Podcasts about little help from my friends

Inspired by Paul McCartney saying his favorite Beatles cover is Joe Cocker's version of "With a Little Help From My Friends"

With Joe Cocker being nominated for this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the crew takes a little time to dig into his 1969 debut record With a Little Help From My Friends.  Rock On!Theme songs "High and Humble" and "Trance" by The Steepwater Band.  Follow them @steepwaterband and catch them now on tour on the east coast!Website: https://ridiculousrockrecordreviews.buzzsprout.comContact us! e-mail: ridiculousrockrecords@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/R4podcastTwitter/X: @r4podcasterInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/r4podcaster/

How close-knit community is better than rugged individualism - "Surviving the Climate Apocalypse (With a Little Help From My Friends)";"America Loses Its Soul When It Rejects People Fleeing Danger";"Climate change is coming for coastlines, from ancient cities to modern California: Study";"Why the U.S. has been home to Earth's most unusually cold air this year";"How heatwaves can wreak havoc on your mental health";"Farmers, investors, miners and parents: how unconventional climate advocates can reach new audiences";"How to inoculate yourself (and others) against viral misinformation";"The end of Germany's climate crusade";"Populist AfD “sand in the gears” of German climate efforts";"Trump bars federal scientists from working on pivotal global climate report";"Most conservation funds go to large vertebrates at expense of ‘neglected' species".

From the vaults! More of C.S. Lewis' underrated final novel! Original description: In which Anika and Chris reveal the fairly shallow reason we had for doing Till We Have Faces this year and accidentally endorse human sacrifice.  Mostly, we talk about Chapter 7, in which Orual and Psyche say goodbye, and Chapter 8, in which Orual decides to journey to the mountain and recover Psyche's body.  At issue are whether or not selfish love is still love and whether sacrifice (especially human sacrifice) is effective. Other highlights: Ash Wednesday Anecdotes Anika reads Lewis' poem, "As the Ruin Falls" Till We Have Faces as a text that changes its narrator Finally, inspired by WandaVision, the hosts ask whether Till We Have Faces would make a good sitcom--and what kind of sitcom it would be? Have your own thoughts?  Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you. Music credits: The "Our Father" in Aramaic The Hurrian Hymn "Aase's Death," by Edvard Grieg "The Toy Parade," by Dave Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene "Everywhere You Look," by Jesse Frederick "With a Little Help From My Friends," by Joe Cocker

On this episode of Vinyl Verdict, Bell, Jamie and Adam listen to Jamie's first pick for season 3, Joe Cocker's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". Released in 1970, it was the accompanying album to the film of the same name, chronicling his brisk tour of the U.S. Hailing from Sheffield, England, Joe Cocker had just two years prior made a name for himself with his cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends" and his subsequent appearance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. After being surprised by his record label with a tour, Joe assembled a band of friends in less than a week. The band consisted of 22 people - three drummers, a horn section, a choir, two guitarists, a bass play, a piano player and two percussionists. Will the boys be Feelin' Alright, or will they Drown In Their Own Tears? Come along and find out!

Découvrez l'incroyable parcours de Joe Cocker, l'artiste britannique qui a révolutionné le genre du rock soul.

#121: This week we revisit episode #62 with Don Fertman (he/him). Don is the former Chief Development Officer of Subway, as well as Board Chair Emeritus of The Phoenix and current member of The Phoenix Impact Board. When Don first got sober, the last thing he wanted to do was allow people to know his story. Now decades into recovery, he proudly and candidly speaks to his journey and encourages others to share their own. Tune into the episode to hear from Don, as he shares his story and more, including:The image of a jelly donut slowly sliding down the wall... and how this represented his life while in active addiction.How sharing his story on national television helped others find recovery and eventually connected Don with the founder of The Phoenix, Scott Strode.Don's journey with music, from a warped relationship due to substance use disorder to picking back up a guitar years later with sober friends.To learn more about Don, check out this video: https://youtu.be/zkJLf-FlAyY?si=F1W8gENr9AjaD9qgCheck out Recovery Branches, an organization Don co-founded: https://www.recoverybranches.org/  Check out Brave Enough to Fail, another organization that Don is involved with: https://www.braveenoughtofail.org/Read "Subs & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Part 1: With a Little Help From My Friends" : https://www.allsober.com/subs-drugs-rock-n-roll-part-1-don-fertman/Become a Podcast Ambassador Volunteer! To learn more and to apply, follow this link: https://form.asana.com/?k=MvokXMx-NgNGbAJlDdqMBw&d=1142909614290943. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you or a loved one is experiencing a mental health or substance use related crisis, the following resources can provide immediate help.*If you are experiencing a medical/mental health emergency, dial 911.Dial 988 for the SAMSHA Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.  Available 24/7Text “HOME” to 741-741 for the NAMI Crisis Text Line.  Available 24/7Dial 1-800-622-2255 to connect with a nearby treatment center & community resources through NCADD Hope Line. Available 24/7Call/text 1-844-326-5400 for The GSCA CARES Warm Line.  Answered by Certified Addiction Recovery Empowerment Specialists with lived experience of SUD.  Available any day of the year, 8:30am-11pm EST*Note: The resources listed are provided for informational purposes only.  This list is not comprehensive and does not constitute an endorsement by The Phoenix or the Rise Recover Live Podcast.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Join the Phoenix community & sign up for classes with a single click by downloading The Phoenix App! In the app, you can connect with Liz, Bryce and other listeners in The Rise Recover Live Podcast Group. Let us know what you thought about today's episode, and what you'd like to hear in future shows! We can't wait to chat with you there. Learn more about The Phoenix, sign up for classes, or become a volunteer at https://thephoenix.org/ . Find us on Instagram at @riserecoverlive

Here is Pastor Frank Vargo's sermon on 6-16-24 titled, "A Little Help From My Friends" from Romans 16:1-27. Freedom Bible Church is a nondenominational church located at 5550 S. Sumter Blvd in North Port, Florida. The name “Freedom” comes from 2 Corinthians 3:17, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." Our desire is to be a God-centered church, not man-centered. Website: https://freedombiblechurch.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freedombiblepc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedombiblechurch Our church members come from North Port, West Villages, West Port, Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Venice, and Englewood.

IS THAT AUSTIN BUTLER?! Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure Full Reaction Watch Along:  https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects After experiencing the utter joy of the High School Musical Trilogy, Greg Alba & Tara Erickson watch and react to Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, giving their reaction, commentary, & review for the spin off starring Ashley Tisdale & Austin Butler (Elvis & Dune Part 2). They watch and react to the best scenes / music numbers / songs such as "Walking On Sunshine", "A Little Help From My Friends", "My Boi and me", "Baby", "The Rest Of My life", & MORE as we move past Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) & Gabriela (Vanessa Hudgens) in the HSM world and just might move into High School Musical: The Series On Disney Plus! Follow Tara Erickson: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TaraErickson Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/taraerickson/ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/thetaraerickson Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Markus Mooslechner, our host at Space Cafe Podcast, for an enlightening discussion with Georgi Petrov, a senior associate principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and an adjunct professor at NYU and MIT. Georgi is at the forefront of integrating architectural design with structural engineering to create sustainable habitats beyond Earth. From envisioning the sunrise over Mars to the detailed design of a Moon Village, this episode is a contemplative journey into space habitation and its intricate connection to our lives on Earth.Key Topics Covered:·

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present: The Space Café Podcast #103:Join Markus Mooslechner, our host at Space Cafe Podcast, for an enlightening discussion with Georgi Petrov, a senior associate principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and an adjunct professor at NYU and MIT. Georgi is at the forefront of integrating architectural design with structural engineering to create sustainable habitats beyond Earth. From envisioning the sunrise over Mars to the detailed design of a Moon Village, this episode is a contemplative journey into space habitation and its intricate connection to our lives on Earth.Key Topics Covered:·       

Se están cumpliendo 60 años de un hecho que cambió la historia de la música y la historia de la cultura en occidente: la primera gira de Los Beatles en los Estados Unidos y su apoteósica primera presentación en televisión en el show de Ed Sullivan. Se considera este hecho como el inicio de uno de los más grandes fenómenos en la historia de la música rock y pop: la llamada Invasión Británica. Aquí hablaremos de Rock, de un mundo Atlántico, de Contracultura y de un mundo para la juventud. Notas del episodio: El Show de Ed Sullivan: la «vitrina cultural” más importante de los Estados Unidos en los años 60 La primera Beatlemania: la gira de los Beatles por Suecia Y aquí «I Want Hold Your Hand» en el show de Ed Sullivan En este artículo una explicación de la «Invasión Británica» y su importancia: La Motown, Jannis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane y otras respuestas a la Invasión Británica Y uno de los testimonios más poderosos del legado de la Invasión Británica: el cover de Joe Cocker de «With a Little Help From My Friends» en Woodstock   ¡Síguenos en nuestras Redes Sociales!  Facebook:   / dianauribe.fm   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianauribef... Twitter: https://twitter.com/dianauribefm?lang=es Pagina web: https://www.dianauribe.fm

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.  

Today on The Neil Haley Show, Neil "The Media Giant" Haley and Greg Hanna will interview Season 24 Winner of The Voice Huntley.   Huntley faced tough competition from the other finalists this season, including teammate Mara Justine from Team Niall, Lila Forde from Team Legend, and Ruby Leigh and Jacquie Roar from Team Reba. All five Season 24 finalists earned a four-chair turn during their blind auditions.   In his blind audition, Huntley, known for his unique raspy voice, earned four chair turns from the coaches with his powerful performance of the Black Crowes' “She Talks to Angels,” which had coaches fighting for him. He ultimately chose to join Team Niall, where he and teammate Brailey Lenderman performed a duet of Hootie & the Blowfish's “Hold My Hand” during the battle rounds. For the ultra-competitive three-way knockout round, he did a showstopping performance of Bon Jovi's “Wanted Dead or Alive.”   During the playoffs, Huntley performed an emotional rendition of David Kushner's “Daylight” to honor his daughter, which secured him a spot in the Top 12. In the first live show, he performed “With a Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles, which earned him a spot in the semifinals. The following week, Huntley joined Lila Ford and Mac Royals for a haunting trio performance of “exile” by Taylor Swift featuring Bon Iver, and then wowed with the crowd-pleaser “Way Down We Go” by KALEO.                  

Full-Time Dynamic Musician From Virginia Who Earned Four-Chair Turn Will Perform at this weekend's Bills vs. Chargers Game, Streaming Exclusively on Peacock Coach Niall Horan Goes Undefeated and Takes “Voice” Crown for Second Time UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – December 19, 2023 – Huntley, a 33-year-old soulful rock artist from Fredericksburg, Va., was named champion of “The Voice” Season 24 tonight. Huntley faced tough competition from the other finalists this season, including teammate Mara Justine from Team Niall, Lila Forde from Team Legend, and Ruby Leigh and Jacquie Roar from Team Reba. All five Season 24 finalists earned a four-chair turn during their blind auditions. In his blind audition, Huntley, known for his unique raspy voice, earned four chair turns from the coaches with his powerful performance of the Black Crowes' “She Talks to Angels,” which had coaches fighting for him. He ultimately chose to join Team Niall, where he and teammate Brailey Lenderman performed a duet of Hootie & the Blowfish's “Hold My Hand” during the battle rounds. For the ultra-competitive three-way knockout round, he did a showstopping performance of Bon Jovi's “Wanted Dead or Alive.” During the playoffs, Huntley performed an emotional rendition of David Kushner's “Daylight” to honor his daughter, which secured him a spot in the Top 12. In the first live show, he performed “With a Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles, which earned him a spot in the semifinals. The following week, Huntley joined Lila Ford and Mac Royals for a haunting trio performance of “exile” by Taylor Swift featuring Bon Iver, and then wowed with the crowd-pleaser “Way Down We Go” by KALEO. On Monday night's telecast, Huntley continued to impress the coaches and viewers alike with an up-tempo live performance of “Higher” by Creed as well as a down-tempo performance of “Another Love” by Tom Odell. Before being crowned the winner during tonight's finale, Huntley was joined on stage by coach Niall Horan for a heartfelt duet of “Knockin' on Heaven's Door” by Bob Dylan. Huntley's presence on the show's social media platforms this season garnered immense popularity, with his performances accumulating 46.6 million views across "The Voice" pages on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. Huntley was singing and impersonating Elvis by the time he was 4, and at 14 wanted to pursue music. After two years of college, he moved to Nashville but didn't find the success he had imagined. After falling out of love with the music grind, he moved back home to Virginia. In 2016, Huntley welcomed his daughter and five years later welcomed his son. He never had a relationship with his own father, which motivated him to be very involved in his kids' lives. Since 2022, Huntley has found success as a booking agent for musicians. Now that music is coming back into his life, he's been a full-time musician gigging five times a week all over Virginia. Fresh off his win, Huntley will perform at this weekend's Buffalo Bills vs. Los Angeles Chargers game, streaming exclusively on Peacock with coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET. He will kick off the game with a rendition of the National Anthem and put on a special halftime performance. “The Voice” is the most-watched unscripted entertainment broadcast series this season and is averaging 8.4 million viewers across all platforms (L7). “The Voice” is a presentation of MGM Television, Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon, and ITV Studios The Voice USA, Inc. The series was created by John de Mol, who serves as an executive producer along with Mark Burnett, Audrey Morrissey, Amanda Zucker, Kyra Thompson and Adam H. Sher. For embeddable clips and more, please visit NBC.com‘s official show site: https://www.nbc.com/the-voice

