Podcasts about Mississippi John Hurt

On this week's program, we continue with our occasional feature focusing on the fundamentals of a particular style of music. Piedmont blues is a ragtime inspired music played mostly on the guitar. Originally it emanated from Virginia and traveled south to Atlanta, but today can be found most anywhere. We'll hear classics from John Jackson, Mississippi John Hurt, Cephas & Wiggins, Pink Anderson and others, and selections from the collection on Smithsonian Folkways Records - Classic Piedmont Blues. Some classic blues selections … this week on The Sing Out! Radio Magazine. Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer”(excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian FolkwaysStefan Grossman & Rory Block / “Pony Blues” / Country Blues Guitar / Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop John Jackson / “Red River Blues” / Classic Piedmont Blues / Smithsonian FolkwaysRoy Book Binder / “Kentucky Blues” / Live Book...Don't Start Me Talkin' / RounderBukka White / “Special Streamline” / The Complete Bukka White / Columbia-LegacyMississippi John Hurt / “Avalon Blues” / DC Blues Part 2 / FuelCephas & Wiggins / “Mamie” / Classic Piedmont Blues / Smithsonian FolkwaysCorey Harris / “Bumble Bee Blues” / Fish Ain't Bitin' / AlligatorElizabeth Cotten / “Buck Dance” / Shake Sugaree / Smithsonian FolkwaysStefan Grossman & Rory Block / “Mississippi Blues” / Country Blues Guitar / Stefan Grossman's Guitar WorkshopNapoleon Strickland Fife & Drum Band / “My Babe” / Traveling Through the Jungle / TestamentFannie Lou Hamer / “Woke Up the Morning” / Songs My Mother Taught Me / Smithsonian FolkwaysEric Bibb / “Mornin' Train” / Migration Blues / Stony PlainPink Anderson / “Meet Me in the Bottom” / Classic Piedmont Blues / Smithsonian FolkwaysDom Flemons w/ Guy Davis / “It's A Good Thing” / Prospect Hill / Music MakerTaj Mahal / “Fishin' Blues” / The Real Thing / Columbia Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer”(excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian Folkways

Passing the thermometer of conversation over the rock and roll news to see where the mercury rises, which this week includes … … the new Barbra Streisand duets album. Duets are ‘playlets', small intense dramas that depend on human interaction, but so many are recorded separately (including, tragically, Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell). … but … duets you HAVE to hear! eg Cash & Carter, Otis Redding & Carla Thomas, Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Siouxsie & Morrissey, Nick Cave & Kylie, Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush. … the extraordinary story of the rebirth and Indian Summer of Mississippi John Hurt after 40 years of invisibility.   … blues lyrics that now seem unimaginable. … Frank Zappa as a drug dealer? Miles Davis as a pimp? Cyndi Lauper as a trophy wife? Real or made-up Miami Vice rock star cameos.  … great opening lines – “We got married in a fever …!” … how you always learn something you never knew about someone from their obituary - like Mike Peters' involvement in the highest altitude concert ever performed (on Everest with Glenn Tilbrook and Slim Jim Phantom). … where people listen to the Word In Your Ear “poddy” – eg in the bath, in court, at wedding receptions, by the Allman Brothers' graveside. Plus birthday guest John Montagna on rock stars who should be in a TV series.Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Passing the thermometer of conversation over the rock and roll news to see where the mercury rises, which this week includes … … the new Barbra Streisand duets album. Duets are ‘playlets', small intense dramas that depend on human interaction, but so many are recorded separately (including, tragically, Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell). … but … duets you HAVE to hear! eg Cash & Carter, Otis Redding & Carla Thomas, Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Siouxsie & Morrissey, Nick Cave & Kylie, Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush. … the extraordinary story of the rebirth and Indian Summer of Mississippi John Hurt after 40 years of invisibility.   … blues lyrics that now seem unimaginable. … Frank Zappa as a drug dealer? Miles Davis as a pimp? Cyndi Lauper as a trophy wife? Real or made-up Miami Vice rock star cameos.  … great opening lines – “We got married in a fever …!” … how you always learn something you never knew about someone from their obituary - like Mike Peters' involvement in the highest altitude concert ever performed (on Everest with Glenn Tilbrook and Slim Jim Phantom). … where people listen to the Word In Your Ear “poddy” – eg in the bath, in court, at wedding receptions, by the Allman Brothers' graveside. Plus birthday guest John Montagna on rock stars who should be in a TV series.Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I tell you about two great edible plants for spring foraging.  Watercress, especially, is one you have to try at least once. It is delicious and has a somewhat sophisticated taste.  Waterleaf is very mild. Then, we discuss Bush Honeysuckle as a medicinal herb.Also, I am back on Youtube Please subscribe to my channel: @judsoncarroll5902   Judson Carroll - YouTubeTune of the week: Make Me Down A Pallet On Your FloorThis is my version of "Make Me Down A Pallet On Your Floor" by Mississippi John Hurt. I learned it from Doc Watson when I was a kid. It is a fun song to play and not very difficult. ENJOY!https://youtu.be/ul8dmhijkBMNew today in my Woodcraft shop:Toasted Holly Cooking Spoonhttps://judsoncarrollwoodcraft.substack.com/p/toasted-holly-cooking-spoonEmail: judson@judsoncarroll.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/southern-appalachian-herbs--4697544/supportRead about The Spring Foraging Cookbook: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRP63R54Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/medicinal-weeds-and-grasses-of-american.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47LHTTHandConfirmation, an Autobiography of Faithhttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/confirmation-autobiography-of-faith.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNKVisit my Substack and sign up for my free newsletter:https://judsoncarroll.substack.com/Read about my new other books:Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMSZSJPSThe Omnivore's Guide to Home Cooking for Preppers, Homesteaders, Permaculture People and Everyone Else: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-omnivores-guide-to-home-cooking-for.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKX37Q2Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6andGrowing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Homesteaders and Everyone Elsehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/04/growing-your-survival-herb-garden-for.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X4LYV9RThe Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-encyclopedia-of-bitter-medicina.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MYJ35RandChristian Medicine, History and Practice: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/01/christian-herbal-medicine-history-and.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09P7RNCTBHerbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and Permaculture People: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/10/herbal-medicine-for-preppers.htmlAlso available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMWXL25Podcast:  https://www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbsBlog: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/Free Video Lessons: https://rumble.com/c/c-618325 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/southern-appalachian-herbs--4697544/support.

In this episode I tell you about a recent experiment with a very dangerous herb that was necessary for severe pain.  I also discuss two wild edible and two interesting medicinal plants.Tune of the week: Since I Laid My Burdens DownHappy Easter everyone! Today I play one of Mississippi John Hurt's gospel songs, "Since I Laid My Burdens Down". It is great song, that will likely sound familiar. It also gives us insight into his unique blues style - watch to the end and I'll explain how.  https://youtu.be/xMOBZ37QnLANew today in my Woodcraft shop:Toasted Holly Cooking Spoon - Judson Carroll Woodcrafthttps://judsoncarrollwoodcraft.substack.com/p/toasted-holly-cooking-spoonEmail: judson@judsoncarroll.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/southern-appalachian-herbs--4697544/supportRead about The Spring Foraging Cookbook: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRP63R54Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/medicinal-weeds-and-grasses-of-american.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47LHTTHandConfirmation, an Autobiography of Faithhttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/confirmation-autobiography-of-faith.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNKVisit my Substack and sign up for my free newsletter:https://judsoncarroll.substack.com/Read about my new other books:Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMSZSJPSThe Omnivore's Guide to Home Cooking for Preppers, Homesteaders, Permaculture People and Everyone Else: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-omnivores-guide-to-home-cooking-for.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKX37Q2Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6andGrowing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Homesteaders and Everyone Elsehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/04/growing-your-survival-herb-garden-for.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X4LYV9RThe Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-encyclopedia-of-bitter-medicina.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MYJ35RandChristian Medicine, History and Practice: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/01/christian-herbal-medicine-history-and.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09P7RNCTBHerbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and Permaculture People: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/10/herbal-medicine-for-preppers.htmlAlso available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMWXL25Podcast:  https://www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbsBlog: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/Free Video Lessons: https://rumble.com/c/c-618325 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/southern-appalachian-herbs--4697544/support.

Today on Too Opinionated, Director Alfonso Mairana drops in to talk about his new film.  “Goddess of Slide: The Forgotten Story of Musician Ellen McIlwaine” from award-winning producer and director Alfonso Maiorana of Soul Flicker Films premiered Wednesday, March 12 on CBC Gem.  “Goddess of Slide” is a personal and heartfelt story that follows Ellen McIlwaine's relentless pursuit to claim her rightful place in music history.  McIlwaine was one of the first women to choose the slide guitar as her instrument of choice, against the advice of everyone around her.  “Goddess Of Slide” begins eight months after McIlwaine arrives in Greenwich Village with no prospects and finds herself opening for the biggest blues legends in the world, Odetta, Richie Havens, and Mississippi John Hurt. But it was six magical nights the young guitarist ignited the stage with Jimi Hendrix that changed the course of her life. “Goddess Of Slide” is an intimate look at a pioneer performer whose road trip to stardom and long career deserves a rightful place in music history.   Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

What an amazing year 1966 was in music. Dylan's Blonde on Blonde hit the racks. So did The Beatles' Revolver, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Stones' Aftermath and so many more.Into this stellar crowd quietly strolled Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, the third studio album by Greenwich Village's own folk-rock mavens. Today the disc just barely makes it onto a list of the top 50 albums of that lush, flush year, but in its own way, it made wonderful waves.Hums — which would ultimately be the last full project by the Spoonful's original lineup — was the band's concerted effort to record in a wide variety of styles on a single disc. For it, they composed and played pop-, country-, jugband-, folk- and blues-fused tunes.The album spawned four charting singles, including “Summer in the City,” “Rain on the Roof,” “Nashville Cats” and "Full Measure.”Of “Nashville Cats,” principal songwriter John Sebastian said, "We thought our version would cross over to the country market. It never did. So we're always kinda, gee, well, I guess that tells us what we are — and what we aren't."Incidentally, Flatt & Scruggs did take "Nashville Cats" to the country charts, hitting No. 54 with it as a single.And elsewhere in the country crowd, Johnny Cash and June Carter covered Hums' “Darlin' Companion” on 1969's Johnny Cash at San Quentin album.About This Song“Loving You,” Hums' opening track, was never a hit single for the Spoonful, but a month after the disc's release in November 1966, Bobby Darin made the Top 40 with a cover version of the tune. Subsequently, the song also became a good vehicle for four different female vocalists, including Anne Murray (1969), Helen Reddy (1973) and Dolly Parton (1977) and Mary Black (1983).Meanwhile, the song came into the Floodisphere before The Flood was even The Flood.In 1975, after a year of regularly jamming together, Charlie and David started looking for new material to work on beyond their main interests in folk music, and for a brief time they landed on The Lovin' Spoonful's catalog.Here — like the audio version of a crinkled old baby picture — is a sound clip fished from The Flood archives. Click the button below to hear Charlie and Dave sampling the song exactly 50 years ago this week at a jam session at the Peyton House:The Spoonful's Jug Band RootsOnly later did Bowen and Peyton realize that The Lovin' Spoonful had been heavily influenced by some of the same 1920s-'30s jug band tunes that The Flood loves. Before he founded the Spoonful, John Sebastian with his partner Zal Yanovsky, long active in Greenwich Village's folk scene, set out to create an "electric jug band.”"Yanovsky and I were both aware of the fact that this commercial folk music model was about to change again,” Sebastian recalled, “that the four-man band that actually played their own instruments and wrote their own songs was the thing.”In early 1965, as they prepared for their first public performances, Sebastian and Yanovsky along with their new band mates Joe Butler and Steve Boone, searched for a name.It was Fritz Richmond, the washtub bass player for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, who suggested “The Lovin' Spoonful,” referring to the lyrics of the song "Coffee Blues" by the country blues musician Mississippi John Hurt. It worked and it stuck.Our 2025 Take on the TuneAt last week's rehearsal, The Flood channeled those rich jug band roots of the Spoonful. For this tune, Jack switched from his usual drum kit to those funky wooden spoons and Charlie reached for the five-string. Then Danny, Sam and Randy just did what they always do to make it all work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Send us a textIntro song: Poor Boy Blues by Ramblin' Thomas (1929)Song 1: Country Blues by Dock Boggs (1928)Song 2: Ninety-Nine Years Blues by Julius Daniel (1927)Song 3: See That My Grave is Kept Clean by Blind Lemon Jefferson (1928)Song 4: Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line by Uncle Dave Macon (1930)Song 5: Spike Driver Blues by Mississippi John Hurt (1928)Outro song: Fishing Blues by Henry Thomas (1928)

