredible live shows, including performances at the Whisky A-Go-Go with the Doors and Captain Beefheart as their support acts, but during the tour Van Morrison had decided that Phil Solomon, the group's manager, was getting too much money -- Morrison had agreed to do the tour on a salary, rather than a percentage, but the tour had been more successful than he'd expected, and Solomon was making a great deal of money off the tour, money that Morrison believed rightfully belonged to him. The group started collecting the money directly from promoters, and got into legal trouble with Solomon as a result. The tour ended with the group having ten thousand dollars that Solomon believed -- quite possibly correctly -- that he was owed. Various gangsters whose acquaintance the group had made offered to have the problem taken care of, but they decided instead to come to a legal agreement -- they would keep the money, and in return Solomon, whose production company the group were signed to, would get to keep all future royalties from the Them tracks. This probably seemed a good idea at the time, when the idea of records earning royalties for sixty or more years into the future seemed ridiculous, but Morrison in particular came to regret the decision bitterly. The group played one final gig when they got back to Belfast, but then split up, though a version of the group led by the bass player Alan Henderson continued performing for a few years to no success. Morrison put together a band that played a handful of gigs under the name Them Again, with little success, but he already had his eyes set on a return to the US. In Morrison's eyes, Bert Berns had been the only person in the music industry who had really understood him, and the two worked well together. He had also fallen in love with an American woman, Janet Planet, and wanted to find some way to be with her. As Morrison said later “I had a couple of other offers but I thought this was the best one, seeing as I wanted to come to America anyway. I can't remember the exact details of the deal. It wasn't really that spectacular, money-wise, I don't think. But it was pretty hard to refuse from the point of view that I really respected Bert as a producer. I'd rather have worked with Bert than some other guy with a bigger record company. From that angle, it was spectacular because Bert was somebody that I wanted to work with.” There's little evidence that Morrison did have other offers -- he was already getting a reputation as someone who it was difficult to work with -- but he and Berns had a mutual respect, and on January the ninth, 1967, he signed a contract with Bang records. That contract has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, but it was actually, *by the standards in operation in the music business in 1967*, a reasonably fair one. The contract provided that, for a $2,500 a year advance, Bang would record twelve sides in the first year, with an option for up to fifty more that year, and options for up to four more years on the same terms. Bang had the full ownership of the masters and the right to do what they wanted with them. According to at least one biographer, Morrison added clauses requiring Bang to actually record the twelve sides a year, and to put out at least three singles and one album per year while the contract was in operation. He also added one other clause which seems telling -- "Company agrees that Company will not make any reference to the name THEM on phonograph records, or in advertising copy in connection with the recording of Artist." Morrison was, at first, extremely happy with Berns. The problems started with their first session: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl (takes 1-6)"] When Morrison had played the songs he was working on for Berns, Berns had remarked that they sounded great with just Morrison and his guitar, so Morrison was surprised when he got into the studio to find the whole standard New York session crew there -- the same group of session players who were playing for everyone from the Monkees to Laura Nyro, from Neil Diamond to the Shangri-Las -- along with the Sweet Inspirations to provide backing vocals. As he described it later "This fellow Bert, he made it the way he wanted to, and I accepted that he was producing it... I'd write a song and bring it into the group and we'd sit there and bash it around and that's all it was -- they weren't playing the songs, they were just playing whatever it was. They'd say 'OK, we got drums so let's put drums on it,' and they weren't thinking about the song, all they were thinking about was putting drums on it... But it was my song, and I had to watch it go down." The first song they cut was "Brown-Eyed Girl", a song which Morrison has said was originally a calypso, and was originally titled "Brown-skinned Girl", though he's differed in interviews as to whether Berns changed the lyric or if he just decided to sing it differently without thinking about it in the session. Berns turned "Brown-Eyed Girl" into a hit single, because that was what he tended to do with songs, and the result sounds a lot like the kind of record that Bang were releasing for Neil Diamond: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] Morrison has, in later years, expressed his distaste for what was done to the song, and in particular he's said that the backing vocal part by the Sweet Inspirations was added by Berns and he disliked it: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] Morrison has been very dismissive of "Brown-Eyed Girl" over the years, but he seems not to have disliked it at the time, and the song itself is one that has stood the test of time, and is often pointed to by other songwriters as a great example of the writer's craft. I remember reading one interview with Randy Newman -- sadly, while I thought it was in Paul Zollo's "Songwriters on Songwriting" I just checked that and it's not, so I can't quote it precisely -- in which he says that he often points to the line "behind the stadium with you" as a perfect piece of writing, because it's such a strangely specific detail that it convinces you that it actually happened, and that means you implicitly believe the rest of the song. Though it should be made very clear here that Morrison has always said, over and over again, that nothing in his songs is based directly on his own experiences, and that they're all products of his imagination and composites of people he's known. This is very important to note before we go any further, because "Brown-Eyed Girl" is one of many songs from this period in Morrison's career which imply that their narrator has an attraction to underage girls -- in this case he remembers "making love in the green grass" in the distant past, while he also says "saw you just the other day, my how you have grown", and that particular combination is not perhaps one that should be dwelt on too closely. But there is of course a very big difference between a songwriter treating a subject as something that is worth thinking about in the course of a song and writing about their own lives, and that can be seen on one of the other songs that Morrison recorded in these sessions, "T.B. Sheets": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "T.B. Sheets"] It seems very unlikely indeed that Van Morrison actually had a lover die of tuberculosis, as the lover in the song does, and while a lot of people seem convinced that it's autobiographical, simply because of the intensity of the performance (Morrison apparently broke down in tears after recording it), nobody has ever found anyone in Morrison's life who fits the story in the song, and he's always ridiculed such suggestions. What is true though is that "T.B. Sheets" is evidence against another claim that Morrison has made in the past - that on these initial sessions the eight songs recorded were meant to be the A and B sides of four singles and there was no plan of making an album. It is simply not plausible at all to suggest that "T.B. Sheets" -- a slow blues about terminal illness, that lasts nearly ten minutes -- was ever intended as a single. It wouldn't have even come close to fitting on one side of a forty-five. It was also presumably at this time that Berns brought up the topic of "Piece of My Heart". When Berns signed Erma Franklin, it was as a way of getting at Jerry Wexler, who had gone from being his closest friend to someone he wasn't on speaking terms with, by signing the sister of his new signing Aretha. Morrison, of course, didn't co-write it -- he'd already decided that he didn't play well with others -- but it's tempting to think about how the song might have been different had Morrison written it. The song in some ways seems a message to Wexler -- haven't you had enough from me already? -- but it's also notable how many songs Berns was writing with the word "heart" in the chorus, given that Berns knew he was on borrowed time from his own heart condition. As an example, around the same time he and Jerry Ragavoy co-wrote "Piece of My Heart", they also co-wrote another song, "Heart Be Still", a flagrant lift from "Peace Be Still" by Aretha Franklin's old mentor Rev. James Cleveland, which they cut with Lorraine Ellison: [Excerpt: Lorraine Ellison, "Heart Be Still"] Berns' heart condition had got much worse as a result of the stress from splitting with Atlantic, and he had started talking about maybe getting open-heart surgery, though that was still very new and experimental. One wonders how he must have felt listening to Morrison singing about watching someone slowly dying. Morrison has since had nothing but negative things to say about the sessions in March 1967, but at the time he seemed happy. He returned to Belfast almost straight away after the sessions, on the understanding that he'd be back in the US if "Brown-Eyed Girl" was a success. He wrote to Janet Planet in San Francisco telling her to listen to the radio -- she'd know if she heard "Brown-Eyed Girl" that he would be back on his way to see her. She soon did hear the song, and he was soon back in the US: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] By August, "Brown-Eyed Girl" had become a substantial hit, making the top ten, and Morrison was back in the States. He was starting to get less happy with Berns though. Bang had put out the eight tracks he'd recorded in March as an album, titled Blowin' Your Mind, and Morrison thought that the crass pseudo-psychedelia of the title, liner notes, and cover was very inappropriate -- Morrison has never been a heavy user of any drugs other than alcohol, and didn't particularly want to be associated with them. He also seems to have not realised that every track he recorded in those initial sessions would be on the album, which many people have called one of the great one-sided albums of all time -- side A, with "Brown-Eyed Girl", "He Ain't Give You None" and the extended "T.B. Sheets" tends to get far more love than side B, with five much lesser songs on it. Berns held a party for Morrison on a cruise around Manhattan, but it didn't go well -- when the performer Tiny Tim tried to get on board, Carmine "Wassel" DeNoia, a mobster friend of Berns' who was Berns' partner in a studio they'd managed to get from Atlantic as part of the settlement when Berns left, was so offended by Tim's long hair and effeminate voice and mannerisms that he threw him overboard into the harbour. DeNoia was meant to be Morrison's manager in the US, working with Berns, but he and Morrison didn't get on at all -- at one point DeNoia smashed Morrison's acoustic guitar over his head, and only later regretted the damage he'd done to a nice guitar. And Morrison and Berns weren't getting on either. Morrison went back into the studio to record four more songs for a follow-up to "Brown-Eyed Girl", but there was again a misunderstanding. Morrison thought he'd been promised that this time he could do his songs the way he wanted, but Berns was just frustrated that he wasn't coming up with another "Brown-Eyed Girl", but was instead coming up with slow songs about trans women. Berns overdubbed party noises and soul backing vocals onto "Madame George", possibly in an attempt to copy the Beach Boys' Party! album with its similar feel, but it was never going to be a "Barbara Ann": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Madame George (Bang version)"] In the end, Berns released one of the filler tracks from Blowin' Your Mind, "Ro Ro Rosey", as the next single, and it flopped. On December the twenty-ninth, Berns had a meeting with Neil Diamond, the meeting after which Diamond decided he needed to get a bodyguard. After that, he had a screaming row over the phone with Van Morrison, which made Berns ill with stress. The next day, he died of a heart attack. Berns' widow Ilene, who had only just given birth to a baby a couple of weeks earlier, would always blame Morrison for pushing her husband over the edge. Neither Van Morrison nor Jerry Wexler went to the funeral, but Neil Diamond did -- he went to try to persuade Ilene to let him out of his contract now Berns was dead. According to Janet Planet later, "We were at the hotel when we learned that Bert had died. We were just mortified, because things had been going really badly, and Van felt really bad, because I guess they'd parted having had some big fight or something... Even though he did love Bert, it was a strange relationship that lived and died in the studio... I remember we didn't go to the funeral, which probably was a mistake... I think [Van] had a really bad feeling about what was going to happen." But Morrison has later mostly talked about the more practical concerns that came up, which were largely the same as the ones Neil Diamond had, saying in 1997 "I'd signed a contract with Bert Berns for management, production, agency and record company,  publishing, the whole lot -- which was professional suicide as any lawyer will tell you now... Then the whole thing blew up. Bert Berns died and I was left broke." This was the same mistake, essentially, that he'd made with Phil Solomon, and in order to get out of it, it turned out he was going to have to do much the same for a third time.  But it was the experience with Berns specifically that traumatised Morrison enough that twenty-five years later he would still be writing songs about it, like "Big Time Operators": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Big Time Operators"] The option to renew Morrison's contracts with Berns' companies came on the ninth of January 1968, less than two weeks after Berns' death. After his death, Berns' share of ownership in his companies had passed to his widow, who was in a quandary. She had two young children, one of whom was only a few weeks old, and she needed an income after their father had died. She was also not well disposed at all towards Morrison, who she blamed for causing her husband's death. By all accounts the amazing thing is that Berns lived as long as he did given his heart condition and the state of medical science at the time, but it's easy to understand her thinking. She wanted nothing to do with Morrison, and wanted to punish him. On the other hand, her late husband's silent partners didn't want to let their cash cow go. And so Morrison came under a huge amount of pressure in very different directions. From one side, Carmine DiNoia was determined to make more money off Morrison, and Morrison has since talked about signing further contracts at this point with a gun literally to his head, and his hotel room being shot up. But on the other side, Ilene Berns wanted to destroy Morrison's career altogether. She found out that Bert Berns hadn't got Morrison the proper work permits and reported him to the immigration authorities. Morrison came very close to being deported, but in the end he managed to escape deportation by marrying Janet Planet. The newly-married couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to get away from New York and the mobsters, and to try to figure out the next steps in Morrison's career. Morrison started putting together a band, which he called The Van Morrison Controversy, and working on new songs. One of his earliest connections in Massachusetts was the lead singer of a band called the Hallucinations, who he met in a bar where he was trying to get a gig: [Excerpt: The Hallucinations, "Messin' With the Kid"] The Hallucinations' lead singer was called Peter Wolf, and would much later go on to become well-known as the singer with the J. Geils Band. He and Morrison became acquaintances, and later became closer friends when they realised they had another connection -- Wolf had a late-night radio show under the name Woofa Goofa, and he'd been receiving anonymous requests for obscure blues records from a fan of the show. Morrison had been the one sending in the requests, not realising his acquaintance was the DJ. Before he got his own band together, Morrison actually guested with the Hallucinations at one show they did in May 1968, supporting John Lee Hooker. The Hallucinations had been performing "Gloria" since Them's single had come out, and they invited Morrison to join them to perform it on stage. According to Wolf, Morrison was very drunk and ranted in cod-Japanese for thirty-five minutes, and tried to sing a different song while the band played "Gloria". The audience were apparently unimpressed, even though Wolf shouted at them “Don't you know who this man is? He wrote the song!” But in truth, Morrison was sick of "Gloria" and his earlier work, and was trying to push his music in a new direction. He would later talk about having had an epiphany after hearing one particular track on the radio: [Excerpt: The Band, "I Shall Be Released"] Like almost every musician in 1968, Morrison was hit like a lightning bolt by Music From Big Pink, and he decided that he needed to turn his music in the same direction. He started writing the song "Brand New Day", which would later appear on his album Moondance, inspired by the music on the album. The Van Morrison Controversy started out as a fairly straightforward rock band, with guitarist John Sheldon, bass player Tom Kielbania, and drummer Joey Bebo. Sheldon was a novice, though his first guitar teacher was the singer James Taylor, but the other two were students at Berklee, and very serious musicians. Morrison seems to have had various managers involved in rapid succession in 1968, including one who was himself a mobster, and another who was only known as Frank, but one of these managers advanced enough money that the musicians got paid every gig. These musicians were all interested in kinds of music other than just straight rock music, and as well as rehearsing up Morrison's hits and his new songs, they would also jam with him on songs from all sorts of other genres, particularly jazz and blues. The band worked up the song that would become "Domino" based on Sheldon jamming on a Bo Diddley riff, and another time the group were rehearsing a Grant Green jazz piece, "Lazy Afternoon": [Excerpt: Grant Green, "Lazy Afternoon"] Morrison started messing with the melody, and that became his classic song "Moondance": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Moondance"] No recordings of this electric lineup of the group are known to exist, though the backing musicians remember going to a recording studio called Ace recordings at one point and cutting some demos, which don't seem to circulate. Ace was a small studio which, according to all the published sources I've read, was best known for creating song poems, though it was a minor studio even in the song-poem world. For those who don't know, song poems were essentially a con aimed at wannabe songwriters who knew nothing about the business -- companies would advertise you too could become a successful, rich, songwriter if you sent in your "song poems", because anyone who knew the term "lyric" could be presumed to know too much about the music business to be useful. When people sent in their lyrics, they'd then be charged a fee to have them put out on their very own record -- with tracks made more or less on a conveyor belt with quick head arrangements, sung by session singers who were just handed a lyric sheet and told to get on with it. And thus were created such classics prized by collectors as "I Like Yellow Things", "Jimmy Carter Says 'Yes'", and "Listen Mister Hat". Obviously, for the most part