Podcasts about night away

(S4 Ep22)  Cream - Disreali Gears  (Reaction Records) Released November 2, 1967, Recorded May 11-15 (1967) Released in November 1967, Disraeli Gears marked a pivotal moment in Cream's evolution from a blues-based trio to psychedelic rock pioneers. Recorded in just three and a half days at Atlantic Studios in New York, the album blends surreal lyrics, experimental sounds, and distorted guitar tones into a cohesive and groundbreaking work. Produced by Felix Pappalardi (from Mountain), the record features standout tracks like “Sunshine of Your Love,” with its iconic bass riff, and “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” one of the first songs to feature a wah-wah pedal. The album was a commercial breakthrough, reaching No. 5 in the UK and No. 4 in the U.S., eventually selling over 6.8 million copies worldwide. Its vibrant, psychedelic cover art by Martin Sharp became as iconic as the music itself. Tracks like “Dance the Night Away” and “SWLABR” highlighted the band's willingness to experiment, while “Outside Woman Blues” and “Take It Back” maintained their blues roots. The synergy of Eric Clapton's innovative guitar work, Jack Bruce's powerful vocals and bass, and Ginger Baker's inventive drumming made Disraeli Gears a defining album of the era. Its legacy is a cornerstone of psychedelic rock and a testament to Cream's lasting impact on modern music.Signature Song "Strange Brew."  "Sunshine of Your Love," Tales of Brave UlyssesFull Album YouTube Spotify Playlist YouTube  Playlist 

On The Other Side of Midnight, Dominic Carter talks with callers about football coach Bill Belichick's young girlfriend and talks to callers about who the benefactor of the relationship is. Dominic talks about ridiculous backlash against Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley for golfing with President Trump. James Flippin kicks off his segment talking about former NBA player Nate Robinson's successful kidney transplant. He later talks about the results of the Canadian federal election, being a DEI hire and more. James wraps up the show joined by Dan Falato, an award-winning executive producer, writer and performer. They talk about Dan's experience working with personalities like Artie Lange, Stephen A. Smith, and Cubs player Mark Grace as well as recounting crazy stories with Sen. Cory Booker, Shea Stadium and more. James wraps up the show joined by Dan Falato, an award-winning executive producer, writer and performer. They talk about Dan's experience working with personalities like Artie Lange, Stephen A. Smith, and Cubs player Mark Grace as well as recounting crazy stories with Sen. Cory Booker, Shea Stadium and more. James also talks about a confrontation between Milwaukee Buck Giannis Antetokounmpo and Indianapolis Pacer Tyrese Haliburton's father after a playoff game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 256 for the week of April 28, 2025 ... and this is what is going on in our Disney World...RUMOR: Disney Starlight to Start July 6th:- Happily Ever After is shifted to a 10pm start time starting July 6th, this combined with CM block outs is leading people to think that could be the day that Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away will startStarts @3:26 ...D23 Goes to the World's Fair Review:- Phil and his daughter attended the event this past weekend.- Find out the highlights, some fun facts, and a bit more about Len Testa!Starts @7:27 ...Construction Updates - Laydown Yards!:- Construction has apparently started on the laydown yards kicking off the prep work for the updates to Frontierland - Cars Land and Villains Land!Starts @17:07 ...What are We Looking Forward To with Our Upcoming Trip?:- We discuss some of the goals with our down and back trip coming up in just one week. Starts @22:19 ...Top 5: Lessons from a WDW Veteran:- Jason shares some tips and advice he has learned over the years that might help people thinking about planning their upcoming trips.Starts @28:03 ...DBC Engagement: Create a Disney Plus Game Show:- The community came up with ideas for game shows that could be run on Disney PlusStarts @47:43 ...* Reminder to like, subscribe, rate, and review the DBC Pod wherever you get your podcast *NEW! Landing Page for all things DBC Pod: magictravelonmain.com Send us an e-mail! .... thedbcpodcast@gmail.comFollow us on social media:- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/thedbcpod - Bluesky: @thedbcpod.bsky.social- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheDBCPod/- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDBCPod- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDBCPod- YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/thedbcpod- Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/cJ8Vxf4BmQNote: This podcast is not affiliated with any message boards, blogs, news sites, or other podcasts

LFTR 95 / TFTR 5: Get cozy because this week we recall our adventures in America's most haunted city - Savannah. We talk places to stay and eat and what to do and see. Make sure you make a pit stop first though, because when we gossip about our ghostly tours you may wet yourself (laughing). You've been warned.Thanks for listening! Please let us know what you think! You can find LFTR at http://lettersfromtheroadpod.com, and you can email us at lettersfromtheroadpod@gmail.com.Find LFTR Diaries on the LFTR YouTube channel.Find us on socials @lettersfromtheroadpod (on hiatus)If you feel like kicking us a few bucks you can Become a PenPal and chat with us and others in the PenPals Discord. Get full access to Letters From the Road at lettersfromtheroad.substack.com/subscribe

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Join me as we celebrate the anniversary of Van Halen II, released on March 23, 1979! This iconic follow-up to their groundbreaking debut album took their sound to the next level, featuring killer riffs, high-energy performances, and unforgettable hooks. We'll dive into the full tracklist, share some cool trivia, and discuss why this album still rocks after all these years!

In this episode, we discuss all the Disney Live Entertainment spectaculars coming to the Disney Parks in Summer 2025. We are getting parades, water shows, projection shows, cavalcades, and fireworks…some new ones and some returning old ones. We discussed World of Color Happiness, Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away, Paint the Night, and much, much more! Are any of these spectaculars enough to make you book a Disney vacation for this summer? We would love to hear from you. Let us know at show@magicourway.com. Every opinion will forever be welcome on this Disney fan podcast. This is show #568.

Avowed, Kingdom come 2 and Tokyo drift in your ears!