A few weeks before his death in November 1966, Mississippi John Hurt's rendition of “Payday” was released as the opening track on his Today album for Vanguard Records.At the time, many fans believed the 74-year-old bluesman wrote the song, despite his introduction in which he characterized it as “an old tune… a ‘bandit tune.'” And we now know that a quarter of a century earlier, folklorist John Lomax recorded a version of “Payday” by lesser-known blues artists Willie Ford and Lucious Curtis in Natchez, Mississippi.Still, it is the John Hurt version that has become loved among syncopated fingerpicking guitarists; to this day his take on “Payday” is taught in classes and on YouTube videos.The John Hurt Odyssey: Part IThe Today album, hitting record stores in October 1966, marked the end of a remarkable three years for the venerable blues artist, who was born the son of freed slaves around 1892 in Teoc, Mississippi. John Smith Hurt grew up in the Mississippi Delta, living in Avalon, which sits midway between Greenwood and Holcomb just west of Highway 51.He left school at age 10 to be a farm hand and was taught guitar by a local songster and family friend. Hurt lived most of his life without electricity, did hard labor of all sorts and played music as a hobby at local dances. In the late 1920s, performing with local fiddler Willie Narmour, he won a competition and a chance to record with Okeh Records in two sessions, one in Memphis and another in New York City. John Hurt: Part IIThe resulting records were not a great commercial success — John went back to farming and raising a family that would grow to 14 children — but a quarter of a century later, his music entered the folk music canon. That's when two of those 1928 tracks were included in the holy grail of American music, Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, considered one of the main catalysts for the folk and blues revival of the 1960s and ‘70s. A decade later, in 1962, the presence of those old cuts — “Frankie” and “Spike Driver Blues” — on in the Smith anthology prompted musicologist Dick Spottswood and his friend, Tom Hoskins, to track Hurt down. Hoskins persuaded him to perform several songs for his tape recorder to make sure he was the genuine article. Quickly convinced — in fact, folkies found Hurt even more proficient than he had been in his younger Okeh recording days — Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., to perform for a broader audience.For the last three years of his life, Hurt performed extensively at colleges, concert halls and coffeehouses, appearing on television shows ranging from “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson to Pete Seeger's “Rainbow Quest” on public TV. Much of Hurt's repertoire also was recorded for the Library of Congress, and his final tunes, recorded in 1964 and released two years later, are on Today.He also developed a delightful friendship with a young folksinger named Patrick Sky who produced that final album for Vanguard, where “Payday” is the opening track.Deeper Roots of “Payday”By the way, in the brand new book, Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories, published last spring, author Elijah Wald finds a much longer tail on the tune, not to mention a possible connection to another Flood favorite.Wald notes that back in 1908, Missouri pianist Blind Boone published a pair of “Southern Rag” medleys that African Americans were singing in that region around the turn of the century.“Medley number one was subtitled ‘Strains from the Alleys',” Wald writes, and included the first publication of “Making Me a Pallet on the Floor.'” Wald says the medley also featured “a song that probably reaches back to slavery times and would be recorded in later years as ‘Pay Day,' ‘Reuben,' and various other names.”Our Take on the TunePurists say this doesn't sound much like Mississippi John Hurt's original, but that's pretty much by design. Once The Flood folks learn a song, they usually stop listening to the original so it is free to find its own form in the Floodisphere. That's their take on what Pete Seeger's folklorist father Charles called “the folk process.”And in this instance, “Payday” has been processing in Floodlandia for more than 20 years now, ever since its inclusion on the band's first studio album back in 2001.Here's the current state of its evolution, taken from a recent rehearsal. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Songwriter, blues guitarist and singer Chris Smither joins me on the show today. I had the pleasure of meeting Chris and playing with him this past summer at a festival, and he really was a force of nature. He had an incredible groove between his guitar lines and his powerful foot, all brought together with a voice that has developed so much character over the years it just oozes out of him. Chris grew up in New Orleans, but as you'll hear, doesn't totally identify musically with his hometown. He's spent most of his career based out of the Massachusetts area, and developed his style and sound in the folk clubs of Boston and Cambridge. His songwriting style owes as much to others from that era and scene as it does to blues songwriters like Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. He manages to pull something off which I think is difficult and very unique - he's developed a style of songwriting that seems to be right out of that era of the classic folk/blues tradition, but without being even the slightest bit derivative of those artists that came before him. He wrote the songs “Love Me Like A Man” and “I Feel The Same” that became staples in Bonnie Raitt's career and repertoire, not to mention Diana Krall also cutting “Love Me Like A Man”. His recording career began in 1971 with the album “I'm a Stranger, Too!” at which time he was label-mates with Townes Van Zandt. He's been a prolific artist ever sonce then, with a few personal low times where he shied away from making new records. But since the 90's he's been extremely consistent with a new record every year or two. His latest is called “All About The Bones” and is one of his best. Chris is one of those rare artists that just seems to keep getting better, even into his 80's. I had a great conversation with him from his home on a rare break from the road, and we had a chance to dig into all of his history and record-making process. You can keep up with Chris and all his latest news and extensive touring over at smither.com - please enjoy my conversation with Chris Smither!This season is brought to you by our sponsors Larivée Guitars and Fishman AmplificationYou can join our Patreon here to get all episodes ad-free, as well as access to all early episodesThe show's website can be found at www.makersandshakerspodcast.com Get ad-free episodes and access to all early episodes by subscribing to Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Traum is an interpreter of traditional roots music and draws on those styles in his songwriting as well as the covers he chooses. He cross-pollinates Americana genres, blending folk, blues, bluegrass, rockabilly and country-blues music with an occasional jazz chord. When Traum performs he brings a warmth to the stage and puts on a well-polished show, whether he is playing as a solo artist at an intimate house concert or for a festival crowd backed by his potent band. Adam's influences include Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt, Steve Earle, Mississippi John Hurt and Rev. Gary Davis, to name a few. Traum gigs and teaches throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. He has instructional guitar, ukulele and mandolin lessons on Homespun Music Instruction. In this podcast Adam talks about the loss of his father, Musician and innovator Happy Traum, find out more about Adam Here: https://www.homespun.com https://www.adamtraumguitar.com

Singer, guitarist, jug-band pioneer and songster Jim Kweskin joins me on the show today. I can't tell you how many times I heard Jim's name before I ever heard his music. To the generation before me, he was a total legend, and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band was very influential to many musicians who grew up in the 60's and 70's. Jim came up in the Boston/Cambridge area and The Jug Band was legendary around those parts and eventually across America. Old blues, jug and string band music was considered old fashioned at that point in time, and Jim spearheaded its return and kicked off a musical revolution that inspried bands like the Lovon' Spoonful and The Grateful Dead (don't forget they started off as a jug band too). With bandmates like Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Bill Keith, Mel Lyman and Fritz Richmond, the Jug Band was signed to a major label, sold thousands of records and toured across the country tirelessly between 1963-1970. They turned countless young musicians on to the music of artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Boy Fuller and the Mississippi Sheiks.Jim has continued making records and performing under his own name and has just put out a rerally cool album called “Never Too Late”, which is mostly duets with some of his friends on vocals like Maria Muldaur, Meredith Axelrod and many more.I won't go too in depth on his bio here because in the interview, he actually had a bio preopared and read it to me, which you'll hear on the show. It's a first “written statement” for the podcast! I think you'll dig that part of the conversation. You can get all the latest info on Jim at jimkweskin.com - Enjoy my conversation with Jim Kweskin!This season is brought to you by our sponsors Larivée Guitars and Fishman AmplificationYou can join our Patreon here to get all episodes ad-free, as well as access to all early episodesThe show's website can be found at www.makersandshakerspodcast.com Get ad-free episodes and access to all early episodes by subscribing to Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today is a day of celebration and remembrance! For our first stop, we're off to Carrollton to check out the Mississippi John Hurt Homecoming Festival and History Symposium, happening October 5th through the 6th in Carrollton, and in with us to tell us more is his granddaughter, Mary Francis Hurt & Mt. Zion Memorial Fund Rep. Corey Crowder, then we're kicking off the countdown to the 100th Birthday Celebration of B.B. King and Medgar Evers, with celebrations to be held throughout the year 2025 with Malika Polk-Lee, B.B. King Museum Director! Plus, we'll also check out what's happening around your neck of the woods… Stay tuned, buckle up, and hold on tight for your Next Stop Mississippi!"What's Happening Around Your Neck of the Woods" Event Listing:Rhythm, Blues, & BallotsMississippi Antique Showcase: Holiday Edition - 25% off for a limited timeMusic From The Masses 2024It's Pride Y'all '24Next Stop, Mississippi is your #1 on-air source for information about upcoming events and attractions across the state. Get to know the real Mississippi! Each week the show's hosts, Germaine Flood and Kamel King, Tourism Development Bureau Manger with Visit Mississippi, highlight well-known and unknown places in Mississippi with the best food, parks, music and arts. Check out our Sipp Events calendar to help plan your next trip! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rory Block performs live on the Blues Radio International SoundStage in Memphis at the 2019 Blues Music Awards on Edition 654 of Blues Radio International, with music from Lightning Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Ry Cooder, Jontavious Willis, and Chris Cain.Sound by Jack Gauthier. Photograph by Jay Skolnick.Find more at BluesRadioInternational.net/

In February of 2024, the Mississippi John Hurt Museum burned. The fire, believed to have been set intentionally, happened immediately after the Legendary Mississippi Blues Pioneer's cabin received landmark status. That was not the first or last attack on the Hurt Family museum, land, or legacy. A week later, the sheriff's office began investigating a break-in at the historic store located on County Road 41 in the Teoc community, where the Mississippi John Hurt marker was stolen. The executor of the estate and granddaughter of Hurt, Mary Francis Wright, has been fighting for a long time the many racialized attacks on her family's land and legacy. Mary and Shannon Evans have been working to keep the integrity and safety of the location and family. In this episode, I will speak with Mary and Shannon about the fire and many other assaults they have endured.

In episode 21 of Careers in the Business of Law, Stephen Poor talks with David about the long arc of technological change in law, the evolving technical skill sets as well as perennial soft skills, and the growth of the strength of access to justice initiatives such as The Bail Project and the Filing Fair project. They also talk Mississippi Delta blues.   Today's guest is Stephen Poor.  As Chair Emeritus of Seyfarth Shaw, a global law firm, Stephen Poor has significantly contributed to legal innovation, particularly through leading SeyfarthLabs, the firm's R&D arm. Renowned for pioneering SeyfarthLean, a method that enhances legal service efficiency, his leadership from 2001 to 2016 earned him the 2011 Legal Innovator of the Year award. With a foundation in employment law and ERISA litigation, Stephen now shares his expertise on technology's impact on law, change management, and process improvement through writings and his podcast, "Pioneers and Pathfinders." https://www.seyfarth.com/trends/pioneers-and-pathfinders-podcast.html   Music Stephen mentions:  Mississippi John Hurt: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1FdwVX3yL8ITuRnTZxetsA?si=FM6jBiAVSRm_zGf-GvJotQ Mississippi Fred McDowell: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0elA30wLp3RmiPaGtU2jhQ?si=AqDicv5LTMKTLaPpCBHQpA Bukka White: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2gSskdDhLQCx3CQd6XKDhp?si=LAiFl6aFQ8Kg2WlYlmc2Qw Sister Rosetta Tharpe: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2dXf5lu5iilcaTQJZodce7?si=BzrOciq3T9y3GqwwXf5lqA Blind Willie Johnson: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5kO4xdEKLuHHHPreu3UmkZ?si=NshgryeQRTWplLlq6jDm-w   Access to Justice projects Stephen mentions: The Bail project: https://bailproject.org/ Filing Fair project (Stanford): https://filingfairnessproject.law.stanford.edu/   Time stamps: (0:09) - From Yesteryear's Cutting Edge to Today's David Cowen introduces Stephen Poor, Chairman Emeritus of Seyfarth Shaw, discussing the remarkable journey from past legal technologies to today's podcasting age. "When you started your career, did you think that you'd be recording podcasts that would go out into the universe and live forever?" Stephen reflects on the unforeseen advancements in technology and how they've transformed legal practices and reminisces about the early days of his career. "What was cutting edge?...The secretaries had mag card typewriters … which was awesome." (1:59) - The First Technology Committee Stephen discusses his involvement in his firm's first technology committee, comparing the debates over 25 vs. 33 megahertz computers to today's terabyte-scale discussions, illustrating the rapid evolution of technology in law. (2:59) - Talent in the Legal Field: Then and Now "The type of talent that you look for...hasn't really changed," Stephen explains. He highlights how attributes like intelligence, curiosity, and connectivity have remained vital, despite massive changes in technology and operations. Stephen points out the significant shift in legal workplaces over the decades, from traditional lawyer roles to diverse professions like data scientists and marketing specialists, enhancing law firms' capabilities and client services. (5:42) - Evolution vs. Revolution in Law Delving into the dynamics of change in legal services, Stephen discusses the impact of generative AI and other advanced technologies on the legal industry, contemplating whether the changes represent evolution or revolution. (7:00) - Navigating New Technologies Stephen emphasizes the role of law firms in helping clients navigate the "bewildering array of solutions" presented by generative AI and other emerging technologies, highlighting the importance of adaptability and informed guidance. (8:28) - The Transformation Ahead Stephen opines that the future of law will be dramatically different, driven by the capabilities of generative AI to change how legal services are provided. (11:38) - Radical Curiosity in Young Lawyers Stephen discusses the challenges and benefits of the radical curiosity exhibited by the newer generation of lawyers, seeing it as a necessary trait for driving change within the legal profession. (13:42) - Senior Leaders' Insights In a reflective conversation about senior leadership in law, Stephen shares how experienced leaders exchange insights and experiences that could guide the newer generations facing similar challenges. (18:09) - Access to Justice and Technology Stephen highlights the role of technology in enhancing access to justice, sharing personal stories and examples of how new tools are making significant impacts in legal accessibility. (20:44) - Supporting Justice through the Bail Project Stephen discusses his daughter's role as general counsel for the Bail Project, illustrating how nonprofits are utilizing new approaches to reform traditional systems like the cash bail system, advocating for broader participation and support.   For more on Cowen Podcasts, Career Coaching, and Leadership Networking Events, please visit www.Cowengroup.com 

Just a fun discussion about two interrelated films about 40 years apart. The one is clear-eyed about what it wants to say; the other has a failure of nerve at the very last 5-10 minutes (but perfect and delightful otherwise)! Go listen to Mississippi John Hurt signing Staggerlee/Stag O' Lee to see the other thing that gave American Fiction only a 4 out of 5.

