Podcast appearances and mentions of Judy Collins

"Tax the rich, Feed the poorTill there are no Rich no moreI'd love to change the worldBut I don't know what to doSo I'll leave it up to you"These days we've all had similar thoughts but sometimes a pleasant distraction can help. Please  allow me to transport you back to a seemingly simpler time on this week's Super Sounds Of The 70's.Joining us are Patti Smith, Bob Welch, Badfinger, Cat Stevens, Bob Seger, Steve Miller, T. Rex, Judy Collins, Chicago, Guess Who, Cyndi Lauper, Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, The Police, Boz Scaggs, Hollies, Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Kinks, Talking Heads, Hall & Oates, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and Ten Years After.

This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with film and TV producer, writer, and director Rick Korn. Rick is the co-founder of In Plain View Entertainment which specializes in creating socially conscious documentaries. Rick has produced benefit concerts with Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, Kevin Bacon, and Joan Jett (amongst others). He executive produced the documentary about Paul McCartney, My Old Friend, and in 2024, he directed and released A Father's Promise, the inspiring story of professional musician Mark Barden who lost all joy in music when his son Daniel was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Mark rewired himself and became a powerful voice and activist when he co-founded Sandy Hook Promise. Rick's latest documentary, the focus of this episode, is entitled Harry Chapin — Cat's In The Cradle: The Song That Changed Our Lives. This new documentary explores Harry Chapin's deeply affecting folk song's lasting impact on music and culture decades later. In it, reflecting on the song's universal themes of parenthood, time, and relationships, are legendary musicians Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, Judy Collins, Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Darryl McDaniels (Run-D.M.C.), Mandy Patinkin, Robert Lamm (Chicago), Whitfield Crane (Ugly Kid Joe) and more. In this episode host Michael Shields and Rick discuss what it is about “Cat's In The Cradle” that has affected generations of people from across the world so deeply. Join in on a celebration of Harry Chapin who was more than just a singer-songwriter; he was a storyteller, activist, and humanitarian whose life and music touched the hearts of millions.The documentary will benefit WhyHunger, Long Island Cares and the Harry Chapin Foundation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode pays tribute to the amazing British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, as well as erotic novels of the 80s! In this weeks maxi challenge, the queens have to due their best Dame Joan Collins and Judy Collins in the 3 part series Mother Tuckers. Runway is AB Fab: Night of a thousand Sweetie Darlings!! Do we see any deep cuts? Who's episode was the most...erotic? Are you a Patsy or an Adina? and why is this coming out on a Wednesday and not a...THURSDAY! All this and more!!   This episode is guest hosted by Luigi Gonzalez @_luigigonzalez who is also on the My Husband Loves My Husband's Lover podcast.    This episode was edited by Nicholas Crawford @pickleniiiick of the @take3amp podcast

Eric was a major figure in the 1960s NYC folk scene, and his early tunes have been covered by Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and many others. He's released 22 solo albums plus several live albums and two albums with The Band's Rick Danko as Danko/Fjeld/Andersen. We discuss "Don't It Make You Wanna Sing the Blues" from Dance of Love and Death (2025), "Rain Falls Down in Amsterdam" from Memory of the Future (1998), and "Six Senses of Darkness" from Ghosts Upon the Road (1989). End song: "Time Run Like a Freight Train" from Stages: The Lost Album (recorded 1973). Intro: "Violets of Dawn" from 'Bout Changes and Things (1966). More at ericandersen.com. Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon. Sponsor: Visit square.com/go/nem to learn about how Square helps local businesses.

Eric Andersen is a legendary Troubadour and singer-songwriter who first came to prominence during the 1960s folk music scene in Greenwich Village and Boston. He was a central figure in that era which included Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and Richard Fariña.Some of his famous early compositions were “Thirsty Boots,” “Violets of Dawn,” and “Close The Door Lightly When You Go”. These songs were picked up by artists like Judy Collins, the Brothers Four, the Kingston Trio, the Blues Project, Sandy Denny & Fairport Convention, and Johnny Cash.  Eric's songs have been covered by many artists, including Bob Dylan, Ricky Nelson, Janis Ian, Peter Paul and Mary, the Grateful Dead and Mary Chapin Carpenter. He is the subject of an award-winning 2019 documentary, The Songpoet. And, he has a new album out now called “Dance Of Love And Death”. My featured song is “New Folk Song”, from the album The Queen's Carnival by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!Click here for All Episodes Click here for Guest List Click here for Guest Groupings Click here for Guest TestimonialsClick here to Subscribe Click here to receive our Email UpdatesClick here to Rate and Review the podcast—----------------------------------------Eric's Comments on “Dance Of Love And Death”:“The album was 11 years in the making. It is a collection of songs that I wrote over the years but never released. A few of them ended up on live albums but most of them were never recorded before. The songs do share a theme. It is about love in all its forms, including love for life itself and love for the planet.  The beautiful, difficult and dark aspects of love. I'm very proud of it. In the eleven years it took to make this album I didn't sit still. I did bring out three literary albums, around the works of Byron, Camus and Böll. They were recorded in Germany. At the moment I am working on albums about Lorca and Casanova.”—------------------------------------CONNECT WITH ERIC:www.ericandersen.com____________________ROBERT'S NEWEST ALBUM:“WHAT'S UP!” is Robert's new compilation album. Featuring 10 of his recent singles including all the ones listed below. Instrumentals and vocals. Jazz, Rock, Pop and Fusion. “My best work so far. (Robert)”CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL VIDEOCLICK HERE FOR ALL LINKS—----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com 

Send us a textJason Chapin takes us behind the curtain of his father's most enduring musical legacy. As the 50th anniversary of "Cats in the Cradle" approaches, Jason reveals the surprising true origins of the iconic song – a poem written by his mother Sandy about the distant relationship she observed between her first husband and his father.What began as an observation of family dysfunction would eventually become Harry Chapin's signature hit, though not without skepticism. "My mother told my father there's no way this is gonna be a single," Jason shares. "Back then, hit songs were not about fathers and sons." Against all expectations, the song climbed to number one, cementing its place in music history.The discussion weaves through Harry's multifaceted career, from his early days making Oscar-nominated documentaries to his late-blooming music career at age 30. Jason offers fascinating glimpses into his father's creative process, his relentless work ethic that produced 11 albums in just 10 years, and his equal dedication to humanitarian causes. We learn how Harry co-founded Why Hunger in 1975, performed approximately 100 benefit concerts annually, and became such a persistent presence lobbying Congress that lawmakers would try to avoid him – leading Harry to famously corner them in Capitol Building restrooms.This episode paints a portrait of an artist deeply committed not just to his craft, but to making tangible change in the world. Jason explains how his father's legacy continues through the new documentary "Harry Chapin: Cats in the Cradle 50th Anniversary," featuring interviews with Billy Joel, Judy Collins, Whitfield Crane from Ugly Kid Joe, and many others who've been touched by his father's music.Whether you're a longtime fan of Harry Chapin or discovering his work for the first time, this conversation offers valuable perspective on how one song can transcend generations, and how an artist's impact can extend far beyond their music. As Harry's credo reminds us: "When in doubt, do something."LinksJay Franze: https://JayFranze.com Support the show

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins joins Zibby to discuss SOMETIMES IT'S HEAVEN: Poems of Love, Loss, and Redemption, a timeless, bold, and vulnerable collection of poetry that captures the ethereal and inspiring nature of her artistry in an all-new way. Judy reveals how the death of her son and recent loss of her husband inspired her writing—and how she channeled grief, memory, and music into 365 poems written over the course of a year. She also discusses her lifelong relationship with sobriety, spirituality, and creativity, as well as her reflections on fame, friendship, and art. Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/4kL3WksShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

We're celebrating our 10th anniversary all year by digging in the vaults to re-present classic episodes with fresh commentary. Today, we're revisiting our 2017 conversation with Jimmy Webb. ABOUT JIMMY WEBBJimmy Webb emerged as a superstar songwriter and arranger in 1967 when two of his songs – The 5th Dimension's “Up, Up and Away” and Glen Campbell's “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” - were among the five nominees for the Grammy's Song of the Year award. He went on to write a string of major hits for Campbell, including “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” "Where's the Playground Susie,” “Honey Come Back,” and many others. Additionally, he penned “MacArthur Park,” which was a hit for a diverse range of artists, including Richard Harris, Waylon Jennings, Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, and Donna Summer; “The Worst That Could Happen,” which was a Top 5 hit for The Brooklyn Bridge; “Didn't We,” which was recorded by Thelma Houston, Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, and Barbra Streisand; “All I Know,” which became a Top 10 hit for Art Garfunkel; “The Moon's a Harsh Mistress,” which has been recorded by Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, and Josh Groban; and “If These Walls Could Speak,” which was recorded by Glen Campbell, Amy Grant, Nanci Griffith, and Shawn Colvin. Others who've covered material from the Jimmy Webb songbook include Diana Ross, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, The Four Tops, Roberta Flack, The Temptations, The Association, Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick, Cass Elliot, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Wilson, Cher, Bob Dylan, The Everly Brothers, Nick Cave, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Sheena Easton, David Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Michael Feinstein, R.E.M., Aimee Mann, America, Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Peggy Lee, Bette Midler, James Taylor, Carrie Underwood, Dwight Yoakam, and The Highwaymen (consisting of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson), who took Jimmy's song “Highwayman” to #1, earning him a Grammy for Country Song of the Year. As an artist, he has released more than a dozen albums. One of the most celebrated songwriters on the planet, Jimmy is the only individual to win Grammy awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame. Additionally, he has received ASCAP's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Influential Songwriter Award from the National Music Publishers Association, and the Academy of Country Music's prestigious Poets Award. In 2015 he was named among Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Jimmy's memoir, The Cake and the Rain, details his formative years and early career through 1973. It's available now from St. Martin's Press. 

"Just a perfect dayDrink sangria in the parkAnd then later, when it gets darkWe go homeOh, it's such a perfect dayI'm glad I spent it with you" Please make our day perfect and spend 2 hours of your Sunday with me on this week's Super Sounds Of the 70's. I've invited Nick Drake, Laura Nyro, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Chicago Transit Authority, Minnie Riperton, Love, Judy Collins, Allman Brothers, Orleans, George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, Ambrosia,  Pink Floyd, Yes, Humble Pie, Traffic, Jethro Tull and Lou Reed...