Episode 171 looks at "Hey Jude", the White Album, and the career of the Beatles from August 1967 through November 1968. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on "I Love You" by People!. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata Not really an error, but at one point I refer to Ornette Coleman as a saxophonist. While he was, he plays trumpet on the track that is excerpted after that. Resources No Mixcloud this week due to the number of songs by the Beatles. I have read literally dozens of books on the Beatles, and used bits of information from many of them. All my Beatles episodes refer to: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn, All The Songs: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Release by Jean-Michel Guesdon, And The Band Begins To Play: The Definitive Guide To The Songs of The Beatles by Steve Lambley, The Beatles By Ear by Kevin Moore, Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, and The Beatles Anthology. For this episode, I also referred to Last Interview by David Sheff, a longform interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from shortly before Lennon's death; Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, an authorised biography of Paul McCartney; and Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. This time I also used Steve Turner's The Beatles: The Stories Behind the Songs 1967-1970. I referred to Philip Norman's biographies of John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney, to Graeme Thomson's biography of George Harrison, Take a Sad Song by James Campion, Yoko Ono: An Artful Life by Donald Brackett, Those Were the Days 2.0 by Stephan Granados, and Sound Pictures by Kenneth Womack. Sadly the only way to get the single mix of “Hey Jude” is on this ludicrously-expensive out-of-print box set, but a remixed stereo mix is easily available on the new reissue of the 1967-70 compilation. The original mixes of the White Album are also, shockingly, out of print, but this 2018 remix is available for the moment. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, a quick note -- this episode deals, among other topics, with child abandonment, spousal neglect, suicide attempts, miscarriage, rape accusations, and heroin addiction. If any of those topics are likely to upset you, you might want to check the transcript rather than listening to this episode. It also, for once, contains a short excerpt of an expletive, but given that that expletive in that context has been regularly played on daytime radio without complaint for over fifty years, I suspect it can be excused. The use of mantra meditation is something that exists across religions, and which appears to have been independently invented multiple times, in multiple cultures. In the Western culture to which most of my listeners belong, it is now best known as an aspect of what is known as "mindfulness", a secularised version of Buddhism which aims to provide adherents with the benefits of the teachings of the Buddha but without the cosmology to which they are attached. But it turns up in almost every religious tradition I know of in one form or another. The idea of mantra meditation is a very simple one, and one that even has some basis in science. There is a mathematical principle in neurology and information science called the free energy principle which says our brains are wired to try to minimise how surprised we are --  our brain is constantly making predictions about the world, and then looking at the results from our senses to see if they match. If they do, that's great, and the brain will happily move on to its next prediction. If they don't, the brain has to update its model of the world to match the new information, make new predictions, and see if those new predictions are a better match. Every person has a different mental model of the world, and none of them match reality, but every brain tries to get as close as possible. This updating of the model to match the new information is called "thinking", and it uses up energy, and our bodies and brains have evolved to conserve energy as much as possible. This means that for many people, most of the time, thinking is unpleasant, and indeed much of the time that people have spent thinking, they've been thinking about how to stop themselves having to do it at all, and when they have managed to stop thinking, however briefly, they've experienced great bliss. Many more or less effective technologies have been created to bring about a more minimal-energy state, including alcohol, heroin, and barbituates, but many of these have unwanted side-effects, such as death, which people also tend to want to avoid, and so people have often turned to another technology. It turns out that for many people, they can avoid thinking by simply thinking about something that is utterly predictable. If they minimise the amount of sensory input, and concentrate on something that they can predict exactly, eventually they can turn off their mind, relax, and float downstream, without dying. One easy way to do this is to close your eyes, so you can't see anything, make your breath as regular as possible, and then concentrate on a sound that repeats over and over.  If you repeat a single phrase or word a few hundred times, that regular repetition eventually causes your mind to stop having to keep track of the world, and experience a peace that is, by all accounts, unlike any other experience. What word or phrase that is can depend very much on the tradition. In Transcendental Meditation, each person has their own individual phrase. In the Catholicism in which George Harrison and Paul McCartney were raised, popular phrases for this are "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" or "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." In some branches of Buddhism, a popular mantra is "_NAMU MYŌHŌ RENGE KYŌ_". In the Hinduism to which George Harrison later converted, you can use "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare", "Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya" or "Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha". Those last two start with the syllable "Om", and indeed some people prefer to just use that syllable, repeating a single syllable over and over again until they reach a state of transcendence. [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Jude" ("na na na na na na na")] We don't know much about how the Beatles first discovered Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, except that it was thanks to Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's then-wife. Unfortunately, her memory of how she first became involved in the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement, as described in her autobiography, doesn't fully line up with other known facts. She talks about reading about the Maharishi in the paper with her friend Marie-Lise while George was away on tour, but she also places the date that this happened in February 1967, several months after the Beatles had stopped touring forever. We'll be seeing a lot more of these timing discrepancies as this story progresses, and people's memories increasingly don't match the events that happened to them. Either way, it's clear that Pattie became involved in the Spiritual Regeneration Movement a good length of time before her husband did. She got him to go along with her to one of the Maharishi's lectures, after she had already been converted to the practice of Transcendental Meditation, and they brought along John, Paul, and their partners (Ringo's wife Maureen had just given birth, so they didn't come). As we heard back in episode one hundred and fifty, that lecture was impressive enough that the group, plus their wives and girlfriends (with the exception of Maureen Starkey) and Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, all went on a meditation retreat with the Maharishi at a holiday camp in Bangor, and it was there that they learned that Brian Epstein had been found dead. The death of the man who had guided the group's career could not have come at a worse time for the band's stability.  The group had only recorded one song in the preceding two months -- Paul's "Your Mother Should Know" -- and had basically been running on fumes since completing recording of Sgt Pepper many months earlier. John's drug intake had increased to the point that he was barely functional -- although with the enthusiasm of the newly converted he had decided to swear off LSD at the Maharishi's urging -- and his marriage was falling apart. Similarly, Paul McCartney's relationship with Jane Asher was in a bad state, though both men were trying to repair their damaged relationships, while both George and Ringo were having doubts about the band that had made them famous. In George's case, he was feeling marginalised by John and Paul, his songs ignored or paid cursory attention, and there was less for him to do on the records as the group moved away from making guitar-based rock and roll music into the stranger areas of psychedelia. And Ringo, whose main memory of the recording of Sgt Pepper was of learning to play chess while the others went through the extensive overdubs that characterised that album, was starting to feel like his playing was deteriorating, and that as the only non-writer in the band he was on the outside to an extent. On top of that, the group were in the middle of a major plan to restructure their business. As part of their contract renegotiations with EMI at the beginning of 1967, it had been agreed that they would receive two million pounds -- roughly fifteen million pounds in today's money -- in unpaid royalties as a lump sum. If that had been paid to them as individuals, or through the company they owned, the Beatles Ltd, they would have had to pay the full top rate of tax on it, which as George had complained the previous year was over ninety-five percent. (In fact, he'd been slightly exaggerating the generosity of the UK tax system to the rich, as at that point the top rate of income tax was somewhere around ninety-seven and a half percent). But happily for them, a couple of years earlier the UK had restructured its tax laws and introduced a corporation tax, which meant that the profits of corporations were no longer taxed at the same high rate as income. So a new company had been set up, The Beatles & Co, and all the group's non-songwriting income was paid into the company. Each Beatle owned five percent of the company, and the other eighty percent was owned by a new partnership, a corporation that was soon renamed Apple Corps -- a name inspired by a painting that McCartney had liked by the artist Rene Magritte. In the early stages of Apple, it was very entangled with Nems, the company that was owned by Brian and Clive Epstein, and which was in the process of being sold to Robert Stigwood, though that sale fell through after Brian's death. The first part of Apple, Apple Publishing, had been set up in the summer of 1967, and was run by Terry Doran, a friend of Epstein's who ran a motor dealership -- most of the Apple divisions would be run by friends of the group rather than by people with experience in the industries in question. As Apple was set up during the point that Stigwood was getting involved with NEMS, Apple Publishing's initial offices were in the same building with, and shared staff with, two publishing companies that Stigwood owned, Dratleaf Music, who published Cream's songs, and Abigail Music, the Bee Gees' publishers. And indeed the first two songs published by Apple were copyrights that were gifted to the company by Stigwood -- "Listen to the Sky", a B-side by an obscure band called Sands: [Excerpt: Sands, "Listen to the Sky"] And "Outside Woman Blues", an arrangement by Eric Clapton of an old blues song by Blind Joe Reynolds, which Cream had copyrighted separately and released on Disraeli Gears: [Excerpt: Cream, "Outside Woman Blues"] But Apple soon started signing outside songwriters -- once Mike Berry, a member of Apple Publishing's staff, had sat McCartney down and explained to him what music publishing actually was, something he had never actually understood even though he'd been a songwriter for five years. Those songwriters, given that this was 1967, were often also performers, and as Apple Records had not yet been set up, Apple would try to arrange recording contracts for them with other labels. They started with a group called Focal Point, who got signed by badgering Paul McCartney to listen to their songs until he gave them Doran's phone number to shut them up: [Excerpt: Focal Point, "Sycamore Sid"] But the big early hope for Apple Publishing was a songwriter called George Alexander. Alexander's birth name had been Alexander Young, and he was the brother of George Young, who was a member of the Australian beat group The Easybeats, who'd had a hit with "Friday on My Mind": [Excerpt: The Easybeats, "Friday on My Mind"] His younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would go on to have a few hits themselves, but AC/DC wouldn't be formed for another five years. Terry Doran thought that Alexander should be a member of a band, because bands were more popular than solo artists at the time, and so he was placed with three former members of Tony Rivers and the Castaways, a Beach Boys soundalike group that had had some minor success. John Lennon suggested that the group be named Grapefruit, after a book he was reading by a conceptual artist of his acquaintance named Yoko Ono, and as Doran was making arrangements with Terry Melcher for a reciprocal publishing deal by which Melcher's American company would publish Apple songs in the US while Apple published songs from Melcher's company in the UK, it made sense for Melcher to also produce Grapefruit's first single, "Dear Delilah": [Excerpt: Grapefruit, "Dear Delilah"] That made number twenty-one in the UK when it came out in early 1968, on the back of publicity about Grapefruit's connection with the Beatles, but future singles by the band were much less successful, and like several other acts involved with Apple, they found that they were more hampered by the Beatles connection than helped. A few other people were signed to Apple Publishing early on, of whom the most notable was Jackie Lomax. Lomax had been a member of a minor Merseybeat group, the Undertakers, and after they had split up, he'd been signed by Brian Epstein with a new group, the Lomax Alliance, who had released one single, "Try as You May": [Excerpt: The Lomax Alliance, "Try As You May"] After Epstein's death, Lomax had plans to join another band, being formed by another Merseybeat musician, Chris Curtis, the former drummer of the Searchers. But after going to the Beatles to talk with them about them helping the new group financially, Lomax was persuaded by John Lennon to go solo instead. He may later have regretted that decision, as by early 1968 the people that Curtis had recruited for his new band had ditched him and were making a name for themselves as Deep Purple. Lomax recorded one solo single with funding from Stigwood, a cover version of a song by an obscure singer-songwriter, Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": [Excerpt: Jackie Lomax, "Genuine Imitation Life"] But he was also signed to Apple Publishing as a songwriter. The Beatles had only just started laying out plans for Apple when Epstein died, and other than the publishing company one of the few things they'd agreed on was that they were going to have a film company, which was to be run by Denis O'Dell, who had been an associate producer on A Hard Day's Night and on How I Won The War, the Richard Lester film Lennon had recently starred in. A few days after Epstein's death, they had a meeting, in which they agreed that the band needed to move forward quickly if they were going to recover from Epstein's death. They had originally been planning on going to India with the Maharishi to study meditation, but they decided to put that off until the new year, and to press forward with a film project Paul had been talking about, to be titled Magical Mystery Tour. And so, on the fifth of September 1967, they went back into the recording studio and started work on a song of John's that was earmarked for the film, "I am the Walrus": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] Magical Mystery Tour, the film, has a mixed reputation which we will talk about shortly, but one defence that Paul McCartney has always made of it is that it's the only place where you can see the Beatles performing "I am the Walrus". While the song was eventually relegated to a B-side, it's possibly the finest B-side of the Beatles' career, and one of the best tracks the group ever made. As with many of Lennon's songs from this period, the song was a collage of many different elements pulled from his environment and surroundings, and turned into something that was rather more than the sum of its parts. For its musical inspiration, Lennon pulled from, of all things, a police siren going past his house. (For those who are unfamiliar with what old British police sirens sounded like, as opposed to the ones in use for most of my lifetime or in other countries, here's a recording of one): [Excerpt: British police siren ca 1968] That inspired Lennon to write a snatch of lyric to go with the sound of the siren, starting "Mister city policeman sitting pretty". He had two other song fragments, one about sitting in the garden, and one about sitting on a cornflake, and he told Hunter Davies, who was doing interviews for his authorised biography of the group, “I don't know how it will all end up. Perhaps they'll turn out to be different parts of the same song.” But the final element that made these three disparate sections into a song was a letter that came from Stephen Bayley, a pupil at Lennon's old school Quarry Bank, who told him that the teachers at the school -- who Lennon always thought of as having suppressed his creativity -- were now analysing Beatles lyrics in their lessons. Lennon decided to come up with some nonsense that they couldn't analyse -- though as nonsensical as the finished song is, there's an underlying anger to a lot of it that possibly comes from Lennon thinking of his school experiences. And so Lennon asked his old schoolfriend Pete Shotton to remind him of a disgusting playground chant that kids used to sing in schools in the North West of England (and which they still sang with very minor variations at my own school decades later -- childhood folklore has a remarkably long life). That rhyme went: Yellow matter custard, green snot pie All mixed up with a dead dog's eye Slap it on a butty, nice and thick, And drink it down with a cup of cold sick Lennon combined some parts of this with half-remembered fragments of Lewis Carrol's The Walrus and the Carpenter, and with some punning references to things that were going on in his own life and those of his friends -- though it's difficult to know exactly which of the stories attached to some of the more incomprehensible bits of the lyrics are accurate. The story that the line "I am the eggman" is about a sexual proclivity of Eric Burdon of the Animals seems plausible, while the contention by some that the phrase "semolina pilchard" is a reference to Sgt Pilcher, the corrupt policeman who had arrested three of the Rolling Stones, and would later arrest Lennon, on drugs charges, seems less likely. The track is a masterpiece of production, but the release of the basic take on Anthology 2 in 1996 showed that the underlying performance, before George Martin worked his magic with the overdubs, is still a remarkable piece of work: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus (Anthology 2 version)"] But Martin's arrangement and production turned the track from a merely very good track into a masterpiece. The string arrangement, very much in the same mould as that for "Strawberry Fields Forever" but giving a very different effect with its harsh cello glissandi, is the kind of thing one expects from Martin, but there's also the chanting of the Mike Sammes Singers, who were more normally booked for sessions like Englebert Humperdinck's "The Last Waltz": [Excerpt: Engelbert Humperdinck, "The Last Waltz"] But here were instead asked to imitate the sound of the strings, make grunting noises, and generally go very far out of their normal comfort zone: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] But the most fascinating piece of production in the entire track is an idea that seems to have been inspired by people like John Cage -- a live feed of a radio being tuned was played into the mono mix from about the halfway point, and whatever was on the radio at the time was captured: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] This is also why for many decades it was impossible to have a true stereo mix of the track -- the radio part was mixed directly into the mono mix, and it wasn't until the 1990s that someone thought to track down a copy of the original radio broadcasts and recreate the process. In one of those bits of synchronicity that happen more often than you would think when you're creating aleatory art, and which are why that kind of process can be so appealing, one bit of dialogue from the broadcast of King Lear that was on the radio as the mixing was happening was *perfectly* timed: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] After completing work on the basic track for "I am the Walrus", the group worked on two more songs for the film, George's "Blue Jay Way" and a group-composed twelve-bar blues instrumental called "Flying", before starting production. Magical Mystery Tour, as an idea, was inspired in equal parts by Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, the collective of people we talked about in the episode on the Grateful Dead who travelled across the US extolling the virtues of psychedelic drugs, and by mystery tours, a British working-class tradition that has rather fallen out of fashion in the intervening decades. A mystery tour would generally be put on by a coach-hire company, and would be a day trip to an unannounced location -- though the location would in fact be very predictable, and would be a seaside town within a couple of hours' drive of its starting point. In the case of the ones the Beatles remembered from their own childhoods, this would be to a coastal town in Lancashire or Wales, like Blackpool, Rhyl, or Prestatyn. A coachload of people would pay to be driven to this random location, get very drunk and have a singsong on the bus, and spend a day wherever they were taken. McCartney's plan was simple -- they would gather a group of passengers and replicate this experience over the course of several days, and film whatever went on, but intersperse that with more planned out sketches and musical numbers. For this reason, along with the Beatles and their associates, the cast included some actors found through Spotlight and some of the group's favourite performers, like the comedian Nat Jackley (whose comedy sequence directed by John was cut from the final film) and the surrealist poet/singer/comedian Ivor Cutler: [Excerpt: Ivor Cutler, "I'm Going in a Field"] The film also featured an appearance by a new band who would go on to have great success over the next year, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. They had recorded their first single in Abbey Road at the same time as the Beatles were recording Revolver, but rather than being progressive psychedelic rock, it had been a remake of a 1920s novelty song: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "My Brother Makes the Noises For the Talkies"] Their performance in Magical Mystery Tour was very different though -- they played a fifties rock pastiche written by band leaders Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes while a stripper took off her clothes. While several other musical sequences were recorded for the film, including one by the band Traffic and one by Cutler, other than the Beatles tracks only the Bonzos' song made it into the finished film: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "Death Cab for Cutie"] That song, thirty years later, would give its name to a prominent American alternative rock band. Incidentally the same night that Magical Mystery Tour was first broadcast was also the night that the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band first appeared on a TV show, Do Not Adjust Your Set, which featured three future members of the Monty Python troupe -- Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones. Over the years the careers of the Bonzos, the Pythons, and the Beatles would become increasingly intertwined, with George Harrison in particular striking up strong friendships and working relationships with Bonzos Neil Innes and "Legs" Larry Smith. The filming of Magical Mystery Tour went about as well as one might expect from a film made by four directors, none of whom had any previous filmmaking experience, and none of whom had any business knowledge. The Beatles were used to just turning up and having things magically done for them by other people, and had no real idea of the infrastructure challenges that making a film, even a low-budget one, actually presents, and ended up causing a great deal of stress to almost everyone involved. The completed film was shown on TV on Boxing Day 1967 to general confusion and bemusement. It didn't help that it was originally broadcast in black and white, and so for example the scene showing shifting landscapes (outtake footage from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, tinted various psychedelic colours) over the "Flying" music, just looked like grey fuzz. But also, it just wasn't what people were expecting from a Beatles film. This was a ramshackle, plotless, thing more inspired by Andy Warhol's underground films than by the kind of thing the group had previously appeared in, and it was being presented as Christmas entertainment for all the family. And to be honest, it's not even a particularly good example of underground filmmaking -- though it looks like a masterpiece when placed next to something like the Bee Gees' similar effort, Cucumber Castle. But there are enough interesting sequences in there for the project not to be a complete failure -- and the deleted scenes on the DVD release, including the performances by Cutler and Traffic, and the fact that the film was edited down from ten hours to fifty-two minutes, makes one wonder if there's a better film that could be constructed from the original footage. Either way, the reaction to the film was so bad that McCartney actually appeared on David Frost's TV show the next day to defend it and, essentially, apologise. While they were editing the film, the group were also continuing to work in the studio, including on two new McCartney songs, "The Fool on the Hill", which was included in Magical Mystery Tour, and "Hello Goodbye", which wasn't included on the film's soundtrack but was released as the next single, with "I Am the Walrus" as the B-side: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Incidentally, in the UK the soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour was released as a double-EP rather than as an album (in the US, the group's recent singles and B-sides were added to turn it into a full-length album, which is how it's now generally available). "I Am the Walrus" was on the double-EP as well as being on the single's B-side, and the double-EP got to number two on the singles charts, meaning "I am the Walrus" was on the records at number one and number two at the same time. Before it became obvious that the film, if not the soundtrack, was a disaster, the group held a launch party on the twenty-first of December, 1967. The band members went along in fancy dress, as did many of the cast and crew -- the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performed at the party. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys also turned up at the party, and apparently at one point jammed with the Bonzos, and according to some, but not all, reports, a couple of the Beatles joined in as well. Love and Johnston had both just met the Maharishi for the first time a couple of days earlier, and Love had been as impressed as the Beatles were, and it may have been at this party that the group mentioned to Love that they would soon be going on a retreat in India with the guru -- a retreat that was normally meant for training TM instructors, but this time seemed to be more about getting celebrities involved. Love would also end up going with them. That party was also the first time that Cynthia Lennon had an inkling that John might not be as faithful to her as she previously supposed. John had always "joked" about being attracted to George Harrison's wife, Patti, but this time he got a little more blatant about his attraction than he ever had previously, to the point that he made Cynthia cry, and Cynthia's friend, the pop star Lulu, decided to give Lennon a very public dressing-down for his cruelty to his wife, a dressing-down that must have been a sight to behold, as Lennon was dressed as a Teddy boy while Lulu was in a Shirley Temple costume. It's a sign of how bad the Lennons' marriage was at this point that this was the second time in a two-month period where Cynthia had ended up crying because of John at a film launch party and been comforted by a female pop star. In October, Cilla Black had held a party to celebrate the belated release of John's film How I Won the War, and during the party Georgie Fame had come up to Black and said, confused, "Cynthia Lennon is hiding in your wardrobe". Black went and had a look, and Cynthia explained to her “I'm waiting to see how long it is before John misses me and comes looking for me.” Black's response had been “You'd better face it, kid—he's never gonna come.” Also at the Magical Mystery Tour party was Lennon's father, now known as Freddie Lennon, and his new nineteen-year-old fiancee. While Hunter Davis had been researching the Beatles' biography, he'd come across some evidence that the version of Freddie's attitude towards John that his mother's side of the family had always told him -- that Freddie had been a cruel and uncaring husband who had not actually wanted to be around his son -- might not be the whole of the truth, and that the mother who he had thought of as saintly might also have had some part to play in their marriage breaking down and Freddie not seeing his son for twenty years. The two had made some tentative attempts at reconciliation, and indeed Freddie would even come and live with John for a while, though within a couple of years the younger Lennon's heart would fully harden against his father again. Of course, the things that John always resented his father for were pretty much exactly the kind of things that Lennon himself was about to do. It was around this time as well that Derek Taylor gave the Beatles copies of the debut album by a young singer/songwriter named Harry Nilsson. Nilsson will be getting his own episode down the line, but not for a couple of years at my current rates, so it's worth bringing that up here, because that album became a favourite of all the Beatles, and would have a huge influence on their songwriting for the next couple of years, and because one song on the album, "1941", must have resonated particularly deeply with Lennon right at this moment -- an autobiographical song by Nilsson about how his father had left him and his mother when he was a small boy, and about his own fear that, as his first marriage broke down, he was repeating the pattern with his stepson Scott: [Excerpt: Nilsson, "1941"] The other major event of December 1967, rather overshadowed by the Magical Mystery Tour disaster the next day, was that on Christmas Day Paul McCartney and Jane Asher announced their engagement. A few days later, George Harrison flew to India. After John and Paul had had their outside film projects -- John starring in How I Won The War and Paul doing the soundtrack for The Family Way -- the other two Beatles more or less simultaneously did their own side project films, and again one acted while the other did a soundtrack. Both of these projects were in the rather odd subgenre of psychedelic shambolic comedy film that sprang up in the mid sixties, a subgenre that produced a lot of fascinating films, though rather fewer good ones. Indeed, both of them were in the subsubgenre of shambolic psychedelic *sex* comedies. In Ringo's case, he had a small role in the film Candy, which was based on the novel we mentioned in the last episode, co-written by Terry Southern, which was in itself a loose modern rewriting of Voltaire's Candide. Unfortunately, like such other classics of this subgenre as Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, Candy has dated *extremely* badly, and unless you find repeated scenes of sexual assault and rape, ethnic stereotypes, and jokes about deformity and disfigurement to be an absolute laugh riot, it's not a film that's worth seeking out, and Starr's part in it is not a major one. Harrison's film was of the same basic genre -- a film called Wonderwall about a mad scientist who discovers a way to see through the walls of his apartment, and gets to see a photographer taking sexy photographs of a young woman named Penny Lane, played by Jane Birkin: [Excerpt: Some Wonderwall film dialogue ripped from the Blu-Ray] Wonderwall would, of course, later inspire the title of a song by Oasis, and that's what the film is now best known for, but it's a less-unwatchable film than Candy, and while still problematic it's less so. Which is something. Harrison had been the Beatle with least involvement in Magical Mystery Tour -- McCartney had been the de facto director, Starr had been the lead character and the only one with much in the way of any acting to do, and Lennon had written the film's standout scene and its best song, and had done a little voiceover narration. Harrison, by contrast, barely has anything to do in the film apart from the one song he contributed, "Blue Jay Way", and he said of the project “I had no idea what was happening and maybe I didn't pay enough attention because my problem, basically, was that I was in another world, I didn't really belong; I was just an appendage.” He'd expressed his discomfort to his friend Joe Massot, who was about to make his first feature film. Massot had got to know Harrison during the making of his previous film, Reflections on Love, a mostly-silent short which had starred Harrison's sister-in-law Jenny Boyd, and which had been photographed by Robert Freeman, who had been the photographer for the Beatles' album covers from With the Beatles through Rubber Soul, and who had taken most of the photos that Klaus Voorman incorporated into the cover of Revolver (and whose professional association with the Beatles seemed to come to an end around the same time he discovered that Lennon had been having an affair with his wife). Massot asked Harrison to write the music for the film, and told Harrison he would have complete free rein to make whatever music he wanted, so long as it fit the timing of the film, and so Harrison decided to create a mixture of Western rock music and the Indian music he loved. Harrison started recording the music at the tail end of 1967, with sessions with several London-based Indian musicians and John Barham, an orchestrator who had worked with Ravi Shankar on Shankar's collaborations with Western musicians, including the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack we talked about in the "All You Need is Love" episode. For the Western music, he used the Remo Four, a Merseybeat group who had been on the scene even before the Beatles, and which contained a couple of classmates of Paul McCartney, but who had mostly acted as backing musicians for other artists. They'd backed Johnny Sandon, the former singer with the Searchers, on a couple of singles, before becoming the backing band for Tommy Quickly, a NEMS artist who was unsuccessful despite starting his career with a Lennon/McCartney song, "Tip of My Tongue": [Excerpt: Tommy Quickly, "Tip of My Tongue"] The Remo Four would later, after a lineup change, become Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, who would become one-hit wonders in the seventies, and during the Wonderwall sessions they recorded a song that went unreleased at the time, and which would later go on to be rerecorded by Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke. "In the First Place" also features Harrison on backing vocals and possibly guitar, and was not submitted for the film because Harrison didn't believe that Massot wanted any vocal tracks, but the recording was later discovered and used in a revised director's cut of the film in the nineties: [Excerpt: The Remo Four, "In the First Place"] But for the most part the Remo Four were performing instrumentals written by Harrison. They weren't the only Western musicians performing on the sessions though -- Peter Tork of the Monkees dropped by these sessions and recorded several short banjo solos, which were used in the film soundtrack but not in the soundtrack album (presumably because Tork was contracted to another label): [Excerpt: Peter Tork, "Wonderwall banjo solo"] Another musician who was under contract to another label was Eric Clapton, who at the time was playing with The Cream, and who vaguely knew Harrison and so joined in for the track "Ski-ing", playing lead guitar under the cunning, impenetrable, pseudonym "Eddie Clayton", with Harrison on sitar, Starr on drums, and session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan on bass: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Ski-ing"] But the bulk of the album was recorded in EMI's studios in the city that is now known as Mumbai but at the time was called Bombay. The studio facilities in India had up to that point only had a mono tape recorder, and Bhaskar Menon, one of the top executives at EMI's Indian division and later the head of EMI music worldwide, personally brought the first stereo tape recorder to the studio to aid in Harrison's recording. The music was all composed by Harrison and performed by the Indian musicians, and while Harrison was composing in an Indian mode, the musicians were apparently fascinated by how Western it sounded to them: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Microbes"] While he was there, Harrison also got the instrumentalists to record another instrumental track, which wasn't to be used for the film: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "The Inner Light (instrumental)"] That track would, instead, become part of what was to be Harrison's first composition to make a side of a Beatles single. After John and George had appeared on the David Frost show talking about the Maharishi, in September 1967, George had met a lecturer in Sanskrit named Juan Mascaró, who wrote to Harrison enclosing a book he'd compiled of translations of religious texts, telling him he'd admired "Within You Without You" and thought it would be interesting if Harrison set something from the Tao Te Ching to music. He suggested a text that, in his translation, read: "Without going out of my door I can know all things on Earth Without looking out of my window I can know the ways of heaven For the farther one travels, the less one knows The sage, therefore Arrives without travelling Sees all without looking Does all without doing" Harrison took that text almost verbatim, though he created a second verse by repeating the first few lines with "you" replacing "I" -- concerned that listeners might think he was just talking about himself, and wouldn't realise it was a more general statement -- and he removed the "the sage, therefore" and turned the last few lines into imperative commands rather than declarative statements: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] The song has come in for some criticism over the years as being a little Orientalist, because in critics' eyes it combines Chinese philosophy with Indian music, as if all these things are equally "Eastern" and so all the same really. On the other hand there's a good argument that an English songwriter taking a piece of writing written in Chinese and translated into English by a Spanish man and setting it to music inspired by Indian musical modes is a wonderful example of cultural cross-pollination. As someone who's neither Chinese nor Indian I wouldn't want to take a stance on it, but clearly the other Beatles were impressed by it -- they put it out as the B-side to their next single, even though the only Beatles on it are Harrison and McCartney, with the latter adding a small amount of harmony vocal: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] And it wasn't because the group were out of material. They were planning on going to Rishikesh to study with the Maharishi, and wanted to get a single out for release while they were away, and so in one week they completed the vocal overdubs on "The Inner Light" and recorded three other songs, two by John and one by Paul. All three of the group's songwriters brought in songs that were among their best. John's first contribution was a song whose lyrics he later described as possibly the best he ever wrote, "Across the Universe". He said the lyrics were “purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don't own it, you know; it came through like that … Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It's not a matter of craftsmanship, it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. I didn't want to write it … It's like being possessed, like a psychic or a medium.” But while Lennon liked the song, he was never happy with the recording of it. They tried all sorts of things to get the sound he heard in his head, including bringing in some fans who were hanging around outside to sing backing vocals. He said of the track "I was singing out of tune and instead of getting a decent choir, we got fans from outside, Apple Scruffs or whatever you call them. They came in and were singing all off-key. Nobody was interested in doing the tune originally.” [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] The "jai guru deva" chorus there is the first reference to the teachings of the Maharishi in one of the Beatles' records -- Guru Dev was the Maharishi's teacher, and the phrase "Jai guru dev" is a Sanskrit one which I've seen variously translated as "victory to the great teacher", and "hail to the greatness within you". Lennon would say shortly before his death “The Beatles didn't make a good record out of it. I think subconsciously sometimes we – I say ‘we' though I think Paul did it more than the rest of us – Paul would sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song … Usually we'd spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul's songs, when it came to mine, especially if it was a great song like ‘Strawberry Fields' or ‘Across The Universe', somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in … It was a _lousy_ track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it …The guitars are out of tune and I'm singing out of tune because I'm psychologically destroyed and nobody's supporting me or helping me with it, and the song was never done properly.” Of course, this is only Lennon's perception, and it's one that the other participants would disagree with. George Martin, in particular, was always rather hurt by the implication that Lennon's songs had less attention paid to them, and he would always say that the problem was that Lennon in the studio would always say "yes, that's great", and only later complain that it hadn't been what he wanted. No doubt McCartney did put in more effort on his own songs than on Lennon's -- everyone has a bias towards their own work, and McCartney's only human -- but personally I suspect that a lot of the problem comes down to the two men having very different personalities. McCartney had very strong ideas about his own work and would drive the others insane with his nitpicky attention to detail. Lennon had similarly strong ideas, but didn't have the attention span to put the time and effort in to force his vision on others, and didn't have the technical knowledge to express his ideas in words they'd understand. He expected Martin and the other Beatles to work miracles, and they did -- but not the miracles he would have worked. That track was, rather than being chosen for the next single, given to Spike Milligan, who happened to be visiting the studio and was putting together an album for the environmental charity the World Wildlife Fund. The album was titled "No One's Gonna Change Our World": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] That track is historic in another way -- it would be the last time that George Harrison would play sitar on a Beatles record, and it effectively marks the end of the period of psychedelia and Indian influence that had started with "Norwegian Wood" three years earlier, and which many fans consider their most creative period. Indeed, shortly after the recording, Harrison would give up the sitar altogether and stop playing it. He loved sitar music as much as he ever had, and he still thought that Indian classical music spoke to him in ways he couldn't express, and he continued to be friends with Ravi Shankar for the rest of his life, and would only become more interested in Indian religious thought. But as he spent time with Shankar he realised he would never be as good on the sitar as he hoped. He said later "I thought, 'Well, maybe I'm better off being a pop singer-guitar-player-songwriter – whatever-I'm-supposed-to-be' because I've seen a thousand sitar-players in India who are twice as better as I'll ever be. And only one of them Ravi thought was going to be a good player." We don't have a precise date for when it happened -- I suspect it was in June 1968, so a few months after the "Across the Universe" recording -- but Shankar told Harrison that rather than try to become a master of a music that he hadn't encountered until his twenties, perhaps he should be making the music that was his own background. And as Harrison put it "I realised that was riding my bike down a street in Liverpool and hearing 'Heartbreak Hotel' coming out of someone's house.": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"] In early 1968 a lot of people seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as if Christmas 1967 had been the flick of a switch and instead of whimsy and ornamentation, the thing to do was to make music that was influenced by early rock and roll. In the US the Band and Bob Dylan were making music that was consciously shorn of all studio experimentation, while in the UK there was a revival of fifties rock and roll. In April 1968 both "Peggy Sue" and "Rock Around the Clock" reentered the top forty in the UK, and the Who were regularly including "Summertime Blues" in their sets. Fifties nostalgia, which would make occasional comebacks for at least the next forty years, was in its first height, and so it's not surprising that Paul McCartney's song, "Lady Madonna", which became the A-side of the next single, has more than a little of the fifties about it. Of course, the track isn't *completely* fifties in its origins -- one of the inspirations for the track seems to have been the Rolling Stones' then-recent hit "Let's Spend The Night Together": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Let's Spend the Night Together"] But the main source for the song's music -- and for the sound of the finished record -- seems to have been Johnny Parker's piano part on Humphrey Lyttleton's "Bad Penny Blues", a hit single engineered by Joe Meek in the fifties: [Excerpt: Humphrey Lyttleton, "Bad Penny Blues"] That song seems to have been on the group's mind for a while, as a working title for "With a Little Help From My Friends" had at one point been "Bad Finger Blues" -- a title that would later give the name to a band on Apple. McCartney took Parker's piano part as his inspiration, and as he later put it “‘Lady Madonna' was me sitting down at the piano trying to write a bluesy boogie-woogie thing. I got my left hand doing an arpeggio thing with the chord, an ascending boogie-woogie left hand, then a descending right hand. I always liked that, the  juxtaposition of a line going down meeting a line going up." [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] That idea, incidentally, is an interesting reversal of what McCartney had done on "Hello, Goodbye", where the bass line goes down while the guitar moves up -- the two lines moving away from each other: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Though that isn't to say there's no descending bass in "Lady Madonna" -- the bridge has a wonderful sequence where the bass just *keeps* *descending*: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] Lyrically, McCartney was inspired by a photo in National Geographic of a woman in Malaysia, captioned “Mountain Madonna: with one child at her breast and another laughing into her face, sees her quality of life threatened.” But as he put it “The people I was brought up amongst were often Catholic; there are lots of Catholics in Liverpool because of the Irish connection and they are often religious. When they have a baby I think they see a big connection between themselves and the Virgin Mary with her baby. So the original concept was the Virgin Mary but it quickly became symbolic of every woman; the Madonna image but as applied to ordinary working class woman. It's really a tribute to the mother figure, it's a tribute to women.” Musically though, the song was more a tribute to the fifties -- while the inspiration had been a skiffle hit by Humphrey Lyttleton, as soon as McCartney started playing it he'd thought of Fats Domino, and the lyric reflects that to an extent -- just as Domino's "Blue Monday" details the days of the week for a weary working man who only gets to enjoy himself on Saturday night, "Lady Madonna"'s lyrics similarly look at the work a mother has to do every day -- though as McCartney later noted  "I was writing the words out to learn it for an American TV show and I realised I missed out Saturday ... So I figured it must have been a real night out." The vocal was very much McCartney doing a Domino impression -- something that wasn't lost on Fats, who cut his own version of the track later that year: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, "Lady Madonna"] The group were so productive at this point, right before the journey to India, that they actually cut another song *while they were making a video for "Lady Madonna"*. They were booked into Abbey Road to film themselves performing the song so it could be played on Top of the Pops while they were away, but instead they decided to use the time to cut a new song -- John had a partially-written song, "Hey Bullfrog", which was roughly the same tempo as "Lady Madonna", so they could finish that up and then re-edit the footage to match the record. The song was quickly finished and became "Hey Bulldog": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Bulldog"] One of Lennon's best songs from this period, "Hey Bulldog" was oddly chosen only to go on the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine. Either the band didn't think much of it because it had come so easily, or it was just assigned to the film because they were planning on being away for several months and didn't have any other projects they were working on. The extent of the group's contribution to the film was minimal – they were not very hands-on, and the film, which was mostly done as an attempt to provide a third feature film for their United Artists contract without them having to do any work, was made by the team that had done the Beatles cartoon on American TV. There's some evidence that they had a small amount of input in the early story stages, but in general they saw the cartoon as an irrelevance to them -- the only things they contributed were the four songs "All Together Now", "It's All Too Much", "Hey Bulldog" and "Only a Northern Song", and a brief filmed appearance for the very end of the film, recorded in January: [Excerpt: Yellow Submarine film end] McCartney also took part in yet another session in early February 1968, one produced by Peter Asher, his fiancee's brother, and former singer with Peter and Gordon. Asher had given up on being a pop star and was trying to get into the business side of music, and he was starting out as a producer, producing a single by Paul Jones, the former lead singer of Manfred Mann. The A-side of the single, "And the Sun Will Shine", was written by the Bee Gees, the band that Robert Stigwood was managing: [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "And the Sun Will Shine"] While the B-side was an original by Jones, "The Dog Presides": [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "The Dog Presides"] Those tracks featured two former members of the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith, on guitar and bass, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. Asher asked McCartney to play drums on both sides of the single, saying later "I always thought he was a great, underrated drummer." McCartney was impressed by Asher's production, and asked him to get involved with the new Apple Records label that would be set up when the group returned from India. Asher eventually became head of A&R for the label. And even before "Lady Madonna" was mixed, the Beatles were off to India. Mal Evans, their roadie, went ahead with all their luggage on the fourteenth of February, so he could sort out transport for them on the other end, and then John and George followed on the fifteenth, with their wives Pattie and Cynthia and Pattie's sister Jenny (John and Cynthia's son Julian had been left with his grandmother while they went -- normally Cynthia wouldn't abandon Julian for an extended period of time, but she saw the trip as a way to repair their strained marriage). Paul and Ringo followed four days later, with Ringo's wife Maureen and Paul's fiancee Jane Asher. The retreat in Rishikesh was to become something of a celebrity affair. Along with the Beatles came their friend the singer-songwriter Donovan, and Donovan's friend and songwriting partner, whose name I'm not going to say here because it's a slur for Romani people, but will be known to any Donovan fans. Donovan at this point was also going through changes. Like the Beatles, he was largely turning away from drug use and towards meditation, and had recently written his hit single "There is a Mountain" based around a saying from Zen Buddhism: [Excerpt: Donovan, "There is a Mountain"] That was from his double-album A Gift From a Flower to a Garden, which had come out in December 1967. But also like John and Paul he was in the middle of the breakdown of a long-term relationship, and while he would remain with his then-partner until 1970, and even have another child with her, he was secretly in love with another woman. In fact he was secretly in love with two other women. One of them, Brian Jones' ex-girlfriend Linda, had moved to LA, become the partner of the singer Gram Parsons, and had appeared in the documentary You Are What You Eat with the Band and Tiny Tim. She had fallen out of touch with Donovan, though she would later become his wife. Incidentally, she had a son to Brian Jones who had been abandoned by his rock-star father -- the son's name is Julian. The other woman with whom Donovan was in love was Jenny Boyd, the sister of George Harrison's wife Pattie.  Jenny at the time was in a relationship with Alexis Mardas, a TV repairman and huckster who presented himself as an electronics genius to the Beatles, who nicknamed him Magic Alex, and so she was unavailable, but Donovan had written a song about her, released as a single just before they all went to Rishikesh: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Jennifer Juniper"] Donovan considered himself and George Harrison to be on similar spiritual paths and called Harrison his "spirit-brother", though Donovan was more interested in Buddhism, which Harrison considered a corruption of the more ancient Hinduism, and Harrison encouraged Donovan to read Autobiography of a Yogi. It's perhaps worth noting that Donovan's father had a different take on the subject though, saying "You're not going to study meditation in India, son, you're following that wee lassie Jenny" Donovan and his friend weren't the only other celebrities to come to Rishikesh. The actor Mia Farrow, who had just been through a painful divorce from Frank Sinatra, and had just made Rosemary's Baby, a horror film directed by Roman Polanski with exteriors shot at the Dakota building in New York, arrived with her sister Prudence. Also on the trip was Paul Horn, a jazz saxophonist who had played with many of the greats of jazz, not least of them Duke Ellington, whose Sweet Thursday Horn had played alto sax on: [Excerpt: Duke Ellington, "Zweet Zursday"] Horn was another musician who had been inspired to investigate Indian spirituality and music simultaneously, and the previous year he had recorded an album, "In India," of adaptations of ragas, with Ravi Shankar and Alauddin Khan: [Excerpt: Paul Horn, "Raga Vibhas"] Horn would go on to become one of the pioneers of what would later be termed "New Age" music, combining jazz with music from various non-Western traditions. Horn had also worked as a session musician, and one of the tracks he'd played on was "I Know There's an Answer" from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "I Know There's an Answer"] Mike Love, who co-wrote that track and is one of the lead singers on it, was also in Rishikesh. While as we'll see not all of the celebrities on the trip would remain practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, Love would be profoundly affected by the trip, and remains a vocal proponent of TM to this day. Indeed, his whole band at the time were heavily into TM. While Love was in India, the other Beach Boys were working on the Friends album without him -- Love only appears on four tracks on that album -- and one of the tracks they recorded in his absence was titled "Transcendental Meditation": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Transcendental Meditation"] But the trip would affect Love's songwriting, as it would affect all of the musicians there. One of the few songs on the Friends album on which Love appears is "Anna Lee, the Healer", a song which is lyrically inspired by the trip in the most literal sense, as it's about a masseuse Love met in Rishikesh: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Anna Lee, the Healer"] The musicians in the group all influenced and inspired each other as is likely to happen in such circumstances. Sometimes, it would be a matter of trivial joking, as when the Beatles decided to perform an off-the-cuff song about Guru Dev, and did it in the Beach Boys style: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] And that turned partway through into a celebration of Love for his birthday: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] Decades later, Love would return the favour, writing a song about Harrison and their time together in Rishikesh. Like Donovan, Love seems to have considered Harrison his "spiritual brother", and he titled the song "Pisces Brothers": [Excerpt: Mike Love, "Pisces Brothers"] The musicians on the trip were also often making suggestions to each other about songs that would become famous for them. The musicians had all brought acoustic guitars, apart obviously from Ringo, who got a set of tabla drums when George ordered some Indian instruments to be delivered. George got a sitar, as at this point he hadn't quite given up on the instrument, and he gave Donovan a tamboura. Donovan started playing a melody on the tamboura, which is normally a drone instrument, inspired by the Scottish folk music he had grown up with, and that became his "Hurdy-Gurdy Man": [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man"] Harrison actually helped him with the song, writing a final verse inspired by the Maharishi's teachings, but in the studio Donovan's producer Mickie Most told him to cut the verse because the song was overlong, which apparently annoyed Harrison. Donovan includes that verse in his live performances of the song though -- usually while doing a fairly terrible impersonation of Harrison: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man (live)"] And similarly, while McCartney was working on a song pastiching Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys, but singing about the USSR rather than the USA, Love suggested to him that for a middle-eight he might want to sing about the girls in the various Soviet regions: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Back in the USSR"] As all the guitarists on the retreat only had acoustic instruments, they were very keen to improve their acoustic playing, and they turned to Donovan, who unlike the rest of them was primarily an acoustic player, and one from a folk background. Donovan taught them the rudiments of Travis picking, the guitar style we talked about way back in the episodes on the Everly Brothers, as well as some of the tunings that had been introduced to British folk music by Davey Graham, giving them a basic grounding in the principles of English folk-baroque guitar, a style that had developed over the previous few years. Donovan has said in his autobiography that Lennon picked the technique up quickly (and that Harrison had already learned Travis picking from Chet Atkins records) but that McCartney didn't have the application to learn the style, though he picked up bits. That seems very unlike anything else I've read anywhere about Lennon and McCartney -- no-one has ever accused Lennon of having a surfeit of application -- and reading Donovan's book he seems to dislike McCartney and like Lennon and Harrison, so possibly that enters into it. But also, it may just be that Lennon was more receptive to Donovan's style at the time. According to McCartney, even before going to Rishikesh Lennon had been in a vaguely folk-music and country mode, and the small number of tapes he'd brought with him to Rishikesh included Buddy Holly, Dylan, and the progressive folk band The Incredible String Band, whose music would be a big influence on both Lennon and McCartney for the next year: [Excerpt: The Incredible String Band, "First Girl I Loved"] According to McCartney Lennon also brought "a tape the singer Jake Thackray had done for him... He was one of the people we bumped into at Abbey Road. John liked his stuff, which he'd heard on television. Lots of wordplay and very suggestive, so very much up John's alley. I was fascinated by his unusual guitar style. John did ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun' as a Jake Thackray thing at one point, as I recall.” Thackray was a British chansonnier, who sang sweetly poignant but also often filthy songs about Yorkshire life, and his humour in particular will have appealed to Lennon. There's a story of Lennon meeting Thackray in Abbey Road and singing the whole of Thackray's song "The Statues", about two drunk men fighting a male statue to defend the honour of a female statue, to him: [Excerpt: Jake Thackray, "The Statues"] Given this was the music that Lennon was listening to, it's unsurprising that he was more receptive to Donovan's lessons, and the new guitar style he learned allowed him to expand his songwriting, at precisely the same time he was largely clean of drugs for the first time in several years, and he started writing some of the best songs he would ever write, often using these new styles: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Julia"] That song is about Lennon's dead mother -- the first time he ever addressed her directly in a song, though  it would be far from the last -- but it's also about someone else. That phrase "Ocean child" is a direct translation of the Japanese name "Yoko". We've talked about Yoko Ono a bit in recent episodes, and even briefly in a previous Beatles episode, but it's here that she really enters the story of the Beatles. Unfortunately, exactly *how* her relationship with John Lennon, which was to become one of the great legendary love stories in rock and roll history, actually started is the subject of some debate. Both of them were married when they first got together, and there have also been suggestions that Ono was more interested in McCartney than in Lennon at first -- suggestions which everyone involved has denied, and those denials have the ring of truth about them, but if that was the case it would also explain some of Lennon's more perplexing behaviour over the next year. By all accounts there was a certain amount of finessing of the story th