On this day in 1863, American folk hero Casey Jones was born in southeastern Missouri. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was some devastating new this past week…nothing new; and certainly, it seems, not in Mississippi. The Mississippi John Hurt Museum, a small sanctuary of tribute located on the Mississippi Blues Trail, burned down last week. While authorities in Carroll County try to determine the cause, we mourn the loss of John Hurt's home, a small house that had just been given landmark status on the national historical registry just hours before. Join Dave Stroud this week on Deeper Roots as he combines notes from a 2018 tribute to Mississippi John Hurt with some of the news of the day and keep with the sounds of his contemporaries (of which there are few), Taj Mahal, Ben Harper, Chris Smither and Rory Block. All paying tribute with songs of Avalon, Creole Belle, Spike Driver Blues, and Mermaids.  Tune in on Radio Rethink radio or KOWSFM.COM. 

We're so stoked to have Caleb Lee Hutchinson as our guest on No Simple Road this week! For as long as Caleb Lee Hutchinson has been making music, he has rooted his creative process in the brutal honesty and rich storytelling tradition of country music's roots. Hutchinson's voice and wit inspired important collaborations on his 2019 self-titled debut EP, produced by Grammy winner Kristian Bush, and 2021 follow-up, “Slot Machine Syndrome,” produced by Grammy-nominated Americana stalwart, Brent Cobb. In 2022, Caleb self-produced the darkly themed EP, “Songs I'll Never Sing Again,” and wrote and starred in the accompanying short film.  With his new project, “Southern Galactic,”—produced by multi-genre artist and creator Titanic Sinclair—Hutchinson explores new territory while maintaining his reverence for the honesty and storytelling that seeded his love for country music as a Georgia boy listening to Mississippi John Hurt and Waylon Jennings cassettes with his dad. This one goes deep talking to Caleb about: - His mental health struggles. - The stigma of being a man and dealing with an eating disorder. - His experience of being runner-up on American idol and what that whole experience did to his mental health. - Coming to learn that being honest and transparent is truly healing. - The real horrors of social media comments sections. - The ways in which Country Music and Punk Rock overlap. - His new album 'Southern Galactic'. - Leaning to ignore the inner voice that wants us to fail. - The impetus of the idea for The Green Couch podcast. ... and a whole lot more! For all the tour info, music, mailing list, and more head over to www.calebleehutchinson.com  -For THE BEST MUSHROOM CHOCOLATES EVER go over to @MELTMUSHROOMS ON INSTAGRAM and shoot them a DM for a menu of all the amazing flavors of MUSHROOM CHOCOLATE BARS and MAKE SURE TO TELL THEM NSR SENT YOU FOR $20 OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER! -FREE SHIPPING from Shop Tour Bus Use The PROMO CODE: nosimpleroad -Make Sure to visit our friends at Fire On The Mountain for some amazing food at one of the 3 location in the Portland area or one of the 2 location in the Denver area! INTRO MUSIC PROVIDED BY - Will Hanza of Escaper MUSIC IN THE COMMERCIALS BY AND USED WITH PERMISSION OF: CIRCLES AROUND THE SUN OUTRO MUSIC BY AND USED WITH PERMISSION OF: CHILLDREN OF INDIGO No Simple Road is part of OSIRIS MEDIA. Osiris Media is the leading storyteller in music, combining the intimacy of podcasts with the power of music.

Two hours of the blues with Sian Weggery, produced by Manawatū People's Radio with support from New Zealand On Air.

Richard Walter, Senior Curator of Phoenix's incredible Musical Instrument Museum, joins us to talk about MIM's new exhibition, 'Acoustic America: Iconic Guitars, Mandolins, and Banjos.' This exhibit, running from November 10, 2023 - September 15, 2024, features a staggering array of legendary instruments owned by the likes of David Grisman, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, Earl Scruggs and others.   Read all about it here: https://mim.org/special-exhibitions/acoustic-america/ Rich tells us about how he landed his position at MIM, how he and his team care for these priceless instruments, the guitars that are closest to his heart, and so much more.  The Fretboard Journal is planning on having a meetup at MIM sometime in early 2024. Reach out to us at podcast@fretboardjournal.com if you'd like to join us.  If you enjoy this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider joining the Fretboard Journal's new Patreon page. Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription Get a discounted digital subscription and get our 52nd issue immediately:  https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/collections/downloads/products/fretboard-journal-digital-subscription-offer Our podcast is sponsored by Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar, Peghead Nation (use the promo code FRETBOARD and get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription); and Stringjoy Strings (get 10% off your order with the FRETBOARD discount code). This episode is also sponsored by iZotope. Use the discount code FRET10 to save 10% off off your Izotope order. You can also get 10% off your Native Instruments software at Native-Instruments.comwith code RUIN10. Some restrictions apply.

Mississippi John Hurt, Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings (Columbia/Legacy) John Hurt era conocido solo por un pequeño grupo de aficionados a la música fuera del estado, donde vivió la mayor parte de su vida, hasta los 71 años. Lo que se sabía de él era la música en seis discos de 78 rpm hechos en 1928. Hoy en Rock Syndicate y como álbum de la semana o de la quincena o del mes, como quieras, ya que últimamente no seguimos un ritmo de disco por semana te traigo uno de los grandes discos del blues, el realizado por Mississippi John Hurt llamado

Pacific St Blues & AmericanaJuly 16, 20231. Teresa James and the Rhythm Tramps / Everybody, Everybody 2. Dave Alvin & Peter Case / Monday Morning Blues (Blues for Avalon, Mississippi John Hurt)3. Bonnie Raitt / Blame It On Me 4. Norah Jones / Can You Believe5. Freddy King / Have You Ever Loved a Woman? 6. Eric Clapton / You Better Watch Yourself 7. Tedeschi Trucks Band / Bell Bottom Blues 8. Jimi Hendrix / Angel 9. John Lee Hooker w/ Los Lobos / Dimples 10. The Doors / Crawlin' King Snake 11. Howlin' Wolf / I'll Be Around 12. Etta James / I Got You Babe 13. Mose Allison / Young Man Blues 14. Ian Moore / Magic Bus 15. Los Lonely Boys / Send More Love 16. Marty Stuart / Lost Byrd Space Train 17. Joanne Shaw Taylor / Then There's You 18. Buddy Guy w/ Kid Rock / Messin' With the Kid 19. Larkin Poe / Holy Ghost Fire20. Shemekia Copeland, Robert Randolph, & Kenny Wayne Shepherd / Hit 'Em Back 21. The Fabulous Thunderbirds / Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White Upcoming Shows & Events of InterestJuly 19 Little Feat & Leftover Salmon, Orpheum19 Chris Stapleton, The War & Treaty, Marty Stuart @ CHI Arena20 Ron Artis II, Jazz on the Green, Turner Park, Midtown21 Red Wanting Blue, Barnato (Village Pointe, Omaha)25 Tedeshi Trucks Band @ Pinewood Bowl (Lincoln)25 Madonna, Ball Arena, Denver27 Bobby Watson, Jazz on the Green, Turner Park, Midtown28 Diana Krall @ Holland28 Fargo Blues Fest Day #1 w/ Tommy Castro, Sugaray Rayford, Hector Anchondo28 Maha Music Festival29 Boz Scaggs & Keb Mo / Orpheum 29 Fargo Blues Fest Day #2 w/ GA 20, Blood Brothers (Mike Zito & Albert Castiglia) 29 Diana Krall @ Hoyt Sherman, Des Moines30 Keb Mo @ Hoyt Sherman, Des MoinesAugust 1 Rod Stewart, Mission Ballroom, Denver3 Chad Stoner, Jazz on the Green, Turner Park, Midtown4 New American Arts Festival, Benson area5 Gov't Mule / Stir Cove 5 In the Market for Blues (Toronzo Cannon, Hector Anchondo)9 Everclear, Barnato (Village Pointe, Omaha)10 Ana Popovic, Jazz on the Green, Turner Park, Midtown11 A.J. Croce / Admiral 11 Trombone Shorty, Mavis Staples, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Ziggy Marley @ Pinewood Bowl (Lincoln) 11 Thorbjorn Risager & Black Tornado, Samatha Martin & Delta Sugar (Playing With Fire)12 Bywater Call, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal, Blues Ed (Playing With Fire)14 Blues Traveler, Pinewood Bowl 15 Daryl Hall w/ Todd Rundgren, Orpheum Theatre20 Doobie Brothers, Pinewood Bowl27 Black Keys, Pinewood Bowl28 Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, Barnato (Village Pointe, Omaha)31 - 9/4 Kris Lager's Ozark Festival, ArkansasSeptember7 Taj Mahal, Los Lobos, North Mississippi All Stars, Hoyt Sherman, Des Moines13 Rhiannon Giddens, Iowa City15-17 Telluride Blues Festival (Bonnie Raitt) 16 Beth Hart, The Astro (LaVista, Nebraska)October6 Tower of Power, Omaha16 Peter Gabriel, Ball Arena, DenverNovember  10m,  Aerosmith w/ Black CrowesUpcoming shows at the Hoyt Sherman in Des Moines include...July 19th, Ann WilsonJuly 29th, Diana KrallJuly 30th, Keb MoAug 4th, KansasAug 15th, The WallflowersAug 31st, Happy Together Tour Sept 8th, Herbie HancockSept 15th, MavericksSept 26th, Kenny Wayne ShepherdNov 5th, Steve Hackett (Genesis)Nov 15th, A.J. Croce

 | Artist  | Title  | Album Name  | Album Copyright  |  | The Bluesland Horn Band  | Creole Queen  | Six  |   |   |  | Lincoln Durham  | Look What It' All Become  | Resurrection Thorn  |   |  | Alger ''Texas'' Alexander  | Polo Blues (1934)  | Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1930 - 1950) | The Bluesland Horn Band  | Shuffle In The Attic  | Six  |   |   |  | Buddy Whittington and Jim Suhler  | Showdown  | Texas Scratch  | Quarto Valley Records | Joanne Shaw Taylor  | Missionary Man feat. Dave Stewart  | Nobody's Fool  |   |  | Howlin' Wolf  | Smokestack Lightnin'  |   |  | Colin Linden  | Boogie Let Me Be  | bLOW  |   |   |  | Victor Wainwright  | Thank You Lucille  | Victor Wainwright and the Train | Phantom Blues Band  | Where Did My Monkey Go  | Inside Out  |   |  | Rev Gary Davis  | Twelve Gates To The City  | Live at Newport: July 1965  |  | Tony Torres  | Let's Rock It  | A Real Gone Time  |   |  | Dion  | If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll feat. Eric Clapton  | Stomping Ground  |   |  | Mississippi John Hurt  | C-H-I-C-K-E-N Blues | LIve at Oberlin College| (1964)  | 

It was a warm and picturesque spring day in the South Carolina countryside, just outside of the city of Greer, on the grounds of the Albino Skunk Music Festival, which got its name from some white skunks that were on the property, land which used to be a working farm. Now a largely wooded little valley of twenty plus acres, with one stage and many vintage RVs and campers that have been repurposed as a green room, accommodations, even storage, as well as a 1951 GMC bus that was originally owned and operated by Greyhound, which still runs and occasionally travels to other festivals. I sat with Eilen Jewell at the building dubbed the Nap Shack, on the hillside behind the stage. (L to R) Jerry Miller, Eilen Jewell, Jason Beek, Matt Murphy perform at the Albino Skunk Music Festival 05-13-23 It has been a tumultuous couple of years or so for Eilen Jewell. Much of the adversity and life lessons she took from this time are chronicled on her new album Get Behind The Wheel, her first involving an outside producer, Will Kimbrough — we touch on that as well as her love of Loretta Lynn, how she took her dad's record collection as a kid, which transported her to a past filled with artists like Mississippi John Hurt and Bessie Smith that continue to inspire her today, and how her young daughter has picked up playing the guitar without learning, as Eilen says, all her own bad habits on the instrument. Songs heard in this episode:Eilen Jewell “Where They Never Say Your Name” live at Albino Skunk Music Festival 05-13-23“The Bitter End” by Eilen Jewell, from Get Behind The Wheel, excerpt“The Pill” by Eilen Jewell, live at Albino Skunk Music Festival 05-13-23“Alive” by Eilen Jewell, live at Albino Skunk Music Festival 05-13-23Thank you for being here, and we are even more grateful whenever you share this with someone. Sharing in person is most appreciated, but please also follow us on your podcast platform of choice, and then it will only take a minute to give it a top rating and, where it is an option, a review. Great ratings, and reviews especially, will make Southern Songs and Stories and the artists it profiles more likely to find a home with more fans. This series is a part of the lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available here. You can also hear new episodes of this podcast on Bluegrass Planet Radio here. Thanks to Corrie Askew for producing the radio adaptations of this series on public radio WNCW, where we worked with Joshua Meng who wrote and performed our theme songs. Thanks also to Charles Wiggins at the Isothermal Community College library for pointing me to examples where people talked about feeling like they were born too late, as well as Touring Logistics for supplying audio of the live performances at Albino Skunk, to Mark Johnson for recording Eilen Jewell's performances, and to Zig and everyone at the festival for their generous hospitality. This is Southern Songs and Stories: the music of the South and the artists who make it. — Joe Kendrick