these song poems did not lead to the customers becoming the next Ira Gershwin, but oddly even though Ace recordings is not one of the better-known song poem studios, it seems to have produced an actual hit song poem -- one that I don't think has ever before been identified as such until I made a connection, hence me going on this little tangent. Because in researching this episode I noticed something about its co-owner, Milton Yakus', main claim to fame. He co-wrote the song "Old Cape Cod", and to quote that song's Wikipedia page "The nucleus of the song was a poem written by Boston-area housewife Claire Rothrock, for whom Cape Cod was a favorite vacation spot. "Old Cape Cod" and its derivatives would be Rothrock's sole evident songwriting credit. She brought her poem to Ace Studios, a Boston recording studio owned by Milton Yakus, who adapted the poem into the song's lyrics." And while Yakus had written other songs, including songs for Patti Page who had the hit with "Old Cape Cod", apparently Page recorded that song after Rothrock brought her the demo after a gig, rather than getting it through any formal channels. It sounds to me like the massive hit and classic of the American songbook "Old Cape Cod" started life as a song-poem -- and if you're familiar with the form, it fits the genre perfectly: [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Old Cape Cod"] The studio was not the classiest of places, even if you discount the song-poems. Its main source of income was from cutting private records with mobsters' wives and mistresses singing (and dealing with the problems that came along when those records weren't successful) and it also had a sideline in bugging people's cars to see if their spouses were cheating, though Milton Yakus' son Shelly, who got his start at his dad's studio, later became one of the most respected recording engineers in the industry -- and indeed had already worked as assistant engineer on Music From Big Pink. And there was actually another distant connection to Morrison's new favourite band on these sessions. For some reason -- reports differ -- Bebo wasn't considered suitable for the session, and in his place was the one-handed drummer Victor "Moulty" Moulton, who had played with the Barbarians, who'd had a minor hit with "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?" a couple of years earlier: [Excerpt: The Barbarians, "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?"] A later Barbarians single, in early 1966, had featured Moulty telling his life story, punctuated by the kind of three-chord chorus that would have been at home on a Bert Berns single: [Excerpt: The Barbarians, "Moulty"] But while that record was credited to the Barbarians, Moulton was the only Barbarian on the track, with the instruments and backing vocals instead being provided by Levon and the Hawks. Shortly after the Ace sessions, the Van Morrison Controversy fell apart, though nobody seems to know why. Depending on which musician's story you listen to, either Morrison had a dream that he should get rid of all electric instruments and only use acoustic players, or there was talk of a record deal but the musicians weren't good enough, or the money from the mysterious manager (who may or may not have been the one who was a mobster) ran out. Bebo went back to university, and Sheldon left soon after, though Sheldon would remain in the music business in one form or another. His most prominent credit has been writing a couple of songs for his old friend James Taylor, including the song "Bittersweet" on Taylor's platinum-selling best-of, on which Sheldon also played guitar: [Excerpt: James Taylor, "Bittersweet"] Morrison and Kielbania continued for a while as a duo, with Morrison on acoustic guitar and Kielbania on double bass, but they were making very different music. Morrison's biggest influence at this point, other than The Band, was King Pleasure, a jazz singer who sang in the vocalese style we've talked about before -- the style where singers would sing lyrics to melodies that had previously been improvised by jazz musicians: [Excerpt: King Pleasure, "Moody's Mood for Love"] Morrison and Kielbania soon decided that to make the more improvisatory music they were interested in playing, they wanted another musician who could play solos. They ended up with John Payne, a jazz flute and saxophone player whose biggest inspiration was Charles Lloyd. This new lineup of the Van Morrison Controversy -- acoustic guitar, double bass, and jazz flute -- kept gigging around Boston, though the sound they were creating was hardly what the audiences coming to see the man who'd had that "Brown-Eyed Girl" hit the year before would have expected -- even when they did "Brown-Eyed Girl", as the one live recording of that line-up, made by Peter Wolf, shows: [Excerpt: The Van Morrison Controversy, "Brown-Eyed Girl (live in Boston 1968)"] That new style, with melodic bass underpinning freely extemporising jazz flute and soulful vocals, would become the basis of the album that to this day is usually considered Morrison's best. But before that could happen, there was the matter of the contracts to be sorted out. Warner-Reprise Records were definitely interested. Warners had spent the last few years buying up smaller companies like Atlantic, Autumn Records, and Reprise, and the label was building a reputation as the major label that would give artists the space and funding they needed to make the music they wanted to make. Idiosyncratic artists with difficult reputations (deserved or otherwise), like Neil Young, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, the Grateful Dead, and Joni Mitchell, had all found homes on the label, which was soon also to start distributing Frank Zappa, the Beach Boys, and Captain Beefheart. A surly artist who wants to make mystical acoustic songs with jazz flute accompaniment was nothing unusual for them, and once Joe Smith, the man who had signed the Grateful Dead, was pointed in Morrison's direction by Andy Wickham, an A&R man working for the label, everyone knew that Morrison would be a perfect fit. But Morrison was still under contract to Bang records and Web IV, and those contracts said, among other things, that any other label that negotiated with Morrison would be held liable for breach of contract. Warners didn't want to show their interest in Morrison, because a major label wanting to sign him would cause Bang to raise the price of buying him out of his contract. Instead they got an independent production company to sign him, with a nod-and-wink understanding that they would then license the records to Warners. The company they chose was Inherit Productions, the production arm of Schwaid-Merenstein, a management company set up by Bob Schwaid, who had previously worked in Warners' publishing department, and record producer Lewis Merenstein. Merenstein came to another demo session at Ace Recordings, where he fell in love with the new music that Morrison was playing, and determined he would do everything in his power to make the record into the masterpiece it deserved to be. He and Morrison were, at least at this point, on exactly the same page, and bonded over their mutual love of King Pleasure. Morrison signed to Schwaid-Merenstein, just as he had with Bert Berns and before him Phil Solomon, for management, record production, and publishing. Schwaid-Merenstein were funded by Warners, and would license any recordings they made to Warners, once the contractual situation had been sorted out. The first thing to do was to negotiate the release from Web IV, the publishing company owned by Ilene Berns. Schwaid negotiated that, and Morrison got released on four conditions -- he had to make a substantial payment to Web IV, if he released a single within a year he had to give Web IV the publishing, any album he released in the next year had to contain at least two songs published by Web IV, and he had to give Web IV at least thirty-six new songs to publish within the next year. The first two conditions were no problem at all -- Warners had the money to buy the contract out, and Merenstein's plans for the first album didn't involve a single anyway. It wouldn't be too much of a hardship to include a couple of Web IV-published tracks on the album -- Morrison had written two songs, "Beside You" and "Madame George", that had already been published and that he was regularly including in his live sets. As for the thirty-six new songs... well, that all depended on what you called a song, didn't it? [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Ring Worm"] Morrison went into a recording studio and recorded thirty-one ostensible songs, most of them lasting one minute to within a few seconds either way, in which he strummed one or two chords and spoke-sang whatever words came into his head -- for example one song, "Here Comes Dumb George", just consists of the words "Here Comes Dumb George" repeated over and over. Some of the 'songs', like "Twist and Shake" and "Hang on Groovy", are parodying Bert Berns' songwriting style; others, like "Waiting for My Royalty Check", "Blowin' Your Nose", and "Nose in Your Blow", are attacks on Bang's business practices. Several of the songs, like "Hold on George", "Here Comes Dumb George", "Dum Dum George", and "Goodbye George" are about a man called George who seems to have come to Boston to try and fail to make a record with Morrison. And “Want a Danish” is about wanting a Danish pastry. But in truth, this description is still making these "songs" sound more coherent than they are. The whole recording is of no musical merit whatsoever, and has absolutely nothing in it which could be considered to have any commercial potential at all. Which is of course the point -- just to show utter contempt to Ilene Berns and her company. The other problem that needed to be solved was Bang Records itself, which was now largely under the control of the mob. That was solved by Joe Smith. As Smith told the story "A friend of mine who knew some people said I could buy the contract for $20,000. I had to meet somebody in a warehouse on the third floor on Ninth Avenue in New York. I walked up there with twenty thousand-dollar bills -- and I was terrified. I was terrified I was going to give them the money, get a belt on the head and still not wind up with the contract. And there were two guys in the room. They looked out of central casting -- a big wide guy and  a tall, thin guy. They were wearing suits and hats and stuff. I said 'I'm here with the money. You got the contract?' I remember I took that contract and ran out the door and jumped from the third floor to the second floor, and almost broke my leg to get on the street, where I could get a cab and put the contract in a safe place back at Warner Brothers." But the problem was solved, and Lewis Merenstein could get to work translating the music he'd heard Morrison playing into a record. He decided that Kielbania and Payne were not suitable for the kind of recording he wanted -- though they were welcome to attend the sessions in case the musicians had any questions about the songs, and thus they would get session pay. Kielbania was, at first, upset by this, but he soon changed his mind when he realised who Merenstein was bringing in to replace him on bass for the session. Richard Davis, the bass player -- who sadly died two months ago as I write this -- would later go on to play on many classic rock records by people like Bruce Springsteen and Laura Nyro, largely as a result of his work for Morrison, but at the time he was known as one of the great jazz bass players, most notably having played on Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch: [Excerpt: Eric Dolphy, "Hat and Beard"] Kielbania could see the wisdom of getting in one of the truly great players for the album, and he was happy to show Davis the parts he'd been playing on the songs live, which Davis could then embellish -- Davis later always denied this, but it's obvious when listening to the live recordings that Kielbania played on before these sessions that Davis is playing very similar lines. Warren Smith Jr, the vibraphone player, had played with great jazz musicians like Charles Mingus and Herbie Mann, as well as backing Lloyd Price, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin. Connie Kay, the drummer, was the drummer for the Modern Jazz Quartet and had also played sessions with everyone from Ruth Brown to Miles Davis. And Jay Berliner, the guitarist, had played on records like Charles Mingus' classic The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady: [Excerpt: Charles Mingus: "Mode D - Trio and Group Dancers, Mode F - Single Solos & Group Dance"] There was also a flute player whose name nobody now remembers. Although all of these musicians were jobbing session musicians -- Berliner came to the first session for the album that became Astral Weeks straight from a session recording a jingle for Pringles potato chips -- they were all very capable of taking a simple song and using it as an opportunity for jazz improvisation. And that was what Merenstein asked them to do. The songs that Morrison was writing were lyrically oblique, but structurally they were very simple -- surprisingly so when one is used to listening to the finished album. Most of the songs were, harmonically, variants of the standard blues and R&B changes that Morrison was used to playing. "Cyprus Avenue" and "The Way Young Lovers Do", for example, are both basically twelve-bar blueses -- neither is *exactly* a standard twelve-bar blues, but both are close enough that they can be considered to fit the form. Other than what Kielbania and Payne showed the musicians, they received no guidance from Morrison, who came in, ran through the songs once for them, and then headed to the vocal booth. None of the musicians had much memory of Morrison at all -- Jay Berliner said “This little guy walks in, past everybody, disappears into the vocal booth, and almost never comes out, even on the playbacks, he stayed in there." While Richard Davis later said “Well, I was with three of my favorite fellas to play with, so that's what made it beautiful. We were not concerned with Van at all, he never spoke to us.” The sound of the basic tracks on Astral Weeks is not the sound of a single auteur, as one might expect given its reputation, it's the sound of extremely good jazz musicians improvising based on the instructions given by Lewis Merenstein, who was trying to capture the feeling he'd got from listening to Morrison's live performances and demos. And because these were extremely good musicians, the album was recorded extremely quickly. In the first session, they cut four songs. Two of those were songs that Morrison was contractually obliged to record because of his agreement with Web IV -- "Beside You" and "Madame George", two songs that Bert Berns had produced, now in radically different versions: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Madame George"] The third song, "Cyprus Avenue", is the song that has caused most controversy over the years, as it's another of the songs that Morrison wrote around this time that relate to a sexual or romantic interest in underage girls. In this case, the reasoning might have been as simple as that the song is a blues, and Morrison may have been thinking about a tradition of lyrics like this in blues songs like "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl". Whatever the cause though, the lyrics have, to put it mildly, not aged well at all: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Cyprus Avenue"] That song would be his standard set-closer for live performances for much of the seventies. For the fourth and final song, though, they chose to record what would become the title track for the album, "Astral Weeks", a song that was a lot more elliptical, and which seems in part to be about Morrison's longing for Janet Planet from afar, but also about memories of childhood, and also one of the first songs to bring in Morrison's fascination with the occult and spirituality,  something that would be a recurring theme throughout his work, as the song was partly inspired by paintings by a friend of Morrison's which suggested to him the concept of astral travel: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] Morrison had a fascination with the idea of astral travel, as he had apparently had several out-of-body experiences as a child, and wanted to find some kind of explanation for them. Most of the songs on the album came, by Morrison's own account, as a kind of automatic writing, coming through him rather than being consciously written, and there's a fascination throughout with, to use the phrase from "Madame George", "childhood visions". The song is also one of the first songs in Morrison's repertoire to deliberately namecheck one of his idols, something else he would do often in future, when he talks about "talking to Huddie Leadbelly". "Astral Weeks" was a song that Morrison had been performing live for some time, and Payne had always enjoyed doing it. Unlike Kielbania he had no compunction about insisting that he was good enough to play on the record, and he eventually persuaded the session flute player to let him borrow his instrument, and Payne was allowed to play on the track: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] Or at least that's how the story is usually told -- Payne is usually credited for playing on "Madame George" too, even though everyone agrees that "Astral Weeks" was the last song of the night, but people's memories can fade over time. Either way, Payne's interplay with Jay Berliner on the guitar became such a strong point of the track that there was no question of bringing the unknown session player back -- Payne was going to be the woodwind player for the rest of the album: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] There was then a six-day break between sessions, during which time Payne and Kielbania went to get initiated into Scientology -- a religion with which Morrison himself would experiment a little over a decade later -- though they soon decided that it wasn't worth the cost of the courses they'd have to take, and gave up on the idea the same week. The next session didn't go so well. Jay Berliner was unavailable, and so Barry Kornfeld, a folkie who played with people like Dave Van Ronk, was brought in to replace him. Kornfeld was perfectly decent in the role, but they'd also brought in a string section, with the idea of recording some of the songs which needed string parts live. But the string players they brought in were incapable of improvising, coming from a classical rather than jazz tradition, and the only track that got used on the finished album was "The Way Young Lovers Do", by far the most conventional song on the album, a three-minute soul ballad structured as a waltz twelve-bar blues, where the strings are essentially playing the same parts that a horn section would play on a record by someone like Solomon Burke: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "The Way Young Lovers Do"] It was decided that any string or horn parts on the rest of the album would just be done as overdubs. It was two weeks before the next and final session for the album, and that featured the return of Jay Berliner on guitar. The session started with "Sweet Thing" and "Ballerina", two songs that Morrison had been playing live for some time, and which were cut in relatively quick order.  They then made attempts at two more songs that didn't get very far, "Royalty", and "Going Around With Jesse James", before Morrison, stuck for something to record, pulled out a new lyric he'd never performed live, "Slim Slow Slider". The whole band ran through the song once, but then Merenstein decided to pare the arrangement down to just Morrison, Payne (on soprano sax rather than on flute), and Warren Smith Jr: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Slim Slow Slider"] That track was the only one where, after the recording, Merenstein didn't compliment the performance, remaining silent instead – Payne said “Maybe everyone was just tired, or maybe they were moved by it.” It seems likely it was the latter. The track eventually got chosen as the final track of the album, because Merenstein felt that it didn't fit conceptually with anything else -- and it's definitely a more negative track than the oth