Watch on Philo! - Philo.tv/DTHEveryone in Hope Valley is so inspired! Rosemary is going to put on a play, and Elizabeth is considering sending her curriculum to publishers!Elizabeth surprises Nathan with tickets to Union City to see the latest Buster Keaton picture, and the dude is pumped!!!Rosemary is holding auditions for the play, but some of the performances are less than inspiring. So Elizabeth whispers an idea to her… it's Bill. Rosemary tricks Bill into auditioning.Allie and Oliver have a plan to save the salmon, and Lucas could use some good news.After the movie in Union City, Nathan bumps into that guy Toddy from the poker game. He invites them over for a party, which Nathan is uncomfortable with because that would require them to go undercover as Danny and Dianne.At play rehearsal, Ava shows up and shows off her acting skills, but Rosemary doesn't want her around.Back at the party, Danny and Dianne are having a great time, doing the Charleston and whatnot. What could go wrong? Well, when Toddy and his wife start asking questions about their love story, their stories aren't exactly in sync. It seems like Toddy is a bit skeptical of them, and he makes them go on stage to sing.Lucas goes to talk to Edie about Allie's salmon plan, and it's clear these two are digging each other. She ends up showing up later at his office for a "game of cards." But Lucas knows she's up to something. Turns out she doesn't think the idea he pitched is a good one, and she encourages him not to move forward with it.Lee talks to Rosemary about the play and tries to get her to be honest about her hesitation with Ava. It seems like Rosemary is starting to come to terms with the fact that she might not be the hot new actress anymore.Nathan finally gets Toddy to talk about some shady stuff he has. It might be just what Nathan needs.Fiona ends up selling her spa.The episode ends with Elizabeth and Rosemary drinking tea and toasting to new adventures.

Music Selector：由薫 Theme：「Groove the night away」 ※2025年1月に『CITY CHILL CLUB』で放送した内容のアーカイブ配信です。 ※楽曲プレイリストは、「Spotify」「Apple Music」にてお楽しみいただけます。 ◇由薫選曲プレイリスト Spotify Apple Music ◇番組HP ◇過去のプレイリスト / その他番組情報 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Extrait : « … The Motors s'était formé en 77 à Londres, en pleine vague punk, pas forcément le meilleur moment pour se lancer quand tu fais de la pop vaguement new wave, du reste, sitôt décollés, sitôt crashés. Leur premier single, "Dancing the Night Away", avait péniblement atteint le bas des charts britanniques, puis, miracle, juste avant l'été 78, ils avaient eu cet éclair de génie, Airport, qui s'éait envolée vers les hauteurs des classements dans toute l'Europe … »Pour commenter les épisodes, tu peux le faire sur ton appli de podcasts habituelle, c'est toujours bon pour l'audience. Mais également sur le site web dédié, il y a une section Le Bar, ouverte 24/24, pour causer du podcast ou de musique en général, je t'y attends avec impatience. Enfin, si tu souhaites me soumettre une chanson, c'est aussi sur le site web que ça se passe. Pour soutenir Good Morning Music et Gros Naze :1. Abonne-toi2. Laisse-moi un avis et 5 étoiles sur Apple Podcasts, ou Spotify et Podcast Addict3. Partage ton épisode préféré à 3 personnes autour de toi. Ou 3.000 si tu connais plein de monde.Good Morning Music Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Atención a lo nuevo de Javi Ruibal, ya en solitario. Los Rebeldes siguen vivo, redivivos y nos alegran la vida misma. Escucha las maravillas de Tina Turner, Lou Rawls y Sam Cooke y las joyitas perdidas en el tiempo de Arnett Cobb, Save Ferris, Incognito, Luca Frasca o Nicole Atkins. DISCO 1 JAVI RUIBAL XochiquetzalDISCO 2 LOS REBELDES Siempre vivosDISCO 3 SAVE FERRIS Come On EileenDISCO 4 SAM COOKE Twistin’ The Night Away DISCO 5 NICOLE ATKINS Listen UpDISCO 6 TINA TURNER Root, toot Indisputable Rock & RollerDISCO 7 DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS Is It Any Wonder?DISCO 8 DAVID BYRNE Miss AmericaDISCO 9 THE STYLE COUNCIL Move On UpDISCO 10 RANDALL BRAMBLETT Come OnDISCO 11 LUCA FRASCA My Long ADISCO 12 INCOGNITO SunburnDISCO 13 LOU RAWLS & DIANNE REEVES At LastDISCO 14 ARNETT COBB Mr. PogoEscuchar audio

This Month's Theme Park News: - California's devastating wildfires have caused the closures of Universal Studios Hollywood and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood. They were closed for January 8th and 9th while the fires were brought under control. The Walt Disney Company is committing $15 million to recovery efforts in the Los Angeles. - Disneyland Paris debuted it's new nighttime spectacular "Disney Tales of Magic" which features projections covering Main Street U.S.A. and Sleeping Beauty Castle as well as fireworks, lasers, and drones. - Universal Orlando opened the first hotel at the South Campus of the resort, with Universal Stella Nova Resort opening this month. It is the ninth at the Universal Orlando Resort, and has really embraced the space theming with a beautiful almost science fiction interior. - Walt Disney World have announced the closing dates of 3 Hollywood Studios locations closing to make way for Monstropolis. Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano will close first, on May 10th. Muppet*Vision 3D show and PizzeRizzo will close on June 7th. - Walt Disney world also shared concept are for Magic Kingdom's new nighttime parade Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away, which opens this summer. T - Walt Disney World has announced this year's Food Studios menus for the 2025 EPCOT International Festival of the Arts, which starts January 17 and continues through February 24. There are two new food stands called Opening Bites and Fictional Victuals. - Similarly, Disneyland Resort have brought out their menus for their Lunar New Year celebration which starts on January 17 at Disney California Adventure. - Los Angeles County has approved a construction permit for the next roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, the project name 90011, which is rumoured to be a Vekoma Thrill Glider. - Universal Orlando announced 12 artists that will headline their Mardi Gras concerts starting February 1st, with T-Pain and finishing March 29th with TLC. - Universal Orlando have announced their event plans for this year, with dates for Halloween Horror Nights (which runs August 29 through November 2), and the Holidays at Universal Orlando (running November 21 continuing through New Year's Eve, December 31), as well as a new event called Universal Volcano Bay Nights, starting in April. The new after-hours event will run April 19, 26 and May 3, 10, 17 - Walt Disney World has added 4 more runDisney event weekends in late 2025 and 2026. October 23-26, 2025: Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend January 7-11, 2026: Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend February 26-March 2, 2026: Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend April 16-19, 2026: runDisney Springtime Surprise Weekend - Six Flags Over Georgia have renamed their upcoming Surf Coaster, to Georgia Gold Rusher, after a fan vote had previously picked Georgia Surfer as the name. - Six Flags Great America released a concept POV of their upcoming dive coaster Wrath of Rakshasa. - Thomas Mazloum will be the new President of the Disneyland Resort, coming from the Disney Cruise Line segment of Disney Experiences.

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Con Sam Cooke, Rebeldes del Rock, Bobby Rydell ft. Chubby Checker, Dúo Dinámico, Mike Ríos, Rudy Ventura y Su Conjunto, Gelu, Luisito Rey, Adriano Celentano, Peppino di Capri, les Chats Sauvages, Dalida, Serge Gainsbourg, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Trixie Smith & the Black Masters, Barry White, Shirley & Company, Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin y Bachman Turner Overdrive.