Get by with a little help from your buddies! In this ep, Mat and Tim finally – finally – talk about the lovable lads from Liverpool. Are they actually underrated? How's that new single of theirs? And are they actually a children's band?SONGS PLAYED:The Beatles - With a Little Help From My FriendsThe Beatles - Now and ThenThe Beatles - Come TogetherThe Beatles - Penny LaneLittle Richard - Good Golly, Miss MollyThe Beatles - Eleanor RigbyThe Beatles - Can't Buy Me LoveThe Beatles - SomethingThe Beatles - Tomorrow Never KnowsThe Beatles - Rocky RaccoonThe Beatles - Here Comes the SunThe Beatles - YesterdayThe Beatles - Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown)The Beatles - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-DaElmer Fudd - With a Little Help From My Friends--Disclaimers:Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” of copyrighted material in a manner that constitutes quotation, criticism, review, parody, caricature, pastiche, and other legal copyright exceptions. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise by infringing.Also, nobody actually sponsors Earbuddies. We're just joking.

Intro song: You Brought the War by Dopplepopolis (demo)Bonus clips: Mars by Gustav Holtz & Paid in Cigarettes by Hot Snakes12. Nerf HerderSong 1: High Five AnxietySong 2: Born Weird11. IslandsSong 1: Rough GemSong 2: Wave FormsAndrew ranks Greg's #11-20 artistsGreg ranks Andrew's #1-20 artistsOutro song: Figure Eight by Greg Simpson & Andrew MayBackground songs: Albuquerque by Weird Al Yankovic, Suffragette City by David Bowie, With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles, Farmhouse by Phish, The Laws Have Changed by The New Pornographers, Maybe I'm Amazed by Paul McCartney, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift, Run Like Hell by Pink FloydShow note: The following links will be updated when they are available (i.e., some of them aren't ready yet, so be patient!)Link to This Might Be a Podcast episode with Andrew (Spotify)Link to This Might Be a Podcast episode with Andrew (Apple)Link to new Outdoor Velour albumLink to Charity Compilation