"Middle-Aged and Older Patients Report Improved Health with Medical Marijuana"Larry Mishkin discusses a recent study from the University of Florida which shows that medical marijuana use can lead to lower pain levels and reduced dependency on opioids and psychiatric prescriptions among middle-aged and older chronic pain patients. Participants in the study reported improved physical and mental functioning, better sleep quality, and reduced anxiety. The research adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis for pain management..Produced by PodConx  Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast  Grateful Dead, October 16, 1989, Melk Weg Club, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsGrateful Dead Live at Club Melk Weg on 1981-10-16 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive Second of two night stand at this famous hash bar that only held about 500 people in the room in which the Dead performed.  Very cool and famous club in Amsterdam, one of the best known hash bars.  Went there one time in 1988 with good buddies Mikey and H.  A highlight of our trip. Another good buddy, Freddie Burp, was spending the school year abroad in the fall of 1981 and was one of the lucky ones who were present for this show.  He's a tough guy to get a hold of, but maybe some day I can get him on the show to talk about this concert.  INTRO:                  The Race Is On                                Track No. 8                                1:10 – 2:24                 Show had an acoustic first set and an electric second set.  Many of the songs in the acoustic set we featured a few weeks ago from the September, 1980 show at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco as part of the recordings for the Dead's Reckoning album.  So I went with this one which has always been one of my favorites ever since my good buddy Mikey (who took me to three of my first four shows) used to play it for me as we drove through the northwoods of Wisconsin on nights out from the summer camp where we were spending the summer in 1981. "The Race Is On" is a song written by Don Rollins[1] (not to be confused with the Don Rollins who co-wrote "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" for Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett) and made a hit on the country music charts by George Jones and on the pop and easy listening charts by the unrelated Jack Jones. George's version was the first single released from his 1965 album of the same name. Released as a single in September 1964, it peaked at number three on the BillboardHot Country Singles chart and at number 96 on the BillboardHot 100 in January 1965. Jack's version topped Billboard'sEasy Listening chart and reached number 15 on the Hot 100 the same year. The two recordings combined to reach number 12 on the Cashbox charts, which combined all covers of the same song in one listing and thus gave George Jones his only top-40 hit. The song uses thoroughbred horse racing as the metaphor for the singer's romantic relationships.                 Rockabilly artist Dave Edmunds, in collaboration with the Stray Cats, whose debut album Edmunds had recently produced, recorded a version for his 1981 album, Twangin.... Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom recalled Edmunds' affection for the song when he was courting the band to produce their debut album: "We met with Edmunds at his house. He had a little pub in his basement. He had a finished basement, outside of London. Edmunds had a jukebox, a little jukebox. He had 'The Race is On' and 'Rockabilly Boogie' by Johnny Burnette. He had those records in his jukebox. We all looked at each other and said, 'This is it.'"[3] Phantom also recalled that the song took "one or two takes" in the studio.[4]Thank you.                 Covered by:        Jack Jones                                                Loretta Lynn                                                Alvin and the Chipmunks for their 1965 album, “Chipmunks a Go Go”                                                Waylon Jennings                                                The Georgia Satellites from 1965 debut album, “Keep The Faith”                                                Elvis Costello                                                And others                                                 Dead played it 60times in concert                                                First:  December 31, 1969 at Boston Tea Party in Boston                                                Last:  May 20, 1995 at Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, Las Vegas  SHOW #1:                           Ripple                                                Track No. 9                                                1:50 – 3:06                                 We prominently featured this song form the Warfield show and talked about how it was last played ever on Sept. 3, 1988 at the Cap Center.  What makes this version we just listened to so special is that this was the last Ripple played by the Dead until the Cap Center show, a seven year gap, and that that was it, no more Ripple.  So this is the last accoustic Ripple ever played since the Cap Center was electric.  Maybe the most famous Dead tune ever, from American Beauty, Hunter's lyrics and Jerry's music mesh together in a way to make this tune not just one of the best Dead tunes ever, but one of the best tunes ever, IMHO!  SHOW #2:                           Hully Gully                                                Track No. 12                                                0:15 – 1:38                                 "(Baby) Hully Gully" is a song written by Fred Sledge Smith and Cliff Goldsmith and recorded by The Olympics, an American doo-wop group formed in 1957.  Released in 1959 on the album, “Doin' the Hully Gully”, it peaked at number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1960[2] and sparked the Hully Gully dance craze.                         Covered by:     Buddy Guy                                                Chubby Checkers                                                The Ventures                                                The Beach Boys                                                Many others                                                Peter Pan Peanut Butter add jingle in the 1980's                                                 The Dead's version of this song from this show is the only time they played it in concert.  SHOW #3:                   Gloria                                    Track No. 15                                    2:15 – 3:45                         "Gloria" is a rock song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, and originally recorded by Morrison's band Them in 1964. It was released as the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go” on December 2, 1964.  The song became a garage rock staple and a part of many rock bands' repertoires.                         According to Morrison, he wrote "Gloria" while performing with the Monarchs in Germany in the summer of 1963, at just about the time he turned 18 years old.[6] He started to perform it at the Maritime Hotel when he returned to Belfast and joined up with the Gamblers to form the band Them. He would ad-lib lyrics as he performed, sometimes stretching the song to 15 or 20 minutes. After signing a contract with Dick Rowe and Decca, Them went to London for a recording session at Decca Three Studios in West Hampstead on 5 April 1964; "Gloria" was one of the seven songs recorded that day.                         Alan Henderson (guitar) contends that Them constituted the first rock group to use two drummers on a recording.[7] Although some sources claim that Jimmy Page played second guitar, other sources deny this.                         Covered by:                 The Doors –   The Doors performed the song several times in 1966 and 1967, with one recording released on Alive, She Cried (1983). It was also released as a single, which reached number 18 on Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and number 71 on Billboard Hot 100 in 1983.[18] The song is included on Legacy: The Absolute Best (2003) and The Very Best of The Doors (2007).                                                             Patti Smith - Patti Smith recorded it for her album Horses in 1975. Based on the Van Morrison tune, the lyrics had been adapted from an early poem, 'Oath'.[5] Smith's band had started to play the song live and merged it with the poem by 1974, so the song contained half of Smith's own words.[5] For the recording of her debut album, Smith and her band recorded the song live and, after mixing, chose it as the album's opener.                                                            In 1993, Van Morrison recorded a version with John Lee Hooker, which reached the Top 40 in several countries.                                                                        For the Dead, this was the first time they played it live in concert.                                    They wound up playing it only a total of 14 times                                        Last played on June 30, 1995 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh                                                   I was lucky enough to catch it on June 25, 1992 at Soldier Field.  SHOW #4:                   Turn On Your Lovelight                                    Track No. 16                                    1:03 – 2:33                                     "Turn On Your Love Light" is a rhythm and blues song recorded by Bobby Bland in 1961. It was both an important R&B and pop chart hit for Bland and has become one of his most identifiable songs. A variety of artists have recorded it, including the Grateful Dead, who made it part of their concert repertoire.  was written by band leader and arranger Joe Scott (with an additional credit given to Duke Records owner/producer Don Robey aka Deadric Malone). Scott's brass arrangement "upped the excitement ante"[2] with "the groove picking up momentum as the horns and percussion talk to each other" and Bland's vocal "riding on top".                                     In 1967, "Turn On Your Love Light" became a staple of Grateful Dead concerts, sung by Ron McKernan: a 15-minute rendition is on their 1969 double live album Live/Dead. McKernan's final performance of "Love Light" – complete with extended vocal raps – occurred at the Lyceum Theatre, London, during the Europe '72 tour. Versions with McKernan were often very long due to long vocal raps, instrumental jams, and drum solos throughout. A version performed at the 1969 Woodstock Festival lasted more than 45 minutes.[8] The Grateful Dead later revived the song in the early 1980s with Bob Weir singing.                                     Before this show at the Melk Weg, the last time the Dead had played it in concert was on May 24,1972 at the Lyceum Ballroom in London at the very end of the Europe '72 tour.  In other words, this was the Dead's first performance of the song without Pigpen on lead.  Dead went on to play it a lot after this show right up until the end.  Bobby played it well, but never even tried the rap that Pig made famous in his extended versions.  No Box Back Knitties when Bobby sang it.                         Dead played it 355 times in concert!  Originally part of the Dark Star>St. Stephen>The Eleven>Lovelight suite of songs that the Dead played constantly during the primal Dead years in the late ‘60's.                        First played on August 4, 1967 at the O'Keefe Center in Toronto                        Last played on June 19, 1975 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey                                     When my good buddy Marc started seeing the Dead in 1984, we joked that every time he went to a show they played Lovelight.  Not a bad thing to be associated with.  Always fun to hear it in concert even without Pig.  OUTRO:                      Sugar Magnolia                                    Track No. 20                                    6:30 – 8:05                                     One of the best Dead tunes of all time and the ultimate show closer.  Always nice to add a little Sunshine Daydream to your day! The boys jam the hell out of it here, a 10+ minute version to close out a remarkable one of a kind Dead show.  Either you were there or you missed it.  What being a Deadhead is all about. 