Sponsored by www.betterhelp.com/TheBarnhttps://www.parkermillsap.com/Over the past few years, the world has undergone significant and far-reaching changes, although the perception of these changes may vary depending on one's perspective. When viewed through the lens of geological time, it becomes apparent that not much has changed at all. Parker Millsap, an acclaimed singer/songwriter, delves into this juxtaposition between the present moment and the grander scale of existence in his sixth album, "Wilderness Within You." Through his music, Millsap contemplates humanity's role on this planet, presenting a study in contrasts that encompasses both personal and cosmic themes. The album skillfully combines sparse acoustic compositions with lush psychedelic improvisations, resulting in a captivating exploration of darkness and an expression of profound gratitude for life itself.Raised in Purcell, OK, a small town with an expansive sky, Millsap developed a knack for conveying gratitude through song while playing gospel music in the church band. He drew inspiration from the heartfelt lyrics of Townes Van Zandt, the fingerpicking style of Mississippi John Hurt, and classic albums like "Graceland" and "Rumors." Millsap's earlier works, such as the critically acclaimed albums "Parker Millsap" (2014) and "The Very Last Day" (2016), showcased his influences through character-driven storytelling and minimalist instrumentation. In his 2021 release, "Be Here Instead," produced by John Agnello, Millsap hinted at the wildness that would unfold while exploring new and more personal songwriting styles. "Wilderness Within You" represents a natural progression in Parker's artistic evolution, skillfully interweaving elements from his musical past and diverse influences to create a captivating and beautiful sound.Comprising 13 tracks, "Wilderness Within You" unfolds as a slow-burning crescendo, commencing with the simple yet powerful song "Greetings and Thanks." This track sets to music "The Thanksgiving Address" of the indigenous peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and all proceeds from its sales are donated to the Haudenosaunee Task Force. Millsap explains that this song holds significant meaning, as "The Thanksgiving Address" is traditionally known as "The Words that Come Before All Else." It represents an offering of gratitude to the Earth and all its inhabitants. Millsap's exposure to this concept, as described in Robin Wall-Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass," profoundly impacted him, and he aims to share this impact with others through his music.For the production of "Wilderness Within You," Millsap teamed up with new collaborator Ryan McFadden and assembled a backing band comprising talented musicians with whom he had minimal prior experience. Musicians such as Ross McReynolds on drums, Calvin Knowles on bass, Juan Solorzano and Mark Sloan on guitar and pedal steel, Ryan Connors and Will Honaker on keys, Jake Botts on saxophone, and Daniel Foulks on fiddle joined him in the recording process. In most cases, these musicians were only introduced to the songs moments before recording began. Millsap also experimented with field recording and tape loop-driven soundscapes, adding a new dimension to his music that had not been heard in his previous recordings. This unconventional recording approach reflects the wild and natural essence of the album, mirroring its title track.On a broader level, "Wilderness Within You" presents profound and weighty questions without providing easy answers. Millsap explains that many of the songs are rooted in his inquiries about the functionality of societal systems, who they benefit, and why, which he hadn't previouslyThis episode is sponsored by www.betterhelp.com/TheBarn and presented to you by The Barn Media Group.

This week's show, after a small trill of 1998 Pernice Brothers: brand new Jeanines, Tombstones in Their Eyes, Savage Republic, SLIP~ons, Tommy Stinson's Cowboys in the Campfire, Snuff, and Lavender Diamond (With Jim James), plus Mississippi John Hurt, ...

086 - Ruthie Foster The new episode of “Have Guitar Will Travel” has host James Patrick Regan speaking with Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter/guitarist Ruthie Foster, who grew up performing gospel music in churches across her home state of Texas. Gospel, along with guitarists Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, were highly influential to her. After high school, she joined the U.S. Navy and became a singer in its band, then launched a career that has taken her from South Carolina and NYC then back near home, to Austin. Her latest album, “Healing Time,” was recorded in New Orleans with producer Mark Howard. Please like, comment, and share this podcast! Download Link

Think you know the blues? Think you know acoustic blues? Chances are you haven't heard these insanely good blues guitars. It's time to get inspired. In this episode, we'll be exploring 11 phenomenal acoustic blues artists who will not only inspire you but also help you play better. I've handpicked these legends from all corners of the U.S. and spanning the last 100 years, to give you a true taste of acoustic blues history.  Featuring breathtaking concert footage and unforgettable recordings, you'll experience the incredible artistry of these musicians up close and personal. Some of the notable names we'll be discussing include the likes of Robert Belfour, Barbecue Bob, Charley Patton, and Mississippi John Hurt — just to name a few.  So grab your guitar, sit back, and get ready to be inspired by the captivating sounds of these acoustic blues masters. Whether you're an experienced player or just starting out, you'll walk away with new insights and a fresh perspective on your own playing. Featured in this episode... - PPLDTV   - Old Town School of Folk Music   - Fretboard Journal   - Andy Hall - Mule Resophonic Guitars - Pisgah Banjo Company - Rhiannon Giddens   - Wondrium  

“There's an old adage ‘He who forgets history is condemned to repeat it.' But what's missing in that phrase is that there are the people who are in charge of keeping your history. And they can make you forget it. They can keep it from you. And then you're doomed to repeat something that they want you to repeat.” — Samuel JamesSamuel James is a musician and storyteller from Portland, Maine, who specializes in blues and roots music. Samuel has a deep knowledge of American musical history and recently wrote a column in the Mainer magazine about the origins of the phrase “stay woke,” first heard on a Lead Belly record about the Scottsboro Boys. He shows that when we see attacks on “wokeness” like Ron DeSantis' “Stop WOKE Act,” we should remember that it's “an old, Black phrase being weaponized against the very people who created it.”Today, Samuel joins to explain how listening to the words of early 20th century Black songs provides critical context for understanding America today. From commentary on the prison system in the words of “Midnight Special” to Mississippi John Hurt's unique twist on the “John Henry” legend, Samuel James offers a course in how to listen closely to appreciate both the rich diversity of the music lumped together as folk blues, and how to hear the warnings that the early singers passed down to Black Americans today. It's a very special hour featuring some of the greatest music ever written, played live by one of its most talented contemporary interpreters.Nathan's article on Charles Murray is here, and one on Joe Rogan is here. A Current Affairs article about John Henry songs is here. Beyond Mississippi John Hurt and Lead Belly, artists mentioned by Samuel James include Gus Cannon, the Mississippi Sheiks, Charley Patton, Skip James, and Furry Lewis. More information about the St. Louis chemical spraying is here. Follow Samuel James on Twitter here. His 99 Years podcast is here. Nathan mentions the “Voyager Golden Record” that went into space, which did in fact include a classic blues song.“This is the hammer that killed John HenryBut it won't kill me, but it won't kill me, but it won't kill me”— Mississippi John HurtNOTE: The n-word is heard several times in this episode, spoken by Samuel James, and in recordings by Lead Belly and Ice Cube.Subscribe to Current Affairs on Patreon to unlock all of our bonus episodes and get early access to new releases.

Tune in Friday morning for a finger pickin' helping of Americana and beyond as our show revisits some guitar masters from blues, country blues, folk and tradition. We'll take a spin across the landscape of steel and gut string tradition with a collection that features tracks from Stefan Grossman, Mississippi John Hurt, Leo Kottke, Merle Travis and over a dozen others. As February wraps up, we'll be completing our February journey out of winter's doldrums and into the sweet breezes of Spring. Let this show be a warmup for your good life and times. So put your feet up and drop in. We'd love to have you. 

Drive-by Truckers "Dragon Pants"Fleetwood Mac "Like It This Way"Fats Domino "The Big Beat"Aerial M "Wedding Song No.2"Valerie June "You And I"Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers "Give Me Back My Wig (Live)"AC/DC "Let There Be Rock"John Fahey "Uncloudy Day"Adia Victoria "Stuck In The South"Andrew Bird "Underlands"Elizabeth Cotten "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad"Craig Finn "God in Chicago"Ian Noe "Strip Job Blues 1984"Esther Phillips "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You"R.L. Burnside "Miss Maybelle"Hank Williams "I'm Sorry for You My Friend"Joan Shelley "Amberlit Morning (feat. Bill Callahan)"John R. Miller "Lookin' Over My Shoulder"Max Roach "Garvey's Ghost (feat. Carlos "Patato" Valdes & Carlos "Totico" Eugenio)"Ranie Burnette "Hungry Spell"Nina Nastasia "This Is Love"Thurston Harris "I Got Loaded (In Smokey Joe's Joint)"Folk Implosion "Sputnik's Down"Slim Harpo "I'm a King Bee"Wipers "Youth of America"The Scotty McKay Quintet "The Train Kept a-Rollin'"Mississippi John Hurt "Sliding Delta"Magnolia Electric Co. "Montgomery"Dr. John "Memories of Professor Longhair"Billie McKenzie "I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water"Little Walter "Juke"Elvis Presley "Trying to Get to You"Billie Jo Spears "Get Behind Me Satan And Push"Ray Charles "Georgia On My Mind"Freddy King "Hide Away"Furry Lewis "Old Blue"Billie Holiday "What a Little Moonlight Can Do"Bob Dylan "One More Cup of Coffee"The Primitives "How  Do Yu Feel"Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"Ruth Brown "Lucky Lips"Bonnie 'Prince' Billy "A Minor Place"Pearl Bailey "Frankie and Johnnie"fIREHOSE "In Memory Of Elizabeth Cotton"James Booker "On The Sunny Side Of The Street"Ray Price "The Same Old Me"Mississippi Fred McDowell "My Babe"The Replacements "Here Comes a Regular"

The Mountain Goats "This Year"Wanda Jackson "Whole Lot Of Shakin' Goin' On"Iron & Wine "Sunset Soon Forgotten"The Ronettes "Walking In the Rain"Mississippi John Hurt "Louis Collins"Elvis Costello "Radio Radio"Alex Chilton/Hi Rhythm Section "Lucille"The Bottle Rockets "Indianapolis"Flat Duo Jets "Go Go Harlem Baby"Drag The River "Here's to the Losers"Pavement "Cut Your Hair"Dale Hawkins "Susie-Q"Loretta Lynn "Coal Miner's Daughter"Endless Boogie "Back in '74"Palace Music "Work Hard / Play Hard"The Replacements "Anywhere's Better Than Here"Fontella Bass "Rescue Me"John Hiatt "Slow Turning"Steve Earle & The Dukes "Billy Austin"The Low Anthem "Home I'll Never Be"Cedric Burnside Project "Hard Times"Fela Ransome- Kuti and The Africa '70 "Swegbe And Pako Part II"Cat Power "Nude As The News"Muddy Waters "Southbound Train"Roy Orbison "Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)"Jon Dee Graham & The Fighting Cocks "Beautifully Broken"Clem Snide "Beautiful"Clem Snide "I Love the Unknown"The Clash "Spanish Bombs"Two Cow Garage "Movies"Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "Southern Accents"The Staple Singers "I'm Willin', Pt. 1"Dr. John "Stealin'"Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels "Devil with the Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly"Patsy Cline "Walkin' After Midnight"The Box Tops "I Met Her In Church"Solomon Burke "Stepchild"The Shangri-Las "The Train From Kansas City"Kris Kristofferson "The Devil to Pay"Patterson Hood "Better Off Without"Tift Merritt "Good Hearted Man"Little Richard "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes"The Handsome Family "Far from Any Road"Cory Branan "Miss Ferguson"

Two Words. Bruce Cockburn. Having sold more than nine million albums worldwide, acclaimed songwriter, performer, author, and activist Bruce Cockburn is a member of both the Canadian Songwriter and Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a winner of Folk Alliance's People's Voice Award, as well 13 JUNO Awards. Bruce  Cockburn has written almost 400 songs. Released 34 albums over a 50 year span. Who better to gather up his rarities and present them as partners with his hits? The man has rarities. His new album RARITIES  contains music for a film (Going down the Road) Music honoring Mississippi John Hurt, Kenji Miyazawa, William Hawkins, Gordon Lightfoot, Pete Seeger, Mississippi Sheiks, etc. Unreleased demos and music for benefits. AND  many stories., It's basically a mini-history of Bruce Cockburn's place in Canadian music. We also talk about his next new album – O Sun O Moon ( May). His Tour dates through Canada in February And his connection to Joni Mitchell.   Bruce Tour Dates Feb 2 – Royal Victoria Feb 4 – Centre Theatre Vancouver Feb 5 – Community Theatre Kelowna Feb 6 – Singer Calgary Feb 8 – Winspear Edmonton   www.brucecockburn.com

Artists include: Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Willie MeTell, Blind Willie Johnson, Victoria Spivey, the Memphis Jug Band and Mississippi John Hurt. Songs Include: Thinking Blues, Deep Moaning Blues, No Papa No, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, Pine Top's Blues and Kansas City Blues.