Intro song: Duck Tales15. Charles in Charge14. The Wonder Years (With a Little Help From My Friends)13. The Waltons12. Scrubs (Superman)11. In Living ColorOutro song: Chip 'N' Dale's Rescue RangersVote for your favorite TV theme song from this episodeAnd if you haven't:Vote on Episode 1Vote on Episode 2Vote on Episode 3Vote on Episode 4Vote on Episode 5Vote on Episode 6Vote on Episode 7

This week, hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot share some new music that's flying underneath the mainstream radar - buried treasures! They'll also hear selections from their production staff and bid farewell to The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke. Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Featured Songs: feeble little horse, "Tin Man," Tin Man (Single), Saddle Creek, 2023The Beatles, "I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Tombstones in Their Eyes, "No One to Blame," Sea of Sorrow, Kitten Robot, 2023African Head Charge, "Microdosing," Microdosing (Single), On-U Sound, 2023Evangeline, "Mystic," Fuzzy, Fourteen One Four, 2023Juliana, "Narices Frias," Narice Frias (Single), MUN, 2023Ye Vagabonds, "Blue is the Eye," Nine Waves, River Lea, 2022Draag, "Demonbird," Dark Fire Heresy, Draag, 2023Louise Post, "Guilty," Guilty (Single), El Camino, 2023The Greeting Committee, "Can I Leave Me Too?," Dandelion, Harvest, 2021Cafuné, "Tek It," Running, Aurelians Club, Elektra, 2021Durand Jones, "Lord Have Mercy," Wait Til I Get Over, Dead Oceans, 2023Vanessa Tha Finessa, "Top Notch," CURRENT, babygirl123, 2023Gabe 'Nandez, "Pangea," Pangea, Pow, 2023Sphaèros, "Possession," POSSESSION, Pan European, 2020The Smiths, "This Charming Man," The Smiths, Rough Trade, 1984The Smiths, "Barbarism Begins At Home," Meat Is Murder, Sire, 1985Chuck Berry, "You Never Can Tell (1964 Single Version)," You Never Can Tell (Single), Chess, 1964Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot host blues singer Shemekia Copeland for a live performance and interview. She performs stripped down arrangements of songs from her Grammy-nominated 2022 album "Done Come Too Far" and others. Plus the hosts pay tribute to Gordon Lightfoot and review the new album from rapper Billy Woods and producer Kenny Segal.  Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Shemekia Copeland, "Too Far To Be Gone (feat. Sonny Landreth)," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022The Beatles, "I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967billy woods / Kenny Segal, "FaceTime (feat. Samuel T. Herring)," Maps, Backwoodz Studioz, 2023billy woods / Kenny Segal, "Soundcheck (feat. Quelle Chris)," Maps, Backwoodz Studioz, 2023billy woods / Kenny Segal, "NYC Tapwater," Maps, Backwoodz Studioz, 2023billy woods / Kenny Segal, "Year Zero (feat. Danny Brown)," Maps, Backwoodz Studioz, 2023billy woods / Kenny Segal, "Kenwood Speakers," Maps, Backwoodz Studioz, 2023Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind," Sit Down Young Stranger, Reprise, 1970Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Summertime Dream, Reprise, 1976Shemekia Copeland, "Too Far To Be Gone (Live on Sound Opinions)," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022Shemekia Copeland, "Fell In Love With A Honky (Live on Sound Opinions)," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022Shemekia Copeland, "The Talk," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022Shemekia Copeland, "Uncivil War (Live on Sound Opinions)," Uncivil War, Alligator, 2020Shemekia Copeland, "Nobody But You (Live on Sound Opinions)," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022Tina Turner, "Better Be Good to Me," Private Dancer, Capitol, 1984Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since 2003, Numero Group has championed talented, overshadowed artists across genres by reissuing their albums with care and creativity. Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot talk with Numero Group founders Rob Sevier and Ken Shipley about the label's history and working with everyone from Syl Johnson to Blondie. They'll also share some of their favorite Numero tracks.   Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Featured Songs: Syl Johnson, "Concrete Reservation," Is It Because I'm Black (Deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition), Numero, 2019The Beatles, "I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Television, "Little Johnny Jewel," Ork Records: New York, New York, Numero, 2015Blondie, "Moonlight Drive," Against The Odds: 1974 - 1982, Capitol, 2022Mickey & The Soul Generation, "Give Everybody Some," Give Everybody Some (Single), Numero, 2023Jackie Shane, "Any Other Way," Any Other Way, Numero, 2017Bruce Springsteen, "Any Other Way," Only the Strong Survive, Columbia, 2022Joey Edmonds, "Blue," Whispers Lounge, Numero, 2020Charlie Megira, "Tomorrow's Gone," Tomorrow's Gone, Numero, 2019Mick Farren & The New Wave, "Lost Johnny," Ork Records: New York, New York, Numero, 201594 East, "If You See Me," If You See Me (Single), Numero, 2013Shemekia Copeland, "Too Far To Be Gone (feat. Sonny Landreth)," Done Come Too Far, Alligator, 2022  Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is Tuesday, May 16   Calling all artists and artisans -- the 2023 State Fair of WV is seeking entries…Save the date -- June 9-18 -- for Charleston's FestivALL celebration…and grab your tickets now before they're gone--Ringo Starr (yes, the Beatle!) is coming to the capital city!...on today's daily304. #1 – From WBOY-TV –  The 98th Annual State Fair of West Virginia is coming soon, but those interested in its competitions can join in now. The deadline to enter is July 14. “Every year exhibitors gather to honor the State Fair's mission of promoting agricultural knowledge and advancement, and the arts. Exhibitors enter-award winning produce, flowers, baked goods, livestock, and more. We're looking forward to seeing what everyone brings out this year!” said Agriculture Competitions Manager Alexis Porterfield-Mulcahy. The fair runs from August 10-19. For more information, visit https://statefairofwv.com/. Read more: https://www.wboy.com/news/west-virginia/98th-annual-state-fair-of-wv-now-accepting-entries/   #2 – From FESTIVALL – Save the date -- June 9-18. That's when a city becomes a work of art! FestivALL is a city-wide, multi-arts festival in West Virginia's capital city showcasing a mix of music, theater, dance, visual art, and more each June. What began as a three-day festival produced by volunteers in 2005 is now an arts organization that serves its community with year round events and programs. Plan to visit Charleston again for FestivFALL, Three Things, and various neighborhood arts. Learn more and download a 2023 schedule: https://festivallcharleston.com/   #3 – From CHASWVCCC –  Get your tickets now! Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band are set to perform at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center on Oct. 9. As drummer for The Beatles, the Liverpudlian mophead also took the lead vocals on several classic songs including “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Yellow Submarine.” Over the years, his prolific solo career has resulted in a number of hits including “It Don't Come Easy” and “Photograph.” In 2022 Starr released EP3 and a new music video, “Everyone and Everything.”  Learn more and purchase tickets: https://www.chaswvccc.com/events/2023/ringo-starr-and-his-all-starr-band   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.  

Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot share favorite songs about the end of the world from artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Fishbone. They're also joined by their production staff with their picks for songs that creatively deal with the apocalypse. Then recent feedback from listeners is played.   Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Featured Songs: The Doors, "The End," The Doors, Elektra, 1967The Beatles, "I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Sharon Van Etten, "The End of the World," Resistance Radio: The Man in the High Castle Album, Columbia, 2017R.E.M., "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," Document, I.R.S., 1987David Bowie, "Five Years," The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, RCA, 1972Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction," Eve of Destruction, Geffen, 1965Matt Maltese, "As the World Caves In," Bad Contestant, Atlantic UK, 2018Postal Service, "We Will Become Silhouettes," Give Up, Sub Pop, 2005Randy Newman, "Political Science," Sail Away, Rhino/Warner, 1972Nico, "The End," The End..., Island, 1974Phoebe Bridgers, "I Know the End," Punisher, Dead Oceans, 2020The Verve, "Bitter Sweet Symphony," Urban Hymns, Hut, 1997Fishbone, "Party At Ground Zero," Fishbone, Columbia, 1985Madonna, "4 Minutes (feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland)," Hard Candy, Warner Bros., 2008Method Man, "Judgement Day," Tical 2000: Judgement Day, Def Jam, 1998Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around," American IV: The Man Comes Around, American Recordings, Universal, 2002Xixa, "May They Call Us Home," Genesis, Julian, 2020Reckling, "Spitter," Reckling, Reckling, 2018Cam Cool, "Everyone Texts and Drives," Everyone Texts and Drives (Single), Cam Cool, 2023Syl Johnson, "Concrete Reservation," Is It Because I'm Black (Deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition), Numero, 2019Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Counting Down the Greatest Cover Songs of All-Time!!#5-1Intro: Iris by Colbie CaillatOutro: Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls5. HurtOriginal: Hurt by Nine Inch NailsAlternate: Hurt by 2CELLOSCover: Hurt by Johnny Cash4. With a Little Help From My FriendsOriginal: With a Little Help From My Friends by The BeatlesAlternate: With a Little Help From My Friends by *Mystery Artist*Alternate: With a Little Help From My Friends by *Mystery Artist*Alternate: With a Little Help From My Friends by Mumford & SonsAlternate: With a Little Help From My Friends by ShinedownAlternate: With a Little Help From My Friends by Josh KelleyCover: With a Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker3. CrossroadsOriginal: Cross Road Blues by Robert JohnsonAlternate: Standing at the Crossroads by Elmore James & the Broom DustersAlternate: Crossroads by *Mystery Artist*Alternate: Crossroads by *Mystery Artist*Alternate: Crossroads by RushCover: Crossroads by Cream2. All Along the WatchtowerOriginal: All Along the Watchtower by Bob DylanAlternate: All Along the Watchtower by U2Alternate: All Along the Watchtower by Dave Matthews BandCover: All Along the Watchtower by The Jimi Hendrix Experience1. RespectOriginal: Respect by Otis ReddingAlternate: Respect by Jennifer HudsonCover: Respect by Aretha FranklinVote on your favorite cover version from today's episodeLast chance to vote on any episodes that you haven't!!Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 1Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 2Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 3Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 4Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 5Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 6Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 7Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 8Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 9Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 10Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 11Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 12Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 13Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 14Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 15Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 16Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 17Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 18Vote on your favorite cover version from Episode 19

Happy belated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, fellow brothers and sisters of all races from all places. What you're about to hear was a total gas and an absolute dream come true for me. This unforgettable get-together is made up of favorite recurring guest Rene Rivero (Sixth appearance), neighbor and great friend Mariano Oliver (Third appearance), and Outrageous owner and bruda Bob Sandler (Second appearance). We all catch up and get acquainted with each other over an exquisite Mexican cuisine whipped up by my culinary sorceress mom who partakes in this shindig along with Doc in which unspoken family truths are revealed which make me question the current life I'm living and we four broskis gush out on common pop culture interests. A quadruple encore is presented at the end with R&B legend Stevie Wonder's hit "Happy Birthday" to commemorate the late doctor, the main theme to the dystopian classic "Escape from New York" in honor of the 75th birthday of horror master John Carpenter, my renditioning of "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters and "A Little Help From My Friends" by the Beatles. It's nothing but overlapping conversation, which makes it sound like captured audio of a Robert Altman film.