30. The best rockin' show on the radio! You're listening to the Aztec Werewolf™, DJ Del Villarreal as he broadcasts LIVE from the incredible Motorbilly Studio! Dig deep the wildest vintage sounds every created -we've got cuts from Bob Luman, Jimmy Johnson, LeRoy VanDyke, Hank Williams, Sr., Johnny Burnette & The Rock N' Roll Trio, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Buddy Knox, Patsy Cline and our special "birthday boy" tribute artist, Sun Recording artist, Mr. Mack Self! Plenty of the finest in modern retro sounds, too as we spin the latest from Jane Rose & The Deadends, Ria & The Hi-Binders, The Delta Bombers, Sylvia Sands, The Messer Chups, Daddy Long Legs, Mozzy Dee, The Diamond Daddios, Ray Black & The Flying Carpets, The Isaac Webb Trio and even the brand new Jack Rabbit Slim album gets some hot exposure tonight! Lots of wonderful requests in here (feel free to send along one of your own for a future episode: del@motorbilly.com) to entertain our regulars. Always good to the last bop™, DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -ask for it by name!Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

Liberty Records was founded in 1955 by Simon Waronker after his cousin, Herb Newman, suggested they go into the record business. The early years found the label in the deep end of easy listening pop with the likes of Julie London, novelty music featuring The Chipmunks, Patience and Prudence, Martin Denny, and Henry Mancini. But rock n' roll was hitting its stride, and in the late fifties they released a blend of pure rock and rockabilly with Eddie Cochran. But the 60s found a more tame version with hitmakers like Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette, Timi Yuro, Buddy Knox, and the post-Buddy Holly Crickets. At the peak of it's hit-making machine the whole lot was sold to an umbrella company that also featured the catalogs of Imperial, Aladdin, Minit, and Dolton…we'll share a host of Liberty releases with you in the show today. With the exception of Eddie Cochran, we'll just call it rock ‘n roll ‘lite'.

Episode 262, Rockabilly, explores this early iteration of rock-and-roll music with performances by 10 male singers and eight relatively unknown females. Performers include Bill Haley & His Comets, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hal Willis,... Read More The post Episode 262, Rockabilly appeared first on Sam Waldron.

La guitarrista de los Cramps, Poison Ivy, citó hace años algunos de sus riffs favoritos. Aderezamos su lista con unas cuantas propuestas de nuestra cosecha que esperamos mantengan esas atmósferas malvadas y amenazantes que tanto disfrutaba esta reina del rocknroll. Playlist; (sintonía) THE CRAMPS “Peter Gunn” THE SCARLETS “Stampede” THE GEE CEES “Buzz saw” THE SONICS “The witch” THE MARKETTS “Out of Limits” THE VENTURES “The bat” LINK WRAY “Ace os spades” VINCE TAYLOR and HIS PLAYBOYS “Brand new Cadillac” JOHNNY KIDD and THE PIRATES “Shakin’ All Over” BO DIDDLEY “I’m a man” THE PRETTY THINGS “Come see me” THE KINKS “You really got me” THEM “Baby please don’t go” JOHNNY BURNETTE “The train kept a rollin’” DALE HAWKINS “Suzie Q” DUANE EDDY “Ramrod” ROLAND JANES “Guitarville” MUDDY WATERS “You need love” HOWLIN’ WOLF “Smokestack Lightning” THE COASTERS “Poison Ivy” Escuchar audio

Ens hem posat tup

Ens hem posat tup

Clint Mephisto's Shit Kickin Road Show Episode 264, week of January 16th. Your ol’ drankin’ buddy returnswith a Hellbilly Hootenanny, with vintage classics from Charlie Feathers, Johnny Burnette, and Carl Perkins, alongside modern barn burners from Vince Ray, Those Poor Bastards, Ghoultown and more!

Please join Peabody, Sherman & Me for the "DayTripper Edition" of Whole 'Nuther Thing. We're going to say goodbye to another year with tunes. Joining us in my WAYBAC Machine to usher in the promise of a better year are Gene Pitney, The Beatles, Ben E. King, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Drifters, Animals, Duprees, Kinks, Jay & The Americans, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Four Seasons, Honeycombs, Shirelles, Zombies, Gene McDaniels, Dave Clark Five, Petula Clark, Peter & Gordon, Paul & Paula, Freddie & The Dreamers, Freddie Scott, The Hollies, Johnny Burnette, Rolling Stones, Righteous Brothers, Searchers, Bobby Vinton, Manfred Mann, Bobby Goldsboro, The Hollies, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Herman's Hermits, The Everly Brothers, Yardbirds, Cascades, Lenny Welch and The Temptations.

193. Racing through the last few days of 2022 and enjoying the holiday break with some FANTASTIC rockin' music! Jump in and dig that wild Aztec Werewolf cat, DJ Del Villarreal and the "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" Bringing you a savage, scintillating mix of super-cool 50's rock & roll; hear legends like Johnny Burnette, Warren Smith, Carl Smith, Elvis Presley, Bob Luman, Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley, Lefty Frizell & even Wynn Stewart! WOW! Then, flip that platter over and wail with the latest recordings from modern-day rockers Al Dual, Angelina Tini, The Bop Kings, The Hoodoo Tones, Graham Fenton, The Glad Rags, The HiFi Lowdowns, Alex Miller, Charley Crockett, Geoffrey Miller, Sebastien Bordeaux, Lucky Jones, Lobo Jones & Marcel Bontempi too. MAN! Over 3 hours of FAN-TASTIC rockin' billy sounds to dig as you boogie in to 2023! Have a rockin' New Year! "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" - it's good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

In the first ever Metal Debate, Daria and Laz go to the roots of Metal and debate whether Johnny Burnette's ‘The Train Kept A Rollin'' was the world's first Heavy Metal song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkZhJJ8sPmwYou can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw

De Vorzon founded Valiant Records in 1960.[5] During the 1960s, he signed the Association to Valiant, and produced its first single, a cover of the Bob Dylan tune "One Too Many Mornings."De Vorzon wrote "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" for the Cascades, but the group did not record it. In 1963, De Vorzon recorded the song himself, with his group Barry and the Tamerlanes. Also in 1963 he co-wrote the ballad "Shy Girl" which was recorded by the Cascades.De Vorzon wrote the tune "Girls" for Johnny Burnette. It reached No. 37 in the UK 1961 charts.He composed the soundtracks to many 1970s and 1980s films, and one of the tunes, "Cotton's Dream" (from Bless the Beasts and Children) was retitled "Nadia's Theme" and re-released by A&M Records for the television soap opera The Young and the Restless. "Nadia's Theme" hit No. 8 on the US Top 40 in 1976 and the album from which it was taken peaked at No. 42 on the Billboard 200; in 1977, it won a Grammy Awardfor Best Instrumental Arrangement. The main title song, "Bless the Beasts and Children," was recorded by the Carpenters and received an Academy Award nomination.De Vorzon composed the tune "It's Christmas Once Again in Santa Barbara," which was re-recorded with various other city names, such as San Francisco and San Diego. He also wrote the "Theme from S.W.A.T.", and co-wrote the Eagles' hit "In the City" with Joe Walsh. In 1979 he wrote the music for the movie The Warriors.De Vorzon was one of the developers of the MasterWriter creative software for songwriters and lyricists.[6]