Last year, Canadian folk artist Bruce Cockburn belated launched a tour celebrating 50 years in music. When we ran an excerpt from this interview last Christmas season, we started off talking about the tour. Since he's not on tour now, I cut some of that material but did start with a conversation on how someone with 50-plus years in the business relates to the music he wrote decades ago.  We focused our attention on Christmas, his 1993 album of Christmas music. We talk about its humble origins and the versions that inspired some of his takes. To let you in on the conversation, I also included Sam Phillips' version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's "Christ was Born on Christmas Morn," which Cockburn recorded as "Early on One Christmas Morn."  He also talks about why he chose to sing the Huron Christmas carol "Jesus Ahtonnia" in its native language. It's a good conversation that fits the album into conversations about faith and life, and what can happen over the course of more than 50 years.  On November 25, he will have three new releases—the digital album Rarities, which features songs previously on the Rumors of Glory box set along with tracks recorded for tribute albums to Gordon Lightfoot, Pete Seeger, Mississippi Sheiks and Mississippi John Hurt. He will also release vinyl versions of 1997's The Charity of the Night and 1999's Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu. You pre-order all of them now from his label, True North Records.

Old 97's "I Don't Wanna Die In This Town"Valerie June "Workin' Woman Blues"Mary Wells "The One Who Really Loves You"The Replacements "Alex Chilton"The Hold Steady "Entitlement Crew"Joe Tex "Hold What You Got"Fiona Apple "Sleep to Dream"Mavis Staples "If All I Was Was Black"Esther Phillips "Release Me"Lucero "That Much Further West"Shaver "Live Forever"Gillian Welch "Caleb Meyer"Ray Charles "I've Got A Woman"Nicole Atkins "Brokedown Luck"James Brown "Please Please Please"Will Johnson "A Solitary Slip"Slobberbone "Pinball Song"Will Johnson "Cornelius"The O "Candy"Eilen Jewell "I'm Gonna Dress In Black"Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings "Good Hearted Woman"Charlie Parr "Empty Out Your Pockets"Aretha Franklin "Dr. Feelgood (Love Is Serious Business)"Mississippi John Hurt "Monday Morning Blues"JD McPherson "Bridgebuilder"Little Richard "The Girl Can't Help It"Johnny Cash "Sea of Heartbreak"Etta James "At Last"R.E.M. "So. Central Rain"Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Learning To Fly"Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "Room At The Top"Bobby Bland "I Pity The Fool"Ruth Brown "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean"Two Cow Garage "My Concern"Patterson Hood "Better Off Without"Ramones "Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio"Ike & Tina Turner "Proud Mary"Sierra Ferrell "Jeremiah"James Carr "The Dark End of the Street"New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers feat. Alvin Youngblood Hart "She's About a Mover"Wilson Pickett "634-5789"Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton "Hound Dog"Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit "The Blue"Magnolia Electric Co. "Northstar Blues"Brook Benton "Rainy Night in Georgia"The Devil Makes Three "Car Wreck"

Un Okeh de Mississippi John Hurt. un Decca de Milton Brown and His Brownies; un Columbia de Lillian Glinn; un Victor; Emilio Cáceres Trío; un Champion de los Mound City Blue Blowers; un de... ¿es necesario seguir?. A las 23.00 horas en la sintonía de Radio 3. Escuchar audio

Charlie Parr "Poor Lazarus"Tom Waits "Warm Beer And Cold Women"Margo Price "Sweet Revenge"Slim Dunlap "Hate This Town"Jerry Jeff Walker "Pick Up The Tempo"Vic Chesnutt "Coward"Valerie June "Summer's End"Dirtball "Get a Load of This"Drive-By Truckers "Aftermath USA"Dirtball "Over and Over"Drive-By Truckers "Mercy Buckets"John Prine "Spanish Pipedream"Willie Dixon "Nervous"Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters "Mama Get Yourself Together"Mississippi John Hurt "Since I've Laid My Burden Down"Alison Krauss "Come and Go Blues"Neil Young "Revolution Blues"Miss Lavelle White "I've Never Found a Man"Dolly Parton "Here I Am"Lucinda Williams "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine"Otis Redding "These Arms of Mine"Mavis Staples "We Shall Not Be Moved"Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit "Last of My Kind"S.G. Goodman "If You Were Someone I Loved"Chris Stapleton "Gotta Serve Somebody"The 40 Acre Mule "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"Mildred Anderson "Cool Kind of Poppa (Good Kind Daddy)"Lightnin Hopkins "Uncle Stan, The Hip Hit Record Man"Nina Simone "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out"The Meters "Can You Do Without?"R.E.M. "Gardening At Night"Two Cow Garage "The Little Prince and Johnny Toxic"The Hold Steady "Stay Positive"Two Cow Garage "My Concern"Nikki Lane "Walk of Shame"Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears "No Rhyme or Reason"Bonnie "Prince" Billy "Make Worry for Me"Jake Xerxes Fussell "Love Farewell"Dolly Parton "To Know Him Is to Love Him"Billy Joe Shaver "Sunbeam Special"Hurray for the Riff Raff "Crash on the Highway"

Dad, and dealing with dementia. Writing and music are the only ways I can make sense of any of this right now. Hope maybe this helps someone else to deal. Music inspiration from Mississippi John Hurt

Historiquement Vôtre réunit 3 personnages qui ont le Mississippi dans la peau : l'écrivain Mark Twain qui a imaginé “Tom Sawyer” sur le papier, un héros de l'enfance qui a, comme lui, grandi sur les rives du Mississippi qui a irrigué toute son œuvre, avec talent, et humour aussi. Puis lui il a tellement le Mississippi dans la peau qu'il l'a mis dans son nom de scène aussi : le bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, passé des champs de coton à la scène. Et un fan du Mississippi plus contemporain qui a en remonté 4500 kilomètres en canoë : l'écrivain-voyageur américain Eddy L. Harris.

In this episode, Alex visits Brooklyn Lutherie, the only woman-owned and operated guitar shop in New York City. While there to pick up his double SG, he chats with Mamie Minch, the shop's co-founder, about the repair on his guitar and learns something new about it in the process. Alex, Mamie, and co-founder Chloe Swantner discuss what it was like to start a guitar repair business in what has traditionally been a very male-dominated field, and how Brooklyn Lutherie is changing the ratio. Mamie and Alex also discuss her musical career and her influences, which include two relatively unknown but fascinating female musicians, Connie Converse and Judee Sill. You'll also hear a bit of Mamie's music.Mamie Minch is a longtime staple of New York City's blues scene. She began playing guitar as a teenager in her bedroom listening to reissues of class country blues on repeat. She would try her hand at picking out the songs of legends like Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin' Hopkins, Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith. She loved the steady thumb and percussive right hand of these blues players, but she also devoured lots of different styles of music, from soul to psychobilly and old time to punk rock.When she's not making music, Mamie spends her days as a guitar repair luthier at Brooklyn Lutherie, the shop she and her business partner, Chloe Swantner, opened in 2014. It remains one of the few women-owned and -operated shops around. She also teaches, writes articles about luthiery and guitar playing for She Shreds and Acoustic Guitar magazines, and runs the annual Ukulele Building Camp for Girls in Brooklyn, NY.Moods & Modes is presented by Osiris Media. Hosted and Produced by Alex Skolnick. Osiris Production by Kirsten Cluthe and Matt Dwyer. Editing and mixing by Matt Dwyer. Music by Alex Skolnick. Artwork by Mark Dowd. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, and review! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Female instrumentalist and singer talks about earning credibility on the bandstand with Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia and Mississippi John Hurt and fronting her own Snake Band with the late great Bob Jones.

Historiquement Vôtre réunit 3 personnages qui ont le Mississippi dans la peau : l'écrivain Mark Twain qui a imaginé “Tom Sawyer” sur le papier, un héros de l'enfance qui a, comme lui, grandi sur les rives du Mississippi qui a irrigué toute son œuvre, avec talent, et humour aussi. Puis lui il a tellement le Mississippi dans la peau qu'il l'a mis dans son nom de scène aussi : le bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, passé des champs de coton à la scène. Et un fan du Mississippi plus contemporain qui a en remonté 4500 kilomètres en canoë : l'écrivain-voyageur américain Eddy L. Harris.

Pacific St Blues & AmericanaMay 29, 2022Over the years acoustic slide blues player Aurora "Rory" Block has explored the music of the great delta players including Skip James, Rev. Son House, Rev. Gary Davis, Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Bessie Smith, and Leadbelly.Join me this week as we explore the various musical paths trodden by Rory Block. Block appeared at the Indigenous Jam back in the day. PLUS we focus on new tunes by old favorites! 1. Corey Harris / Insurrection Blues2. Charlie Musselwhite / Crawling King Snake3. Rory Block / Death Letter Blues (Reverend Son House) 4. John Mellencamp / John the Revelator(Reverend Son House)5. Rex Granite Band / Man in Chapter Two 6. Bonnie Raitt / Waiting for You to Blow 7. Rory Block / Death Don't Have No Mercy (Rev. Gary Davis)8. Jackson Browne / Cocaine (Rev. Gary Davis)9. Kenny Neal / Blues Keeps Chasing Me 10. Marcus King Band / Hard Working Man 11. Rory Block / Avalon (Mississippi John Hurt) 12. Dave Alvin & Peter Case (dBs) / Monday Morning Blues (Mississippi John Hurt)13. Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials / Giving Up on Your Love (Soaring Wings Vineyard Blues Festival)14. Eric Clapton / Alabama Woman Blues 15. Rory Block / Good Morning Little School Girl (Mississippi Fred McDowell)16. The Rolling Stones / You Gotta Move (Mississippi Fred McDowell)17. Lyle Lovett / 12th of June18. Lucinda Williams / Wildflower19. Rory Block / Cross Roads Blues (Robert Johnson)20. Led Zeppelin / Traveling Riverside Blues (Robert Johnson)

469. Part 2 of our interview with Sybil Gage. Born and raised in New Orleans Sybil Gage had front row schooling in what makes that city great. Now living in Florida, Sybil is spreading New Orleans music to the rest of the world. The “Little Dynamo” is slinky in sequins, and funky in fishnets and has become the darling of the East Coast from New Orleans (Old U.S. Mint Theater) to New York City (Triad Theater W. 72nd St. Broadway). Witness “Sybil Gage and Her Mighty Catahoulas” and a typical evening will include the legendary music of Professor Longhair and James Booker, fun tunes from Smiley Lewis and Jesse Hill and Eddie Bo, blues from Elmore James, Little Willie John, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Etta James, Gus Cannon, as well as many of her own award winning original contributions. On intimate evenings, with only piano to accompany, she sings Pre War Blues, Hokum, Traditional New Orleans inspired Jazz and original tunes that fit seamlessly into her vast repertoire. This week in Louisiana history. May 14, 1845. First free public school opened in LA. This week in New Orleans history. On May 14, 2011, the Morganza Spillway on the Mississippi River was opened for the second time in its history, deliberately flooding 3,000 square miles of rural Louisiana and placing three nuclear power plants at risk to avert possible flooding in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This week in Louisiana. Bogalusa Balloon Fest May 20-22, 2022 10:00 am - 10:00 pm 401 Walker St. Bogalusa LA 70427 We are a hot air balloon festival which includes hot air balloons, a carnival, vendors and live entertainment. May 20-22, 2022 10:00 am - 10:00 pm Amenities: Senior Citizen Discount, Student Discount, Family Friendly, Free Parking. View Website Phone: 985-750-3905 Email: bprcc.70427@gmail.com Postcards from Louisiana. Guitarist on Royal St.Listen on iTunes.Listen on Google Play.Listen on Google Podcasts.Listen on Spotify.Listen on Stitcher.Listen on TuneIn.The Louisiana Anthology Home Page.Like us on Facebook.  

468. Part 1 of our interview with returning guest Sybil Gage. Born and raised in New Orleans Sybil had front row schooling in what makes that city great. Now living in Florida, Sybil is spreading New Orleans music to the rest of the world. The “Little Dynamo” is slinky in sequins, and funky in fishnets and has become the darling of the East Coast from New Orleans (Old U.S. Mint Theater) to New York City (Triad Theater W. 72nd St. Broadway). Witness “Sybil Gage and Her Mighty Catahoulas” and a typical evening will include the legendary music of Professor Longhair and James Booker, fun tunes from Smiley Lewis and Jesse Hill and Eddie Bo, blues from Elmore James, Little Willie John, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Etta James, Gus Cannon, as well as many of her own award winning original contributions. On intimate evenings, with only piano to accompany, she sings Pre War Blues, Hokum, Traditional New Orleans inspired Jazz and original tunes that fit seamlessly into her vast repertoire. This week in Louisiana history. May 7, 1862. The Union Army captures Baton Rouge during the Civil War. This week in New Orleans history. The corner stone for Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Avenue was laid on May 7, 1922. This week in Louisiana. 46th Annual Cochon de Lait Festival 1832 Leglise Mansura, LA 71350 May 12-15, 2022 The first official festival was in 1961, but that doesn't mean that is when the magic happened. That happend in 1960 during Mansura's Centennial celebration when over 10,000 people converged on Mansura. From that weekend on, Mansura has been known as the Cochon de Lait Festival of the world. After celebrating for 12 years straight and a record crowd of 100,000 in 1972, the town of Mansura took a little break. That all changed in 1987 when the Cochon de Lait festival was revived and Mansura has been never been the same again. We continue the tradition again this year. The Mansura Chamber of Commerce invites you to come pass a good time and join us for the 46th annual Cochon de Lait Festival! Postcards from Louisiana. Lauren Sturm sings and plays piano. Listen on iTunes.Listen on Google Play.Listen on Google Podcasts.Listen on Spotify.Listen on Stitcher.Listen on TuneIn.The Louisiana Anthology Home Page.Like us on Facebook.  