Desde muy joven, Joe Cocker tenía claro que quería dedicarse a la música y convertirse en una estrella. Para ello contó con Ray Charles como una de sus grandes fuentes de inspiración. De hecho, el propio Charles llegó a decir de él que era una de los tres mejores cantantes de blues de la historia. Y es que a Joe Cocker le acompañaron siempre géneros como el soul y el rythm and blues. Fue gracias a esos sonidos que encontró su sitio en la música.Estamos ante uno de los pocos artistas que es capaz de mejorar sustancialmente una canción de The Beatles. Eso lo consiguió con "With a Little Help From My Friends", tema que convirtió en un himno del blues (en palabras de los propios beatles). A raíz de ello, The Beatles llegaron a ofrecerle más canciones para versionar; pero fue con aquella con la que Cocker triunfó por todo lo alto en el festival de Woodstock '69. Hoy es nuestro gran protagonista en 'El Rock&Roll Ha Muerto'; un programa en el que Canco Rodríguez y Chuspi también nos recordarán otros éxitos de Cocker como, por ejemplpo, ser el ganador de un premio Óscar. ¡No te lo pierdas!

The B1G gets just what they wanted with OSU and Michigan surviving to remain unbeaten heading into The Game ("With a Little Help From My Friends" playing in the background).  The Pig stays in Iowa city whilst Indiana steals the Spittoon.  Penn State administers a shellacking, Purdue advances, and Wiscy pulls the ball away from Charlie Brown.  

Diane and Sean discuss Julie Taymor's musical celebrating the Beatles, Across the Universe. Episode music is "With a Little Help From My Friends", written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess, Christopher Tierney, Curtis Holbrook, John Jeffrey Martin, Matt Caplan, Aisha De Haas, and Bill Buell from the OST.Support the show

I had this dream about the Ghost of Tom Joad. It was Life During Wartime, and I was about to Cry Me a River. But With a Little Help From My Friends, the Space Captain wakes me and says, hey, Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? And then he says, I Wish You Would Save the Country. Then, we'd be Feelin' All Right.

This week we look at the bipartisan resolution filed by Representatives Nancy Mace and Barbara Lee, calling on the Biden administration to get the United Nations remove the cannabis plant from the list of controlled substances in the 1961 single convention on narcotic drugs.  And then we turn our attention to the latest news surrounding Russia's illegal detention of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner. And finally, a question of cannabis ethics came up this weekend while I was with my friends and I want to get everyone's opinion on it. We'll be discussing all those stories and more on the BEST cannabis podcast in the business... As we like to say around here, “Everyone knows what happened in marijuana today, but you need to know what's happening in Marijuana Tomorrow!”  ----more---- Come Meet Dan ‘grassroots' Goldman at the NYC 4/20 Celebration and Canna Market at Club Amazura! Get your TICKETS HERE! ----more---- Segment 1 - Will A Bipartisan Resolution Get the Job Done at the UN? https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bipartisan-congressional-lawmakers-want-biden-to-push-un-to-end-international-marijuana-ban/ ----more---- Segment 2 - Free Brittney! https://www.marijuanamoment.net/american-basketball-star-brittney-griners-cannabis-arrest-in-russia-prompts-top-u-s-officials-to-speak-out/ https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1504154797364199436 60 Minutes On Wrongful Detainees Abroad: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wrongful-detainees-american-hostages-60-minutes-2022-02-27/ ----more---- Segment 3 -   A Question of Cannabis Ethics When Getting High With a Little Help From My Friends... ----more---- Big Finish Link:  April 22 in Washington, DC, The National Cannabis Policy Summit: https://nationalcannabisfestival.com/ncf-policy-summit ----more---- This episode of Marijuana Tomorrow is brought to you by Cannabeta Realty and The Emerald Farm Tours.  ----more----

Jasmin and Giuseppe are joined by fellow Grey's fan and former social worker Kayla Jackson as they discuss this week's Grey's Anatomy episode entitled ‘With a Little Help From My Friends'. They talk about the Webber Method, Bailey's character development over the series, and Addison's scenes with Amelia. They also discuss the patient that Jo and Carina treat, Owen and Winston's burn pit patient, and their thoughts on Meredith's love life. You can find Kayla on Instagram at @kayladaniellejackson

It’s easy to get caught up with what is right in front of you. Leading a church is no exception. The list of to-dos is endless. A sermon needs to be prepared and preached. There is always another meeting. All of this is good, and it’s a part of a call to ministry. I love it. But far too often, a focus on the here and now is at the expense of a greater mission taking place. God is at work in other churches as well. God, the Holy Spirit, is meeting the needs of a church down the street and across town. And it takes looking up and past the present circumstances to see the greater gospel mission.  One Message with One Mission Of course, there is a litany of churches in America, and some of them need to be closed down. There are churches where the gospel message is not being preached, and the Bible is collecting dust. I am referring to the churches that have made a bee-line to liberation theology or theological liberalism. Those churches are writing their own story, and the story includes a slow death. And the data backs it up. I’ll grant that church attendance is down across the board in America, but mainline (liberal) protestant churches are leading the way. When I think about the advancement of the gospel, I have in mind churches where the pastor preaches from the Bible. The good news of Jesus Christ is evident in word and deed. I am talking about churches consumed with being transformed into the image of Christ instead of being transformed into the image of culture. It’s with these churches where I want to lock arms with one message on one mission. I want to look past the tree to see the forest. While these churches might be few in number, it’s these churches where I am willing to find ways to partner. It’s these churches that must band together for the advancement of the gospel. COVID Consternation I was reminded of the value of gospel partnership during 2020 and into 2021. The church where I am a pastor, Redemption Hill Church, had to navigate remaining united and meet every Sunday, without a church building. The plans we made before the pandemic were squashed, and suddenly we needed to figure out where to gather for worship. So during 2020 and into 2021, we gathered at ten different locations. From parks to drive-in church on my front lawn, the church flexed and gathered. Now, I have to admit it was challenging to pivot week in and week out. Nonetheless, by the grace of God and the support from the saints of Redemption Hill, we still exist for the glory of God. However, we were not alone. Other churches in the area saw our unique situation and moved to help us. I want to tell you about three churches that understand the importance of the gospel and the local church. “A Little Help From My Friends” Frontier Church Before COVID and before the Powers family relocated to the Des Moines metro, several families from the Twin Cities arrived. They were a people without a church home. Even after the Powers set down roots in Des Moines, it would be several months before our official first church service. So I decided to connect with the lead pastor Cole Deike. I wanted him to know that there would be a small influx of visitors for a season. He received our team with joy. Frontier faithfully preaches from God’s Word, and they are on a mission to love the Des Moines

This week’s episode of Is This Song Good? discusses The Wonder Years theme song by Joe Cocker. This cover of With a Little Help From My Friends was originally written by The Beatles.

By 1967, the Beatles had endured quite the career. The British invasion ushered in Beatlemania and made them a cultural phenomenon very early in their career with their boyish good looks mixed with their years of experience crooning classics at clubs in the UK and Germany. Then, as the 60s went on, culture changed drastically, and the Beatles changed along with it. They experienced psychedelics, traveled to India to meditate and transcend, and each felt themselves becoming something more, as they began looking less and less like each other, and more like individuals with a variety of ideals. This was evident to diehard fans, and very controversial to their detractors, but it wasn't until "Sergeant Pepper" that average listeners found out what all the hub-bub was with the psychedelic movement in rock music. Creating completely new personas, with "Sergeant Pepper", the Beatles created a fully fleshed out concept album that was experimental in ways that people hadn't seen from them yet. It popularized psychedelia and experimentation in music, and it legitimized the growing genre of Rock music by being the first Rock album to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. Even if both film adaptations were/are universally panned, the original concept is gold and the entire album is full of stone cold classics, and it ushered in the last, and arguably best, chapter of the Beatles' journey together. Today we have the core crew with Brad, Jon, Dave, and Jake "the Snake" Foster! Links from ep: Joe Cocker (w/ John Belushi) on SNL - "Just a Little Help From My Friends": https://youtu.be/VmjWO7oY8LU Clip from Tom Dowd & the Language of Music: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3QRzd3wpQ2ADcFGAWGHhSvOVwhw66S06 Other Links: OUR DISCORD: https://discord.gg/2stA2P7pTC TACHP Desert Island Discord Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wNErQHfrAYgSsIZlLJ6ym?si=dtrMJCuqQwa1Zt7RtwrXNg (YouTube Playlist): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Uk6UBPMYEs3BtK1HwWJMyXlKwPH93Qx EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/FlyoverStatePark --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/albumconcepthour/support

#573 - Larry Carlton The Larry Carlton Interview is featured on The Paul Leslie Hour. It is a great honor we present an interview with an artist known for both his solo records and his guitar session work. Larry Carlton is one of the greatest guitarists alive. If you think this is an exaggeration, maybe you should see him in concert. This interview with Mr. Carlton was recorded prior to one of his concerts in Atlanta, Georgia. He was performing a pair of shows on the same night at the Sambuca restaurant in Buckhead. Sambuca is sadly no longer there. The resulting conversation became one of the interviews which received the most feedback. This is a testament to Larry Carlton's incredible following around the world. He is a 4-time Grammy winner and 19-time Grammy nominee. He is a recipient of the George Benson Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named one of the 10 Greatest-Ever Session Guitarists by Gibson. Larry Carlton has been playing guitar since he was six years old. He began listening to to jazz music in Junior High School. In 1968, at 20 years old, Larry Carlton recorded his first album entitled "With a Little Help From My Friends." From 1971 to 1976 he played with jazz rock group The Crusaders. In 1973 he released his second solo project "Singing | Playing," featuring not only his guitar work, but also vocals. While still touring with the Crusaders, he contributed as a guitar session player to albums from Sammy Davis, Jr., Herb Alpert, Quincy Jones, Paul Anka, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, and Jerry Garcia just to name a few. Over time, Larry Carlton appeared on over 3,000 studio sessions. His accomplishments are many. He has written and co-written theme songs for TV shows including the hit sitcom "Who's the Boss?" and the drama "Hill Street Blues." He has written and recorded a film score and has appeared on more than 100 Gold Albums. He was voted the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences "Most Valuable Player" 3 consecutive years. NARAS then named him Player Emeritus and he became retired from eligibility. Larry Carlton's mesmerizing guitar playing has appeared in 4 videos, 6 DVDs and 28 solo records. It's a short, pre-concert interview - right here on The Paul Leslie Hour. The Paul Leslie Hour is a talk show dedicated to “Helping People Tell Their Stories.” Some of the most iconic people of all time drop in to chat. Frequent topics include Arts, Entertainment and Culture. Support The Paul Leslie Hour by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-paul-leslie-hour

In Part 3 of this series, I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends, Dr. Roger, Teresa and Danielle share tips for connecting online that go beyond your standard Zoom call. Discover creative ways to connect with friends, family, grandchildren and everyone you care about.Resources mentioned in this podcast: Made By Mortals: https://www.madebymortals.orgArmchair Adventures: An Intergenerational Journey into the Imagination: https://www.spreaker.com/user/masterpiece_living/armchair-final-feb-1-2021Meetup: https://www.meetup.com

The Beattles said it best, I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends. Gloria Lybecker says it well again in today's podcast.  We all need a helping hand from time to time.  Do we know how to ask for it or even recognize when we should?  Allow yourself a few minutes today to take a spiritual journey with Gloria.  Her hand is always outstretched in my experience. Brought to you by Horse World Connect

In Episode 25, the Boomtron Crew, and guest host, Caity, take an in-depth look at Shadow and Bone, starring Jessie Mei Li, Archie Renaux, Ben Barnes, and Freddy Carter. Shadow and Bone combines elements of Leigh Bardugo's "Shadow and Bones" trilogy, as well as her "Six of Crows" duology. In the series, Alina Starkov (Mei Li) discovers that she is the long-awaited for Sun Summoner, and becomes the center of the struggle between good and evil, as well as a sought after commodity. The Boomtron Crew gives their thoughts about the series, as well as discusses what else is coming up for them on Netflix. You can listen to Caity on her own podcast, Disney Plus Roulette, as well as her husband's D&D podcast, I Roll Die with a Little Help From My Friends. Disclaimer: No members of the Boomtron Podcast are employed by Netflix, nor do they have any business ties with the Netflix corporation. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and all Netflix news and information that is shared is simply what Amy and these two yahoos found online.

'With a Little Help From My Friends' by John Lennon & Paul McCartney -- with a little help from arrangements by Joe Cocker & Elliot Goldenthal -- and also some rose-jasmine gin & not giving a flying fuck on my part. You're welcome.

In which Anika and Chris reveal the fairly shallow reason we had for doing Till We Have Faces this year and accidentally endorse human sacrifice.  Mostly, we talk about Chapter 7, in which Orual and Psyche say goodbye, and Chapter 8, in which Orual decides to journey to the mountain and recover Psyche's body.  At issue are whether or not selfish love is still love and whether sacrifice (especially human sacrifice) is effective. Other highlights: Ash Wednesday Anecdotes Anika reads Lewis' poem, "As the Ruin Falls" Till We Have Faces as a text that changes its narrator Finally, inspired by WandaVision, the hosts ask whether Till We Have Faces would make a good sitcom--and what kind of sitcom it would be? Have your own thoughts?  Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you. Music credits: The "Our Father" in Aramaic The Hurrian Hymn "Aase's Death," by Edvard Grieg "The Toy Parade," by Dave Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene "Everywhere You Look," by Jesse Frederick "With a Little Help From My Friends," by Joe Cocker We will see you in two weeks for Chapters 9 and 10!

We explore some history and hauntings in the Quad Cities with author Michael McCarty. Gangster John Looney’s haunted mansion, what happened to John Deer’s “Black Angel” burial statue, and more historical locations and ghost stories all featured in the book Ghosts of the Quad Cities (2019).  Michael McCarty has been a professional writer since 1983 and the author of over forty books of fiction and nonfiction, as well as hundreds of articles, short stories and poems. He is a Five-Time Bram Stoker Finalist and winner of the David R. Collins’ Literary Achievement Award from the Midwest Writing Center. Some of his books include Dark Cities: Dark Tales, Dark Duets: Musical Mayhem, A Little Help From My Friends, I Kissed A Ghoul and Lost Girl of the Lake (with Joe McKinney). Check out everything he has written on his Amazon page.  His nonfiction books include Modern Mythmakers, featuring interviews with Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Elvira, William F. Nolan, the cast & crew of Night of the Living Dead and more. He co-wrote the book Conversations with Kreskin which is a cornucopia of stories about Kreskin’s Amazing life, culture, famous friends, inside knowledge of entertainment personalities, his mind power, thought-reading, and much more and Esoteria-Land: the Authentic, Eclectic & Eccentric Nonfiction of Michael McCarty and Ghosts of the Quad Cities (with Mark McLaughlin) which features true ghost stories in the Quad Cities metro area.