Today's program features tuneage from XTC, Tim Buckley, It's A Beautiful Day, Lovin' Spoonful, John Mayall, Crosby Stills & Nash, Spirit, Beatles, Small Faces, Youngbloods, Randy Newman, The Left Banke, Cyrkle, Zombies, Seatrain, Rascals, Jean Luc Ponty, Doors, Tears For Fears, Byrds, Led Zeppelin, Simon & Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Quicksilver Messenger Service .and Loggins && Messina

What is a troubadour? In its simplest definition, it's a poet who puts verse to music. The focus is on the lyrical content and the music is there to serve the storyline. In present day vernacular, the term "troubadour" is usually replaced by the catch-all category "singer-songwriter." Some troubadours are simply singers, perhaps accompanied by a guitar, interpreting another poet's songs. While other troubadours are also poets, writing and singing their own lyrics. Regardless, a troubadour's job is to connect with the listener by bringing the song's story to life. And, after it's over, to make the listener want to hear it again and again on repeat. Because each listen reveals more of the message, it can take a thousand listens to truly know the troubadour's tale. We are Team Derringer (Laura, Alton, and Paul) of Derringer Discoveries. In this episode, we are joined by songwriter Marv Conan of Brooklyn, New York. When you listen, you will hear that Marv is proud to be from Brooklyn and not just from NYC; although, for his voiceover at the end, we somehow got him to say NYC. Marv Conan recently released a song called Judy Joan & Buffy that he wrote about three troubadours who each got their respective starts in the early 1960s, two from Greenwich Village in the U.S. and one arguably from Canada. Listen to the episode to learn more about the Canada controversy. As you will hear, these three troubadours helped Marv to make it through the 1960s after Marv was drafted into the U.S. Army. Marv listened to the troubadours on repeat, back in the day of vinyl records. Recently, he decided to write the song Judy Joan & Buffy to honor these three troubadours who meant so much to him in his youth. The three troubadours are Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. Join Team Derringer as we talk with Marv and hear snippets of his song Judy Joan & Buffy sung by UK's Victoria BeeBee who toured with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. We also talk about the three troubadours while Marv picks two songs from each to remind us why Judy, Joan, and Buffy are legendary and worthy of re-discovery. Do you want to be a Featured Artist on Derringer Discoveries? You'll need 10,000+ monthly listeners on Spotify. But if you want to be a Special Guest, like Marv Conan, all you need is a bucket of enthusiasm and a love for Derringer Discoveries (yep, you need to be a subscriber - it's free - and a regular listener!). If you want to be a Special Guest, drop us a line at feedback@derringerdiscoveries.com and let us know which major artist you want us to feature, along with your Top 5 favorite songs by that artist. It's best if you pick an artist who is back in the news, so that we can make the episode relevant to the present. Write to us, and we promise to respond!  If you have 10,000 or more monthly listeners on Spotify and want to be featured on a Derringer Discoveries episode, send us an email and include a link to your music to: feedback@derringerdiscoveries.com. INFO and SHOW NOTES: www.derringerdiscoveries.com/082 This episode features the Spotify playlist Troubadours, which includes songs from the episode, plus other troubadours and singer-songwriters who inspire us, such as Jesse Welles, Luna Keller, Matt Saxton, Martin Kerr, and Folk B*tch Trio. If you are a recording artist inspired by troubadours, send us a Spotify link to your song. If it reasonably fits the format and is a solid song, we'll include it on the Troubadours playlist, as long as you listen to Derringer Discoveries on a regular basis. Visit us at our website: www.derringerdiscoveries.com The theme song for Derringer Discoveries is Your Sister's Room by Ho Jo Fro. If you enjoyed this episode, please "Follow" our podcast and tell others about Derringer Discoveries. Find all Derringer Discoveries episodes on our website: www.derringerdiscoveries.com/episodes. You can also follow us on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and X and you can keep up with all things Derringer by signing up for our newsletter. We appreciate every listener!  Thank you for listening to Derringer Discoveries!

What is a troubadour? In its simplest definition, it's a poet who puts verse to music. The focus is on the lyrical content and the music is there to serve the storyline. In present day vernacular, the term "troubadour" is usually replaced by the catch-all category "singer-songwriter." Some troubadours are simply singers, perhaps accompanied by a guitar, interpreting another poet's songs. While other troubadours are also poets, writing and singing their own lyrics. Regardless, a troubadour's job is to connect with the listener by bringing the song's story to life. And, after it's over, to make the listener want to hear it again and again on repeat. Because each listen reveals more of the message, it can take a thousand listens to truly know the troubadour's tale. We are Team Derringer (Laura, Alton, and Paul) of Derringer Discoveries. In this episode, we are joined by songwriter Marv Conan of Brooklyn, New York. When you listen, you will hear that Marv is proud to be from Brooklyn and not just from NYC; although, for his voiceover at the end, we somehow got him to say NYC. Marv Conan recently released a song called Judy Joan & Buffy that he wrote about three troubadours who each got their respective starts in the early 1960s, two from Greenwich Village in the U.S. and one arguably from Canada. Listen to the episode to learn more about the Canada controversy. As you will hear, these three troubadours helped Marv to make it through the 1960s after Marv was drafted into the U.S. Army. Marv listened to the troubadours on repeat, back in the day of vinyl records. Recently, he decided to write the song Judy Joan & Buffy to honor these three troubadours who meant so much to him in his youth. The three troubadours are Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. Join Team Derringer as we talk with Marv and hear snippets of his song Judy Joan & Buffy sung by UK's Victoria BeeBee who toured with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. We also talk about the three troubadours while Marv picks two songs from each to remind us why Judy, Joan, and Buffy are legendary and worthy of re-discovery. Do you want to be a Featured Artist on Derringer Discoveries? You'll need 10,000+ monthly listeners on Spotify. But if you want to be a Special Guest, like Marv Conan, all you need is a bucket of enthusiasm and a love for Derringer Discoveries (yep, you need to be a subscriber - it's free - and a regular listener!). If you want to be a Special Guest, drop us a line at feedback@derringerdiscoveries.com and let us know which major artist you want us to feature, along with your Top 5 favorite songs by that artist. It's best if you pick an artist who is back in the news, so that we can make the episode relevant to the present. Write to us, and we promise to respond!  If you have 10,000 or more monthly listeners on Spotify and want to be featured on a Derringer Discoveries episode, send us an email and include a link to your music to: feedback@derringerdiscoveries.com. INFO and SHOW NOTES: www.derringerdiscoveries.com/082 This episode features the Spotify playlist Troubadours, which includes songs from the episode, plus other troubadours and singer-songwriters who inspire us, such as Jesse Welles, Luna Keller, Matt Saxton, Martin Kerr, and Folk B*tch Trio. If you are a recording artist inspired by troubadours, send us a Spotify link to your song. If it reasonably fits the format and is a solid song, we'll include it on the Troubadours playlist, as long as you listen to Derringer Discoveries on a regular basis. Visit us at our website: www.derringerdiscoveries.com The theme song for Derringer Discoveries is Your Sister's Room by Ho Jo Fro. If you enjoyed this episode, please "Follow" our podcast and tell others about Derringer Discoveries. Find all Derringer Discoveries episodes on our website: www.derringerdiscoveries.com/episodes. You can also follow us on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and X and you can keep up with all things Derringer by signing up for our newsletter. We appreciate every listener!  Thank you for listening to Derringer Discoveries!

We're offering examples of interviews from the show going back to 2010, including this sampler of HPR All Things Considered host Dave Lawrence speaking in 2014 for the first time with Judy Collins; the folk icon would go on to appear many more times over the next eleven years. Find lots more interviews on our website!

They say comedy is subjective, and this S4 episode of SNL proves the point. While many Saturday Night Live fans praise this outing hosted by former child star Rick(y) Nelson, we have a slightly different take. Sadly, musical guest Judy Collins does not do much to help the cause.Though we do acknowledge some bright spots, we couldn't fully embrace this episode. Listen as we break down what worked (some true highlights) and what didn't (not even Paul Simon has the balls to do THREE songs in his monologues). Were we too harsh in our critique? Listen and decide for yourself whether our assessment hits the mark or misses completely.---------------------------------Subscribe today!Follow us on social media: X (Twitter): NR4PTProjectBluesky: nr4ptproject.bsky.socialInstagram: nr4ptprojectFacebook: The Not Ready for Prime Time ProjectContact Us: Website: https://www.nr4project.comEmail: nr4ptproject@gmail.com

Judy Marjorie Collins, age 85, remains a legendary spokesperson for the American folk music scene and for older adults who still have a song to sing. We were delighted to be in conversation with Judy Collins.Folk singer, song writer, pianist, activist, author, and role-model, Judy continues to tour throughout the United States and many other countries. Judy vows, “I will never stop singing.” Throughout the decades, Judy's music has reflected changing political climates and captured glimpses of life at particular moments in time. Her music remains as timely as ever. We look forward to her next album of duets and trios including a song by the late David Crosby.Judy continues to write about deeply personal experiences. Her latest book is Sometimes It's Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss & Redemption. Connect with Judy:Publicist:  rockymountainproductionsinc@gmail.comRead her books. Available on Amazon2025: Sometimes It's Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss & Redemption 2012: Memoir: Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music2007: The Seven T's: Finding Hope and Healing in the Wake of Tragedy 2006: Sanity & Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength

Songs and tunes for the Persian New Year and the coming of Spring. Sad R.I.P. to Garifuna singer / activist Aurelio who died in a helicopter crash this week. Local concert previews: Ballake Sissoko, Judy Collins, Rum Ragged, Lucy MacNeil Quartet. A few new releases, too. Lots of CanCon. Elbows Up!

Hosts Nate Wilcox and Dave Thompson continue their mini-series discussing Dave's book An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music -- buy the book to support the show. This episode discusses the peak of the Folk Boom in the US with the rise of Peter, Paul, & Mary, Ian & Sylvia, Judy Collins' continued success and the rise of Bob Dylan. We cover Dylan's use of Child Ballads as source material and his ultimate abandonment of the scene. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE-- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack. Also subscribe to the LET IT ROLL EXTRA feed on Apple, Spotify or your preferred podcast service to access the full episodes via your preferred podcast outlet. We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks! Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook. Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judy Collins speaks with Fred about her upcoming appearance at the Stranahan Theatre on Wednesday March 12 at 7:30p.  Judy talks about the impact her father had on her musical career along with memories of her 55 studio albums. 

Hosts Nate Wilcox and Dave Thompson continue their mini-series discussing Dave's book An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music -- buy the book to support the show. This episode discusses the Child Ballads about Robin Hood and the folk revival's odd disinterest in them as well as the explosion of the American Folk Revival led by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Tom Rush. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE-- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack. Also subscribe to the LET IT ROLL EXTRA feed on Apple, Spotify or your preferred podcast service to access the full episodes via your preferred podcast outlet. We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks! Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook. Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I wish that for just one timeYou could stand inside my shoesAnd just for that one moment I could be youYes I wish that for just one timeYou could stand inside my shoesYou'd know what a drag it is to see you"Sage words from a Poet Laureate of the 60's. Please join Bob along with Billy Cobham, Judy Collins, Tom Petty, Genesis, Crack The Sky, John McLaughlin, Counting Crows, Roxy Music, The Eagles, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Tears For Fears, Derek & The Dominos, Free, The Rolling Stones, Doors, Carole King, Graham Nash, Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Jr. Walker & The All Stars, Gerry Rafferty and Bob Dylan...