2025 is here, and it's shaping up to be an exciting year for theme park lovers!

Henry starts the final hour 2024 with a plea for people to drink responsibly this New Year's Eve. According to the NHTSA, Every day, about 37 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that's one person every 39 minutes. In 2022, 13,524 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths. These deaths were all preventable. Lindsey brings the hot goss to Word on the Street ft. Dua Lipa, Brangelina and Kate Beckinsale sharing her experience with some of the horrors of the entertainment industry. PLUS down the rabbit hole of TV nostalgia

Podcast 37, Healthy Marriage, Healthy You

Clin d’oeil aux Moody Blues, même si on attaque avec T-Rex et les Pretty Things (toujours une référence au magazine Ugly Things…). Les Cramps, Moody Blues, Moby Grape, les Who, voici ce à quoi vous aurez droit… Et on complète avec Love, the Other Half, New Trolls, Le Orme, Small Faces, The Emperors, Love, Frank […] L'article Maggot Brain – Steeling A Night Away est apparu en premier sur Radio Campus Tours - 99.5 FM.

Episode #369 What are the projected opening timelines for Little Mermaid at Hollywood Studios, Dinosaur, Zootopia- Animal Kingdom, Disney Starlight- Dream the Night Away at Magic Kingdom, Spaceship Earth Lounge at Epcot, and the Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired Tavern at Magic Kingdom. We tell you what we know so far, and find out what rabbit hole Dave went down. www.thedisneycrush.com thedisneycrush@gmail.com www.patreon.com/thedisneycrush

Send us a textIntro song: Umbrella by Rihanna (#2)Album 4: Wincing the Night Away by The Shins (2007)Song 1: Red RabbitsSong 2: Split NeedlesSong 3: A Comet AppearsAlbum 3: Plans by Death Cab for Cutie (2005)Song 1: Summer SkinSong 2: Crooked TeethSong 3: Brothers on a Hotel BedLink to Wincing the Night Away (Andrew's Mix)Link to Plans (Andrew's Mix)

"The Dubs"#484 - Cassandra and Chris fire through the Disney news and discuss Test Track timelines and sponsorship, Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away, the Pirates Tavern & Spaceship Earth Lounge, Lakeside Lodge DVC and much more on this fun version of The Dub Dee Dub Revue podcast!   Find The Dub Dee Dub Revue @ TheDubDeeDubRevue.com   Twitter (X) @dubdeedubrevue Facebook @thedubdeedubrevue Instagram @thedubdeedubrevuepodcast  Lastly, Thank You to our sponsor for making this show happen:  Disney Vacation Club Resales and Point Rental (DVC-Rental.com & buyandselldvc.com)  We appreciate your support...AND...as always, we appreciate YOU spending a little of your time with us.  We know that you have lots of options for Disney-based podcasts, but for including us...Thank You!

Ever get stuck in between states of sleep? Ya know, that Inception-type trip where R.E.M. feels more like reality than when you actually rise? If so…far out, man. Us too. If not, we’ve got just the thing to try and replicate it: Cloud Companion. Now, the term “collective” gets thrown around a little too often […] The post Cloud Companion: “Who Took The Night Away” appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Last year we released a festive rock song called "Christmas is Coming" (you can find the normal version AND an acoustic version on streaming services) and we had so much fun that we decided to do it again this year. "Wassail The Night Away" is our best song yet! We hope you all love it and it helps make Christmas 2024 the best one ever. Find it on all major streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes, YouTube etc and add it to your winter playlists! Support us on Patreon! Our Top Fans and Producers got to hear "Wassail The Night Away" days ago and you too can get bonus content by supporting us and helping us with our running costs from as little as £1 per month! patreon.com/RockPaperSwordsPodcast

Trump ran out of brain power to continue his town hall so he swayed awkwardly on stage for about 30 minutes. Good job! The Wizards are going to be awful, but that's good. There's a flurry of NFL trades, headlined by Davante Adams heading to the Jets. Adam and Jack make perfect NFL week 7 picks. The duo play "Can Trump Do That" to see if Trump could accomplish normal human activities.

Send us a textSingles Going Around- Telefunken Hound Dog Taylor- "See Me In The Evening"Dick Dale- "Let's Go Tripping"The Kinks- "Picture Book"Screamin' Jay Hawkins- "What That Is"The Rolling Stones- "Shattered"Neil Young- "Star Of Bethlehem"The Clash- "The Leader"Jimi Hendrix- "Midnight"Otis Redding- "Love Man"The Faces- "Twistin' The Night Away"Link Wray- "Tail Dragger"Led Zeppelin- "South Bound Saurez"Dr John- "What Comes Around"George Thorogood- "Who Do You Love"

9/9/24 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-depetro-show/support

The Dogs are joined by guest Zack Chapaloni (co-host of Joke Off Live, door guy at the Comedy Store). The guys discuss Zack's Moroccan heritage and his recent nightmare commercial gig. Then, they rank the human races from best to worst. Follow Zack on IG: https://www.instagram.com/zackchapaloni/ Dogs of Browntown stars comedians Hormoz Rashidi, Joel "Joelberg" Jimenez and Saul Trujillo. Three brown dudes, one good time. Coming atcha from Joel's abuela's house in Los Angeles, CA. Follow the Dogs on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dogsofbrowntown Hormoz Rashidi: https://www.instagram.com/hormozcomedy/ and https://www.instagram.com/nothormones/ Joel Jimenez: https://www.instagram.com/joeljimenezcomedy/ Saul Trujillo: https://www.instagram.com/saulcomedy/ Produced by Drew Daly and Armand Gorjian. https://www.instagram.com/thereal_drewdaly/ https://www.instagram.com/armandgorjian_comedy/