We explore some history and hauntings in the Quad Cities with author Michael McCarty. Gangster John Looney's haunted mansion, what happened to John Deer's "Black Angel" burial statue, and more historical locations and ghost stories all featured in the book "Ghosts of the Quad Cities" (2019).  Michael McCarty has been a professional writer since 1983 and the author of over forty books of fiction and nonfiction, as well as hundreds of articles, short stories and poems. He is a Five-Time Bram Stoker Finalist and winner of the David R. Collins' Literary Achievement Award from the Midwest Writing Center. Some of his books include "Dark Cities: Dark Tales", "Dark Duets: Musical Mayhem", "A Little Help From My Friends", "I Kissed A Ghoul" and "Lost Girl of the Lake" (with Joe McKinney). His nonfiction books include "Modern Mythmakers", featuring interviews with Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Elvira, William F. Nolan, the cast & crew of Night of the Living Dead and more. He co-wrote the book "Conversations with Kreskin" which is a cornucopia of stories about Kreskin's Amazing life, culture, famous friends, inside knowledge of entertainment personalities, his mind power, thought-reading, and much more and "Esoteria-Land: the Authentic, Eclectic & Eccentric Nonfiction of Michael McCarty" and "Ghosts of the Quad Cities" (with Mark McLaughlin) which features true ghost stories in the Quad Cities metro area.

In this very special episode Brad talks to a host of guest stars to find out what their (comic related) highlights for 2020 were - and what they are looking forward to in 2021! Surprises, opinions and rambling diversions await - as well as Brad's own picks for 2020 and his upcoming highlights for 2021!With Special Guests Rhys McCane, Adam O'Sulivan, Jim Reynolds, Pol Rua, Colin Smith, Ashley Moore, Chris Martin, Taylor Edwards and Marc BuckinghamRhys McCane:rhysmakesthings.comTwitter: @rhysmakeswordsYoutube: Rhys Makes Moving Picture2020:The Boys TV Show - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190634/2021:Piranesi - Susanna Clarke - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesiAdam O'Sullivan:https://www.facebook.com/D4WHpodcast/2020:Doctor Who - With a Little Help From My Friends - https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/A_Little_Help_from_My_Friends_(comic_story)Always human - https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/always-human/list?title_no=557&page=1Locke and Key TV Show - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locke_%26_Key_(TV_series)Umbrella Academy Season 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Umbrella_Academy_(TV_series)2021:Wonder Woman 1984 - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wonder_woman_1984Black Widow - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3480822/Jim Reynolds:Big Fork Theatre: www.bigforktheatre.comfacebook.com/bigforktheatreCulprits: https://www.facebook.com/culpritscomedyBig Fork Theatre: www.bigforktheatre.com2020: Batman: The Long Halloween - https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Batman:_The_Long_HalloweenZot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zot!Breathtaker - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203010.Breathtaker2021:Xbox Series X - https://www.xbox.com/en-AU/consoles/xbox-series-xPol Rua:Ace Comics and Games: https://www.acecomics.com.au2020:Trese - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trese2021:Wanda Vision -

In this episode of Movie Magic, Host Colin Gomez talks about aviation movies. Not that anyone is rushing to fly these days because of the pandemic. Most of these movies featured in this episode will not make its way on board the inflight entertainment list because of one main reason. Tune in to find out.   Credits:  1. Movie Magic Opening Theme Produced, Composed & Performed by Corey Gomez. 2. Feelin' Alright (Cover), performed by Joe Cocker as featured in the movie "Flight". Written by Dave Mason of Traffic. From Joe Cocker's album With a Little Help From My Friends. Label: Regal Zonophone. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Rolling Stones "Waiting on a Friend" 1981 from "Tattoo You" released on Rolling Stones written by Jagger/Richards and produced by The Glimmer Twins.Personel:Rolling StonesMick Jagger – lead and backing vocalsKeith Richards – rhythm guitarMick Taylor – lead guitarBill Wyman – bass guitarCharlie Watts – drumsGuest musiciansNicky Hopkins – pianoSonny Rollins – tenor saxophoneMichael Carabello – güiro, claves, cabasa and congasCover:Jonathan Horton vocals/guitarIntro Music:"Shithouse" 2010 release from "A Collection of Songs for the Kings". Writer Josh Bond. Produced by Frank CharltonOther Artists Mentioned:Tom WatsonBob MarleyWhite StripesMGMT'Get Lucky' Daft Punk'Under the Boardwalk'  The DriftersBeach BoysAllman Brothers BandGrateful Dead'Untitled 8 (Blue Faces)' by Kendrick LamarVan MorrisonChildish Gambino'Summertime' Will Smith 'Summertime' Vince Staples 'Summertime' George GershwinTribe Called Quest'Start Me Up' The Rolling Stones'Honky Tonk Women' The Rolling StonesPeter ToshPhysical Graffiti' Led Zeppelin'Margaritaville' Jimmy BuffetMTV'Angie' The Rolling Stones'Little T&A' The Rolling Stones'Tattoo You' The Rolling Stones'Some Girls' The Rolling Stones'Emotional Rescue' The Rolling Stones'Beast of Burden' The Rolling Stones'Tambourine Man' Bob Dylan'Waiting on My Man' Velvet Underground'No Expectations' The Rolling Stones'Black Limousine' The Rolling Stones'Heaven' Rolling Stones'Neighbors' Rolling StonesSonny Rollins'Wonderwall' Oasis'Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town' Pearl Jam'Ziggy Stardust' David Bowie'Where the Streets Have No Name' U2'Goat Head’s Soup' Rolling StoneMick TaylorMichael McDonaldThe Verve'I'm Free' The Soup DragonsLed ZeppelinThe BeatlesPaul McCartney'Estranged' Guns n Roses Axl RoseLost Boys'The Best' Tina Turner 'Smooth Operator' Sade 'Baker Street' Jerry Rafferty'Careless Whisper' George Michael'With a Little Help From My Friends' The Beatles'Help' The Beatles'Lean on Me' Bill Withers'Stand By Me' Ben E King'Thank You for Being a Friend' Andrew Gold'Friends' Led Zeppelin'Miss You' Rolling Stones'Walk on the Wild Side' Lou ReedWalter Payton

On a retrouvé Roger Federer sur internet dans une publicité en train de chanter "With a Little Help From My Friends" des Beatles.

On a retrouvé Roger Federer sur internet dans une publicité en train de chanter "With a Little Help From My Friends" des Beatles.

ELO “Showdown” 1973 album “On the Third Day” on Harvest label written and prod by Jeff LynnePersonnel:Jeff Lynne – vocals, guitarsBev Bevan – drums, percussionRichard Tandy – piano, Moog, clavinet, Wurlitzer electric pianoMike de Albuquerque – bass, backing vocalsMike Edwards – celloWilf Gibson – violinColin Walker – celloCover:Josh Bond rhythm guitar/vocalNeal Marsh lead guitarIntro:For the Kings “Shithouse” 2010 “A Collection of Songs for the Kings” written by Josh Bond prod Frank Charlton released independentlyOther artists/songs mentioned:James Brown Marvin Gaye 1968 “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” single released on Tamla written by Norman Whitfield and Barret Strong Prod by WhitfieldELO 1975 “Evil Woman” from “Face the Music” on United Artists writ and prod by Jeff LynneELO 1979 “Don’t Bring Me Down” from “Discovery” on Jet writ and prod by Jeff LynneTravelling Wilburys Bob DylanJoe Cocker 1969 “With a Little Help From My Friends” from same name album on A&M Lennon/McCartney prod Denny CordellVan Morrison David Bowie 1975 “Golden Years” from “Station to Station” on RCA writ prod by David Bowie prod Harry MaslinThe Beatles 1967 “I Am the Walrus” single on Capitol Lennon/McCartney George MartinELO 1977 “Telephone Line” from “A New World Record” on UA Jeff LynneELO 1974 “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” from “El Dorado” on WB/UA Jeff LynneMozart’s “Turkish March”Mrs. America theme “Beethoven’s 5th” from Symphony No 5 Beethoven 1808Tame Impala Fruit Bats Band of Horses Freddy Johnston 1994 “Bad Reputation” from “This Perfect World” on Elektra writ Freedy Johnston Prod Butch VigCurtis Mayfield 

Happy 80th Ringo Starr! Besides being known as The Beatles' drummer, he sang lead in 11 of their songs. In this episode, we flashback and listen to each. Theme Song: "Dance Track", composed by Jessica Ann CatenaSongs Used: "Boys" - The Shirelles (1960)"I Wanna Be Your Man" - The Rolling Stones (1963)"Matchbox" & "Honey Don't" - Carl Perkins (1956)"Act Naturally" - Buck Owens & Ringo Starr (1989)"With a Little Help From My Friends" - Joe Cocker (1968)"Boys" (1963), "I Wanna Be Your Man" (1963), "Matchbox" (1964), "Honey Don't" (1964), "If You've Got Trouble" (1965/1996), "Act Naturally"(1965), "What Goes On" (1965), "Yellow Submarine" (1966), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), "With a Little Help From My Friends" (1967), "Don't Pass Me By" (1968), "Good Night" (1968), "Octopus's Garden" (1969) - The Beatles

Happy 80th Ringo Starr! Besides being known as The Beatles' drummer, he sang lead in 11 of their songs. In this episode, we flashback and listen to each. Theme Song: "Dance Track", composed by Jessica Ann CatenaSongs Mentioned: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RDjP1J56oaTJ0U7aInIRW?si=6019327fe07e4ddc"Boys" - The Shirelles (1960)"I Wanna Be Your Man" - The Rolling Stones (1963)"Matchbox" & "Honey Don't" - Carl Perkins (1956)"Act Naturally" - Buck Owens & Ringo Starr (1989)"With a Little Help From My Friends" - Joe Cocker (1968)"Boys" (1963), "I Wanna Be Your Man" (1963), "Matchbox" (1964), "Honey Don't" (1964), "If You've Got Trouble" (1965/1996), "Act Naturally" (1965), "What Goes On" (1965), "Yellow Submarine" (1966), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), "With a Little Help From My Friends" (1967), "Don't Pass Me By" (1968), "Good Night" (1968), "Octopus's Garden" (1969) - The Beatles

Welcome back THE HEAD GAME! During this week's episode, Host, Clinical Sport Psychologist Dr. Lee Picariello and Co-Host, Mental Strength Coach Jessica Ferdinand discuss "A Little Help From My Friends". Further discussion will be based on the following: With all of the negativity going on in the world, how can we gravitate towards supportive relationships to help us deal with adversity? How have you relied on your friends and family to get you through tough times? How have they relied on you? Are two of the necessary needs of the human condition companionship and community? Have we taken these needs for granted? Do sports allow us to engage in this sense of community? Know Your BioQ: Are we practicing a higher or lower BioQ by being amongst our loved ones? What about social distancing? Do we need each other to survive? WHO'S GOT GAME! Where each week a new candidate is chosen and dissected on how they are playing their own Head Game! This week's pick: European Soccer Leagues With professional Soccer being played all across Europe without fans, how are they dealing with a post-Covid-19 sports world? What are they doing right that we can apply in American sporting events as we attempt to continue flattening the curve and return to sports? Credits: Intro/Outro Music: "Head Games" by Foreigner After the Break: "With A Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles MAT Minute: "Give It All You Got" by Chuck Mangione --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dr-lee-picariello/support --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dr-lee-picariello/support --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dr-lee-picariello/support

In todays episode of The Covers Face Off, we will be discussing the song With a Little Help From My Friends originally written by The Beatles and Covered by Joe Cocker. In each episode we will be discussing the history of the album, each track, and ultimately which track on the album we would scratch off.For more information please follow us on twitter as well as our YouTube Channel. There you will be able to take part in polls, suggest albums, and let us know what track you would scratch.Happy Scratching!!Links:https://twitter.com/scratchatrackhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1y5SBLxt4V187J6CKGswgA/https://www.facebook.com/Scratch-A-Track-100105891679603/https://www.instagram.com/scratchatrack/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scratch-a-track-presented-by-the-dude-and-grimm-show/id1507247887Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0qBOg1wkxPu5EY0FQQaMgOGoogle Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS85ODIyMDQucnNzAll music on this podcast has been provided and used with permission by:...more https://soundcloud.com/user-122188109The Timnz https://soundcloud.com/the-timnz

Ryan is joined on this 12th episode by coworker and friend Eric Passes to break down Joe Cocker's With a Little Help From My Friends, and then play a round of Initials - spoiler alert, everyone's a winner! Recorded March 27, 2020.

In the music world, everyone sounds like someone — except Mary Halvorson. All musical touchstones feel like a stretch when attempting to describe the work of the New York-based musician. Avant-garde or free jazz works to the extent that either actually describe a musical style. There’s rock in there, certainly, and I’ve even seen the term “experimental flamenco” bandied about. But all belie the unpredictable nature of her time signatures and chord progressions. Among her best known works is a cover of “A Little Help From My Friends” that sounds like a familiar work stripped bare, run through the grinder and reassembled in ways that defy the laws of physics. It’s the sort of things that rewires the listener’s brain, while giving you hope for a continued way forward for jazz experimentation.

♪What would you do if we podcast out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on us?♫  Actually, please don't. We have such a great episode to kick off 2020 and we wouldn't want you to miss it. Sit back and relax, as we let the vocal stylings of Joe Cocker take us through the opening credits of "The Wonder Years."   Follow Max: Instagram|Twitter Follow Gary: Instagram|Twitter   Links, as promised in the episode:  The Wonder Years Opening Credits   Tiny Apartment cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles/Joe Cocker performed by Lawrence Barbershop Quartet Acapella cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles/Joe Cocker performed by A Cappella Trudbol Outdoor Highway Acoustic cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles/Joe Cocker performed by Blue Water Highway Reggae cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles/Joe Cocker performed by POTA REGGAE ROOTS Accordion cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles/Joe Cocker performed by  --  We hate to be those guys, but if you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you can. And more importantly, spread the word. The more action the show gets the better. We want to continue to make these, and building an audience is the best way to make sure we'll be able to. 