We're hearing a lot about diversity and inclusion these days (which is great!) but as we'll learn in this episode, those two words and what they stand for are at the very core of what guided the earliest days of Newport Folk and Jazz over sixty years ago, continuing to this day. And as we know, there is still much work to be done to make our world a just and equal place. Listen in as the women of Our Native Daughters share the experience of their powerful performance at Newport in 2019, their mission of amplifying the perspectives of Black American women from the time of slavery through the present, and discuss the ongoing need for better representation across genres - in particular Americana and Country - that have their roots in the black community, and at events like Newport Folk. Amplifying women's voices, and women of color, is an important part of this conversation, too, and Yola speaks on the importance of The Highwomen's debut at Newport Folk and Brandi Carlile's all female headlining set, as well as her own sense of purpose in occupying and owning space in what is currently an overwhelmingly white genre. We dive into the history of Newport and why the insistence racial equality and diversity of its lineups was an especially personal mission of George Wein's - one that he carried to New Orleans when creating Jazz Fest alongside the parents of Preservation Hall's Ben Jaffe. and how that festival in turn helped to integrate New Orleans. And Colin Meloy and Judy Collins join us to talk about folk music's history as a tool for organizing and empowering the disenfranchised, especially through the voice of Pete Seeger. The fight continues to surround hate and force it to surrender. Festival Circuit: Newport Folk is presented by Osiris Media, and hosted by Carmel Holt. It is co-written, co-produced and edited by Carmel and Julian Booker, who is also the series' audio engineer. Production assistance from Zach Brogan. Executive producers are RJ Bee and Christina Collins. Show Logo and art by Mark Dowd.  The series theme music is "Ruminations Pt. 3 (Afternoon Haze)" by Steven Warwick. Thanks to Billy Glassner of the Newport Festivals Foundation for providing archival audio. Additional archival audio provided by the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, courtesy of the Association for Cultural Equity. And many thanks to our folk family guests Amythyst Kiah, George Wein, Ben Jaffe, Bob Boilen, Leyla McCalla, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Yola, Colin Meloy, Judy Collins, Martin Anderson, Phil and Brad Cook, Jay Sweet, Holly Laessig, Jess Wolfe, Brittany Howard, Brian Lima and Allison Pangakis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joan Baez returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs nearly 45 years after she came here to discuss “Human Rights in the Eighties.” She's coming back not for a performance but for an in-depth talk about her personal thoughts and life experiences—the person behind the stardom. Baez has been writing poetry for decades, but she's never before shared it publicly. Now in her book of poems When You See My Mother: Ask Her to Dance Baez shares poems about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry. Join us in-person to hear her discuss how, for the first time ever, she has shared revealing pivotal life experiences that shaped an icon, offering a never-before-seen look into the reminiscences and musings of a great artist. Note: This podcast contains explicit language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Artist. Poet. Friend. This week, we celebrate the music, life, and legacy of Leonard Cohen with someone who knew him well - Perla Batalla. Grammy-nominated Singer/songwriter Perla Batalla first came to prominence as a backing singer for Leonard Cohen during his 1988 I'm Your Man tour and on the 1992 album The Future, in the process forging a deep friendship. With Cohen's encouragement, Perla stepped out as an artist in her own right, releasing a beautifully diverse range of magnificent albums such as Mestiza and Discoteca Batalla, performing at the world's best venues, co-writing and appearing in two one-woman shows, honored by UN and Focus on the Masters. But she has always kept the words and works of Leonard Cohen close to her heart. Her latest album, A Letter to Leonard Cohen: Tribute to a Friend, is her second album of her unique interpretations of Cohen's music, following 2005's Bird on the Wire. It was released the day before what would have been his 90th birthday. Leonard Norman Cohen was born in Quebec on September 21, 1934. Spending the latter part of the ‘50s and first half of the ‘60s as a published poet and author, he shifted his focus to songwriting. From 1967 to 1971, he established himself as a major musical talent with the trilogy of classic albums Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate, as well as interpretations by the likes of Judy Collins, Nina Simone, Joe Cocker, and Roberta Flack. He would continue to record and tour sporadically throughout the ‘70s and early ‘80s to widespread acclaim and with some commercial success in Europe. In the late ‘80s & early ‘90s, Cohen gained a new underground audience through his two synth-driven productions, I'm Your Man and The Future, prominent soundtrack placements, a beloved album of interpretations by Jennifer Warnes, Famous Blue Raincoat, and the 1991 high profile tribute album, I'm Your Fan, where a who's who of alternative music disciples like REM, Ian McCulloch, Pixies, James, The House of Love, Robert Forster, Nick Cave, and John Cale paid their respects to the man. The latter artist, John Cale, performed a breathtaking piano version of a song from 1984's Various Positions called “Hallelujah,” in an arrangement that would be borrowed and transcribed to guitar by Jeff Buckley a few years later, which further elevated Leonard Cohen's already mythical status. After spending the latter half of the ‘90s in a monastery as an ordained Buddhist monk, Leonard Cohen returned in the twenty first century to finish what he started, adding six additional studio albums to his catalogue, including the album released weeks before his November 7, 2016 death, You Want It Darker, and the posthumous followup completed by his son Adam, 2019's Thanks For The Dance, as well as multiple live albums, both archival and contemporary. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's one thing you can be sure about when you go to Newport: Expect the Unexpected. From the festival's inception, it's been an event packed with surprise sit-ins and once-in-a-lifetime collaborations. In this episode, you'll hear about some of the most memorable, emotional, and legendary moments in Newport's recent past, from the people who participated in them. We'll bring you vivid memories and behind-the-scenes stories from the teary-eyed John Prine & Friends set in 2017, Brandi Carlile's groundbreaking all-female headlining set in 2019, and so many more . One of the most beautiful things about Newport is the seamless melding of past, present and future: it's a place where you can see young talents share the stage with musical legends, soul quenching moments with their own heroes that neither will ever forget. Drop all your expectations and enjoy the ride! Festival Circuit: Newport Folk is presented by Osiris Media, and hosted by Carmel Holt. It is co-written, co-produced and edited by Carmel and Julian Booker, who is also the series' audio engineer. Production assistance from Zach Brogan. Executive producers are RJ Bee and Christina Collins. Show Logo and Art by Mark Dowd.  The theme music is "Ruminations Pt. 3 (Afternoon Haze)" by Steven Warwick. Thanks to Billy Glassner of the Newport Festivals Foundation for providing archival audio. And many thanks to our folk family guests Jess Wolfe, Holly Laessig, Martin Anderson, Danny Clinch, Nicole Atkins, Bob Boilen, Jim James, Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell, Yola, Amy Ray, Judy Collins, Mc Taylor, Phil And Brad Cook, Jay Sweet, Jody Whelan, Margo Price, Nina Westervelt, Kathie Sever, John Mccauley, Kristian Mattson and George Wein. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that you've heard what a special place Newport Folk has become, let's go back in time to learn a bit more about how we got here. Guided by the founder of the Newport Folk Festival, the legendary George Wein, we'll take you to the roots of the festival with one-time Newport board member Judy Collins, and we'll hear from Preservation Hall's Ben Jaffe about the role Newport played in developing the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which you may have learned about in Season 1. We'll travel from legendary moments from the festival's early history, including Mavis Staples' first opportunity to meet Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, to Newport's return from hiatus in 1985, all the way to Jim James and current Executive Director Jay Sweet first approaching George Wein with a vision for the future of the festival, which simultaneously brought it back to its roots. All of these moments have led to a stronger Newport community than ever, a place where veterans and newcomers alike are constantly working together, influencing each other, and inspiring us all to strive for a spirit of unity and a better world.  Festival Circuit: Newport Folk is presented by Osiris Media, and hosted by Carmel Holt. It is co-written, co-produced and edited by Carmel and Julian Booker, who is also the series' audio engineer. Production assistance from Zach Brogan. Executive producers are RJ Bee and Christina Collins. Show Logo and Art by Mark Dowd.  The theme music is "Ruminations, Pt. 3 (Afternoon Haze)" by Stephen Warwick. Thanks to Billy Glassner of the Newport Festivals Foundation for providing archival audio. Additional archival audio provided by the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library Of Congress, Courtesy of the Association for Cultural Equity. Many thanks to our folk family guests: Ben Jaffe, George Wein, Judy Collins, Phil And Brad Cook, Kari Estrin, Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Jim James, Jay Sweet, Kristian Mattson, Margo Price, Brittany Howard, Danny Clinch, Jess Wolfe, Holly Laessig And Yola. --------- Visit SunsetLakeCBD.com and use promo code FESTIVAL for 20% of premium CBD products Visit Melophy.com and use promo code FESTIVAL for 20% off your first virtual lesson. Visit GarciaHandPicked.com to find Garcia cannabis products near you and to learn more.  Have you heard Black Pumas self-titled debut album? Don't miss a chance to see Black Pumas live if they come to your town and pick up a copy of their album wherever you purchase or stream music. Visit TheBlackPumas.com to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Festival Circuit: Newport Folk!  In our first episode, we take you straight to historic Fort Adams State Park, the site where the Newport Folk family gathers to celebrate music and community each July. We learn directly from Newport crew members about the energy, planning, work, and love that goes into envisioning and building the festival each year. We'll take you across the Harbor, through the gates, and into the Fort to experience Newport through the eyes, ears, and hearts of some of the people who are at the center of making Newport Folk what it is, year after year. And we'll find out why one Veteran Nurse from Newport takes her vacation days every summer to stand at her gate. This is where we begin to weave together some of the voices and stories across the decades that all make up the fabric of the bigger story of how Newport Folk has endured and continues to offer magic and the unexpected, for all. We'll see you at the Fort, don't forget to hydrate and wear sunscreen! Festival Circuit: Newport Folk is presented by Osiris Media, and hosted by Carmel Holt. It is co-written, co-produced and edited by Carmel and Julian Booker, who is also the series' audio engineer. Production assistance from Zach Brogan. Executive producers are RJ Bee and Christina Collins. Show Logo and Art by Mark Dowd.  The theme music is "Ruminations Pt. 3 (Afternoon Haze)" by Steven Warwick. Thanks to Billy Glassner of the Newport Festivals Foundation for providing archival audio. And many thanks to our folk family guests Mary Ann Crook, Alison Pangakis, Art Jenkins, Pete Caigan, Pete Hanlon, Judy Collins, Colin Meloy, Jay Sweet, George Wein, Jim James, Brian Lima, Brittany Howard, John McCauley, Phil and Brad Cook, Margo Price, Jody Whelan, Jess Wolfe, Holly Laessig, and Amy Ray. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