Antony Holloway: My Life So Far 2022 Psycho punk in the Medway, Sculptures, Cellos and living in France. This was a blast .. The show notes have been provided by Antony so I have kept them in his voice.   I was born in 1963. Grandad on my mum's side had been a professional violinist, playing on cruise ships, in orchestras and silent movies. I have vague memories of visiting his family home, an East London terrace house with his brothers standing around singing and him rattling off “Roll out the barrel” and “My old mans a policeman” on an upright piano.  My dad was born in a horse drawn caravan into the family of a traveling theatre. He was orphaned when young and the company broke up before he was old enough to join in the vaudeville shenanigans.   When I was a child, my dad would call in to pay bills and leave money for food shopping, otherwise he was absent. My mum painted and played the piano but also spent long periods of time in bed depressed. During one such depression she was seduced by a visiting neighbour and shortly moved in with him. My eldest two sisters both left home around this time so I was left to bring myself up along with my remaining sister, Louise. I was eleven and had just started secondary school, Louise was three years older.   There were advantages and disadvantages to an unconventional childhood. Nobody ever mentioned school or homework, there was never any talk about qualifications or careers. The only thing that had been pressed upon us was musical instruments. I started playing the cello when I was seven years old and throughout all of the chaos I always managed to go for a music lesson on Saturday morning.  At school I was quite bright but found rules and regulations difficult. It all seemed rather irrelevant and the only lesson that really interested me was art.   In 1978 I was fifteen and my sister Louise went to art school in Rochester, at this point I was living in the house of my mums chronic alcoholic boyfriend which soon became my personal hell. Then, I think it's fair to say that post punk counter culture saved my life. I had always worn jumble, had a home cropped mop on top of my head and just generally didn't relate to other peoples experiences.  Having generally been an outsider, I started visiting my sister and suddenly felt right at home. The Medway garage band scene was just kicking off, the Pop Rivets had released their first LP and I was there for the first Micky and the Milkshakes gig. I went back to Folkestone, nurtured myself on the John Peel show, got hold of an old Woolworths guitar (Satelite?) and started writing, playing and singing three chord songs.   I played guitar and sang in bands (punk/rockabilly/skiffle) around Folkestone and Dover while I got myself an Art A level at the local Tech College. I then headed off to art school in Rochester and found that the garage band scene was now thriving. I came across a busker, Tim Webster and started playing with him. Tim had a Johnny Burnette album, so we learned all the songs and played them on the streets of Kent. I soon started playing bass guitar in a band with him and Martin Waller, sax player from the Gruffmen and very early Milkshakes gigs. Originally called The Outerlimits we later became The Sputniks. We played so many gigs at pubs, art schools and parties, practically every week for three years.   The cello lessons had remarkably carried on in parallel with gigging, I think I stopped just before The Outerlimits. Even during my Foundation Course at Rochester I thought that I would probably go to music school.  However, the rock and roll was just too much fun, so art school seemed a better place for me. The flexibility of Art school hours gave me the opportunity to slope off and play music and again it was somewhere I felt at home.   When art school finished and the Sputniks broke up I was briefly at a loss for what to do. However, following the birth of my first daughter I was obliged to earn some money and through relentless searching and endless job applications I quickly got myself a commission to make a public sculpture in Swindon. Following this I had a commission at the prestigious Grizedale Forest Sculpture Trail which was my passport for back to back public sculpture commissions all over England.   Thirteen years, three more daughters and god knows how many sculptures later I found that I was spending all my time on motorways or in meetings with councils and local community groups, this was not where I wanted to be.  In 2000 we moved to France, I carried on knocking out sculptures for a few more years but became more interested and occupied with restoring ancient buildings.    In 2006 I had a chance meeting with Bart Coles who had played with The Escalators back in my Sputnik days and was living nearby in France. Although our paths had never crossed we had been playing the same venues and had been on the same scene. I'd never played double bass but bought one, learned how to play and started to play and sing Rockabilly music with Bart on guitar and a variety of local drummers. As The Gruff Cats we played plenty of local gigs over a six year period but eventually with no permanent drummer we packed it in.  Around this time I made the decision to restart playing the cello. After a 35 year gap it took a while to get up to speed but now, six years later, I'm probably better a cellist than when I was at 18, certainly a more experienced artist and performer.   So now in 2022 I play my cello every day and have regular concerts playing baroque, blues, rock and roll or swing on cello or bass with a variety of musicians.  Sculpture is on the back burner for now, but I've started on a long awaited project printing T-Shirts. Lino cuts to begin with but hopefully moving onto wood block printing and screen printing before too long. We also recently finished the 22 year renovation of the farm house we bought in 2000 so last year we moved into another ruin and have started all over again.  I don't really see much difference between making stuff or playing music, all that matters is that I don't stop.  

All Greasers Soundtrack Greasers Hangout (Greasers Safehouse) The Tenements (High) The Tenements (Mid) The Tenements (Low) The Rumble (Epic Confrontation) Vendetta Greasers Greasers Fight (Mid-1) Fighting Johnny Vincent (Bike Ride) Fighting Johnny Vincent (Boss Fight) Finghting Johnny Vincent (Boss Fight 2) original: https://youtu.be/f9bu967JyJ4 Greasers were a working class youth subculture that originated in the 1950s among teenagers in northeastern and southern United States. Rock-and-roll music was a major part of the culture, and styles were influenced by singers, like Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Johnny Burnette, Vince Taylor and Ritchie Valens, but the two main figures of the look were Marlon Brando and James Dean. Greasers in Bullworth is a gang that we faced in Chapter III, is led by Johnny Vincent that we do some work for him at the beginning of the Chapter, their rivals are the Preppies think they are better than Greasers just because they are rich and the Greasers are poor!!! Greasers is Bully's 3rd strongest gang, second only to Townies/DropOuts and Jocks.

En El Guateque de Onda Regional de Murcia(orm.es, domingos, 22,05h) "antes de san Martín, pan y vino; después del veranillo, hambre y frío”. Recordamos a Marieta, Rocío Dúrcal, y al italiano Filippo Carletti, uno de los músicos que ayudaron a modernizar la España musical de los sesenta. Acompañó en sus primeras grabaciones a gentes como Mike Ríos o Mimo y los Jumps- Los vientos del rock progresivo, tan en boga aquel año, también llegaban a los oídos de Fórmula V y sus mentores.Los Mitos. Los Rockin' Berries, especialmente gracias a la utilización del fasete de Geoff Turton, el líder vocal junto a Clive Lea, son comparados, con acierto, a los Four Seasons americanos. Una de sus canciones más destacadas, que no apareció como single, fue “Funny How Love Can Be”, tema compuesto por los talentosos John Carter y Ken Lewis que habían interpretado con anterioridad los Ivy League. The Turtles con "Eleanor", una de las primeras canciones pop en usar el sintetizador Moog. THE MONKEES es un grupo conocido y multivendedor lo malo es que es más conocido por ser el paradigma del grupo prefabricado y modelo de otros ( en muchas ocasiones con resultados funestos) y vendedor por arrasar unos años pero de eso ya hace muchas décadas. ¿ Pero conocemos que eran, son y la valía del grupo?- IRÁN EORY trae canciones de los aires y del mar. Los Pekenikes y María Granada interpretan el twist "Conquistador" en la película "Escuela de enfermeras". Editado como sencillo el 4 de Mayo de 1960, "Dreamin'" supuso el primer gran éxito en la carrera discográfica de JOHNNY BURNETTE. Escuchamos la versión del Dúo Rubam. Los Mustang cantan una versión de la conocida canción "Tous les Garcons et les Filles" de Françoise Hardy. Este tercer EP constituyó el primer pequeño éxito comercial del conjunto. Ana María Parra publicó un EP con la que se haría famosa canción LAS CHICAS DE LA CRUZ ROJA que era de la película del mismo título rodada en 1958, Formaba parte del disco, la versión de NEL BLU DIPINTO DI BLU (Volare), con la que DOMENICO MODUGNO ganara el FESTIVAL DE SAN REMO. Cuando la cima del pop alcanza ele máximo culmen, ahí está "Anche Se" , del genial Gino Paoli, acompañado de la más extraordinaria orquestación del magistral Ennio Morricone. En 1959, aparece el tercer EP de Richard Anthony, cantante francés nacido en Egipto, que contiene cuatro temas, entre ellos el título “Nouvelle Vague”, versión francesa del tema americano “Three cool cats”, que se convierte en la primera declaración pública en Francia de la toma de consciencia de la nueva identidad: la de una generación que se siente distinta de la de sus padres y abuelos, y que quiere ponerlo en evidencia. Esta sensación queda plasmada en el sentimiento de rebeldía que se hará evidente en la música, la moda y la cultura juvenil.Los Shadows hicieron unos fabulosos arregloa de Las 3 carabelas , que incluyeron en un ep titulado " Los Shadows " en 1963.«Españolear» —verbo que nos transporta a la canción que lanzó el valenciano Luis Lucena en 1969 en pleno inicio del landismo español—. El Dúo Dinámico grabaron en 1966 para el disco del 1er premio del festival de la canción mediterránea. En su cara A como ayer y amargo. En la B Maria Pilar un aire pop cantado en su primera voz por Ramón, en la que suenan a conjunto de la época con un interesante acompañamiento de guitarra y un buen estribillo. La despedida la pone 'El ruiseñor de Linares', Raphael, su voz y su arte eran la llave para abrir muchas puertas. Ojalá que hayamos podido abrir la tuya y volvamos a entrar en tu hogar otro domingo

En el día en que se cumplen 100 años del nacimiento de René Hall te ofrecemos este episodio dedicado a reivindicar y arrojar luz sobre este talentoso hombre de música que siempre se movió entre bambalinas. Trabajador incansable y sumamente prolífico, maestro del blues, el jazz y el pop, pionero del rocknroll, tremendo guitarrista y exquisito arreglista. Lideró sus propios grupos con los que nunca tuvo éxito, pero como músico de sesión puso sus virtudes al servicio de muchos grandes nombres y decenas de clásicos de la música. Playlist; (sintonía) RENÉ HALL ORCHESTRA “Night fright” (1953) RENE HALL TRIO “My kind of rockin’” (1951) THE DOMINOES “Sixty minute man” (1951) LARRY WILLIAMS “Dizzy Miss Lissy” (1958) LARRY WILLIAMS “Bony Moronie” (1957) LARRY WILLIAMS “Bad boy” (1959) DON and DEWEY “Justine” (1958) DON and DEWEY “Just a Little lovin’” (1958) RENÉ HALLS ORCHESTRA featuring WILLIE JOE “Twitchy” (1958) RITCHIE VALENS “La Bamba” (1958) RITCHIE VALENS “Donna” (1958) CHAN ROMERO “Hippy hippy shake” (1959) BABETTE BAIN “That’s it” (1959) JOHNNY BURNETTE “Cincinnati fireball” (1960) SAM COOKE “You send me” (1957) SAM COOKE “Having a party” (1962) SAM COOKE “A change is gonna come” (1964) THE RENE HALL SEXTET “Rene’s boogie” (1950) Escuchar audio