Show Open Monday 08/05/24

The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week's debate might play out. Along these lines … … is there still such a thing as British music? … John Lennon as a lavatory attendant. … Pink Floyd's miming lessons. .. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks. … the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks the last two Labour Prime Ministers were elected (1997 and 2024) - male British bands v international female solo acts. … ‘Starman' on Top Of The Pops and the tricks it plays on the memory. … “current chart acts are either in the spotlight or don't seem to exist at all.” … the wit and wisdom of James Blunt. .. the Herd's guest spot in the Tom Courtenay caper Otley. … the Phil Collins syndrome: “when people are tired of duffing up pop stars, they tend to re-embrace them”. … plus birthday guest Richard Lewis and songs that should be longer – eg Dancing the Night Away by the Motors, I Can Fly by the Herd (cue military bugle and church bell and choir).Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week's debate might play out. Along these lines … … is there still such a thing as British music? … John Lennon as a lavatory attendant. … Pink Floyd's miming lessons. .. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks. … the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks the last two Labour Prime Ministers were elected (1997 and 2024) - male British bands v international female solo acts. … ‘Starman' on Top Of The Pops and the tricks it plays on the memory. … “current chart acts are either in the spotlight or don't seem to exist at all.” … the wit and wisdom of James Blunt. .. the Herd's guest spot in the Tom Courtenay caper Otley. … the Phil Collins syndrome: “when people are tired of duffing up pop stars, they tend to re-embrace them”. … plus birthday guest Richard Lewis and songs that should be longer – eg Dancing the Night Away by the Motors, I Can Fly by the Herd (cue military bugle and church bell and choir).Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week's debate might play out. Along these lines … … is there still such a thing as British music? … John Lennon as a lavatory attendant. … Pink Floyd's miming lessons. .. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks. … the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks the last two Labour Prime Ministers were elected (1997 and 2024) - male British bands v international female solo acts. … ‘Starman' on Top Of The Pops and the tricks it plays on the memory. … “current chart acts are either in the spotlight or don't seem to exist at all.” … the wit and wisdom of James Blunt. .. the Herd's guest spot in the Tom Courtenay caper Otley. … the Phil Collins syndrome: “when people are tired of duffing up pop stars, they tend to re-embrace them”. … plus birthday guest Richard Lewis and songs that should be longer – eg Dancing the Night Away by the Motors, I Can Fly by the Herd (cue military bugle and church bell and choir).Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James starts the next hour talking with Dan Falato, an award-winning executive producer, writer and performer. They talk about Dan's experience working with personalities like Artie Lange, Stephen A. Smith, and Cubs player Mark Grace. He is later joined by Ricky Gold, the Founder and CEO of Juice Reel, a sports betting analytics app. They talk about gambling and the future of betting on sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week the FigGuys broke down all the news from the announcement of Heels and Faces Series 4 to the brand new set of PowerTown Ultras! They also talked about the new SDCC Shawn Michaels Ultimate from Mattel! Also, Tom and Mike went hard on the Ringside Roundup and Tom showed off his weekly pickups in their “Unbox With Us” segment! --------------------------- About The FigGuysMike and Tom are your Fig Guys for all things in the world of Pro Wrestling! Covering it all from WWE by Mattel, to AEW by Jazwares, Heels and Faces, Big Rubber Guys/Major Benies from The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast and everything in between. Your one stop shop for all wrestling figure interviews, news and so much more! ---------------------------Watch The FigGuys Live on YouTube every Tuesday at 7pm EST!Listen to The FigGuys on all of your favorite Podcast Platforms.Follow @officicalfigguys on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube & X!Follow @TheOGFigKid on InstagramFollow @MikeBelcaster on Instagram & X!For more on The FigGuys visit TheFigGuys.com

In this soulful episode of Dem Vinyl Boyz, we pay tribute to the legendary Sam Cooke by diving into his "Greatest Hits" album. Known as the "King of Soul," Sam Cooke’s smooth voice, profound lyrics, and groundbreaking contributions to music have left an indelible mark on the industry. This compilation album brings together some of his most beloved tracks, showcasing the breadth and depth of his talent. "Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits" features timeless classics such as "You Send Me," "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Cupid," and "Twistin' the Night Away." Each song highlights Cooke’s incredible ability to convey deep emotion and connect with listeners on a profound level, making this album a perfect introduction to his remarkable legacy. Throughout this episode, we'll explore the stories behind these iconic tracks, discussing the cultural and historical context of Cooke’s music and its impact on the soul genre. We’ll delve into his influence on future generations of artists and how his songs have become anthems for both love and social change. Join us on Dem Vinyl Boyz as we celebrate the enduring legacy of Sam Cooke, reliving the magic of his greatest hits and reflecting on his contributions to music and society. This episode is a heartfelt homage to an artist whose voice continues to inspire and move listeners around the world. Taking care of your mental health is crucial, and BetterHelp makes it accessible and convenient. BetterHelp offers professional therapy from over 30,000 licensed therapists. Visit BetterHelp.com/vinyl and use the code "vinyl" to get 10% off your first month. Start your journey to better mental health today. Protect your personal data with Incogni. Data brokers shouldn't control your personal information—take back your privacy with Incogni. Visit Incogni.com/demvinylboyz and use the link to get 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Safeguard your data easily and effectively with Incogni. Eating well is essential for a healthy lifestyle, and Factor makes it easy with chef-prepared, dietitian-approved meals. Get fresh, balanced meals delivered to your door. Visit factormeals.com/dvb50 and use the code "DVB50" to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. Enjoy real nutrition, made simple with Factor.

Bimbo Jones & Kathy Brown - Dance (Lee Rose Remix) Instrumental Joachim Garraud & Friends - JKLFZOC Valy Mo & Avi Sic - The Music (Original Mix) DJ Kuba & Neitan x Bounce Inc. - Blade (Instrumental Mix) Joachim Garraud & Friends - HWBBIHC Fahjah, Brett Allen - PAINKILLA (Extended Mix) Efim Kerbut - Dr. Bass (Instrumental Mix) Patrick Prins - Le Voie Le Soleil (Solardo Remix) Joachim Garraud & Friends - HKCENBK Maddix - Heute Nacht (Extended Mix) Sharam - PATT (Party All The Time) [Adam Beyer, Layton Giordani & Green Velvet Extended Remix] Joachim Garraud - Atomic Food Joachim Garraud & Friends - TZWXOJN Chocolate Puma - Hardcore Sound (Extended Mix) Nick Reach Up & Dave Spoon ft. Final Cut 'Dance the Night Away' (SyRan Extended Remix) Odd Mob - Left To Right ( Joachim Garraud Edit ) Avoriaz - Et ça me rend Sick

Dance the night away with Dancing Stars of SJC! Jackie and Kim sit in to give us all the deets!

Sunday, June 24, 2018 By the end of this podcast we discover how much we disagree about movie twists and also we were dead all along.0:00 -- Intro, major software complaints,  soccer stuff6:53 -- Diggstown40:52 -- Infernal Affairs1.11:58 -- The Village1.29:18 -- Awards and rankings2.01:06 -- Next podcast planning2.09:15 -- Outro and outtakesHey! Check out this clip of the Springfield soccer riot!Hey! Check out this episode of The Canon Podcast that talks about Infernal Affairs and The Departed!Hey! Check out Patton Oswald talking about the petty magician!Hey! Check out the clip about 17 stab wounds in the back!Hey! Make sure you watch The Hudsucker Proxy, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Never Let Me Go for next time!Hey! Subscribe in iTunes!Hey! Check out the Facebook page and vote on the next category!Hey! Check out Jon's YM&T Letterboxd list!Hey! Check out Roy's YM&T Letterboxd list!Hey! Email us at yoursminetheirspodcast@gmail.com! Send new topics! Send new theme songs!