T.G. Sheppard is a Country Music Legend. He's had 22 #1 hits including “I Loved ‘Em Every One”, “Do You Wanna Go To Heaven” and “Slow Burn”. He's recorded with Judy Collins. He's the voice of the Folgers Coffee commercial. His most recent album is “Midnight In Memphis” for which the title song was written for him by Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees.My featured song is “My Love” from the album Bobby M and the Paisley Parade. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------Connect with T.G. at:www.tgsheppard.com—---------------------------------------ROBERT'S SINGLES:“THE RICH ONES ALL STARS” is Robert's latest single featuring the following 8 World Class musicians: Billy Cobham (Drums), Randy Brecker (Flugelhorn), John Helliwell (Sax), Pat Coil (Piano), Peter Tiehuis (Guitar), Antonio Farao (Keys), Elliott Randall (Guitar) and David Amram (Pennywhistle).Click HERE for the Official VideoClick HERE for All Links—----------------------------------------“SOSTICE” is Robert's single with a rockin' Old School vibe. Called “Stunning!”, “A Gem!”, “Magnificent!” and “5 Stars!”.Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's ballad arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene and turned into a horn-driven Samba. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES”. Robert's Jazz Fusion “Tone Poem”. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's sublime, atmospheric Jazz Fusion tune. Featuring guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

The legendary Judy Collins returns to Jrodconcerts: The Podcast for a captivating conversation filled with wisdom, music, and hope. Join us as we celebrate Judy's upcoming 85th birthday and her incredible journey through the world of folk music. We delve into her upcoming birthday celebration tour, including a highly anticipated stop at Nashville's iconic Ryman Auditorium on February 22nd, 2025. In this intimate conversation, Judy shares her thoughts on the labels of "savant" and "prodigy," reflects on the Bob Dylan movie, and offers invaluable insights on staying hopeful during times of political and personal turmoil. Judy also shares the unique art of writing poems vs writing a song. Tune in for an inspiring and uplifting episode with the one and only Judy Collins!  Later this spring, Judy Collins will release Sometimes It's Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss and Redemption via Andrews McNeil on March 25th. Tickets for her tour are now on sale. _______ Support the Show: DUNKIN': Try Jamie's favorite Butter Pecan Iced Coffee at your local Dunkin'! Order in-store or order ahead of time on the Dunkin' app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is my 2024 HIGHLIGHTS SHOW featuring 10 incredible artists who appeared on the podcast this past year. I chose these artists more or less randomly out of the 116 episodes I aired in 2024. I could have chosen many others as well. But this episode will give you a good idea of the depth and scope of the podcast and my wonderful guests.The featured artists in this Highlights Show are as follows:AL KOOPER - Rock LegendBlood Sweat & Tears, Supersession, Dylan's “Like A Rolling Stone”PETER ERSKINE - Acclaimed Jazz DrummerWeather Report. Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson Big BandsJUDY COLLINS - Celebrated Singer/Songwriter“Both Sides Now”; “Send In The Clowns”; Subject of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” DAVID AMRAM - National TreasureFirst Composer in Residence for the NY Philharmonic; Shakespeare In The ParkAUGUSTIN HADELICH - Acclaimed ViolinistClassical and Bluegrass; “Orange Blossom Special”CORY WONG - Extraordinary Funk GuitaristCory Wong and the Wongnotes; The Fearless Flyers; VulfpeckAMANDA WARNER aka MNDR - Grammy Winning Electro-Pop ArtistFeatured on “Bang Bang Bang”. Kylie Minogue, Rita OraLACY J. DALTON - Country and Americana Music StarCountry's Bonnie Raitt; “Hot Coffee”, “16th Avenue”CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE - Superstar Musician/BassistMusic Director, Newport Jazz Festival; Paul McCartney, Freddie Hubbard, StingOSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II - Broadway's Greatest Lyricist“The Sound Of Music”, “Oklahoma”, “The King And I”---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------ROBERT'S SINGLES:“THE RICH ONES ALL STARS” is Robert's latest single featuring the following 8 World Class musicians: Billy Cobham (Drums), Randy Brecker (Flugelhorn), John Helliwell (Sax), Pat Coil (Piano), Peter Tiehuis (Guitar), Antonio Farao (Keys), Elliott Randall (Guitar) and David Amram (Pennywhistle).Click HERE for the Official VideoClick HERE for All Links—----------------------------------------“SOSTICE” is Robert's single with a rockin' Old School vibe. Called “Stunning!”, “A Gem!”, “Magnificent!” and “5 Stars!”.Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's ballad arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene and turned into a horn-driven Samba. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES”. Robert's Jazz Fusion “Tone Poem”. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's sublime, atmospheric Jazz Fusion tune. Featuring guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com  

Among the walnut shells, wrapping paper, dried tangerine peel and broken toys beneath the Christmas Tree Of News we found a few unopened presents, among them … … Marine Homicide Unit solving murders in Scottish waters or former rock star dumping toxic waste? A crime drama Stackwaddy special. … Roy Bittan, Duke Ellington: how musical “professors” date back to ragtime. …'Suzanne' and the other three songs Leonard Cohen gave away. … Mary Martin, unsung connector and catalyst of folk-rock. … how the spare, monochrome simplicity of John Wesley Harding flew against the prevailing wind of Disraeli Gears, Forever Changes and Magical Mystery Tour. … “I'd rather be dead than wet my bed”. … the invention of the “blockbuster album”. … she's only human: what Judy Collins thought when she met Leonard Cohen. … Crowded House, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Ian Broudie, Patti Smith … when did having your kids in your band become almost compulsory? … producer Richard Perry's journey from Beefheart to the “surrealistic vaudeville” of Tiny Tim to the pure genius of ‘You're So Vain'. Plus a rare moment - something David Hepworth doesn't know! - and birthday guest Sandra Austin.Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Among the walnut shells, wrapping paper, dried tangerine peel and broken toys beneath the Christmas Tree Of News we found a few unopened presents, among them … … Marine Homicide Unit solving murders in Scottish waters or former rock star dumping toxic waste? A crime drama Stackwaddy special. … Roy Bittan, Duke Ellington: how musical “professors” date back to ragtime. …'Suzanne' and the other three songs Leonard Cohen gave away. … Mary Martin, unsung connector and catalyst of folk-rock. … how the spare, monochrome simplicity of John Wesley Harding flew against the prevailing wind of Disraeli Gears, Forever Changes and Magical Mystery Tour. … “I'd rather be dead than wet my bed”. … the invention of the “blockbuster album”. … she's only human: what Judy Collins thought when she met Leonard Cohen. … Crowded House, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Ian Broudie, Patti Smith … when did having your kids in your band become almost compulsory? … producer Richard Perry's journey from Beefheart to the “surrealistic vaudeville” of Tiny Tim to the pure genius of ‘You're So Vain'. Plus a rare moment - something David Hepworth doesn't know! - and birthday guest Sandra Austin.Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Among the walnut shells, wrapping paper, dried tangerine peel and broken toys beneath the Christmas Tree Of News we found a few unopened presents, among them … … Marine Homicide Unit solving murders in Scottish waters or former rock star dumping toxic waste? A crime drama Stackwaddy special. … Roy Bittan, Duke Ellington: how musical “professors” date back to ragtime. …'Suzanne' and the other three songs Leonard Cohen gave away. … Mary Martin, unsung connector and catalyst of folk-rock. … how the spare, monochrome simplicity of John Wesley Harding flew against the prevailing wind of Disraeli Gears, Forever Changes and Magical Mystery Tour. … “I'd rather be dead than wet my bed”. … the invention of the “blockbuster album”. … she's only human: what Judy Collins thought when she met Leonard Cohen. … Crowded House, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Ian Broudie, Patti Smith … when did having your kids in your band become almost compulsory? … producer Richard Perry's journey from Beefheart to the “surrealistic vaudeville” of Tiny Tim to the pure genius of ‘You're So Vain'. Plus a rare moment - something David Hepworth doesn't know! - and birthday guest Sandra Austin.Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 24 December 2024 - 4 p.m. A Festival of Lessons and Carols Some early childhood Christmases in my native Ohio were spent at my aunt's home in Youngstown, where my father was born. His mother, Grandma Mary, was still on this side of heaven and holding forth from the kitchen, bracciole and hot sausages simmering in her pot. What I remember most after the smells, was the travel. An hour's drive in the snow and ice, my dad's hands flying from the wheel as he issued commentary on the evening, me braced between my younger sisters in adjoining car seats, and my mom pregnant with our next sister, calming us with songs of Judy Collins. All of us were draped with blankets, guarding us from the unreliable heat of an aging Volkswagen Rabbit.

Maggie and Joan discuss Joan's latest book "When You See My Mother, Ask her to Dance" And we discuss her beautiful artistic legacy and political activism. Including the documentary Joan Baez: I Am a Noise Neither a conventional biopic nor a traditional concert film, Joan Baez I Am A Noise is a raw and intimate portrait of the legendary folk singer and activist that shifts back and forth through time as it follows Joan on her final tour and delves into her extraordinary archive, including newly discovered home movies, diaries, artwork, therapy tapes, and audio recordings. An intimate, autobiographical poetry collection from legendary artist and activist, Joan Baez.Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.While Baez has been writing poetry for decades, she's never shared it publicly. Poems about her life, her family, about her passions for nature and art, have piled up in notebooks and on scraps of paper. Now, for the first time ever, her life is shared revealing pivotal life experiences that shaped an icon, offering a never-before-seen look into the reminiscences and musings of a great artist.Like a late-night chat with someone you love, this collection connects fans to the real heart of who Joan Baez is as a person, as a daughter and sister, and as an artist who has inspired millions.Source: https://godine.com/products/when-you-see-my-mother-ask-her-to-danceSource: https://www.magpictures.com/joanbaez/homeHost Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994.Send us a textSupport the show@profileswithmaggielepique@maggielepique

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. Members of bands like the Byrds, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, CSN, Three Dog Night and Love, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor and Carole King, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would like to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians and intelligence personnel – the same sort of people who gave birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all the canyon's colorful characters – rock stars, hippies, murderers and politicos – happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. Members of bands like the Byrds, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, CSN, Three Dog Night and Love, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor and Carole King, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would like to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians and intelligence personnel – the same sort of people who gave birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all the canyon's colorful characters – rock stars, hippies, murderers and politicos – happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