170. Yes! It's the Aztec Werewolf™, DJ Del Villarreal back in the Motorbilly Studio on a Tuesday night for another all-new,  all KILLER / no filler rockin' radio revue -it's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" Dig some deep rockin 50's styled roll with tracks from Carl Perkins, Art Adams, Dick Dale, Wanda Jackson, Faron Young, Hank Williams Sr., Glen Glenn, Johnny Burnette& Junior Thompson to name but a few. We also have our greasy thumb on the pulse of the modern day rockabilly scene with HOT new selections from The Hi-Fi Lowdowns, Charlie Crockett, The Jerrells, Jane Rose & The Deadends, Gris Gris, The Hi-Fly Rangers and Al Dual to name but a few! It's the best way to celebrate the past while rockin' towards the future -DJ Del's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -good to the last bop!™

167. It's a rockabilly party on the radio tonight! Tuesdays ROLL with DJ Del Villarreal on both WCBN, FM and RockabillyRadio! Hip shakin' grooves to hear from the 1950's PLUS a great assortment of modern day rockers to boot! We're debuting hot tracks from SON DEMON & THE HOLY BOYS (Finland), THE RADIONS (Spain), BLOODSHOT BILL (Canada), SATAN'S PILGRIMS (Portland, OR), THE HOODOO TONES (France), SEATBELT (California), MARCEL RIESCO ( ), DANNY MCVEY TRIO (UK) and LA PERRA BLANCO (Spain) to name but a few. You can also hear some classic early vintage rockers from BOB LUMAN, BUDDY KNOX, HAWKSHAW HAWKINS, CONWAY TWITTY, CHARLIE FEATHERS, JOHNNY BURNETTE, GENE VINCENT & even SHEB WOOLEY! Whew! THE AZTEC WEREWOLF™ has the best songs to keep you movin' n' groovin' in these last days of summer -make a request for NEXT WEEK'S show: del@motorbilly.com -"Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" good to the last bop!™

Hello once again everyone I'm your host Ray Shasho and welcome to another edition of Interviewing the Legends. Brought to you by The Publicity Works Agency specializing in authors & musicians Remember We shine only when We make you shine! Call us today at 941-567-6193 for a free PR evaluation! Vintage ‘80s Metal Recordings from Video Vixen SALLY STEELE Finally See Worldwide Release! With her teased-up blonde hair and supermodel looks, it's no surprise that Sally Steele found herself cast in music videos by the likes of Loverboy, Eric Carmen, Bruce Willis and others. But her true passion was always in music creation and so, in 1986, she put a band together and started performing shows in the musical mecca of Hollywood's Sunset Strip. Soon she crossed paths with mega producer Paul Sabu (who helped Steele bring two of her songs to life, “Too Bad (It Had To Be You” and “Leave My Heart Alone.” A music video was filmed for the latter and premiered on MTV's Basement Tapes show in 1988. After some personnel changes, Steele's band soldiered on with more songs and recordings. They became regulars at The Coconut Teaser, FM Station, Madame Wong's and The Whisky. However, as the music scene began to change in the early ‘90s Steele decided it was best to hang up her guitar – but she never lost her true passion. As Steele puts it “It was back when the Seattle grunge scene had replaced the music I loved from the ‘80s and I was told my music was ‘too commercial.' But here we are today, and I am so excited to finally get my material out to the world. I hope you enjoy my songs from the 1980s. And one thing that has never changed is – I still live and breathe rock n' roll 24 hours a day!” So do I Sally! Please welcome singer/songwriter/publisher/ founder/ CEO and editor-in-chief of Vegas Rocks! Magazine Affectionately known as “The Publishing Queen of Rock N' Roll.”  … SALLY STEELE to Interviewing the Legends …   PURCHASE ALONE IN LOVE 1988-1989 By SALLY STEELE Stream/download the album: https://orcd.co/8qdbo1a Also available at amazon.com ALSO Rock N' Roll Nun – True Tales of a Hollywood "Almost" A Memoir by SALLY STEELE If there is anyone who has dedicated their life to rock n' roll, it would be Sally Steele. Immersed in rock music and entertainment her entire life, Sally started taking pictures of rock stars and celebrities backstage at age 14 in the mid ‘70s which included Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Deep Purple and many others that were relatively unknown at the time. She moved to Hollywood in the 80's, where she fronted several rock bands that toured both Japan and the U.S. She also landed several roles on television and in movies, along with lead and featured roles in several MTV videos which included “Hungry Eyes” with Eric Carmen and the lead role in “Little Lady” by Duke Jupiter which was in the top 10 rotation on MTV in 1984.   For more information about SALLY STEELE VISIT www.sallysteelerocks.com Sally Steele official website www.vegasrocks.com Vegas Rocks! Magazine www.facebook.com/sally.steele.94 Facebook www.instagram.com/sallysteelerocks/?hl=en Instagram https://twitter.com/sally_steele Twitter www.RaisedonRock.net Raised on Rock The Burnette Family Legacy A Film By Sally Steele Sally Steele is on a mission to reunite the legendary battling Burnette family- a family 'United by Blood-Divided by Fame'. The filmmaker travels across the United States interviewing special guests while learning the amazing rock history of Johnny Burnette and Dorsey Burnette and The Rock and Roll Trio who influenced Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and many others, on her quest to bring Rocky and Billy Burnette and the members of the family together for one final dramatic and exciting performance at the end of the film, trying to heal the rift that rocked the world and tore a family apart echoing down a generation to the family “Raised On Rock“. Support us!

Nos damos un chapuzón en aquellos años dorados del pop y el rocknroll, aquel primer lustro de los años 60 en donde todavía primaba la inocencia, en donde reinaba la melodía, en donde los arreglos marcaban la diferencia y en donde la sencillez era un arte. Playlist; (sintonía) THE SHADOWS “Mustang” CLIFF RICHARD “Summer holiday” THE BEATLES “Do you want to know a secret?" THE EXCITERS “Tell him” PETER and GORDON “A world without love” ROY ORBISON “Only the lonely” JOHNNY BURNETTE “Dreamin’” THE APPLEJACKS “Like dreamers do” LINDA SCOTT “I’ve told every little star” CHUBBY CHECKER “Let’s twist again” MILLIE “My boy Lollipop” BOBBY DARIN “Things” THE BEACH BOYS “Lana” ANNETE FUNICELLO “Surfer boy” JOE BROWN “A picture of you” JOHNNY RIVERS “You can have her” BRENDA LEE “Weep no more my baby THE FORTUNES “Carolina” THE STEREOS “I really love you” RAY CHARLES “I can’t stop lovin’ you” Escuchar audio

sourire d'abord...  Pierre Bellemare Allo  from Le disque qui parle Allo Brigitte  Henri SalvadorTelephone and Rubber Band   Penguin Cafe OrchestraBusy Signal  Rose MurphyMiss téléphone n°1   André et Marcelle Le Bihan Operator (Demo)   Johnny BurnetteElvis Presley and Red West secret phone call, 1976 Bigelow 6-200  Brenda Lee Miss telephone n°2  André et Marcelle Le BihanBip Bip   Los CangaceirosEt ben moi ça va pas trop mal   Pierre Richard Les Compères (1983) -Nice Of You To Call  AardvarkSounds Phoney  The Free AssociationHail To Power [Pharaoh Hiding Version]  The UpsettersRequest Line   Rock Master Scott & The DynamiTelephone Computer   Crazy GangI Called U (But You Weren't There)   Lil' Louis & The WorldThe Telephone Call (2009 Remaster)   KraftwerkHarry Allen's Interactive Super Highway Phone Call To Chuck D   Public EnemyDirect Line 2   Dean BluntQui appelle-t-on encore au téléphone ?   Régis DebrayEmily (2003)   ScannerLost Highway - Mystery Man  David LynchAllo la radioTech Talk  AtomTMLe téléphone   Stereo Total

Label: EMI 8043Year: 1980Condition: MPrice: $9.00From a warehouse find, this is a new, unplayed stock copy, in its original EMI America factory sleeve. Johnny Burnette's kid may have made only one classic 45, but it's still a joy to hear more than 35 years down the road! By the way, this single's B side is a non-album cut. Note: This beautiful 45 has no notable flaws, grading Mint across the board (Labels, Vinyl, Audio). (This scan is a representative image from our archives.)

Marc Brillouet vertelt... over de hits DREAMIN' en YOU'RE SIXTEEN van JOHNNY BURNETTE © 2022 Daisy Lane & Marc Brillouet

115. If you're gonna bip a little, you might as well bop a whole lot! Git on down with the Aztec Werewolf, DJ Del Villarreal, on his Wednesday night 50's rock n' roll radio extravaganza, "Go Kat, GO!" Tonight we're diggin' the debut of Rhode Island's HiFi Lowdowns (new album "Damned if You Do" drops on Swelltune Records soon!) and groovin' to their late 50's/early 60's garage pop sound -PLUS we're hearing fresh rockin' tracks from Sunny & Small Combo (Italy), The Hawkmen (UK), Wild Rooster (Sweden), Ezra Lee (Australia),  The Jerrells (Texas, USA) Shortsack N' Sides (UK), Howlin' Ric & The Rocketeers (UK), Mental Shakedown (Berlin, GERMANY), Slim & The Gems (Columbus, GA), The Hip-Shooters (Finland), Sebastien Bordeaux (Texas, USA) and MORE! Plenty of your favorite vintage 50's artists, too such as Webb Pierce, Johnny Burnette, Charlie Feathers, Bob Luman & Elvis Presley, too! The stars of tomorrow shine tonight on each episode of DJ Del's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" -good to the last bop!™

Com cada 31 de desembre, ens convertim en el vostre bar particular. Esm

Com cada 31 de desembre, ens convertim en el vostre bar particular. Esm

In 1980, Rocky Burnette hit #8 on the pop charts with "Tired of Toein' The Line", an excellent song that still holds up today. That may have been the peak of his solo career, but his musical history stretches much further. His dad was Johnny Burnette, the Godfather of Rockabilly. Rocky shares stories of growing up in old Hollywood and hanging out with Elvis. His cousin is Billy Burnette, who replaced Lindsey in Fleetwood Mac in the late 80s, and has had a solid career of his own. After Rocky's solo career stalled, he spent the next 30 years playing his dad's music and carrying the torch for Rockabilly. Unfortunately, he's been suffering from emphysema for a while and doesn't get out there much, but we were lucky to have him share some stories with us. Enjoy!  www.patreon.com/thehustlepod

“You're Sixteen” by Johnny Burnette plays as John “seduces” Carol into giving him her address so he can finally take her home. Tom Taylor of The Indiana Jones Minute joins Doris to talk about what Ringo Starr and Carrie Fisher have to do with this scene, teenagers showing their kid-ness, and why John finally risks this move to get Carol out of the car.Come hang out at Mel's Listeners' Drive In on Facebook and @vcrprivileges on Twitter and InstagramArtwork by Alex RobinsonMusic by Chris Frain