This week, Liberty and Kelly discuss Dapper Dan, Beeline, Good Talk, and more great nonfiction books from 2019. This episode was sponsored the St. John's College, Ritual, and With a Little Help From My Friends.  Pick up an All the Books! 200th episode commemorative item here. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, iTunes, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Books discussed on the show: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream by Carson Vaughn Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty and Dianné Ruz | Burnout: The Secrets To Unlocking The Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem: A Memoir by Daniel R. Day Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z' New Path to Success by Shalini Shankar Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir by Jeannie Vanasco Out Of The Shadows: A Memoir by Timea Nagy and Shannon Moroney Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir by T Kira Madden Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb Solitary by Albert Woodfox Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellis What we're reading: Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi More books out this week: The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey  The Road to Delano by John DeSimone A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution by Jeremy Popkin  The Wonderful by Saskia Sarginson The Dead Girls Club: A Novel by Damien Angelica Walters  Regretting You by Colleen Hoover  The Story of a Goat by Perumal Murugan, N Kalyan Raman (translator) The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas, Elizabeth Rokkan (translator) Africaville by Jeffrey Colvin The Wicked Redhead: A Wicked City Novel by Beatriz Williams  All That's Bright and Gone: A Novel by Eliza Nellums  Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, Christiane Marks (translator) Gatekeeper: Poems by Patrick Johnson The German House by Annette Hess, Elisabeth Lauffer (translator) A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed by Jason Brown  

In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:Shocked, shocked to find there is corruption in Afghanistan? (Fox News)Criminal charges filed in Vale dam collapse. (WSJ)Saudi Aramco IPO theme song-“With a Little Help From My Friends. (NYT)Traveling to China, you might want to think about it. (WSJ) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1. Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane song (1967) Live at Woodstock Music & Art Fair, 1969 2. Joe Cocker - "With a Little Help From My Friends" (1970) 3. THE HOLLIES - Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress (1972) 4. Justin Timberlake - Say Something (Official Video) ft. Chris Stapleton (2018) 5. Sigrid - Strangers 6. French Montana – Famous (2017) 7. Miley Cyrus - The Backyard Sessions - "Jolene" 8. Taylor Swift Dear John 9. Lady Gaga - Million Reasons 10. Sit Next To Me - Foster The People (2017) 11. WALK THE MOON - One Foot (2017) 12. Alice Merton - No Roots (2017)

The Cost of Alan Rickman! Hill Hippie Goes to the Fair! Shout-Out for our First Patron! madman screws up his own jokes! Labyrinth: Sarah’s Mental Illness! Hill Hippie’s Garden! The News Worth Knowing! Peeing on Potatoes! The Disneyland Brawl! Exploring Dora! Fat and Ugly Like the madman! Can’t Sue a Dead Man! A Little Help From My Friends!

В программе «Everyday People» с Артуром Ямпольским слушаем дебютную пластинку Joe Cocker - «With a Little Help From My Friends». Почти каждый трек записан разным составом, что является необычным для группы из Великобритании. Количество известных музыкантов, участвовавших в записи, впечатляет. Знакомимся с творчеством Joe Cocker и слушаем композиции из альбома на канале ROCK.

Jordan Peele’s debut feature film, Get Out, won him an Oscar for best original screenplay. His new film Us is also a horror film, features a score by Michael Abels and stars Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide Wilson whose childhood obsession with the Hands Across America commercial reverberates through the film. American tv drama Pose on BBC 2 features the largest transgender cast of any commercial, scripted TV show and trans writers Janet Mock and Our Lady J worked on the script alongside the show’s creators, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals. Ryan Murphy’s previous TV credits include Glee, Nip/Tuck and American Horror Story. Pose is set in 1987–88 and looks at the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New York: the African-American and Latino ball culture world, the downtown social and literary scene, and the rise of the yuppie Trump milieu. Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He has written 14 books, including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What, The Circle and Heroes of the Frontier. His new novel The Parade tell the story of two foreign contracters who are sent to finish a highway in an unnamed country which is emerging from decades of war into a fragile peace. Jews, Money, Myth at the Jewish Museum in London is a major exhibition exploring the role of money in Jewish life. Art work included Rembrandt's first masterpiece Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver and new commissions by Jeremy Deller and Doug Fishbone. American choreographer Mark Morris's Pepperland premiered at Liverpool’s Sgt Pepper at 50 festival in 2017 and is a collaboration between Morris and composer Ethan Iverson inspired by the Beatles iconic album. It is described as an "exuberant new dance work, visually on the cusp of Carnaby Street and Woodstock, it teases out the album’s colourfully avant-garde heart and eccentric charm, and resounds with all the ingenuity, musicality and wit for which the Mark Morris Dance Group is known.” Ethan Iverson composes a score featuring six idiosyncratic, jazzy reinventions of the original Beatle songs, including A Day in the Life, When I’m Sixty-Four, Penny Lane (originally meant to be on album, With a Little Help From My Friends and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club, and is performed live by a seven-piece band. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kate Bassett, Kit Davis and Don Guttenplan . The producer is Hilary Dunn

This week’s topic comes from one of our fans: kickball legend, Lefty Slapper enthusiast and all-around good guy Paddy Culham. He joins us to help decide which artists did it better the second time around with the Rushmore of Cover Songs Better Than the Original. It’s hard to make someone else’s song your own, but these people and bands did it – whether the original song was kind of lousy or already great. Coming next week: we get the crew from How Did This Get Made to debate the same topic, but be much better at it. SHOW NOTES "Hurt" by Johnny Cash/Nine Inch Nails (Richard/Michael's Choice) "Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm/Michael Jackson (Paddy's Choice) "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper/Robert Hazard (Richard/Michael's Choice) "People Are Strange" by Echo and the Bunnyman/The Doors (Paddy's Choice) "The Tide Is High" by Blondie/The Paragons (Richard/Michael's Choice) "Mad World" by Gary Jules/Tears for Fears (Paddy's Choice) "Killing Me Softly" by Roberta Flack/The Fugees (Richard/Michael's Choice) "With a Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles/Joe Cocker (Paddy's Choice)

Ayer hizo 20 años de mi primera web comercial • http://moviesdistribucion.com • The Wonder Years (with a Little Help From My Friends 8 bit - Les Annees Coup De Coeur)

Get Back to Talking Games! This week Matt and Huw take The Long and Winding Road that is video games together without a Little Help From My Friends. It's All Too Much as they chat about Matt's discovery of the musical marvel that is Beatles Rock Band and how it's nigh on impossible to find any peripherals for it, anywhere! Meanwhile, Huw takes us on a journey in his (not so) Yellow Submarine into the aquatic survival game Subnautica. Rounded off with a few news items you should probably check out this week's show, because Tomorrow Never Knows what's round the corner. Okay, I think that was enough Beatles song titles worked into this, don't you? Talking Games is  looking for diverse, talented and interesting people to lend their voice to the show. If you think you've got something to say about games that isn't already being covered email us at games@talkingcomicbooks.com and tell us why you'd like to be part of the team!

Joe left us in December of 2014, but he left a legacy of gritty, spasmodic performances. He was one of a kind. He came to our attention with his cover of “A Little Help From My Friends” in 1968, and continued popping up in the public consciousness for years, culminating in a 1983 Grammy Award […]

It is theorized that only six degrees of separation exist between any two people connected to the modern world. It is a truism that every person I know is one degree of separation from me, and thus no more than two degrees from each other. However, I’ve encountered an unnerving number of people in my life who are, in fact, only one degree of separation from each other (i.e. regardless of me) but who don’t make immediate or obvious sense given my perspective. Who cares? Me, I suppose. And perhaps you, because you are now one degree of separation from me and, to quote myself from above, thus no more than two degrees from each other. Neat. Or not. Anyway, here is the final bits of a conversation we had with Brian. To begin, though, a bit of Greg…then a bit of Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”)…and to conclude a bit of The Beatles, who also give us the title of this podcast, “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Have fun. -G

Het laatste deel in onze Sgt. Pepper Sessies-reeks. She's Leaving Home, With a Little Help From My Friends en de Reprise van het titelnummer worden opgenomen en daarmee is de plaat eindelijk af. Je hoort wederom bijzondere opnames én ons interview met Brian Southall, voormalig perschef van EMI en auteur van een bijzonder boek over Sgt. Pepper.

Aasmah Mir and the Rev. Richard Coles are joined by the singer/songwriter Leo Sayer. Still touring 40 years after he reinvented the Pierrot for Top of the Pops, he discusses his popularity in south East Asia, playing the harmonica, and singing karaoke with businessmen. The former rugby player Martin Bayfield talks about on being the other side of the camera, and how his 6'10" frame led to the role of Hagrid's body double. Vlogger Lucy Earl's tips on grammar and pronunciation have been viewed by 12 million people worldwide. She reveals the most common mistakes. And adventurer Charley Boorman describes his recovery after a major motorbike accident. Esther Rantzen shares her Inheritance Tracks: Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington by Noel Coward; and With a Little Help From My Friends performed by Wet Wet Wet. Leo Sayer is about to embark on a 25 date tour of the UK throughout May and June. English with Lucy is on Youtube Long Way Back by Charley Boorman is out now. Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Eleanor Garland.

Some of you may remember last week we took a trip to the Caribbean to ring in the 1992 New Year. Here we have a quote from writer, director, composer (and a lot of other things) W.D. Stevens about that particular story:"To be honest, the story came about purely because I was studying the history of music in a subject at uni and we came to reggae and we'd done some in our ensembles and it was just so fun that I just wanted a reason to write a reggae song - not that you need a reason, really. But I thought 'let's set a story in the Caribbean'. Just to do something differently and an excuse to have a party. Since it was a New Years story I wanted to have a reggae version of Auld Lang Syne which I found by an artist called Dillinger. Then I wanted a well-known song to have covered and, since it was about the Doctor and his friends (plus being a huge Beatles fan myself) I chose With a Little Help From My Friends by Ellis Island. And that just left the middle song which I got to write which is called Take Me Home written and performed by yours truly. Modestly, of course." And here is that song. Enjoy!

We said it would never happen... but finally DMP is addressing The Beatles. This is actually a very special episode, not only for the long-awaited topic, but also for being our first ever, four-person live show on Discover Music Project. Recording it as a gang of four (Karl Castaneda, Stan Ferguson, Mike Sklens, and host Jonny Metts) in Chicago for Cross-Con 2014 gave us both an excellent excuse and an intriguing format to approach The Beatles. Rather than try to summarize their extraordinairy career or pull selections from each album, the roundtable setting allowed us to bring four different sets of personal picks. These aren't necessarily the best or most popular Beatles songs, but rather eclectic highlights that each carry special meaning to one (or all) of us. Hopefully, you'll find a new favorite or at least give further consideration to a few overlooked, maybe even overplayed songs. And of course, it ends the only way imaginable, with a little help from my friends. Special thanks to everyone who has requested this episode over the years -- please enjoy! Karl's Set: 1. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey (The White Album) 2. Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver) 3. Helter Skelter (The White Album) Stan's Set: 4. Something (Abbey Road) 5. She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) 6. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Love) Mike's Set: 7. Paperback Writer (Past Masters) 8. And Your Bird Can Sing (Revolver) 9. I've Got a Feeling (Let It Be) Jonny's Set: 10. Twist and Shout (Please Please Me) 11. Rocky Raccoon (The White Album) 12. I'm Only Sleeping (Revolver) Encore: Joe Cocker -- With a Little Help From My Friends

"Hound Dog" (Big Mama Thornton, 1953)"One of These Things First" (Nick Drake, 1970)"Written In Reverse" (Spoon, 2010)   Additional Audio Excerpts:  IAmArique (“Random Access Fhqwhgads” - YouTube), Michael Jackson (“Get On the Floor"), David Bowie (“Where Are We Now?” / “How Does the Grass Grow?”), The Beatles (“Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows" - from Love album), Strange Talk (“Young Hearts”), Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (“Paris (Ooh La La)”), Youngblood Hawke (“We Come Running”), Foster the People (“Pseudologia Fantastica” / “Are You What You Want To Be?”), Snarky Puppy (“Skate U”), The Seatbelts (“Tank”), Chris Thile & Michael Daves (“Sleep With One Eye Open”), Madvillain (MF DOOM & Madlib) (“All Caps”), Disney Soundtrack - Frozen (“Let It Go” / “For the First Time In Forever”), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (“I’m On Fire” scene), Eric Calderone (“Let It Go (from Frozen) Meets Metal” - YouTube), The Simpsons (The Simpsons Theme Song / Smithers & Burns: “Dogs Are Idiots” excerpt), Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog” / “Jailhouse Rock” / random movie quotes), Ben E. King (“Stand By Me”), Justin Timberlake (“Sexyback”), Freddie Bell and the Bellboys (“Hound Dog"), Rufus Thomas (“Bear Cat”), Joe Cocker (“With a Little Help From My Friends”), James Taylor (“Millworker”), Nick Drake (“Black-eyed Dog”), The Tick - the cartoon (“Spoon!”), Spoon (“The Underdog”), Neko Case (“Hold On, Hold On”), Foster the People (“Coming of Age”), U2 (“Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”), Batman Forever - movie (Jim Carrey: “Nice form, a little rough on the landing”)

You know how they say time flies when you're having fun? Well, get ready for a small eternity with P.O.V.! Oh, I'm not saying its no good. Just depends on your perspective, I'd think. Lots of rubbish and nonsense from the past few decades of the show. Mind you, we lost the kinescopes of the JFK interview long ago, and I didn't feel like trotting out the old "Ed Aames throws a tomahawk at the Klingon" clip yet again.But enjoy some non-topical American Idol talk, bad tv talk, more TV crap, and some other stuff. And drop us a line, eh? Say SOMETHING, even if you do what I just did, copy and paste some of your old comments and recycle 'em! Oh yeah, and a video! Well...how about Paul and Ringo doing "With a Little Help From My Friends" a couplea weeks ago at Radio City!

00:00 Sweetness* > 06:56 August (12.30.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 19:48 Women, Wine & Song^ (12.31.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 25:45 Bright Lights, Big City** (12.30.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 35:46 Hajimemashite (12.29.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 41:23 With a Little Help From My Friends^^ (12.31.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 47:01 Alex's House& 55:53 Rocker part II& (12.30.08 - Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) 66:13 Lenny (12.13.08 - Caribbean Holidaze, Runaway Bay, Jamaica) Total Broadcast Length 74:54 Notes: * acoustic ^ with horns ** with Stanley Jordan ^^ with Chicago Mass Choir; first time played (The Beatles) & with Joshua Redman

HOUR 2. Topics include: A Peek At Oil - Why Alan Watt Figures It Out - Why Cultures Are Targeted - Cultures Outside The System - War and Videogames - Gandhi - Heroes and Values - Women - Getting Political Self-Help - Relationships - Dehumanization - Cops and Soldiers - Canada - China - Soldiers of Misfortune - Winning Everything Is Everything For Everyone. (Songs: "No Apologies" by Joni Mitchell, "A Little Help From My Friends" by Joe Cocker)

Kyoto Conference, Climate Change, Agenda 21, Star Wars, Global Warming, Aerial Spraying, Magi, Altered, Altared States, Plato, Solon, Christian Caballa, Solomon, Salimon, Solyman, Atlantis, Secret Societies, Bacon's New Atlantis, Sophistry, Money - Artificial Idea, Gold and Silver, Merchant - Mercenary - Mercury, Forces of Nature, Legal System, Egypt, Oneness Movement, Commoners, New Age Condemnation, Isolation, (Song: "Say Goodbye" by Chris De Burgh, "A Little Help From My Friends" by Joe Cocker)