ABOUT TONY LEVIN: Tony Levin is one of the most accomplished bass players in the history of rock music. He is also an author and true innovator. Whether it be his solo music, collaborations or as a member or recording with others. His most notable bass playing albums and tours have been with: Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Paula Cole, James Taylor & more.... ABOUT THE PODCAST:  Candid discussions with and about those behind the scenes in the music business including industry veterans representing the segments of: Musician, Design & Live ABOUT THE HOSTS: All three Music Buzzz Podcast hosts (Dane Clark, Hugh Syme and Andy Wilson) have spent their careers working with the biggest names in entertainment and have been, and still are, a fly on the wall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ABOUT TONY LEVIN: Tony Levin is one of the most accomplished bass players in the history of rock music. He is also an author and true innovator. Whether it be his solo music, collaborations or as a member or recording with others. His most notable bass playing albums and tours have been with: Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Paula Cole, James Taylor & more.... ABOUT THE PODCAST:  Candid discussions with and about those behind the scenes in the music business including industry veterans representing the segments of: Musician, Design & Live ABOUT THE HOSTS: All three Music Buzzz Podcast hosts (Dane Clark, Hugh Syme and Andy Wilson) have spent their careers working with the biggest names in entertainment and have been, and still are, a fly on the wall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THIS IS SUMMIT WEEK! Three Summits featuring some of the world's best Saxophonists, Bassists and Drummers. Today is BASS SUMMIT with:Ron Carter, the Maestro. He's probably the most revered bassist of all time and certainly the most recorded jazz bassist. He's a 3x Grammy winner. He was a member of Miles Davis's groundbreaking quintet in the 1960s. He's played with just about everyone and won numerous awards.Jerry Jemmott, the Groovemaster. He defined the electric bass in the 1960s and 1970s in soul, blues and jazz. He's a 2x Grammy winner. He's recorded with a Who's Who including Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Roberta Flack, B.B. King and Chuck Berry among others.Mark Egan is one of the premier electric bassists of our time. He's played on many jazz and pop albums and movie and TV soundtracks. He's recorded with Sting, Judy Collins, Roger Daltrey and Larry Coryell among others. He was a member of the Pat Metheny Group and Gil Evans for 13 years.My featured song is “The Rich Ones”. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here .To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------ROBERT'S SINGLES:“SOSTICE” is Robert's newest single, with a rockin' Old School vibe. Called “Stunning!”, “A Gem!”, “Magnificent!” and “5 Stars!”.Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's ballad arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene and turned into a horn-driven Samba. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES”. Robert's Jazz Fusion “Tone Poem”. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's sublime, atmospheric Jazz Fusion tune. Featuring guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

Kate McDonnell has captivated audiences all over the world with her award-winning songwriting, her unusual upside down and backwards guitar style, and her crystalline voice.  Kate was in the Heartland for a couple of shows in 2024 including Howard Dolginoff's Labyrinth House Concert Series.  She was kind enough to come onto my radio show during a Pledge Drive to help me raise money for community radio.  Kate comes from generations of musicians on both sides: her maternal grandfather (trumpet) and great grandfather (trombone and viola) performed with the National and Baltimore Symphonies. Kate's father sang in operettas in his younger years, and her mother continues to play anything she can hear on the piano in F#, just as her own mother did. All three of Kate's siblings have the musical gift.  Armed with her unusual guitar style and soprano voice, Kate teamed with her twin sister to perform around their Baltimore hometown during their high school and college years. After a four-year sabbatical from performance in the mid-80s, Kate returned to music by partnering with guitarist Freddie Tane, at one time a member of Bill Haley's Comets.  That duo cut two self-released albums during their collaboration and opened shows for touring stars such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Judy Collins.  In 1989, Kate started writing her own songs and began racking up serious critical recognition like being named a New Folk Finalist at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas and a finalist at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Showcase in New York State.  Kate's latest work, “Trapeze” introduced here on the Tasty Brew was released in September 2024.  Enjoy this conversation and in studio performance with New York's Kate McDonnell. 

She will perform at the Lyric Theater in Birmingham on November 11See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Entertainment news..."Steve's Turn"...interview with Judy Collins..."Question of the Day"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He's 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about … … “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”. … Nick Drake's confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I'd never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions. … the way Fairport recorded – “We're only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year. …managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”. … John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake. … Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel. … and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time' was the job he remembers the fondest. Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze. John's got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textWelcome to Guess the Year! This is an interactive, competitive podcast series where you will be able to play along and compete against your fellow listeners. Here is how the scoring works:10 points: Get the year dead on!7 points: 1-2 years off4 points: 3-5 years off1 point: 6-10 years offGuesses can be emailed to drandrewmay@gmail.com or texted using the link at the top of the show notes (please leave your name).I will read your scores out before the next episode, along with the scores of your fellow listeners! Please email your guesses to Andrew no later than 12pm EST on the day the next episode posts if you want them read out on the episode (e.g., if an episode releases on Monday, then I need your guesses by 12pm EST on Wednesday; if an episode releases on Friday, then I need your guesses by 12 pm EST on Monday). Note: If you don't get your scores in on time, they will still be added to the overall scores I am keeping. So they will count for the final scores - in other words, you can catch up if you get behind, you just won't have your scores read out on the released episode. All I need is your guesses (e.g., Song 1 - 19xx, Song 2 - 20xx, Song 3 - 19xx, etc.).Please be honest with your guesses! Best of luck!!The answers to today's ten songs can be found below. If you are playing along, don't scroll down until you have made your guesses. .....Have you made your guesses yet? If so, you can scroll down and look at the answers......Okay, answers coming. Don't peek if you haven't made your guesses yet!.....Intro song: when the party's over by Billie Eilish (2018)Song 1: This is Not a Test by Oppenheimer (2006)Song 2: So Long, Farewell by The Cast of The Sound of Music (1965)Song 3: Lift Me Up by Jeff Lynne (1990)Song 4: Irene (Goodnight Irene) by Lead Belly (1933)Song 5: Story of My Life by Loretta Lynn (2004)Song 6: Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus (1988)Song 7: Hey Mister by Henry Ate (1996)Song 8: Jamaica Farewell by Harry Belafonte (1956)Song 9: Grand Canyon by Judy Collins (2022)Song 10: This is Where It Ends by Barenaked Ladies (1996)

When an art song and opera composer writes a memoir, what does that process look like? Does mastery in one creative realm translate to another? How is an aria like a story?  I just loved this deep and passionate conversation with Ricky Ian Gordon, author of the new memoir SEEING THROUGH: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera.   Ricky Ian Gordon was born in Oceanside, NY and raised on Long Island. After studying piano, composition, and acting, at Carnegie Mellon University, he settled in New York City, where he quickly emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera, and musical theater. Gordon's songs have been performed and recorded by Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Nathan Gunn, Judy Collins, Kelli O'Hara, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, and many others. His works include Dream True, Orpheus and Euridice, Green Sneakers for Baritone, String Quartet, Empty Chair, and Piano, The Grapes of Wrath, and Intimate Apparel. His memoir SEEING THROUGH: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera was published in July 2024. Check out the book here or follow Ricky at his website, or @rickyiangordon on X and Instagram.   Thanks for joining me on Crushing Classical!  Theme music and audio editing by DreamVance. You can join my email list HERE, so you never miss an episode! I help people to lean into their creative careers and start or grow their income streams. You can read more or hop onto a short discovery call from my website. I'm your host, Jennet Ingle. I love you all. Stay safe out there!      

Welcome to SUPERSTARS WEEK! This week I'm rebroadcasting my interviews with five Superstars: Judy Collins, Al Kooper, David Amram, Ron Carter and Oscar Hammerstein II. David Amram is a National Treasure. He's a Musical Giant in Classical, Jazz and Popular music. He's performed with a Who's Who in all three genres including Aaron Copeland, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Judy Collins. Leonard Bernstein named him the first Composer-In-Residence for the New York Philharmonic. Joseph Papp hired him to compose scores for the New York Shakespeare Festival. He's written movie scores for “Splendor In The Grass” and “The Manchurian Candidate” among others. And at 93 years young he's still going strong!My featured song is “It Is A Miracle To Me” from the album East Side Sessions by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's new single featuring his song arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES” is Robert's recent single. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's recent single. With guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's debut album, recorded in 1994, was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with David at:www.davidamram.com Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

Welcome to SUPERSTARS WEEK! This week I'm rebroadcasting my interviews with five Superstars: Judy Collins, Al Kooper, David Amram, Ron Carter and Oscar Hammerstein II. Judy Collins is an iconic Renaissance Artist and Grammy Winning Singer/Songwriter with 55 albums and hit singles including Joni Mitchell's “Both Sides Now” and Stephen Sondheim's “Send In The Clowns”. She has been a dominating force in social activism, as a filmmaker, author and as a keynote speaker. And she had one of the greatest songs of the rock era written about her - “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Stephen Stills and Crosby Stills and Nash. In this wonderful interview we discuss her background and successes, including her artistic formative years in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s with fellow artists Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, Richie Havens and Peter Paul and Mary, and she tells a few terrific stories. And we do a Double Songfest. In the first one we play and discuss several songs by other artists who she loves including Shawn Colvin and Joan Baez, and in the second one we play and discuss some of her greatest works. This is truly a “don't miss” episode. My featured song is “Stockbridge Fanfare” from the East Side Sessions album by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's new single featuring his song arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES” is Robert's recent single. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's recent single. With guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's debut album, recorded in 1994, was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with Judy atwww.judycollins.com Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