Episode 126 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “For Your Love", the Yardbirds, and the beginnings of heavy rock and the guitar hero.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "A Lover's Concerto" by the Toys. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud playlist, with full versions of all the songs excerpted in this episode. The Yardbirds have one of the most mishandled catalogues of all the sixties groups, possibly the most mishandled. Their recordings with Giorgio Gomelsky, Simon Napier-Bell and Mickie Most are all owned by different people, and all get compiled separately, usually with poor-quality live recordings, demos, and other odds and sods to fill up a CD's running time. The only actual authoritative compilation is the long out-of-print Ultimate! . Information came from a variety of sources. Most of the general Yardbirds information came from The Yardbirds by Alan Clayson and Heart Full of Soul: Keith Relf of the Yardbirds by David French. Simon Napier-Bell's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is one of the most entertaining books about the sixties music scene, and contains several anecdotes about his time working with the Yardbirds, some of which may even be true. Some information about Immediate Records came from Immediate Records by Simon Spence, which I'll be using more in future episodes. Information about Clapton came from Motherless Child by Paul Scott, while information on Jeff Beck came from Hot Wired Guitar: The Life of Jeff Beck by Martin Power. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, we're going to take a look at the early career of the band that, more than any other band, was responsible for the position of lead guitarist becoming as prestigious as that of lead singer. We're going to look at how a blues band launched the careers of several of the most successful guitarists of all time, and also one of the most successful pop songwriters of the sixties and seventies. We're going to look at "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "For Your Love"] The roots of the Yardbirds lie in a group of schoolfriends in Richmond, a leafy suburb of London. Keith Relf, Laurie Gane, Paul Samwell-Smith and Jim McCarty were art-school kids who were obsessed with Sonny Terry and Jimmy Reed, and who would hang around the burgeoning London R&B scene, going to see the Rolling Stones and Alexis Korner in Twickenham and at Eel Pie Island, and starting up their own blues band, the Metropolis Blues Quartet. However, Gane soon left the group to go off to university, and he was replaced by two younger guitarists, Top Topham and Chris Dreja, with Samwell-Smith moving from guitar to bass. As they were no longer a quartet, they renamed themselves the Yardbirds, after a term Relf had found on the back of an album cover, meaning a tramp or hobo. The newly-named Yardbirds quickly developed their own unique style -- their repertoire was the same mix of Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed and Chuck Berry as every other band on the London scene, but they included long extended improvisatory  instrumental sequences with Relf's harmonica playing off Topham's lead guitar. The group developed a way of extending songs, which they described as a “rave-up” and would become the signature of their live act – in the middle of a song they would go into a long instrumental solo in double-time, taking the song twice as fast and improvising heavily, before dropping back to the original tempo to finish the song off. These “rave-up” sections would often be much longer than the main song, and were a chance for everyone to show off their instrumental skills, with Topham and Relf trading phrases on guitar and harmonica. They were mentored by Cyril Davies, who gave them the interval spots at some of his shows -- and then one day asked them to fill in for him in a gig he couldn't make -- a residency at a club in Harrow, where the Yardbirds went down so well that they were asked to permanently take over the residency from Davies, much to his disgust. But the group's big break came when the Rolling Stones signed with Andrew Oldham, leaving Giorgio Gomelsky with no band to play the Crawdaddy Club every Sunday. Gomelsky was out of the country at his father's funeral when the Stones quit on him, and so it was up to Gomelsky's assistant Hamish Grimes to find a replacement. Grimes looked at the R&B scene and the choice came down to two bands -- the Yardbirds and Them. Grimes said it was a toss-up, but he eventually went for the Yardbirds, who eagerly agreed. When Gomelsky got back, the group were packing audiences in at the Crawdaddy and doing even better than the Stones had been. Soon Gomelsky wanted to become the Yardbirds' manager and turn the group into full-time musicians, but there was a problem -- the new school term was starting, Top Topham was only fifteen, and his parents didn't want him to quit school. Topham had to leave the group. Luckily, there was someone waiting in the wings. Eric Clapton was well known on the local scene as someone who was quite good on guitar, and he and Topham had played together for a long time as an informal duo, so he knew the parts -- and he was also acquainted with Dreja. Everyone on the London blues scene knew everyone else, although the thing that stuck in most of the Yardbirds' minds about Clapton was the time he'd seen the Metropolis Blues Quartet play and gone up to Samwell-Smith and said "Could you do me a favour?" When Samwell-Smith had nodded his assent, Clapton had said "Don't play any more guitar solos". Clapton was someone who worshipped the romantic image of the Delta bluesman, solitary and rootless, without friends or companions, surviving only on his wits and weighed down by troubles, and he would imagine himself that way as he took guitar lessons from Dave Brock, later of Hawkwind, or as he hung out with Top Topham and Chris Dreja in Richmond on weekends, complaining about the burdens he had to bear, such as the expensive electric guitar his grandmother had bought him not being as good as he'd hoped. Clapton had hung around with Topham and Dreja, but they'd never been really close, and he hadn't been considered for a spot in the Yardbirds when the group had formed. Instead he had joined the Roosters with Tom McGuinness, who had introduced Clapton to the music of Freddie King, especially a B-side called "I Love the Woman", which showed Clapton for the first time how the guitar could be more than just an accompaniment to vocals, but a featured instrument in its own right: [Excerpt: Freddie King, "I Love the Woman"] The Roosters had been blues purists, dedicated to a scholarly attitude to American Black music and contemptuous of pop music -- when Clapton met the Beatles for the first time, when they came along to an early Rolling Stones gig Clapton was also at, he had thought of them as "a bunch of wankers" and despised them as sellouts. After the Roosters had broken up, Clapton and McGuinness had joined the gimmicky Merseybeat group Casey Jones and his Engineers, who had a band uniform of black suits and cardboard Confederate army caps, before leaving that as well. McGuinness had gone on to join Manfred Mann, and Clapton was left without a group, until the Yardbirds called on him. The new lineup quickly gelled as musicians -- though the band did become frustrated with one quirk of Clapton's. He liked to bend strings, and so he used very light gauge strings on his guitar, which often broke, meaning that a big chunk of time would be taken up each show with Clapton restringing his guitar, while the audience gave a slow hand clap -- leading to his nickname, "Slowhand" Clap-ton. Two months after Clapton joined the group, Gomelsky got them to back Sonny Boy Williamson II on a UK tour, recording a show at the Crawdaddy Club which was released as a live album three years later: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds and Sonny Boy Williamson II, "Twenty-three Hours Too Long"] Williamson and the Yardbirds didn't get along though, either as people or as musicians. Williamson's birth name was Rice Miller, and he'd originally taken the name "Sonny Boy Williamson" to cash in on the fame of another musician who used that name, though he'd gone on to much greater success than the original, who'd died not long after the former Miller started using the name. Clapton, wanting to show off, had gone up to Williamson when they were introduced and said "Isn't your real name Rice Miller?" Williamson had pulled a knife on Clapton, and his relationship with the group didn't get much better from that point on. The group were annoyed that Williamson was drunk on stage and would call out songs they hadn't rehearsed, while Williamson later summed up his view of the Yardbirds to Robbie Robertson, saying "Those English boys want to play the blues so bad -- and they play the blues *so bad*!" Shortly after this, the group cut some demos on their own, which were used to get them a deal with Columbia, a subsidiary of EMI. Their first single was a version of Billy Boy Arnold's "I Wish You Would": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "I Wish You Would"] This was as pure R&B as a British group would get at this point, but Clapton was unhappy with the record -- partly because hearing the group in the studio made him realise how comparatively thin they sounded as players, and partly just because he was worried that even going into a recording studio at all was selling out and not something that any of the Delta bluesmen whose records he loved would do. He was happier with the group's first album, a live recording called Five Live Yardbirds that captured the sound of the group at the Marquee Club. The repertoire on that album was precisely the same as any of the other British R&B bands of the time -- songs by Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Slim Harpo, Sonny Boy Williamson and the Isley Brothers -- but they were often heavily extended versions, with a lot of interplay between Samwell-Smith's bass, Clapton's guitar, and Relf's harmonica, like their five-and-a-half-minute version of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Smokestack Lightning"] "I Wish You Would" made number twenty-six on the NME chart, but it didn't make the Record Retailer chart which is the basis of modern chart compilations. The group were just about to go into the studio to cut their second single, a version of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", when Keith Relf collapsed. Relf had severe asthma and was also a heavy smoker, and his lung collapsed and he had to be hospitalised for several weeks, and it looked for a while as if he might never be able to sing or play harmonica again. In his absence, various friends and hangers-on from the R&B scene deputised for him -- Ronnie Wood has recalled being at a gig and the audience being asked "Can anyone play harmonica?", leading to Wood getting on stage with them, and other people who played a gig or two, or sometimes just a song or two, with them include Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, and Rod Stewart. Stewart was apparently a big fan, and would keep trying to get on stage with them -- according to Keith Relf's wife, "Rod Stewart would be sitting in the backroom begging to go on—‘Oh give us a turn, give us a turn.'” Luckily, Relf's lung was successfully reinflated, and he returned to singing, harmonica playing... and smoking. In the early months back with the group, he would sometimes have to pull out his inhaler in the middle of a word to be able to continue singing, and he would start seeing stars on stage. Relf's health would never be good, but he was able to carry on performing, and the future of the group was secured. What wasn't secure was the group's relationship with their guitarist. While Relf and Dreja had for a time shared a flat with Eric Clapton, he was becoming increasingly distant from the other members. Partly this was because Relf felt somewhat jealous of the fact that the audiences seemed more impressed with the group's guitarist than with him, the lead singer; partly it was because Giorgio Gomelsky had made Paul Samwell-Smith the group's musical director, and Clapton had never got on with Samwell-Smith and distrusted his musical instincts; but mostly it was just that the rest of the group found Clapton rather petty, cold, and humourless, and never felt any real connection to him. Their records still weren't selling, but they were popular enough on the local scene that they were invited to be one of the support acts for the Beatles' run of Christmas shows at the end of 1964, and hung out with the group backstage. Paul McCartney played them a new song he was working on, which didn't have lyrics yet, but which would soon become "Yesterday", but it was another song they heard that would change the group's career. A music publisher named Ronnie Beck turned up backstage with a demo he wanted the Beatles to hear. Obviously, the Beatles weren't interested in hearing any demos -- they were writing so many hits they were giving half of them away to other artists, why would they need someone else's song? But the Yardbirds were looking for a hit, and after listening to the demo, Samwell-Smith was convinced that a hit was what this demo was. The demo was by a Manchester-based songwriter named Graham Gouldman. Gouldman had started his career in a group called the Whirlwinds, who had released one single -- a version of Buddy Holly's "Look at Me" backed with a song called "Baby Not Like You", written by Gouldman's friend Lol Creme: [Excerpt: The Whirlwinds, "Baby Not Like You"] The Whirlwinds had split up by this point, and Gouldman was in the process of forming a new band, the Mockingbirds, which included drummer Kevin Godley. The song on the demo had been intended as the Mockingbirds' first single, but their label had decided instead to go with "That's How (It's Gonna Stay)": [Excerpt: The Mockingbirds, "That's How (It's Gonna Stay)"] So the song, "For Your Love", was free, and Samwell-Smith was insistent -- this was going to be the group's first big hit. The record was a total departure from their blues sound. Gouldman's version had been backed by bongos and acoustic guitar, and Samwell-Smith decided that he would keep the bongo part, and add, not the normal rock band instruments, but harpsichord and bowed double bass: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "For Your Love"] The only part of the song where the group's normal electric instrumentation is used is the brief middle-eight, which feels nothing like the rest of the record: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "For Your Love"] But on the rest of the record, none of the Yardbirds other than Jim McCarty play -- the verses have Relf on vocals, McCarty on drums, Brian Auger on harpsichord, Ron Prentice on double bass and Denny Piercy on bongos, with Samwell-Smith in the control room producing. Clapton and Dreja only played on the middle eight. The record went to number three, and became the group's first real hit, and it led to an odd experience for Gouldman, as the Mockingbirds were by this time employed as the warm-up act on the BBC's Top of the Pops, which was recorded in Manchester, so Gouldman got to see mobs of excited fans applauding the Yardbirds for performing a song he'd written, while he was completely ignored. Most of the group were excited about their newfound success, but Clapton was not happy. He hadn't signed up to be a member of a pop group -- he wanted to be in a blues band. He made his displeasure about playing on material