In 1935, a young schoolteacher named Edith Maxwell went out dancing. When she came back to her family's home in Pound, Virginia, the trouble started. By the next day, her father Trigg was dead. But was Edith a murderer, or a victim? And how did relentless media coverage poison the public's understanding of the case. In this episode, we'll speak to author and journalist Sharon Hatfield about her book on the case.Buy Sharon's book Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell. The Murder Sheet participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.Here's the website for Ernie Pyle's Boyhood Home in Dana, Indiana: https://erniepyle.org/ernie-pyles-boyhood-home/Here's the website for the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana, Indiana: https://erniepyle.org/Send tips to murdersheet@gmail.com.The Murder Sheet is a production of Mystery Sheet LLC .See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A fun chat with Mary Kubica all about her book She's Not Sorry, Chicago running, and how the twist came first. Plus – Laura slaps bold paint on an historic house and gets some unsolicited advice from the neighbors ITUNES – SPOTIFY – GOOGLE PODCASTS

Current Top Chef Season 21 contestant Alisha Elenz joins Lisa Dent to talk about how you can have a full restaurant experience from the comfort of your own home with her new company Whisk the Night Away. Elenz talks about her experience with on Bravo Network’s top culinary show. Follow The Lisa Dent Show on […]

On December 11, 1964, Sam Cooke – the singer and songwriter of some of the most recognizable soul and pop songs every written – including “Twisting the Night Away,” “You Send Me,” “Wonderful World,” “A Change is Gonna Come,” and so many more – was shot and killed in a Los Angeles motel. Cooke's killing was perhaps the first modern true-crime story, involving the slaying of one of the most famous people of the era, under circumstances that were shrouded in mystery and steeped in controversy. Hosts: Jason Beckerman & Derek Kaufman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've already covered a couple of Journey albums.  Episode 250 profiled "Infinity," the introduction of Steve Perry to the group.  And episode 26 delved into arguably the high water mark for Journey, the album "Escape."  Here we take a look at the band as they are in their transition into one of the world's biggest rock bands.The appropriately-titled album Evolution is Journey's fifth studio album.  Here we find Steve Perry settling in as front man while still sharing lead vocal duties with keybaordist Gregg Rolie.  They have also replaced drummer Aynsley Dunbar with Steve Smith, previously with Ronnie Montrose's band.  The band is continuing to explore a more radio-friendly sound.  The lineup for this band includes Perry, Rolie, and Dunbar, along with Neil Schon on guitar, and Ross Valory on bass.At the time, "Evolution" was the band's most successful album, and it reached number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart.  It also featured their first single to enter the top 20.  The album was actually released in March of 1979, but was recorded in the fall of 1978.  We're featuring it in January of 1979 because - well - that's where we were able to fit it in.Brian rejoins us in todays podcast to sub for an absent Wayne, and to profile this album. Too LateA deeper cut written by Perry and Schon, this song was written about a friend from Steve Perry's hometown who was wrestling with addiction to drugs.  It was a plea to get out of town and the surroundings that fed his addiction before it was too late to break the chains of addiction.Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'The biggest hit from the album is a slow rocker with a shuffle beat.  It hit number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November of 1979, the group's first foray into the top 20.  The song is based on a true story about a cheating woman who finds out that turnabout is fair play - and that cheating on a songwriter can result in your being memorialized in a song.City of the AngelsWhile they were known as a San Francisco band, this album track pays homage to Los Angeles.  It was written by Perry, Schon and Rolie.  On the album, "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" immediately leads into this track, and you will occasionally hear these played together on album-oriented stations and satellite radio.Just the Same WayThis single finds Gregg Rolie taking turns with Perry on lead vocals.  It was written by Rolie, Schon, and Ross Valory, making it the only song on the album not written or co-written by Steve Perry.  It is an infatuation song, with a great call-and-answer in the chorus between Rolie and Perry. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:The Pink Panther Theme by Henry ManciniThe Saturday morning cartoon show with a silent protagonist, "The Pink Panther," ended its run after 10 years. STAFF PICKS:Gold by John StewartLynch's staff pick is a top 5 hit from John Stewart's album "Bombs Away Dream Babies," his first solo top 40 hit.  Both Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks contributed to the album, and Nicks provides backing vocals on this song.  The vocals describe the dark, cynical side of the recording industry.Planet Claire by The B-52'sRob brings us a musical interpretation of a B-rated sci-fi movie.  Once the instrumental and sound-effects - with a Peter Gunn-inspired beat - give way to Fred Schneider's vocals, we find that the girl is from Planet Claire, drives a Plymouth Satellite, and "some say she's from Mars, or one of the seven stars that shine after 3:30 in the morning.  Well, she isn't!"Dance the Night Away by Van Halen Bruce features the first US top 20 hit by Van Halen.  This song is unusual because it is the only song on the "Van Halen II" album that originated in the studio rather than as a song the group had honed on tour for a long time.  It also downplays Eddie Van Halen's guitar virtuosity and brings up the vocal harmonies.  Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" was an inspiration for this single.Rock n Roll Fantasy by Bad CompanyBrian's staff pick was written by Bad Co. front man Paul Rogers, and reflects the truth that Rock music is escapism, a fantasy to take you away from the stress of the everyday world for a bit.  It was the lead single from the album "Desolation Angels."  While not their highest charting single, it is their best selling single. INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Main Theme from the motion picture "Alien"The disturbing soundtrack was one element of what made this sci-fi horror film so creepy. Thanks for listening to “What the Riff?!?” NOTE: To adjust the loudness of the music or voices, you may adjust the balance on your device. VOICES are stronger in the LEFT channel, and MUSIC is stronger on the RIGHT channel.Please follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whattheriffpodcast/, and message or email us with what you'd like to hear, what you think of the show, and any rock worthy memes we can share.Of course we'd love for you to rate the show in your podcast platform!**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.