Episode 143 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Summer in the City'”, and at the short but productive career of the Lovin' Spoonful.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" by the Walker Brothers and the strange career of Scott Walker. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, all the songs excerpted in the podcast can be heard in full at Mixcloud. This box set contains all four studio albums by the Lovin' Spoonful, plus the one album by "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler", while this CD contains their two film soundtracks (mostly inessential instrumental filler, apart from "Darling Be Home Soon") Information about harmonicas and harmonicists comes from Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers by Kim Field. There are only three books about the Lovin' Spoonful, but all are worth reading. Do You Believe in Magic? by Simon Wordsworth is a good biography of the band, while his The Magic's in the Music is a scrapbook of press cuttings and reminiscences. Meanwhile Steve Boone's Hotter Than a Match Head: My Life on the Run with the Lovin' Spoonful has rather more discussion of the actual music than is normal in a musician's autobiography. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Let's talk about the harmonica for a while. The harmonica is an instrument that has not shown up a huge amount in the podcast, but which was used in a fair bit of the music we've covered. We've heard it for example on records by Bo Diddley: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "I'm a Man"] and by Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind"] and the Rolling Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Little Red Rooster"] In most folk and blues contexts, the harmonicas used are what is known as a diatonic harmonica, and these are what most people think of when they think of harmonicas at all. Diatonic harmonicas have the notes of a single key in them, and if you want to play a note in another key, you have to do interesting tricks with the shape of your mouth to bend the note. There's another type of harmonica, though, the chromatic harmonica. We've heard that a time or two as well, like on "Love Me Do" by the Beatles: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love Me Do"] Chromatic harmonicas have sixteen holes, rather than the diatonic harmonica's ten, and they also have a slide which you can press to raise the note by a semitone, meaning you can play far more notes than on a diatonic harmonica -- but they're also physically harder to play, requiring a different kind of breathing to pull off playing one successfully. They're so different that John Lennon would distinguish between the two instruments -- he'd describe a chromatic harmonica as a harmonica, but a diatonic harmonica he would call a harp, like blues musicians often did: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love These Goon Shows"] While the chromatic harmonica isn't a particularly popular instrument in rock music, it is one that has had some success in other fields. There have been some jazz and light-orchestral musicians who have become famous playing the instrument, like the jazz musician Max Geldray, who played in those Goon Shows the Beatles loved so much: [Excerpt: Max Geldray, "C-Jam Blues"] And in the middle of the twentieth century there were a few musicians who succeeded in making the harmonica into an instrument that was actually respected in serious classical music. By far the most famous of these was Larry Adler, who became almost synonymous with the instrument in the popular consciousness, and who reworked many famous pieces of music for the instrument: [Excerpt: Larry Adler, "Rhapsody in Blue"] But while Adler was the most famous classical harmonicist of his generation, he was not generally considered the best by other musicians. That was, rather, a man named John Sebastian. Sebastian, who chose to take his middle name as a surname partly to Anglicise his name but also, it seems, at least in part as tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach (which incidentally now makes it really, really difficult to search for copies of his masterwork "John Sebastian Plays Bach", as Internet searches uniformly think you're searching just for the composer...) started out like almost all harmonica players as an amateur playing popular music. But he quickly got very, very, good, and by his teens he was already teaching other children, including at a summer camp run by Albert Hoxie, a musician and entrepreneur who was basically single-handedly responsible for the boom in harmonica sales in the 1920s and 1930s, by starting up youth harmonica orchestras -- dozens or even hundreds of kids, all playing harmonica together, in a semi-militaristic youth organisation something like the scouts, but with harmonicas instead of woggles and knots. Hoxie's group and the various organisations copying it led to there being over a hundred and fifty harmonica orchestras in Chicago alone, and in LA in the twenties and thirties a total of more than a hundred thousand children passed through harmonica orchestras inspired by Hoxie. Hoxie's youth orchestras were largely responsible for the popularity of the harmonica as a cheap instrument for young people, and thus for its later popularity in the folk and blues worlds. That was only boosted in the Second World War by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, which we talked about in the early episodes of the podcast -- harmonicas had never been thought of as a serious instrument, and so most professional harmonica players were not members of the AFM, but were considered variety performers and were part of the American Guild of Variety Artists, along with singers, ukulele players, and musical saw players. Of course, the war did also create a problem, because the best harmonicas were made in Germany by the Hohner company, but soon a lot of American companies started making cheap harmonicas to fill the gap in the market. There's a reason the cliche of the GI in a war film playing a harmonica in the trenches exists, and it's largely because of Hoxie. And Hoxie was based in Philadelphia, where John Sebastian lived as a kid, and he mentored the young player, who soon became a semi-professional performer. Sebastian's father was a rich banker, and discouraged him from becoming a full-time musician -- the plan was that after university, Sebastian would become a diplomat. But as part of his preparation for that role, he was sent to spend a couple of years studying at the universities of Rome and Florence, learning about Italian culture. On the boat back, though, he started talking to two other passengers, who turned out to be the legendary Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart, the writers of such classic songs as "Blue Moon" and "My Funny Valentine": [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, "My Funny Valentine"] Sebastian talked to his new friends, and told them that he was feeling torn between being a musician and being in the foreign service like his father wanted. They both told him that in their experience some people were just born to be artists, and that those people would never actually find happiness doing anything else. He took their advice, and decided he was going to become a full-time harmonica player. He started out playing in nightclubs, initially playing jazz and swing, but only while he built up a repertoire of classical music. He would rehearse with a pianist for three hours every day, and would spend the rest of his time finding classical works, especially baroque ones, and adapting them for the harmonica. As he later said “I discovered sonatas by Telemann, Veracini, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Hasse, Marcello, Purcell, and many others, which were written to be played on violin, flute, oboe, musette, even bagpipes... The composer seemed to be challenging each instrument to create the embellishments and ornaments to suit its particular voice. . . . I set about choosing works from this treasure trove that would best speak through my instrument.” Soon his nightclub repertoire was made up entirely of these classical pieces, and he was making records like John Sebastian Plays Bach: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Flute Sonata in B Minor BWV1030 (J.S. Bach)"] And while Sebastian was largely a lover of baroque music above all other forms, he realised that he would have to persuade new composers to write new pieces for the instrument should he ever hope for it to have any kind of reputation as a concert instrument, so he persuaded contemporary composers to write pieces like George Kleinsinger's "Street Corner Concerto", which Sebastian premiered with the New York Philharmonic: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Street Corner Concerto"] He became the first harmonica player to play an entirely classical repertoire, and regarded as the greatest player of his instrument in the world. The oboe player Jay S Harrison once wrote of seeing him perform "to accomplish with success a program of Mr. Sebastian's scope is nothing short of wizardry. . . . He has vast technical facility, a bulging range of colors, and his intentions are ever musical and sophisticated. In his hands the harmonica is no toy, no simple gadget for the dispensing of homespun tunes. Each single number of the evening was whittled, rounded, polished, and poised. . . . Mr. Sebastian's playing is uncanny." Sebastian came from a rich background, and he managed to earn enough as a classical musician to live the lifestyle of a rich artistic Bohemian. During the forties and fifties he lived in Greenwich Village with his family -- apart from a four-year period living in Rome from 1951 to 55 -- and Eleanor Roosevelt was a neighbour, while Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy, was the godmother of his eldest son. But while Sebastian's playing was entirely classical, he was interested in a wider variety of music. When he would tour Europe, he would often return having learned European folk songs, and while he was living in Greenwich Village he would often be visited by people like Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and other folk singers living in the area. And that early influence rubbed off on Sebastian's son, John Benson Sebastian, although young John gave up trying to learn the harmonica the first time he tried, because he didn't want to be following too closely in his father's footsteps. Sebastian junior did, though, take up the guitar, inspired by the first wave rock and rollers he was listening to on Alan Freed's show, and he would later play the harmonica, though the diatonic harmonica rather than the chromatic. In case you haven't already figured it out, John Benson Sebastian, rather than his father, is a principal focus of this episode, and so to avoid confusion, from this point on, when I refer to "John Sebastian" or "Sebastian" without any qualifiers, I'm referring to the younger man. When I refer to "John Sebastian Sr" I'm talking about the father. But it was John Sebastian Sr's connections, in particular to the Bohemian folk and blues scenes, which gave his more famous son his first connection to that world of his own, when Sebastian Sr appeared in a TV show, in November 1960, put together by Robert Herridge, a TV writer and producer who was most famous for his drama series but who had also put together documentaries on both classical music and jazz, including the classic performance documentary The Sound of Jazz. Herridge's show featured both Sebastian Sr and the country-blues player Lightnin' Hopkins: [Excerpt: Lightnin' Hopkins, "Blues in the Bottle"] Hopkins was one of many country-blues players whose career was having a second wind after his discovery by the folk music scene. He'd been recording for fourteen years, putting out hundreds of records, but had barely performed outside Houston until 1959, when the folkies had picked up on his work, and in October 1960 he had been invited to play Carnegie Hall, performing with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. Young John Sebastian had come along with his dad to see the TV show be recorded, and had an almost Damascene conversion -- he'd already heard Hopkins' recordings, but had never seen anything like his live performances. He was at that time attending a private boarding school, Blair Academy, and his roommate at the school also had his own apartment, where Sebastian would sometimes stay. Soon Lightnin' Hopkins was staying there as well, as somewhere he could live rent-free while he was in New York. Sebastian started following Hopkins around and learning everything he could, being allowed by the older man to carry his guitar and buy him gin, though the two never became close. But eventually, Hopkins would occasionally allow Sebastian to play with him when he played at people's houses, which he did on occasion. Sebastian became someone that Hopkins trusted enough that when he was performing on a bill with someone else whose accompanist wasn't able to make the gig and Sebastian put himself forward, Hopkins agreed that Sebastian would be a suitable accompanist for the evening. The singer he accompanied that evening was a performer named Valentine Pringle, who was a protege of Harry Belafonte, and who had a similar kind of sound to Paul Robeson. Sebastian soon became Pringle's regular accompanist, and played on his first album, I Hear America Singing, which was also the first record on which the great trumpet player Hugh Masakela played. Sadly, Paul Robeson style vocals were so out of fashion by that point that that album has never, as far as I can tell, been issued in a digital format, and hasn't even been uploaded to YouTube.  But this excerpt from a later recording by Pringle should give you some idea of the kind of thing he was doing: [Excerpt: Valentine Pringle, "Go 'Way From My Window"] After these experiences, Sebastian started regularly going to shows at Greenwich Village folk clubs, encouraged by his parents -- he had an advantage over his peers because he'd grown up in the area and had artistic parents, and so he was able to have a great deal of freedom that other people in their teens weren't. In particular, he would always look out for any performances by the great country blues performer Mississippi John Hurt. Hurt had made a few recordings for Okeh records in 1928, including an early version of "Stagger Lee", titled "Stack O'Lee": [Excerpt: Mississippi John Hurt, "Stack O'Lee Blues"] But those records had been unsuccessful, and he'd carried on working on a farm. and not performed other than in his tiny home town of Avalon, Mississippi, for decades. But then in 1952, a couple of his tracks had been included on the Harry Smith Anthology, and as a result he'd come to the attention of the folk and blues scholar community. They'd tried tracking him down, but been unable to until in the early sixties one of them had discovered a track on one of Hurt's records, "Avalon Blues", and in 1963, thirty-five years after he'd recorded six flop singles, Mississippi John Hurt became a minor star, playing the Newport Folk Festival and appearing on the Tonight Show. By this time, Sebastian was a fairly well-known figure in Greenwich Village, and he had become quite a virtuoso on the harmonica himself, and would walk around the city wearing a holster-belt containing harmonicas in a variety of different keys. Sebastian became a huge fan of Hurt, and would go and see him perform whenever Hurt was in New York. He soon found himself first jamming backstage with Hurt, and then performing with him on stage for the last two weeks of a residency. He was particularly impressed with what he called Hurt's positive attitude in his music -- something that Sebastian would emulate in his own songwriting. Sebastian was soon invited to join a jug band, called the Even Dozen Jug Band. Jug band music was a style of music that first became popular in the 1920s, and had many of the same musical elements as the music later known as skiffle. It was played on a mixture of standard musical instruments -- usually portable, "folky" ones like guitar and harmonica -- and improvised homemade instruments, like the spoons, the washboard, and comb and paper. The reason they're called jug bands is because they would involve someone blowing into a jug to make a noise that sounded a bit like a horn -- much like the coffee pot groups we talked about way back in episode six. The music was often hokum music, and incorporated elements of what we'd now call blues, vaudeville, and country music, though at the time those genres were nothing like as distinct as they're considered today: [Excerpt: Cincinnati Jug Band, "Newport Blues"] The Even Dozen Jug Band actually ended up having thirteen members, and it had a rather remarkable lineup. The leader was Stefan Grossman, later regarded as one of the greatest fingerpicking guitarists in America, and someone who will be coming up in other contexts in future episodes I'm sure, and they also featured David Grisman, a mandolin player who would later play with the Grateful Dead among many others;  Steve Katz, who would go on to be a founder member of Blood, Sweat and Tears and produce records for Lou Reed; Maria D'Amato, who under her married name Maria Muldaur would go on