like "For Your Love"  very clear, and right after the recording session he resigned from the group. He was convinced that they would be nothing without him -- after all, wasn't he the undisputed star of the group? -- and he immediately found work with a group that was more suited to his talents, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. The Bluesbreakers at this point consisted of Mayall on keyboards and vocals, Clapton on guitar, John McVie on bass, and Hughie Flint on drums. For their first single with this lineup, they signed a one-record deal with Immediate Records, a new independent label started by the Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Oldham. That single was produced by Immediate's young staff producer, the session guitarist Jimmy Page: [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "I'm Your Witch Doctor"] The Bluesbreakers had something of a fluid lineup -- shortly after that recording, Clapton left the group to join another group, and was replaced by a guitarist named Peter Green. Then Clapton came back, for the recording of what became known as the "Beano album", because Clapton was in a mood when they took the cover photo, and so read the children's comic the Beano rather than looking at the camera: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, "Bernard Jenkins"] Shortly after that, Mayall fired John McVie, who was replaced by Jack Bruce, formerly of the Graham Bond Organisation, but then Bruce left to join Manfred Mann and McVie was rehired. While Clapton was in the Bluesbreakers, he gained a reputation for being the best guitarist in London -- a popular graffito at the time was "Clapton is God" -- and he was at first convinced that without him the Yardbirds would soon collapse. But Clapton had enough self-awareness to know that even though he was very good, there were a handful of guitarists in London who were better than him. One he always acknowledged was Albert Lee, who at the time was playing in Chris Farlowe's backing band but would later become known as arguably the greatest country guitarist of his generation. But another was the man that the Yardbirds got in to replace him. The Yardbirds had originally asked Jimmy Page if he wanted to join the group, and he'd briefly been tempted, but he'd decided that his talents were better used in the studio, especially since he'd just been given the staff job at Immediate. Instead he recommended his friend Jeff Beck. The two had known each other since their teens, and had grown up playing guitar together, and sharing influences as they delved deeper into music. While both men admired the same blues musicians that Clapton did, people like Hubert Sumlin and Buddy Guy, they both had much more eclectic tastes than Clapton -- both loved rockabilly, and admired Scotty Moore and James Burton, and Beck was a huge devotee of Cliff Gallup, the original guitarist from Gene Vincent's Blue Caps. Beck also loved Les Paul and the jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, while Page was trying to incorporate some of the musical ideas of the sitar player Ravi Shankar into his playing. While Page was primarily a session player, Beck was a gigging musician, playing with a group called the Tridents, but as Page rapidly became one of the two first-call session guitarists along with Big Jim Sullivan, he would often recommend his friend for sessions he couldn't make, leading to Beck playing on records like "Dracula's Daughter", which Joe Meek produced for Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages: [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, "Dracula's Daughter"] While Clapton had a very straightforward tone, Beck was already experimenting with the few effects that were available at the time, like echoes and fuzztone. While there would always be arguments about who was the first to use feedback as a controlled musical sound, Beck is one of those who often gets the credit, and Keith Relf would describe Beck's guitar playing as being almost musique concrete. You can hear the difference on the group's next single. "Heart Full of Soul" was again written by Gouldman, and was originally recorded with a sitar, which would have made it one of the first pop singles to use the instrument. However, they decided to replace the sitar part with Beck playing the same Indian-sounding riff on a heavily-distorted guitar: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Heart Full of Soul"] That made number two in the UK and the top ten in the US, and suddenly the world had a new guitar god, one who was doing things on records that nobody else had been doing. The group's next single was a double A-side, a third song written by Gouldman, "Evil Hearted You", coupled with an original by the group, "Still I'm Sad". Neither track was quite up to the standard of their previous couple of singles, but it still went to number three on the charts. From this point on, the group stopped using Gouldman's songs as singles, preferring to write their own material, but Gouldman had already started providing hits for other groups like the Hollies, for whom he wrote songs like “Bus Stop”: [Excerpt: The Hollies, “Bus Stop”] His group The Mockingbirds had also signed to Immediate Records, who put out their classic pop-psych single “You Stole My Love”: [Excerpt: The Mockingbirds, “You Stole My Love”] We will hear more of Gouldman later. In the Yardbirds, meanwhile, the pressure was starting to tell on Keith. He was a deeply introverted person who didn't have the temperament for stardom, and he was uncomfortable with being recognised on the street. It also didn't help that his dad was also the band's driver and tour manager, which meant he always ended up feeling somewhat inhibited, and he started drinking heavily to try to lose some of those inhibitions. Shortly after the recording of "Evil Hearted You", the group went on their first American tour, though on some dates they were unable to play as Gomelsky had messed up their work permits -- one of several things about Gomelsky's management of the group that irritated them. But they were surprised to find that they were much bigger in the US than in the UK. While the group had only released singles, EPs, and the one live album in the UK, and would only ever put out one UK studio album, they'd recorded enough that they'd already had an album out in the US, a compilation of singles, B-sides, and even a couple of demos, and that had been picked up on by almost every garage band in the country. On one of the US gigs, their opening act, a teenage group called the Spiders, were in trouble. They'd learned every song on that Yardbirds album, and their entire set was made up of covers of that material. They'd gone down well supporting every other major band that came to town, but they had a problem when it came to the Yardbirds. Their singer described what happened next: "We thought about it and we said, 'Look, we're paying tribute to them—let's just do our set.' And so, we opened for the Yardbirds and did all of their songs. We could see them in the back and they were smiling and giving us the thumbs up. And then they got up and just blew us off the stage—because they were the Yardbirds! And we just stood there going, 'Oh…. That's how it's done.' The Yardbirds were one of the best live bands I ever heard and we learned a lot that night." That band, and later that lead singer, both later changed their name to Alice Cooper. The trip to the US also saw a couple of recording sessions. Gomelsky had been annoyed at the bad drum sound the group had got in UK studios, and had loved Sam Phillips' drum sound on the old Sun records, so had decided to get in touch with Phillips and ask him to produce the group. He hadn't had a reply, but the group turned up at Phillips' new studio anyway, knowing that he lived in a flat above the studio. Phillips wasn't in, but eventually turned up at midnight, after a fishing trip, drunk. He wasn't interested in producing some group of British kids, but Gomelsky waved six hundred dollars at him, and he agreed. He produced two tracks for the group. One of those, "Mr. You're a Better Man Than I", was written by Mike Hugg of Manfred Mann and his brother: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Mister, You're a Better Man Than I"] The backing track there was produced by Phillips, but the lead vocal was redone in New York, as Relf was also drunk and wasn't singing well -- something Phillips pointed out, and which devastated Relf, who had grown up on records Phillips produced. Phillips' dismissal of Relf also grated on Beck -- even though Beck wasn't close to Relf, as the two competed for prominence on stage while the rest of the band kept to the backline, Beck had enormous respect for Relf's talents as a frontman, and thought Phillips horribly unprofessional for his dismissive attitude, though the other Yardbirds had happier memories of the session, not least because Phillips caught their live sound better than anyone had. You can hear Relf's drunken incompetence on the other track they recorded at the session, their version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", the song we covered way back in episode forty-four. Rearranged by Samwell-Smith and Beck, the Yardbirds' version built on the Johnny Burnette recording and turned it into one of the hardest rock tracks ever recorded to that point -- but Relf's drunk, sloppy, vocal was caught on the backing track. He later recut the vocal more competently, with Roy Halee engineering in New York, but the combination of the two vocals gives the track an unusual feel which inspired many future garage bands: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] On that first US tour, they also recorded a version of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" at Chess Studios, where Diddley had recorded his original. Only a few weeks after the end of that tour they were back for a second tour, in support of their second US album, and they returned to Chess to record what many consider their finest original. "Shapes of Things" had been inspired by the bass part on Dave Brubeck's "Pick Up Sticks": [Excerpt: Dave Brubeck Quartet, "Pick Up Sticks"] Samwell-Smith and McCarty had written the music for the song, Relf and Samwell-Smith added lyrics, and Beck experimented with feedback, leading to one of the first psychedelic records to become a big hit, making number three in the UK and number eleven in the US: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Shapes of Things"] That would be the group's last record with Giorgio Gomelsky as credited producer -- although Samwell-Smith had been doing all the actual production work -- as the group were becoming increasingly annoyed at Gomelsky's ideas for promoting them, which included things like making them record songs in Italian so they could take part in an Italian song contest. Gomelsky was also working them so hard that Beck ended up being hospitalised with what has been variously described as meningitis and exhaustion. By the time he was out of the hospital, Gomelsky was fired. His replacement as manager and co-producer was Simon Napier-Bell, a young dilettante and scenester who was best known for co-writing the English language lyrics for Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me": [Excerpt: Dusty Springfield, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me"] The way Napier-Bell tells the story -- and Napier-Bell is an amusing raconteur, and his volumes of autobiography are enjoyable reads, but one gets the feeling that he will not tell the truth if a lie seems more entertaining -- is that the group chose him because of his promotion of a record he'd produced for a duo called Diane Ferraz and Nicky Scott: [Excerpt: Diane Ferraz and Nicky Scott, "Me and You"] According to Napier-Bell, both Ferraz and Scott were lovers of his, who were causing him problems, and he decided to get rid of the problem by making them both pop stars. As Ferraz was Black and Scott white, Napier-Bell sent photos of them to every DJ and producer in the country, and then when they weren't booked on TV shows or playlisted on the radio, he would accuse the DJs and producers of racism and threaten to go to the newspapers about it. As a result, they ended up on almost every TV show and getting regular radio exposure, though it wasn't enough to make the record a hit. The Yardbirds had been impressed by how much publicity Ferraz and Scott had got, and asked Napier-Bell to manage them. He immediately set about renegotiating their record contract and getting them a twenty-thousand-pound advance -- a fortune in the sixties. He also moved forward with a plan Gomelsky had had of the group putting out solo records, though only Relf ended up doing so. Relf's first solo single was a baroque pop song, "Mr. Zero", written by Bob Lind, who had been a one-hit wonder with "Elusive Butterfly", and produced by Samwell-Smith: [Excerpt: Keith Relf, "Mr. Zero"] Beck, meanwhile, recorded a solo instrumental, intended for his first solo single but not released until nearly a year later.  "Beck's Bolero" has Jimmy Page as its credited writer, though Beck claims to be a co-writer, and features Beck and Page on guitars, session pianist Nicky Hopkins, and Keith Moon of the Who on drums. John Entwistle of the Who was meant to play bass, but when he didn't show to the session, Page's friend, session bass player John Paul Jones, was called up: [Excerpt: Jeff Beck, "Beck's Bolero"] The five players were so happy with that recording that they briefly discussed forming a group together, with Moon saying of the idea "That will go down like a lead zeppelin". They all agreed that it wouldn't work and carried on with their respective careers. The group's next single was their first to come from a studio album -- their only UK studio album, variously known as Yardbirds or Roger the Engineer. "Over Under Sideways Down" was largely written in the studio and is credited to all five group members, though Napier-Bell has suggested he came up with the chorus lyrics: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Over Under Sideways Down"] That became the group's fifth top ten single in a row, but it would be their last, because they were about to lose the man who, more than anyone else, had been responsible for their musical direction. The group had been booked to play an upper-class black-tie event, and Relf had turned up drunk. They played three sets, and for the first, Relf started to get freaked out by the fact that the audience were just standing there, not dancing, and started blowing raspberries at them. He got more drunk in the interval, and in the second set he spent an entire song just screaming at the audience that they could copulate with themselves, using a word I'm not allowed to use without this podcast losing its clean rating. They got him offstage and played the rest of the set just doing instrumentals. For the third set, Relf was even more drunk. He came onstage and immediately fell backwards into the drum kit. Only one person in the audience was at all impressed -- Beck's friend Jimmy Page had come along to see the show, and had thought it great anarchic fun. He went backstage to tell them so, and found Samwell-Smith in the middle of quitting the group, having finally had enough. Page, who had turned down the offer to join the group two years earlier, was getting bored of just being a session player and decided that being a pop star seemed more fun. He immediately volunteered himself as the group's new bass player, and we'll see how that played out in a future episode...