-What does Bill have for us this week to get us going on a Monday? Let's see…-Also, SONG OF THE DAY (sponsored by Sartor Hamann Jewelers): "Dance the Night Away" ~ Van Halen (1979)Show sponsored by GANA TRUCKINGAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dodger has returned to The Geekenders and brought  @littlesiha with her! Join us as the Just Dance master brings her charm and joy to the weekend! Don't worry, Jesse is still here to bring the whole thing down :P  Are you ready to geek out this weekend? Join Jesse and Dodger on the Geekenders podcast as they bring you the ultimate dose of geekiness. From their hilarious banter to their in-depth discussions, this is the podcast you've been waiting for. Follow them now and discover why they are the number one geek podcast without a doubt. Subscribe and let the geeking begin! Theme by: MegaRan Animated Intro by: JulesDrawz Want to watch live, tune in to Dodgers twitch every Friday at 11am est/8am pst : https://www.twitch.tv/dexbonus  Hosted on Audioboom. See https://audioboom.com/about/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Part 1 of Episode 45, featuring Steve Rosen. Steve is a highly respected music journalist and author of more than 1,000 articles and seven books, delving into the lives of iconic figures like Jeff Beck, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, and Black Sabbath.  His latest endeavor, ‘Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey with Edward Van Halen', was published in 2022. The book offers an intimate perspective on the guitar virtuoso and Steve's friendship with him from 1977 to 2003.  In the introduction to the book, Steve writes, “What you will read here is not a biography, a history, or an exacting chronology. You won't find discussions about tapping, taping, or touring. There are no in-depth analyses of album releases or his profound and absolute rewriting of the entire canon of electric guitar playing. . . . Rather think of this as a memory journal, a chronicle filled with observations, illuminations, and interpretations and what the hell does that mean? It means telling you about what I saw—the observing—shedding some first-hand light on what I was seeing—the illuminating—and trying to explain and decipher what I was witnessing—the interpreting” (XVII). Join us for the first part of my in-depth interview with Steve, and stay tuned for Part II, coming soon.   PLAYLIST: Bensound “Happy Rock”—Royalty Free Music Rock is Lit theme music Clip from Season 3 Announcement/'Duck Tales'/Disney Channel [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can't Stop” 1970s Instrumental Rock Music, Royalty Free Joe Satriana ‘Tonechaser' endorsement from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQrEX25rwfU “Eruption” by Van Halen “Ain't Talkin' ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen “Runnin' With the Devil” by Van Halen “Dance the Night Away” by Van Halen 1970s Instrumental Rock Music, Royalty Free Rock is Lit theme music   LINKS: Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451 Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350 Steve Rosen's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SteveRosenInterviews Steve Rosen on Instagram: @steve.rosen.guitar.picks Steve Rosen on Twitter: @Goodwriter Steve Rosen's website: https://www.tonechaserbook.com/ Christy Alexander Hallberg's website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Part 1 of Episode 45, featuring Steve Rosen. Steve is a highly respected music journalist and author of more than 1,000 articles and seven books, delving into the lives of iconic figures like Jeff Beck, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, and Black Sabbath.  His latest endeavor, ‘Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey with Edward Van Halen', was published in 2022. The book offers an intimate perspective on the guitar virtuoso and Steve's friendship with him from 1977 to 2003.  In the introduction to the book, Steve writes, “What you will read here is not a biography, a history, or an exacting chronology. You won't find discussions about tapping, taping, or touring. There are no in-depth analyses of album releases or his profound and absolute rewriting of the entire canon of electric guitar playing. . . . Rather think of this as a memory journal, a chronicle filled with observations, illuminations, and interpretations and what the hell does that mean? It means telling you about what I saw—the observing—shedding some first-hand light on what I was seeing—the illuminating—and trying to explain and decipher what I was witnessing—the interpreting” (XVII). Join us for the first part of my in-depth interview with Steve, then listen to Part 2.   PLAYLIST: Bensound “Happy Rock”—Royalty Free Music Rock is Lit theme music Clip from Season 3 Announcement/'Duck Tales'/Disney Channel [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can't Stop” 1970s Instrumental Rock Music, Royalty Free Joe Satriana ‘Tonechaser' endorsement from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQrEX25rwfU “Eruption” by Van Halen “Ain't Talkin' ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen “Runnin' With the Devil” by Van Halen “Dance the Night Away” by Van Halen 1970s Instrumental Rock Music, Royalty Free Rock is Lit theme music   LINKS: Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451 Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350 Steve Rosen's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SteveRosenInterviews Steve Rosen on Instagram: @steve.rosen.guitar.picks Steve Rosen on Twitter: @Goodwriter Steve Rosen's website: https://www.tonechaserbook.com/ Christy Alexander Hallberg's website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merry Christmas WOM family! We hope everyone has the happiest holiday season. This week we chat about some of our favorite Christmas things to do and what we'd still like to do before Christmas is here. We talk about being old at the bar, some of your unpopular opinions and then we chat about our weeks. We also then vent a bit about sharing our wellness journeys on Instagram and the podcast and some frustrations that come along with it. WE HAVE MERCH and a new WOM sticker, order here! Numerous styles, colors, and sizes available for shirts and sweatshirts. FOTW // Laura - Trader Joe's Gone Bananas and Gone Berry Crazy; Steph - CeraVe Makeup Removing Cleanser Balm Join our Facebook group, Club Wine Over Matter and follow us on Instagram - @WineOverMatterPod, @CrunchesBeforeBrunches, and @AuthenticallySteph! You can also find us on TikTok, @WineOverMatterPod! Thanks for supporting us and our sponsors! Music used in this week's episode provided by Uppbeat (License code: HC5SSAI4EHNGWR2) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wineovermatter/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wineovermatter/support

We discuss a 2002 piece by Dissent Magazine's Michael Walzer about the left's reaction to the war in Afghanistan and test his weird critiques with what's going on today. But first, grab a coke, any flavor, and listen to Jake talk about driving across the country. FULL EP AT PATREON.COM/PODDAMNAMERICA