For those who haven't heard the announcement I just posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a multi-episode look at the Byrds in 1966-69 and the birth of country rock. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode, on "With a Little Help From My Friends" by Joe Cocker. 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 No Mixcloud at this time as there are too many Byrds songs in the first chunk, but I will try to put together a multi-part Mixcloud when all the episodes for this song are up. My main source for the Byrds is Timeless Flight Revisited by Johnny Rogan, I also used Chris Hillman's autobiography, the 331/3 books on The Notorious Byrd Brothers and The Gilded Palace of Sin, I used Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California and John Einarson's Desperadoes as general background on Californian country-rock, Calling Me Hone, Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock by Bob Kealing for information on Parsons, and Requiem For The Timeless Vol 2 by Johnny Rogan for information about the post-Byrds careers of many members. Information on Gary Usher comes from The California Sound by Stephen McParland. And this three-CD set is a reasonable way of getting most of the Byrds' important recordings. The International Submarine Band's only album can be bought from Bandcamp. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we begin, a brief warning – this episode contains brief mentions of suicide, alcoholism, abortion, and heroin addiction, and a brief excerpt of chanting of a Nazi slogan. If you find those subjects upsetting, you may want to read the transcript rather than listen. As we heard in the last part, in October 1967 Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman fired David Crosby from the Byrds. It was only many years later, in a conversation with the group's ex-manager Jim Dickson, that Crosby realised that they didn't actually have a legal right to fire him -- the Byrds had no partnership agreement, and according to Dickson given that the original group had been Crosby, McGuinn, and Gene Clark, it would have been possible for Crosby and McGuinn to fire Hillman, but not for McGuinn and Hillman to fire Crosby. But Crosby was unaware of this at the time, and accepted a pay-off, with which he bought a boat and sailed to Florida, where saw a Canadian singer-songwriter performing live: [Excerpt: Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides Now (live Ann Arbor, MI, 27/10/67)"] We'll find out what happened when David Crosby brought Joni Mitchell back to California in a future story... With Crosby gone, the group had a major problem. They were known for two things -- their jangly twelve-string guitar and their soaring harmonies. They still had the twelve-string, even in their new slimmed-down trio format, but they only had two of their four vocalists -- and while McGuinn had sung lead on most of their hits, the sound of the Byrds' harmony had been defined by Crosby on the high harmonies and Gene Clark's baritone. There was an obvious solution available, of course, and they took it. Gene Clark had quit the Byrds in large part because of his conflicts with David Crosby, and had remained friendly with the others. Clark's solo album had featured Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke, and had been produced by Gary Usher who was now producing the Byrds' records, and it had been a flop and he was at a loose end. After recording the Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers album, Clark had started work with Curt Boettcher, a singer-songwriter-producer who had produced hits for Tommy Roe and the Association, and who was currently working with Gary Usher. Boettcher produced two tracks for Clark, but they went unreleased: [Excerpt: Gene Clark, "Only Colombe"] That had been intended as the start of sessions for an album, but Clark had been dropped by Columbia rather than getting to record a second album. He had put together a touring band with guitarist Clarence White, bass player John York, and session drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh, but hadn't played many gigs, and while he'd been demoing songs for a possible second solo album he didn't have a record deal to use them on. Chisa Records, a label co-owned by Larry Spector, Peter Fonda, and Hugh Masekela, had put out some promo copies of one track, "Yesterday, Am I Right", but hadn't released it properly: [Excerpt: Gene Clark, "Yesterday, Am I Right"] Clark, like the Byrds, had left Dickson and Tickner's management organisation and signed with Larry Spector, and Spector was wanting to make the most of his artists -- and things were very different for the Byrds now. Clark had had three main problems with being in the Byrds -- ego clashes with David Crosby, the stresses of being a pop star with a screaming teenage fanbase, and his fear of flying. Clark had really wanted to have the same kind of role in the Byrds that Brian Wilson had with the Beach Boys -- appear on the records, write songs, do TV appearances, maybe play local club gigs, but not go on tour playing to screaming fans. But now David Crosby was out of the group and there were no screaming fans any more -- the Byrds weren't having the kind of pop hits they'd had a few years earlier and were now playing to the hippie audience. Clark promised that with everything else being different, he could cope with the idea of flying -- if necessary he'd just take tranquilisers or get so drunk he passed out. So Gene Clark rejoined the Byrds. According to some sources he sang on their next single, "Goin' Back," though I don't hear his voice in the mix: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Goin' Back"] According to McGuinn, Clark was also an uncredited co-writer on one song on the album they were recording, "Get to You". But before sessions had gone very far, the group went on tour. They appeared on the Smothers Brothers TV show, miming their new single and "Mr. Spaceman", and Clark seemed in good spirits, but on the tour of the Midwest that followed, according to their road manager of the time, Clark was terrified, singing flat and playing badly, and his guitar and vocal mic were left out of the mix. And then it came time to get on a plane, and Clark's old fears came back, and he refused to fly from Minneapolis to New York with the rest of the group, instead getting a train back to LA. And that was the end of Clark's second stint in the Byrds. For the moment, the Byrds decided they were going to continue as a trio on stage and a duo in the studio -- though Michael Clarke did make an occasional return to the sessions as they progressed. But of course, McGuinn and Hillman couldn't record an album entirely by themselves. They did have several tracks in a semi-completed state still featuring Crosby, but they needed people to fill his vocal and instrumental roles on the remaining tracks. For the vocals, Usher brought in his friend and collaborator Curt Boettcher, with whom he was also working at the time in a band called Sagittarius: [Excerpt: Sagittarius, "Another Time"] Boettcher was a skilled harmony vocalist -- according to Usher, he was one of the few vocal arrangers that Brian Wilson looked up to, and Jerry Yester had said of the Modern Folk Quartet that “the only vocals that competed with us back then was Curt Boettcher's group” -- and he was more than capable of filling Crosby's vocal gap, but there was never any real camaraderie between him and the Byrds. He particularly disliked McGuinn, who he said "was just such a poker face. He never let you know where you stood. There was never any lightness," and he said of the sessions as a whole "I was really thrilled to be working with The Byrds, and, at the same time, I was glad when it was all over. There was just no fun, and they were such weird guys to work with. They really freaked me out!" Someone else who Usher brought in, who seems to have made a better impression, was Red Rhodes: [Excerpt: Red Rhodes, "Red's Ride"] Rhodes was a pedal steel player, and one of the few people to make a career on the instrument outside pure country music, which is the genre with which the instrument is usually identified. Rhodes was a country player, but he was the country pedal steel player of choice for musicians from the pop and folk-rock worlds. He worked with Usher and Boettcher on albums by Sagittarius and the Millennium, and played on records by Cass Elliot, Carole King, the Beach Boys, and the Carpenters, among many others -- though he would be best known for his longstanding association with Michael Nesmith of the Monkees, playing on most of Nesmith's recordings from 1968 through 1992. Someone else who was associated with the Monkees was Moog player Paul Beaver, who we talked about in the episode on "Hey Jude", and who had recently played on the Monkees' Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd album: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Star Collector"] And the fourth person brought in to help the group out was someone who was already familiar to them. Clarence White was, like Red Rhodes, from the country world -- he'd started out in a bluegrass group called the Kentucky Colonels: [Excerpt: The Kentucky Colonels, "Clinch Mountain Backstep"] But White had gone electric and formed one of the first country-rock bands, a group named Nashville West, as well as becoming a popular session player. He had already played on a couple of tracks on Younger Than Yesterday, as well as playing with Hillman and Michael Clarke on Gene Clark's album with the Gosdin Brothers and being part of Clark's touring band with John York and "Fast" Eddie Hoh. The album that the group put together with these session players was a triumph of sequencing and production. Usher had recently been keen on the idea of crossfading tracks into each other, as the Beatles had on Sgt Pepper, and had done the same on the two Chad and Jeremy albums he produced. By clever crossfading and mixing, Usher managed to create something that had the feel of being a continuous piece, despite being the product of several very different creative minds, with Usher's pop sensibility and arrangement ideas being the glue that held everything together. McGuinn was interested in sonic experimentation. He, more than any of the others, seems to have been the one who was most pushing for them to use the Moog, and he continued his interest in science fiction, with a song, "Space Odyssey", inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke short story "The Sentinel", which was also the inspiration for the then-forthcoming film 2001: A Space Odyssey: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Space Odyssey"] Then there was Chris Hillman, who was coming up with country material like "Old John Robertson": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Old John Robertson"] And finally there was David Crosby. Even though he'd been fired from the group, both McGuinn and Hillman didn't see any problem with using the songs he had already contributed. Three of the album's eleven songs are compositions that are primarily by Crosby, though they're all co-credited to either Hillman or both Hillman and McGuinn. Two of those songs are largely unchanged from Crosby's original vision, just finished off by the rest of the group after his departure, but one song is rather different: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Draft Morning"] "Draft Morning" was a song that was important to Crosby, and was about his -- and the group's -- feelings about the draft and the ongoing Vietnam War. It was a song that had meant a lot to him, and he'd been part of the recording for the backing track. But when it came to doing the final vocals, McGuinn and Hillman had a problem -- they couldn't remember all the words to the song, and obviously there was no way they were going to get Crosby to give them the original lyrics. So they rewrote it, coming up with new lyrics where they couldn't remember the originals: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Draft Morning"] But there was one other contribution to the track that was very distinctively the work of Usher. Gary Usher had a predilection at this point for putting musique concrete sections in otherwise straightforward pop songs. He'd done it with "Fakin' It" by Simon and Garfunkel, on which he did uncredited production work, and did it so often that it became something of a signature of records on Columbia in 1967 and 68, even being copied by his friend Jim Guercio on "Susan" by the Buckinghams. Usher had done this, in particular, on the first two singles by Sagittarius, his project with Curt Boettcher. In particular, the second Sagittarius single, "Hotel Indiscreet", had had a very jarring section (and a warning here, this contains some brief chanting of a Nazi slogan): [Excerpt: Sagittarius, "Hotel Indiscreet"] That was the work of a comedy group that Usher had discovered and signed to Columbia. The Firesign Theatre were so named because, like Usher, they were all interested in astrology, and they were all "fire signs".  