to have a huge hit with "Midnight at the Oasis"; and Joshua Rifkin, who would later go on to become one of the most important scholars of Bach's music of the latter half of the twentieth century, but who is best known for his recordings of Scott Joplin's piano rags, which more or less single-handedly revived Joplin's music from obscurity and created the ragtime revival of the 1970s: [Excerpt: Joshua Rifkin, "Maple Leaf Rag"] Unfortunately, despite the many talents involved, a band as big as that was uneconomical to keep together, and the Even Dozen Jug Band only played four shows together -- though those four shows were, as Muldaur later remembered, "Carnegie Hall twice, the Hootenanny television show and some church". The group did, though, make an album for Elektra records, produced by Paul Rothchild. Indeed, it was Rothchild who was the impetus for the group forming -- he wanted to produce a record of a jug band, and had told Grossman that if he got one together, he'd record it: [Excerpt: The Even Dozen Jug Band, "On the Road Again"] On that album, Sebastian wasn't actually credited as John Sebastian -- because he was playing harmonica on the album, and his father was such a famous harmonica player, he thought it better if he was credited by his middle name, so he was John Benson for this one album. The Even Dozen Jug Band split up after only a few months, with most of the band more interested in returning to university than becoming professional musicians, but Sebastian remained in touch with Rothchild, as they both shared an interest in the drug culture, and Rothchild started using him on sessions for other artists on Elektra, which was rapidly becoming one of the biggest labels for the nascent counterculture. The first record the two worked together on after the Even Dozen Jug Band was sparked by a casual conversation. Vince Martin and Fred Neil saw Sebastian walking down the street wearing his harmonica holster, and were intrigued and asked him if he played. Soon he and his friend Felix Pappalardi were accompanying Martin and Neil on stage, and the two of them were recording as the duo's accompanists: [Excerpt: Vince Martin and Fred Neil, "Tear Down the Walls"] We've mentioned Neil before, but if you don't remember him, he was one of the people around whom the whole Greenwich Village scene formed -- he was the MC and organiser of bills for many of the folk shows of the time, but he's now best known for writing the songs "Everybody's Talkin'", recorded famously by Harry Nilsson, and "The Dolphins", recorded by Tim Buckley. On the Martin and Neil album, Tear Down The Walls, as well as playing harmonica, Sebastian acted essentially as uncredited co-producer with Rothchild, but Martin and Neil soon stopped recording for Elektra. But in the meantime, Sebastian had met the most important musical collaborator he would ever have, and this is the start of something that will become a minor trend in the next few years, of important musical collaborations happening because of people being introduced by Cass Elliot. Cass Elliot had been a singer in a folk group called the Big 3 -- not the same group as the Merseybeat group -- with Tim Rose, and the man who would be her first husband, Jim Hendricks (not the more famous guitarist of a similar name): [Excerpt: Cass Elliot and the Big 3, "The Banjo Song"] The Big 3 had split up when Elliot and Hendricks had got married, and the two married members had been looking around for other musicians to perform with, when coincidentally another group they knew also split up. The Halifax Three were a Canadian group who had originally started out as The Colonials, with a lineup of Denny Doherty, Pat LaCroix and Richard Byrne. Byrne didn't turn up for a gig, and a homeless guitar player, Zal Yanovsky, who would hang around the club the group were playing at, stepped in. Doherty and LaCroix, much to Yanovsky's objections, insisted he bathe and have a haircut, but soon the newly-renamed Halifax Three were playing Carnegie Hall and recording for Epic Records: [Excerpt: The Halifax Three, "When I First Came to This Island"] But then a plane they were in crash-landed, and the group took that as a sign that they should split up. So they did, and Doherty and Yanovsky continued as a duo, until they hooked up with Hendricks and Elliot and formed a new group, the Mugwumps. A name which may be familiar if you recognise one of the hits of a group that Doherty and Elliot were in later: [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "Creeque Alley"] But we're skipping ahead a bit there. Cass Elliot was one of those few people in the music industry about whom it is impossible to find anyone with a bad word to say, and she was friendly with basically everyone, and particularly good at matching people up with each other. And on February the 7th 1964, she invited John Sebastian over to watch the Beatles' first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Like everyone in America, he was captivated by the performance: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand (live on the Ed Sullivan Show)"] But Yanovsky was also there, and the two played guitar together for a bit, before retreating to opposite sides of the room. And then Elliot spent several hours as a go-between, going to each man and telling him how much the other loved and admired his playing and wanted to play more with him. Sebastian joined the Mugwumps for a while, becoming one of the two main instrumentalists with Yanovsky, as the group pivoted from performing folk music to performing Beatles-inspired rock. But the group's management team, Bob Cavallo and Roy Silver, who weren't particularly musical people, and whose main client was the comedian Bill Cosby, got annoyed at Sebastian, because he and Yanovsky were getting on *too* well musically -- they were trading blues licks on stage, rather than sticking to the rather pedestrian arrangements that the group was meant to be performing -- and so Silver fired Sebastian fired from the group. When the Mugwumps recorded their one album, Sebastian had to sit in the control room while his former bandmates recorded with session musicians, who he thought were nowhere near up to his standard: [Excerpt: The Mugwumps, "Searchin'"] By the time that album was released, the Mugwumps had already split up. Sebastian had continued working as a session musician for Elektra, including playing on the album The Blues Project, which featured white Greenwich Village folk musicians like Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk, and Spider John Koerner playing their versions of old blues records, including this track by Geoff Muldaur, which features Sebastian on harmonica and "Bob Landy" on piano -- a fairly blatant pseudonym: [Excerpt: Geoff Muldaur, "Downtown Blues"] Sebastian also played rhythm guitar and harmonica on the demos that became a big part of Tim Hardin's first album -- and his fourth, when the record company released the remaining demos. Sebastian doesn't appear to be on the orchestrated ballads that made Hardin's name -- songs like "Reason to Believe" and "Misty Roses" -- but he is on much of the more blues-oriented material, which while it's not anything like as powerful as Hardin's greatest songs, made up a large part of his repertoire: [Excerpt: Tim Hardin, "Ain't Gonna Do Without"] Erik Jacobsen, the producer of Hardin's records, was impressed enough by Sebastian that he got Sebastian to record lead vocals, for a studio group consisting of Sebastian, Felix Pappalardi, Jerry Yester and Henry Diltz of the Modern Folk Quartet, and a bass singer whose name nobody could later remember. The group, under the name "Pooh and the Heffalumps", recorded two Beach Boys knockoffs, "Lady Godiva" and "Rooty Toot", the latter written by Sebastian, though he would later be embarrassed by it and claim it was by his cousin: [Excerpt: Pooh and the Heffalumps, "Rooty Toot"] After that, Jacobsen became convinced that Sebastian should form a group to exploit his potential as a lead singer and songwriter. By this point, the Mugwumps had split up, and their management team had also split, with Silver taking Bill Cosby and Cavallo taking the Mugwumps, and so Sebastian was able to work with Yanovsky, and the putative group could be managed by Cavallo. But Sebastian and Yanovsky needed a rhythm section. And Erik Jacobsen knew a band that might know some people. Jacobsen was a fan of a Beatles soundalike group called the Sellouts, who were playing Greenwich Village and who were co-managed by Herb Cohen, the manager of the Modern Folk Quartet (who, as we heard a couple of episodes ago, would soon go on to be the manager of the Mothers of Invention). The Sellouts were ultra-professional by the standards  of rock groups of the time -- they even had a tape echo machine that they used on stage to give them a unique sound -- and they had cut a couple of tracks with Jacobsen producing, though I've not been able to track down copies of them. Their leader Skip Boone, had started out playing guitar in a band called the Blue Suedes, and had played in 1958 on a record by their lead singer Arthur Osborne: [Excerpt: Arthur Osborne, "Hey Ruby"] Skip Boone's brother Steve in his autobiography says that that was produced by Chet Atkins for RCA, but it was actually released on Brunswick records. In the early sixties, Skip Boone joined a band called the Kingsmen -- not the same one as the band that recorded "Louie Louie" -- playing lead guitar with his brother Steve on rhythm, a singer called Sonny Bottari, a saxophone player named King Charles, bass player Clay Sonier, and drummer Joe Butler. Sometimes Butler would get up front and sing, and then another drummer, Jan Buchner, would sit in in his place. Soon Steve Boone would replace Bonier as the bass player, but the Kingsmen had no success, and split up. From the ashes of the Kingsmen had formed the Sellouts, Skip Boone, Jerry Angus, Marshall O'Connell, and Joe Butler, who had switched from playing "Peppermint Twist" to playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in February 1964. Meanwhile Steve Boone went on a trip to Europe before starting at university in New York, where he hooked up again with Butler, and it was Butler who introduced him to Sebastian and Yanovsky. Sebastian and Yanovsky had been going to see the Sellouts at the behest of Jacobsen, and they'd been asking if they knew anyone else who could play that kind of material. Skip Boone had mentioned his little brother, and as soon as they met him, even before they first played together, they knew from his appearance that he would be the right bass player for them. So now they had at least the basis for a band. They hadn't played together, but Erik Jacobsen was an experienced record producer and Cavallo an experienced manager. They just needed to do some rehearsals and get a drummer, and a record contract was more or less guaranteed. Boone suggested Jan Buchner, the backup drummer from the Kingsmen, and he joined them for rehearsals. It was during these early rehearsals that Boone got to play on his first real record, other than some unreleased demos the Kingsmen had made. John Sebastian got a call from that "Bob Landy" we mentioned earlier, asking if he'd play bass on a session. Boone tagged along, because he was a fan, and when Sebastian couldn't get the parts down for some songs, he suggested that Boone, as an actual bass player, take over: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm"] But the new group needed a name, of course. It was John Sebastian who came up with the name they eventually chose, The Lovin' Spoonful, though Boone was a bit hesitant about it at first, worrying that it might be a reference to heroin -- Boone was from a very conservative, military, background, and knew little of drug culture and didn't at that time make much of a distinction between cannabis and heroin, though he'd started using the former -- but Sebastian was insistent. The phrase actually referred to coffee -- the name came from "Coffee Blues" by Sebastian's old idol Mississippi John Hurt – or at least Hurt always *said* it was about coffee, though in live performance he apparently made it clear that it was about cunnilingus: [Excerpt: Mississippi John Hurt, "Coffee Blues"] Their first show, at the Night Owl Club, was recorded, and there was even an attempt to release it as a CD in the 1990s, but it was left unreleased and as far as I can tell wasn't even leaked. There have been several explanations for this, but perhaps the most accurate one is just the comment from the manager of the club, who came up to the group after their two sets and told them “Hey, I don't know how to break this to you, but you guys suck.” There were apparently three different problems. They were underrehearsed -- which could be fixed with rehearsal -- they were playing too loud and hurting the patrons' ears -- which could be fixed by turning down the amps -- and their drummer didn't look right, was six years older than the rest of the group, and was playing in an out-of-date fifties style that wasn't suitable for the music they were playing. That was solved by sacking Buchner. By this point Joe Butler had left the Sellouts, and while Herb Cohen was interested in managing him as a singer, he was willing to join this new group at least for the moment. By now the group were all more-or-less permanent residents at the Albert Hotel, which was more or less a doss-house where underemployed musicians would stay, and which had its own rehearsal rooms. As well as the Spoonful, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty lived there, as did the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Joe Butler quickly fit into the group, and soon they were recording what became their first single, produced by Jacobsen, an original of Sebastian's called "Do You Believe in Magic?", with Sebastian on autoharp and vocals, Yanovsky on lead guitar and backing vocals, Boone on bass, Butler on drums, and Jerry Yester adding piano and backing vocals: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe in Magic?"] For a long time, the group couldn't get a deal -- the record companies all liked the song, but said that unless the group were English they couldn't sell them at the moment. Then Phil Spector walked into the Night Owl Cafe, where the new lineup of the group had become popular, and tried to sign them up. But they turned him down -- they wanted Erik Jacobsen to produce them; they were a team. Spector's interest caused other labels to be interested, and the group very nearly signed to Elektra. But again, signing to Elektra would have meant being produced by Rothchild, and also Elektra were an album label who didn't at that time have any hit single acts, and the group knew they had hit single potential. They did record a few tracks for Elektra to stick on a blues compilation, but they knew that Elektra wouldn't be their real home. Eventually the group signed with Charley Koppelman and Don Rubin, who had started out as songwriters themselves, working for Don Kirshner. When Kirshner's organisation had been sold to Columbia, Koppelman and Rubin had gone along and ended up working for Columbia as executives. They'd then worked for Morris Levy at Roulette Records, before forming their own publishing and record company. Rather than put out records themselves, they had a deal to license records to Kama Sutra Records, who in turn had a distribution deal with MGM Records. Koppelman and Rubin were willing to take the group and their manager and producer as a package deal, and they released the group's demo of "Do You Believe In Magic?" unchanged as their first single: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe in Magic?"] The single reached the top ten, and the group were soon in the studio cutting their first album, also titled Do You Believe In Magic? The album was a mix of songs that were part of the standard Greenwich Village folkie repertoire -- songs like Mississippi John Hurt's "Blues in the Bottle" and Fred Neil's "The Other Side of This Life" -- and a couple more originals. The group's second single was the first song that Steve Boone had co-written. It was inspired by a date he'd gone on with the photographer Nurit Wilde, who sadly for him didn't go on a second date, and who would later be the mother of Mike Nesmith's son Jason, but who he was very impressed by. He thought of her when he came up with the line "you didn't have to be so nice, I would have liked you anyway", and he and Sebastian finished up a song that became another top ten hit for the group: [Excerpt: (The Good Time Music of) The Lovin' Spoonful, "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice"] Shortly after that song was recorded, but before it was released, the group were called into Columbia TV with an intriguing proposition. Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, two young TV producers, were looking at producing a TV show inspired by A Hard Day's Night, and were looking for a band to perform in it. Would the Lovin' Spoonful be up for it? They were interested at first, but Boone and Sebastian weren't sure they wanted to be actors, and also it would involve the group changing its name. They'd already made a name for themselves as the Lovin' Spoonful, did they really want to be the Monkees instead? They passed on the idea. Instead, they went on a tour of the deep South as the support act to the Supremes, a pairing that they didn't feel made much sense, but which did at least allow them to watch the Supremes and the Funk Brothers every night. Sebastian was inspired by the straight four-on-the-floor beat of the Holland-Dozier-Holland repertoire, and came up with his own variation on it, though as this was the Lovin' Spoonful the end result didn't sound very Motown at all: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Daydream"] It was only after the track was recorded that Yanovsky pointed out to Sebastian that he'd unconsciously copied part of the melody of the old standard "Got a Date With an Angel": [Excerpt: Al Bowlly, "Got a Date With an Angel"] "Daydream" became the group's third top ten hit in a row, but it caused some problems for the group. The first was Kama Sutra's advertising campaign for the record, which had the words "Lovin' Spoonful Daydream", with the initials emphasised. While the group were drug users, they weren't particularly interested in being promoted for that rather than their music, and had strong words with the label. The other problem came with the Beach Boys. The group were supporting the Beach Boys on a tour in spring of 1966, when "Daydream" came out and became a hit, and they got on with all the band members except Mike Love, who they definitely did not get on with. Almost fifty years later, in his autobiography, Steve Boone would have nothing bad to say about the Wilson brothers, but calls Love "an obnoxious, boorish braggart", a "marginally talented hack" and worse, so it's safe to say that Love wasn't his favourite person in the world. Unfortunately, when "Daydream" hit the top ten, one of the promoters of the tour decided to bill the Lovin' Spoonful above the Beach Boys, and this upset Love, who understandably thought that his group, who were much better known and had much more hits, should be the headliners. If this had been any of the other Beach Boys, there would have been no problem, but because it was Love, who the Lovin' Spoonful despised, they decided that they were going to fight for top billing, and the managers had to get involved. Eventually it was agreed that the two groups would alternate the top spot on the bill for the rest of the tour. "Daydream" eventually reached number two on the charts (and number one on Cashbox) and also became the group's first hit in the UK, reaching number two here as well, and leading to the group playing a short UK tour. During that tour, they had a similar argument over billing with Mick Jagger as they'd had with Mike Love, this time over who was headlining on an appearance on Top of the Pops, and the group came to the same assessment of Jagger as they had of Love. The performance went OK, though, despite them being so stoned on hash given them by the wealthy socialite Tara Browne that Sebastian had to be woken up seconds before he started playing. They also played the Marquee Club -- Boone notes in his autobiography that he wasn't impressed by the club when he went to see it the day before their date there, because some nobody named David Bowie was playing there. But in the audience that day were George Harrison, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis, and Brian Jones, most of whom partied with the group afterwards. The Lovin' Spoonful made a big impression on Lennon in particular, who put "Daydream" and "Do You Believe in Magic" in his jukebox at home, and who soon took to wearing glasses in the same round, wiry, style as the ones that Sebastian wore. They also influenced Paul McCartney, who wasn't at that gig, but who soon wrote this, inspired by "Daydream": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine"] Unfortunately, this was more or less the high point of the group's career. Shortly after that brief UK tour, Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone went to a party where they were given some cannabis -- and they were almost immediately stopped by the police, subjected to an illegal search of their vehicle, and arrested. They would probably have been able to get away with this -- after all, it was an illegal search, even though of course the police didn't admit to that -- were it not for the fact that Yanovsky was a Canadian citizen, and he could be deported and barred from ever re-entering the US just for being arrested. This was the first major drug bust of a rock and roll group, and there was no precedent for the group, their managers, their label or their lawyers to deal with this. And so they agreed to something they would regret for the rest of their lives. In return for being let off, Boone and Yanovsky agreed to take an undercover police officer to a party and introduce him to some of their friends as someone they knew in the record business, so he would be able to arrest one of the bigger dealers. This was, of course, something they knew was a despicable thing to do, throwing friends under the bus to save themselves, but they were young men and under a lot of pressure, and they hoped that it wouldn't actually lead to any arrests. And for almost a year, there were no serious consequences, although both Boone and Yanovsky were shaken up by the event, and Yanovsky's behaviour, which had always been erratic, became much, much worse. But for the moment, the group remained very successful. After "Daydream", an album track from their first album, "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" had been released as a stopgap single, and that went to number two as well. And right before the arrest, the group had been working on what would be an even bigger hit. The initial idea for "Summer in the City" actually came from John Sebastian's fourteen-year-old brother Mark, who'd written a bossa nova song called "It's a Different World". The song was, by all accounts, the kind of thing that a fourteen-year-old boy writes, but part of it had potential, and John Sebastian took that part -- giving his brother full credit -- and turned it into the chorus of a new song: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] To this, Sebastian added a new verse, inspired by a riff the session player Artie Schroeck had been playing while the group recorded their songs for the Woody Allen film What's Up Tiger Lily, creating a tenser, darker, verse to go with his younger brother's chorus: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] In the studio, Steve Boone came up with the instrumental arrangement, which started with drums, organ, electric piano, and guitar, and then proceeded to bass, autoharp, guitar, and percussion overdubs. The drum sound on the record was particularly powerful thanks to the engineer Roy Halee, who worked on most of Simon & Garfunkel's records. Halee put a mic at the top of a stairwell, a giant loudspeaker at the bottom, and used the stairwell as an echo chamber for the drum part. He would later use a similar technique on Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer". The track still needed another section though, and Boone suggested an instrumental part, which led to him getting an equal songwriting credit with the Sebastian brothers. His instrumental piano break was inspired by Gershwin, and the group topped it off with overdubbed city noises: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] The track went to number one, becoming the group's only number one record, and it was the last track on what is by far their best album, Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful. That album produced two more top ten hits for the group, "Nashville Cats", a tribute to Nashville session players (though John Sebastian seems to have thought that Sun Records was a Nashville, rather than a Memphis, label), and the rather lovely "Rain on the Roof": [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Rain on the Roof"] But that song caused friction with the group, because it was written about Sebastian's relationship with his wife who the other members of the band despised. They also felt that the songs he was writing about their relationship were giving the group a wimpy image, and wanted to make more rockers like "Summer in the City" -- some of them had been receiving homophobic abuse for making such soft-sounding music. The group were also starting to resent Sebastian for other reasons. In a recent contract renegotiation, a "key member" clause had been put into the group's record contract, which stated that Sebastian, as far as the label was concerned, was the only important member of the group. While that didn't affect decision-making in the group, it did let the group know that if the other members did anything to upset Sebastian, he was able to take his ball away with him, and even just that potential affected the way the group thought about each other. All these factors came into play with a song called "Darling Be Home Soon", which was a soft ballad that Sebastian had written about his wife, and which was written for another film soundtrack -- this time for a film by a new director named Francis Ford Coppola. When the other band members came in to play on the soundtrack, including that track, they found that rather than being allowed to improvise and come up with their own parts as they had previously, they had to play pre-written parts to fit with the orchestration. Yanovsky in particular was annoyed by the simple part he had to play, and when the group appeared on the Ed Sullivan show to promote the record, he mugged, danced erratically, and mimed along mocking the lyrics as Sebastian sang. The song -- one of Sebastian's very best -- made a perfectly respectable number fifteen, but it was the group's first record not to make the top ten: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Darling Be Home Soon"] And then to make matters worse, the news got out that someone had been arrested as a result of Boone and Yanovsky's efforts to get themselves out of trouble the year before. This was greeted with horror by the counterculture, and soon mimeographed newsletters and articles in the underground papers were calling the group part of the establishment, and calling for a general boycott of the group -- if you bought their records, attended their concerts, or had sex with any of the band members, you were a traitor. Yanovsky and Boone had both been in a bad way mentally since the bust, but Yanovsky was far worse, and was making trouble for the other members in all sorts of ways. The group decided to fire Yanovsky, and brought in Jerry Yester to replace him, giving him a severance package that ironically meant that he ended up seeing more money from the group's records than the rest of them, as their records were later bought up by a variety of shell companies that passed through the hands of Morris Levy among others, and so from the late sixties through the early nineties the group never got any royalties. For a while, this seemed to benefit everyone. Yanovsky had money, and his friendship with the group members was repaired. He released a solo single, arranged by Jack Nitzsche, which just missed the top one hundred: [Excerpt: Zal Yanovsky, "Just as Long as You're Here"] That song was written by the Bonner and Gordon songwriting team who were also writing hits for the Turtles at this time, and who were signed to Koppelman and Rubin's company. The extent to which Yanovsky's friendship with his ex-bandmates was repaired by his firing was shown by the fact that Jerry Yester, his replacement in the group, co-produced his one solo album, Alive and Well in Argentina, an odd mixture of comedy tracks, psychedelia, and tributes to the country music he loved. His instrumental version of Floyd Cramer's "Last Date" is fairly listenable -- Cramer's piano playing was a big influence on Yanovsky's guitar -- but his version of George Jones' "From Brown to Blue" makes it very clear that Zal Yanovsky was no George Jones: [Excerpt: Zal Yanovsky, "From Brown to Blue"] Yanovsky then quit music, and went into the restaurant business. The Lovin' Spoonful, meanwhile, made one further album, but the damage had been done. Everything Playing is actually a solid album, though not as good as the album before, and it produced three top forty hits, but the highest-charting was "Six O'Clock", which only made number eighteen, and the album itself made a pitiful one hundred and eighteen on the charts. The song on the album that in retrospect has had the most impact was the rather lovely "Younger Generation", which Sebastian later sang at Woodstock: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Younger Generation (Live at Woodstock)"] But at Woodstock he performed that alone, because by then he'd quit the group. Boone, Butler, and Yester decided to continue, with Butler singing lead, and recorded a single, "Never Going Back", produced by Yester's old bandmate from the Modern Folk Quartet Chip Douglas, who had since become a successful producer for the Monkees and the Turtles, and written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, who had written "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees, but the record only made number seventy-eight on the charts: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler, "Never Going Back"] That was followed by an album by "The Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler", Revelation: Revolution 69, a solo album by Butler in all but name -- Boone claims not to have played on it, and Butler is the only one featured on the cover, which shows a naked Butler being chased by a naked woman with a lion in front of them covering the naughty bits. The biggest hit other than "Never Going Back" from the album was "Me About You", a Bonner and Gordon song which only made number ninety-one: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler, "Me About You"] John Sebastian went on to have a moderately successful solo career -- as well as his appearance at Woodstock, he released several solo albums, guested on harmonica on records by the Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and others, and had a solo number one hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back", the theme song from the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Welcome Back"] Sebastian continues to perform, though he's had throat problems for several decades that mean he can't sing many of the songs he's best known for. The original members of the Lovin' Spoonful reunited for two performances -- an appearance in Paul Simon's film One Trick Pony in 1980, and a rather disastrous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Zal Yanovsky died of a heart attack in 2002. The remaining band members remained friendly, and Boone, Butler, and Yester reunited as the Lovin' Spoonful in 1991, initially with Yester's brother Jim, who had played in The Association, latterly with other members. One of those other members in the 1990s was Yester's daughter Lena, who became Boone's fourth wife (and is as far as I can discover still married to him). Yester, Boone, and Butler continued touring together as the Lovin' Spoonful until 2017, when Jerry Yester was arrested on thirty counts of child pornography possession, and was immediately sacked from the group. The other two carried on, and the three surviving original members reunited on stage for a performance at one of the Wild Honey Orchestra's benefit concerts in LA in 2020, though that was just a one-off performance, not a full-blown reunion. It was also the last Lovin' Spoonful performance to date, as that was in February 2020, but Steve Boone has performed with John Sebastian's most recent project, John Sebastian's Jug Band Village, a tribute to the Greenwich Village folk scene the group originally formed in, and the two played together most recently in December 2021. The three surviving original members of the group all seem to be content with their legacy, doing work they enjoy, and basically friendly, which is more than can be said for most of their contemporaries, and which is perhaps appropriate for a band whose main songwriter had been inspired, more than anything else, to make music with a positive attitude.

We ventured once again into the Rat's lair - otherwise known as the South Beach studio of Frank 'Rat Bastard' Falestra - and sat down with Miami-via-Pennsylvania singer/songwriter Nick Mencia a.k.a. Nick County to discuss the stunning "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" by Lucinda Williams. The soul-baring songs of Williams transcend any alt-country/American roots-rock labels, and the album is truly a stone cold genre-defying masterpiece!  Songs featured in this episode: If You Still Love Me - Nick County; Mexico - Rachel Angel; Cold Cold Heart - Hank Williams; Right In Time, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten, Drunken Angel, Concrete and Barbed Wire, Lake Charles, Can't Let Go, I Lost It, Metal Firecracker, Greenville, Still I long For Your Kiss, Joy, Jackson - Lucinda Williams; Me and the Devil Blues - Robert Johnson; Return of the Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons; Can't Let Go - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss; Daddy's Robe - Oly; I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend - Ramones; Simple Twist of Fate - Bob Dylan; You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley - Mississippi John Hurt; Jesus Is Dead - Nick County