Episode 168 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “I Say a Little Prayer”, and the interaction of the sacred, political, and secular in Aretha Franklin's life and work. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "Abraham, Martin, and John" by Dion. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Aretha Franklin. Even splitting it into multiple parts would have required six or seven mixes. My main biographical source for Aretha Franklin is Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, and this is where most of the quotes from musicians come from. Information on C.L. Franklin came from Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America by Nick Salvatore. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom is possibly less essential, but still definitely worth reading. Information about Martin Luther King came from Martin Luther King: A Religious Life by Paul Harvey. I also referred to Burt Bacharach's autobiography Anyone Who Had a Heart, Carole King's autobiography A Natural Woman, and Soul Serenade: King Curtis and his Immortal Saxophone by Timothy R. Hoover. For information about Amazing Grace I also used Aaron Cohen's 33 1/3 book on the album. The film of the concerts is also definitely worth watching. And the Aretha Now album is available in this five-album box set for a ludicrously cheap price. But it's actually worth getting this nineteen-CD set with her first sixteen Atlantic albums and a couple of bonus discs of demos and outtakes. There's barely a duff track in the whole nineteen discs. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick warning before I begin. This episode contains some moderate references to domestic abuse, death by cancer, racial violence, police violence, and political assassination. Anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to check the transcript rather than listening to the episode. Also, as with the previous episode on Aretha Franklin, this episode presents something of a problem. Like many people in this narrative, Franklin's career was affected by personal troubles, which shaped many of her decisions. But where most of the subjects of the podcast have chosen to live their lives in public and share intimate details of every aspect of their personal lives, Franklin was an extremely private person, who chose to share only carefully sanitised versions of her life, and tried as far as possible to keep things to herself. This of course presents a dilemma for anyone who wants to tell her story -- because even though the information is out there in biographies, and even though she's dead, it's not right to disrespect someone's wish for a private life. I have therefore tried, wherever possible, to stay away from talk of her personal life except where it *absolutely* affects the work, or where other people involved have publicly shared their own stories, and even there I've tried to keep it to a minimum. This will occasionally lead to me saying less about some topics than other people might, even though the information is easily findable, because I don't think we have an absolute right to invade someone else's privacy for entertainment. When we left Aretha Franklin, she had just finally broken through into the mainstream after a decade of performing, with a version of Otis Redding's song "Respect" on which she had been backed by her sisters, Erma and Carolyn. "Respect", in Franklin's interpretation, had been turned from a rather chauvinist song about a man demanding respect from his woman into an anthem of feminism, of Black power, and of a new political awakening. For white people of a certain generation, the summer of 1967 was "the summer of love". For many Black people, it was rather different. There's a quote that goes around (I've seen it credited in reliable sources to both Ebony and Jet magazine, but not ever seen an issue cited, so I can't say for sure where it came from) saying that the summer of 67 was the summer of "'retha, Rap, and revolt", referring to the trifecta of Aretha Franklin, the Black power leader Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (who was at the time known as H. Rap Brown, a name he later disclaimed) and the rioting that broke out in several major cities, particularly in Detroit: [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "The Motor City is Burning"] The mid sixties were, in many ways, the high point not of Black rights in the US -- for the most part there has been a lot of progress in civil rights in the intervening decades, though not without inevitable setbacks and attacks from the far right, and as movements like the Black Lives Matter movement have shown there is still a long way to go -- but of *hope* for Black rights. The moral force of the arguments made by the civil rights movement were starting to cause real change to happen for Black people in the US for the first time since the Reconstruction nearly a century before. But those changes weren't happening fast enough, and as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", there was not only a growing unrest among Black people, but a recognition that it was actually possible for things to change. A combination of hope and frustration can be a powerful catalyst, and whether Franklin wanted it or not, she was at the centre of things, both because of her newfound prominence as a star with a hit single that couldn't be interpreted as anything other than a political statement and because of her intimate family connections to the struggle. Even the most racist of white people these days pays lip service to the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, and when they do they quote just a handful of sentences from one speech King made in 1963, as if that sums up the full theological and political philosophy of that most complex of men. And as we discussed the last time we looked at Aretha Franklin, King gave versions of that speech, the "I Have a Dream" speech, twice. The most famous version was at the March on Washington, but the first time was a few weeks earlier, at what was at the time the largest civil rights demonstration in American history, in Detroit. Aretha's family connection to that event is made clear by the very opening of King's speech: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Original 'I Have a Dream' Speech"] So as summer 1967 got into swing, and white rock music was going to San Francisco to wear flowers in its hair, Aretha Franklin was at the centre of a very different kind of youth revolution. Franklin's second Atlantic album, Aretha Arrives, brought in some new personnel to the team that had recorded Aretha's first album for Atlantic. Along with the core Muscle Shoals players Jimmy Johnson, Spooner Oldham, Tommy Cogbill and Roger Hawkins, and a horn section led by King Curtis, Wexler and Dowd also brought in guitarist Joe South. South was a white session player from Georgia, who had had a few minor hits himself in the fifties -- he'd got his start recording a cover version of "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor", the Big Bopper's B-side to "Chantilly Lace": [Excerpt: Joe South, "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor"] He'd also written a few songs that had been recorded by people like Gene Vincent, but he'd mostly become a session player. He'd become a favourite musician of Bob Johnston's, and so he'd played guitar on Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme albums: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "I am a Rock"] and bass on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, with Al Kooper particularly praising his playing on "Visions of Johanna": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Visions of Johanna"] South would be the principal guitarist on this and Franklin's next album, before his own career took off in 1968 with "Games People Play": [Excerpt: Joe South, "Games People Play"] At this point, he had already written the other song he's best known for, "Hush", which later became a hit for Deep Purple: [Excerpt: Deep Purple, "Hush"] But he wasn't very well known, and was surprised to get the call for the Aretha Franklin session, especially because, as he put it "I was white and I was about to play behind the blackest genius since Ray Charles" But Jerry Wexler had told him that Franklin didn't care about the race of the musicians she played with, and South settled in as soon as Franklin smiled at him when he played a good guitar lick on her version of the blues standard "Going Down Slow": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Going Down Slow"] That was one of the few times Franklin smiled in those sessions though. Becoming an overnight success after years of trying and failing to make a name for herself had been a disorienting experience, and on top of that things weren't going well in her personal life. Her marriage to her manager Ted White was falling apart, and she was performing erratically thanks to the stress. In particular, at a gig in Georgia she had fallen off the stage and broken her arm. She soon returned to performing, but it meant she had problems with her right arm during the recording of the album, and didn't play as much piano as she would have previously -- on some of the faster songs she played only with her left hand. But the recording sessions had to go on, whether or not Aretha was physically capable of playing piano. As we discussed in the episode on Otis Redding, the owners of Atlantic Records were busily negotiating its sale to Warner Brothers in mid-1967. As Wexler said later “Everything in me said, Keep rolling, keep recording, keep the hits coming. She was red hot and I had no reason to believe that the streak wouldn't continue. I knew that it would be foolish—and even irresponsible—not