Usher was working on their first album, Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him, at the same time as he was working on the Byrds album: [Excerpt: The Firesign Theatre, "W.C. Fields Forever"] And he decided to bring in the Firesigns to contribute to "Draft Morning": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Draft Morning"] Crosby was, understandably, apoplectic when he heard the released version of "Draft Morning". As far as Hillman and McGuinn were concerned, it was always a Byrds song, and just because Crosby had left the band didn't mean they couldn't use material he'd written for the Byrds. Crosby took a different view, saying later "It was one of the sleaziest things they ever did. I had an entire song finished. They just casually rewrote it and decided to take half the credit. How's that? Without even asking me. I had a finished song, entirely mine. I left. They did the song anyway. They rewrote it and put it in their names. And mine was better. They just took it because they didn't have enough songs." What didn't help was that the publicity around the album, titled The Notorious Byrd Brothers minimised Crosby's contributions. Crosby is on five of the eleven tracks -- as he said later, "I'm all over that album, they just didn't give me credit. I played, I sang, I wrote, I even played bass on one track, and they tried to make out that I wasn't even on it, that they could be that good without me." But the album, like earlier Byrds albums, didn't have credits saying who played what, and the cover only featured McGuinn, Hillman, and Michael Clarke in the photo -- along with a horse, which Crosby took as another insult, as representing him. Though as McGuinn said, "If we had intended to do that, we would have turned the horse around". Even though Michael Clarke was featured on the cover, and even owned the horse that took Crosby's place, by the time the album came out he too had been fired. Unlike Crosby, he went quietly and didn't even ask for any money. According to McGuinn, he was increasingly uninterested in being in the band -- suffering from depression, and missing the teenage girls who had been the group's fans a year or two earlier. He gladly stopped being a Byrd, and went off to work in a hotel instead. In his place came Hillman's cousin, Kevin Kelley, fresh out of a band called the Rising Sons: [Excerpt: The Rising Sons, "Take a Giant Step"] We've mentioned the Rising Sons briefly in some previous episodes, but they were one of the earliest LA folk-rock bands, and had been tipped to go on to greater things -- and indeed, many of them did, though not as part of the Rising Sons. Jesse Lee Kincaid, the least well-known of the band, only went on to release a couple of singles and never had much success, but his songs were picked up by other acts -- his "Baby You Come Rollin' 'Cross My Mind" was a minor hit for the Peppermint Trolley Company: [Excerpt: The Peppermint Trolley Company, "Baby You Come Rollin' 'Cross My Mind"] And Harry Nilsson recorded Kincaid's "She Sang Hymns Out of Tune": [Excerpt: Harry Nilsson, "She Sang Hymns Out of Tune"] But Kincaid was the least successful of the band members, and most of the other members are going to come up in future episodes of the podcast -- bass player Gary Marker played for a while with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, lead singer Taj Mahal is one of the most respected blues singers of the last sixty years, original drummer Ed Cassidy went on to form the progressive rock band Spirit, and lead guitarist Ry Cooder went on to become one of the most important guitarists in rock music. Kelley had been the last to join the Rising Sons, replacing Cassidy but he was in the band by the time they released their one single, a version of Rev. Gary Davis' "Candy Man" produced by Terry Melcher, with Kincaid on lead vocals: [Excerpt: The Rising Sons, "Candy Man"] That hadn't been a success, and the group's attempt at a follow-up, the Goffin and King song "Take a Giant Step", which we heard earlier, was blocked from release by Columbia as being too druggy -- though there were no complaints when the Monkees released their version as the B-side to "Last Train to Clarksville". The Rising Sons, despite being hugely popular as a live act, fell apart without ever releasing a second single. According to Marker, Mahal realised that he would be better off as a solo artist, but also Columbia didn't know how to market a white group with a Black lead vocalist (leading to Kincaid singing lead on their one released single, and producer Terry Melcher trying to get Mahal to sing more like a white singer on "Take a Giant Step"), and some in the band thought that Terry Melcher was deliberately trying to sink their career because they refused to sign to his publishing company. After the band split up, Marker and Kelley had formed a band called Fusion, which Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan describes as being a jazz-fusion band, presumably because of their name. Listening to the one album the group recorded, it is in fact more blues-rock, very like the music Marker made with the Rising Sons and Captain Beefheart. But Kelley's not on that album, because before it was recorded he was approached by his cousin Chris Hillman and asked to join the Byrds. At the time, Fusion were doing so badly that Kelley had to work a day job in a clothes shop, so he was eager to join a band with a string of hits who were just about to conclude a lucrative renegotiation of their record contract -- a renegotiation which may have played a part in McGuinn and Hillman firing Crosby and Clarke, as they were now the only members on the new contracts. The choice of Kelley made a lot of sense. He was mostly just chosen because he was someone they knew and they needed a drummer in a hurry -- they needed someone new to promote The Notorious Byrd Brothers and didn't have time to go through a laborious process of audtioning, and so just choosing Hillman's cousin made sense, but Kelley also had a very strong, high voice, and so he could fill in the harmony parts that Crosby had sung, stopping the new power-trio version of the band from being *too* thin-sounding in comparison to the five-man band they'd been not that much earlier. The Notorious Byrd Brothers was not a commercial success -- it didn't even make the top forty in the US, though it did in the UK -- to the presumed chagrin of Columbia, who'd just paid a substantial amount of money for this band who were getting less successful by the day. But it was, though, a gigantic critical success, and is generally regarded as the group's creative pinnacle. Robert Christgau, for example, talked about how LA rather than San Francisco was where the truly interesting music was coming from, and gave guarded praise to Captain Beefheart, Van Dyke Parks, and the Fifth Dimension (the vocal group, not the Byrds album) but talked about three albums as being truly great -- the Beach Boys' Wild Honey, Love's Forever Changes, and The Notorious Byrd Brothers. (He also, incidentally, talked about how the two songs that Crosby's new discovery Joni Mitchell had contributed to a Judy Collins album were much better than most folk music, and how he could hardly wait for her first album to come out). And that, more or less, was the critical consensus about The Notorious Byrd Brothers -- that it was, in Christgau's words "simply the best album the Byrds have ever recorded" and that "Gone are the weak--usually folky--tracks that have always flawed their work." McGuinn, though, thought that the album wasn't yet what he wanted. He had become particularly excited by the potentials of the Moog synthesiser -- an instrument that Gary Usher also loved -- during the recording of the album, and had spent a lot of time experimenting with it, coming up with tracks like the then-unreleased "Moog Raga": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Moog Raga"] And McGuinn had a concept for the next Byrds album -- a concept he was very excited about. It was going to be nothing less than a grand sweeping history of American popular music. It was going to be a double album -- the new contract said that they should deliver two albums a year to Columbia, so a double album made sense -- and it would start with Appalachian folk music, go through country, jazz, and R&B, through the folk-rock music the Byrds had previously been known for, and into Moog experimentation. But to do this, the Byrds needed a keyboard player. Not only would a keyboard player help them fill out their thin onstage sound, if they got a jazz keyboardist, then they could cover the jazz material in McGuinn's concept album idea as well. So they went out and looked for a jazz piano player, and happily Larry Spector was managing one. Or at least, Larry Spector was managing someone who *said* he was a jazz pianist. But Gram Parsons said he was a lot of things... [Excerpt: Gram Parsons, "Brass Buttons (1965 version)"] Gram Parsons was someone who had come from a background of unimaginable privilege. His maternal grandfather was the owner of a Florida citrus fruit and real-estate empire so big that his mansion was right in the centre of what was then Florida's biggest theme park -- built on land he owned. As a teenager, Parsons had had a whole wing of his parents' house to himself, and had had servants to look after his every need, and as an adult he had a trust fund that paid him a hundred thousand dollars a year -- which in 1968 dollars would be equivalent to a little under nine hundred thousand in today's money. Two events in his childhood had profoundly shaped the life of young Gram. The first was in February 1956, when he went to see a new singer who he'd heard on the radio, and who according to the local newspaper had just recorded a new song called "Heartburn Motel".  Parsons had tried to persuade his friends that this new singer was about to become a big star -- one of his friends had said "I'll wait til he becomes famous!" As it turned out, the day Parsons and the couple of friends he did manage to persuade to go with him saw Elvis Presley was also the day that "Heartbreak Hotel" entered the Billboard charts at number sixty-eight. But even at this point, Elvis was an obvious star and the headliner of the show. Young Gram was enthralled -- but in retrospect he was more impressed by the other acts he saw on the bill. That was an all-star line-up of country musicians, including Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, and especially the Louvin Brothers, arguably the greatest country music vocal duo of all time: [Excerpt: The Louvin Brothers, "The Christian Life"] Young Gram remained mostly a fan of rockabilly music rather than country, and would remain so for another decade or so, but a seed had been planted. The other event, much more tragic, was the death of his father. Both Parsons' parents were functioning alcoholics, and both by all accounts were unfaithful to each other, and their marriage was starting to break down. Gram's father was also, by many accounts, dealing with what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder from his time serving in the second world war. On December the twenty-third 1958, Gram's father died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Everyone involved seems sure it was suicide, but it was officially recorded as natural causes because of the family's wealth and prominence in the local community. Gram's Christmas present from his parents that year was a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and according to some stories I've read his father had left a last message on a tape in the recorder, but by the time the authorities got to hear it, it had been erased apart from the phrase "I love you, Gram." After that Gram's mother's drinking got even worse, but in most ways his life still seemed charmed, and the descriptions of him as a teenager are about what you'd expect from someone who was troubled, with a predisposition to addiction, but who was also unbelievably wealthy, good-looking, charming, and talented. And the talent was definitely there. One thing everyone is agreed on is that from a very young age Gram Parsons took his music seriously and was determined to make a career as a musician. Keith Richards later said of him "Of the musicians I know personally (although Otis Redding, who I didn't know, fits this too), the two who had an attitude towards music that was the same as mine were Gram Parsons and John Lennon. And that was: whatever bag the business wants to put you in is immaterial; that's just a selling point, a tool that makes it easier. You're going to get chowed into this pocket or that pocket because it makes it easier for them to make charts up and figure out who's selling. But Gram and John were really pure musicians. All they liked was music, and then they got thrown into the game." That's not the impression many other people have of Parsons, who is almost uniformly described as an incessant self-promoter, and who from his teens onwards would regularly plant fake stories about himself in the local press, usually some variant of him having been signed to RCA records. Most people seem to think that image was more important to him than anything. In his teens, he started playing in a series of garage bands around Florida and Georgia, the two states in which he was brought up. One of his early bands was largely created by poaching the rhythm section who were then playing with Kent Lavoie, who later became famous as Lobo and had hits like "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo". Lavoie apparently held a grudge -- decades later he would still say that Parsons couldn't sing or play or write. Another musician on the scene with whom Parsons associated was Bobby Braddock, who would later go on to co-write songs like "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" for Tammy Wynette, and the song "He Stopped Loving Her Today", often considered the greatest country song ever written, for George Jones: [Excerpt: George Jones, "He Stopped Loving Her Today"] Jones would soon become one of Parsons' musical idols, but at this time he was still more interested in being Elvis or Little Richard. We're lucky enough to have a 1962 live recording of one of his garage bands, the Legends -- the band that featured the bass player and drummer he'd poached from Lobo. They made an appearance on a local TV show and a friend with a tape recorder recorded it off the TV and decades later posted it online. Of the four songs in that performance, two are R&B covers -- Little Richard's "Rip It Up" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say?", and a third is the old Western Swing classic "Guitar Boogie Shuffle". But the interesting thing about the version of "Rip it Up" is that it's sung in an Everly Brothers style harmony, and the fourth song is a recording of the Everlys' "Let It Be Me". The Everlys were, of course, hugely influenced by the Louvin Brothers, who had so impressed young Gram six years earlier, and in this performance you can hear for the first time the hints of the style that Parsons would make his own a few years later: [Excerpt: Gram Parsons and the Legends, "Let it Be Me"] Incidentally, the other guitarist in the Legends, Jim Stafford, also went on to a successful musical career, having a top five hit in the seventies with "Spiders & Snakes": [Excerpt: Jim Stafford, "Spiders & Snakes"] Soon after that TV performance though, like many musicians of his generation, Parsons decided to give up on rock and roll, and instead to join a folk group. The group he joined, The Shilos, were a trio who were particularly influenced by the Journeymen, John Phillips' folk group before he formed the Mamas and the Papas, which we talked about in the episode on "San Francisco". At various times the group expanded with the addition of some female singers, trying to capture something of the sound of the New Chrisy Minstrels. In 1964, with the band members still in school, the Shilos decided to make a trip to Greenwich Village and see if they could make the big time as folk-music stars. They met up with John Phillips, and Parsons stayed with John and Michelle Phillips in their home in New York -- this was around the time the two of them were writing "California Dreamin'". Phillips got the Shilos an audition with Albert Grossman, who seemed eager to sign them until he realised they were still schoolchildren just on a break. The group were, though, impressive enough that he was interested, and we have some recordings of them from a year later which show that they were surprisingly good for a bunch of teenagers: [Excerpt: The Shilos, "The Bells of Rhymney"] Other than Phillips, the other major connection that Parsons made in New York was the folk singer Fred Neil, who we've talked about occasionally before. Neil was one of the great songwriters of the Greenwich Village scene, and many of his songs became successful for others -- his "Dolphins" was recorded by Tim Buckley, most famously his "Everybody's Talkin'" was a hit for Harry Nilsson, and he wrote "Another Side of This Life" which became something of a standard -- it was recorded by the Animals and the Lovin' Spoonful, and Jefferson Airplane, as well as recording the song, included it in their regular setlists, including at Monterey: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "The Other Side of This Life (live at Monterey)"] According to at least one biographer, though, Neil had another, more pernicious, influence on Parsons -- he may well have been the one who introduced Parsons to heroin, though several of Parsons' friends from the time said he wasn't yet using hard drugs. By spring 1965, Parsons was starting to rethink his commitment to folk music, particularly after "Mr. Tambourine Man" became a hit. He talked with the other members about their need to embrace the changes in music that Dylan and the Byrds were bringing about, but at the same time he was still interested enough in acoustic music that when he was given the job of arranging the music for his high school graduation, the group he booked were the Dillards. That graduation day was another day that would change Parsons' life -- as it was the day his mother died, of alcohol-induced liver failure. Parsons was meant to go on to Harvard, but first he went back to Greenwich Village for the summer, where he hung out with Fred Neil and Dave Van Ronk (and started using heroin regularly). He went to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, and he was neighbours with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay -- the three of them talked about forming a band together before Stills moved West. And on a brief trip back home to Florida between Greenwich Village and Harvard, Parsons spoke with his old friend Jim Stafford, who made a suggestion to him -- instead of trying to do folk music, which was clearly falling out of fashion, why not try to do *country* music but with long hair like the Beatles? He could be a country Beatle. It would be an interesting gimmick. Parsons was only at Harvard for one semester before flunking out, but it was there that he was fully reintroduced to country music, and in particular to three artists who would influence him more than any others. He'd already been vaguely aware of Buck Owens, whose "Act Naturally" had recently been covered by the Beatles: [Excerpt: Buck Owens, "Act Naturally"] But it was at Harvard that he gained a deeper appreciation of Owens. Owens was the biggest star of what had become known as the Bakersfield Sound, a style of country music that emphasised a stripped-down electric band lineup with Telecaster guitars, a heavy drumbeat, and a clean sound. It came from the same honky-tonk and Western Swing roots as the rockabilly music that Parsons had grown up on, and it appealed to him instinctively.  In particular, Parsons was fascinated by the fact that Owens' latest album had a cover version of a Drifters song on it -- and then he got even more interested when Ray Charles put out his third album of country songs and included a version of Owens' "Together Again": [Excerpt: Ray Charles, "Together Again"] This suggested to Parsons that country music and the R&B he'd been playing previously might not quite be so far apart as he'd thought. At Harvard, Parsons was also introduced to the work of another Bakersfield musician, who like Owens was produced by Ken Nelson, who also produced the Louvin Brothers' records, and who we heard about in previous episodes as he produced Gene Vincent and Wanda Jackson. Merle Haggard had only had one big hit at the time, "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers": [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "(My Friends are Gonna Be) Strangers"] But he was about to start a huge run of country hits that would see every single he released for the next twelve years make the country top ten, most of them making number one. Haggard would be one of the biggest stars in country music, but he was also to be arguably the country musician with the biggest influence on rock music since Johnny Cash, and his songs would soon start to be covered by everyone from the Grateful Dead to the Everly Brothers to the Beach Boys. And the third artist that Parsons was introduced to was someone who, in most popular narratives of country music, is set up in opposition to Haggard and Owens, because they were representatives of the Bakersfield Sound while he was the epitome of the Nashville Sound to which the Bakersfield Sound is placed in opposition, George Jones. But of course anyone with ears will notice huge similarities in the vocal styles of Jones, Haggard, and Owens: [Excerpt: George Jones, "The Race is On"] Owens, Haggard, and Jones are all somewhat outside the scope of this series, but are seriously important musicians in country music. I would urge anyone who's interested in them to check out Tyler Mahan Coe's podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones, season one of which has episodes on Haggard and Owens, as well as on the Louvin Brothers who I also mentioned earlier, and season two of which is entirely devoted to Jones. When he dropped out of Harvard after one semester, Parsons was still mostly under the thrall of the Greenwich Village folkies -- there's a recording of him made over Christmas 1965 that includes his version of "Another Side of This Life": [Excerpt: Gram Parsons, "Another Side of This Life"] But he was encouraged to go further in the country direction by John Nuese (and I hope that's the correct pronunciation – I haven't been able to find any recordings mentioning his name), who had introduced him to this music and who also played guitar. Parsons, Neuse, bass player Ian Dunlop and drummer Mickey Gauvin formed a band that was originally called Gram Parsons and the Like. They soon changed their name though, inspired by an Our Gang short in which the gang became a band: [Excerpt: Our Gang, "Mike Fright"] Shortening the name slightly, they became the International Submarine Band. Parsons rented them a house in New York, and they got a contract with Goldstar Records, and released a couple of singles. The first of them, "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming" was a cover of the theme to a comedy film that came out around that time, and is not especially interesting: [Excerpt: The International Submarine Band, "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming"] The second single is more interesting. "Sum Up Broke" is a song by Parsons and Neuse, and shows a lot of influence from the Byrds: [Excerpt: The international Submarine Band, "Sum Up Broke"] While in New York with the International Submarine Band, Parsons made another friend in the music business. Barry Tashian was the lead singer of a band called the Remains, who had put out a couple of singles: [Excerpt: The Remains, "Why Do I Cry?"] The Remains are now best known for having been on the bill on the Beatles' last ever tour, including playing as support on their last ever show at Candlestick Park, but they split up before their first album came out. After spending most of 1966 in New York, Parsons decided that he needed to move the International Submarine Band out to LA. There were two reasons for this. The first was his friend Brandon DeWilde, an actor who had been a child star in the fifties -- it's him at the end of Shane -- who was thinking of pursuing a musical career. DeWilde was still making TV appearances, but he was also a singer -- John Nuese said that DeWilde sang harmony with Parsons better than anyone except Emmylou Harris -- and he had recorded some demos with the International Submarine Band backing him, like this version of Buck Owens' "Together Again": [Excerpt: Brandon DeWilde, "Together Again"] DeWilde had told Parsons he could get the group some work in films. DeWilde made good on that promise to an extent -- he got the group a cameo in The Trip, a film we've talked about in several other episodes, which was being directed by Roger Corman, the director who worked a lot with David Crosby's father, and was coming out from American International Pictures, the company that put out the beach party films -- but while the group were filmed performing one of their own songs, in the final film their music was overdubbed by the Electric Flag. The Trip starred Peter Fonda, another member of the circle of people around David Crosby, and another son of privilege, who at this point was better known for being Henry Fonda's son than for his own film appearances. Like DeWilde, Fonda wanted to become a pop star, and he had been impressed by Parsons, and asked if he could record Parsons' song "November Nights". Parsons agreed, and the result was released on Chisa Records, the label we talked about earlier that had put out promos of Gene Clark, in a performance produced by Hugh Masekela: [Excerpt: Peter Fonda, "November Nights"] The other reason the group moved West though was that Parsons had fallen in love with David Crosby's girlfriend, Nancy Ross, who soon became pregnant with his daughter -- much to Parsons' disappointment, she refused to have an abortion. Parsons bought the International Submarine Band a house in LA to rehearse in, and moved in separately with Nancy. The group started playing all the hottest clubs around LA, supporting bands like Love and the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, but they weren't sounding great, partly because Parsons was more interested in hanging round with celebrities than rehearsing -- the rest of the band had to work for a living, and so took their live performances more seriously than he did, while he was spending time catching up with his old folk friends like John Phillips and Fred Neil, as well as getting deeper into drugs and, like seemingly every musician in 1967, Scientology, though he only dabbled in the latter. The group were also, though, starting to split along musical lines. Dunlop and Gauvin wanted to play R&B and garage rock, while Parsons and Nuese wanted to play country music. And there was a third issue -- which record label should they go with? There were two labels interested in them, neither of them particularly appealing. The offer that Dunlop in particular wanted to go with was from, of all people, Jay Ward Records: [Excerpt: A Salute to Moosylvania] Jay Ward was the producer and writer of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Peabody & Sherman, Dudley Do-Right and other cartoons, and had set up a record company, which as far as I've been able to tell had only released one record, and that five years earlier (we just heard a snippet of it). But in the mid-sixties several cartoon companies were getting into the record business -- we'll hear more about that when we get to song 186 -- and Ward's company apparently wanted to sign the International Submarine Band, and were basically offering to throw money at them. Parsons, on the other hand, wanted to go with Lee Hazlewood International. This was a new label set up by someone we've only talked about in passing, but who was very influential on the LA music scene, Lee Hazlewood. Hazlewood had got his start producing country hits like Sanford Clark's "The Fool": [Excerpt: Sanford Clark, "The Fool"] He'd then moved on to collaborating with Lester Sill, producing a series of hits for Duane Eddy, whose unique guitar sound Hazlewood helped come up with: [Excerpt: Duane Eddy, "Rebel Rouser"] After splitting off from Sill, who had gone off to work with Phil Spector, who had been learning some production techniques from Hazlewood, Hazlewood had gone to work for Reprise records, where he had a career in a rather odd niche, producing hit records for the children of Rat Pack stars. He'd produced Dino, Desi, and Billy, who consisted of future Beach Boys sideman Billy Hinsche plus Desi Arnaz Jr and Dean Martin Jr: [Excerpt: Dino, Desi, and Billy, "I'm a Fool"] He'd also produced Dean Martin's daughter Deana: [Excerpt: Deana Martin, "Baby I See You"] and rather more successfully he'd written and produced a series of hits for Nancy Sinatra, starting with "These Boots are Made for Walkin'": [Excerpt: Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots are Made for Walkin'"] Hazlewood had also moved into singing himself. He'd released a few tracks on his own, but his career as a performer hadn't really kicked into gear until he'd started writing duets for Nancy Sinatra. She apparently fell in love with his demos and insisted on having him sing them with her in the studio, and so the two made a series of collaborations like the magnificently bizarre "Some Velvet Morning": [Excerpt: Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, "Some Velvet Morning"] Hazlewood is now considered something of a cult artist, thanks largely to a string of magnificent orchestral country-pop solo albums he recorded, but at this point he was one of the hottest people in the music industry. He wasn't offering to produce the International Submarine Band himself -- that was going to be his partner, Suzi Jane Hokom -- but Parsons thought it was better to sign for less money to a label that was run by someone with a decade-long string of massive hit records than for more money to a label that had put out one record about a cartoon moose. So the group split up. Dunlop and Gauvin went off to form another band, with Barry Tashian -- and legend has it that one of the first times Gram Parsons visited the Byrds in the studio, he mentioned the name of that band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and that was the inspiration for the Byrds titling their album The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Parsons and Nuese, on the other hand, formed a new lineup of The International Submarine Band, with bass player Chris Ethridge, drummer John Corneal, who Parsons had first played with in The Legends, and guitarist Bob Buchanan, a former member of the New Christy Minstrels who Parsons had been performing with as a duo after they'd met through Fred Neil. The International Submarine Band recorded an album, Safe At Home, which is now often called the first country-rock album -- though as we've said so often, there's no first anything. That album was a mixture of cover versions of songs by people like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard: [Excerpt: The International Submarine Band, "I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known"] And Parsons originals, like "Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome?", which he cowrote with Barry Goldberg of the Electric Flag: [Excerpt: The International Submarine Band, "Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome?"] But the recording didn't go smoothly. In particular, Corneal realised he'd been hoodwinked. Parsons had told him, when persuading him to move West, that he'd be able to sing on the record and that some of his songs would be used. But while the record was credited to The International Submarine Band, everyone involved agrees that it was actually a Gram Parsons solo album by any other name -- he was in charge, he wouldn't let other members' songs on the record, and he didn't let Corneal sing as he'd promised. And then, before the album could be released, he was off. The Byrds wanted a jazz keyboard player, and Parsons could fake being one long enough to get the gig. The Byrds had got rid of one rich kid with a giant ego who wanted to take control of everything and thought his undeniable talent excused his attempts at dominating the group, and replaced him with another one -- who also happened to be signed to another record label. We'll see how well that worked out for them in two weeks' time.