to strike when the iron was hot. I also had personal motivation. A Wall Street financier had agreed to see what we could get for Atlantic Records. While Ahmet and Neshui had not agreed on a selling price, they had gone along with my plan to let the financier test our worth on the open market. I was always eager to pump out hits, but at this moment I was on overdrive. In this instance, I had a good partner in Ted White, who felt the same. He wanted as much product out there as possible." In truth, you can tell from Aretha Arrives that it's a record that was being thought of as "product" rather than one being made out of any kind of artistic impulse. It's a fine album -- in her ten-album run from I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You through Amazing Grace there's not a bad album and barely a bad track -- but there's a lack of focus. There are only two originals on the album, neither of them written by Franklin herself, and the rest is an incoherent set of songs that show the tension between Franklin and her producers at Atlantic. Several songs are the kind of standards that Franklin had recorded for her old label Columbia, things like "You Are My Sunshine", or her version of "That's Life", which had been a hit for Frank Sinatra the previous year: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "That's Life"] But mixed in with that are songs that are clearly the choice of Wexler. As we've discussed previously in episodes on Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, at this point Atlantic had the idea that it was possible for soul artists to cross over into the white market by doing cover versions of white rock hits -- and indeed they'd had some success with that tactic. So while Franklin was suggesting Sinatra covers, Atlantic's hand is visible in the choices of songs like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "96 Tears": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "96 Tears'] Of the two originals on the album, one, the hit single "Baby I Love You" was written by Ronnie Shannon, the Detroit songwriter who had previously written "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Baby I Love You"] As with the previous album, and several other songs on this one, that had backing vocals by Aretha's sisters, Erma and Carolyn. But the other original on the album, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)", didn't, even though it was written by Carolyn: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] To explain why, let's take a little detour and look at the co-writer of the song this episode is about, though we're not going to get to that for a little while yet. We've not talked much about Burt Bacharach in this series so far, but he's one of those figures who has come up a few times in the periphery and will come up again, so here is as good a time as any to discuss him, and bring everyone up to speed about his career up to 1967. Bacharach was one of the more privileged figures in the sixties pop music field. His father, Bert Bacharach (pronounced the same as his son, but spelled with an e rather than a u) had been a famous newspaper columnist, and his parents had bought him a Steinway grand piano to practice on -- they pushed him to learn the piano even though as a kid he wasn't interested in finger exercises and Debussy. What he was interested in, though, was jazz, and as a teenager he would often go into Manhattan and use a fake ID to see people like Dizzy Gillespie, who he idolised, and in his autobiography he talks rapturously of seeing Gillespie playing his bent trumpet -- he once saw Gillespie standing on a street corner with a pet monkey on his shoulder, and went home and tried to persuade his parents to buy him a monkey too. In particular, he talks about seeing the Count Basie band with Sonny Payne on drums as a teenager: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Kid From Red Bank"] He saw them at Birdland, the club owned by Morris Levy where they would regularly play, and said of the performance "they were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before. What I heard in those clubs really turned my head around— it was like a big breath of fresh air when somebody throws open a window. That was when I knew for the first time how much I loved music and wanted to be connected to it in some way." Of course, there's a rather major problem with this story, as there is so often with narratives that musicians tell about their early career. In this case, Birdland didn't open until 1949, when Bacharach was twenty-one and stationed in Germany for his military service, while Sonny Payne didn't join Basie's band until 1954, when Bacharach had been a professional musician for many years. Also Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet bell only got bent on January 6, 1953. But presumably while Bacharach was conflating several memories, he did have some experience in some New York jazz club that led him to want to become a musician. Certainly there were enough great jazz musicians playing the clubs in those days. He went to McGill University to study music for two years, then went to study with Darius Milhaud, a hugely respected modernist composer. Milhaud was also one of the most important music teachers of the time -- among others he'd taught Stockhausen and Xenakkis, and would go on to teach Philip Glass and Steve Reich. This suited Bacharach, who by this point was a big fan of Schoenberg and Webern, and was trying to write atonal, difficult music. But Milhaud had also taught Dave Brubeck, and when Bacharach rather shamefacedly presented him with a composition which had an actual tune, he told Bacharach "Never be ashamed of writing a tune you can whistle". He dropped out of university and, like most men of his generation, had to serve in the armed forces. When he got out of the army, he continued his musical studies, still trying to learn to be an avant-garde composer, this time with Bohuslav Martinů and later with Henry Cowell, the experimental composer we've heard about quite a bit in previous episodes: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] He was still listening to a lot of avant garde music, and would continue doing so throughout the fifties, going to see people like John Cage. But he spent much of that time working in music that was very different from the avant-garde. He got a job as the band leader for the crooner Vic Damone: [Excerpt: Vic Damone. "Ebb Tide"] He also played for the vocal group the Ames Brothers. He decided while he was working with the Ames Brothers that he could write better material than they were getting from their publishers, and that it would be better to have a job where he didn't have to travel, so he got himself a job as a staff songwriter in the Brill Building. He wrote a string of flops and nearly hits, starting with "Keep Me In Mind" for Patti Page: [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Keep Me In Mind"] From early in his career he worked with the lyricist Hal David, and the two of them together wrote two big hits, "Magic Moments" for Perry Como: [Excerpt: Perry Como, "Magic Moments"] and "The Story of My Life" for Marty Robbins: [Excerpt: "The Story of My Life"] But at that point Bacharach was still also writing with other writers, notably Hal David's brother Mack, with whom he wrote the theme tune to the film The Blob, as performed by The Five Blobs: [Excerpt: The Five Blobs, "The Blob"] But Bacharach's songwriting career wasn't taking off, and he got himself a job as musical director for Marlene Dietrich -- a job he kept even after it did start to take off.  Part of the problem was that he intuitively wrote music that didn't quite fit into standard structures -- there would be odd bars of unusual time signatures thrown in, unusual harmonies, and structural irregularities -- but then he'd take feedback from publishers and producers who would tell him the song could only be recorded if he straightened it out. He said later "The truth is that I ruined a lot of songs by not believing in myself enough to tell these guys they were wrong." He started writing songs for Scepter Records, usually with Hal David, but also with Bob Hilliard and Mack David, and started having R&B hits. One song he wrote with Mack David, "I'll Cherish You", had the lyrics rewritten by Luther Dixon to make them more harsh-sounding for a Shirelles single -- but the single was otherwise just Bacharach's demo with the vocals replaced, and you can even hear his voice briefly at the beginning: [Excerpt: The Shirelles, "Baby, It's You"] But he'd also started becoming interested in the production side of records more generally. He'd iced that some producers, when recording his songs, would change the sound for the worse -- he thought Gene McDaniels' version of "Tower of Strength", for example, was too fast. But on the other hand, other producers got a better sound than he'd heard in his head. He and Hilliard had written a song called "Please Stay", which they'd given to Leiber and Stoller to record with the Drifters, and he thought that their arrangement of the song was much better than the one he'd originally thought up: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Please Stay"] He asked Leiber and Stoller if he could attend all their New York sessions and learn about record production from them. He started doing so, and eventually they started asking him to assist them on records. He and Hilliard wrote a song called "Mexican Divorce" for the Drifters, which Leiber and Stoller were going to produce, and as he put it "they were so busy running Redbird Records that they asked me to rehearse the background singers for them in my office." [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Mexican Divorce"] The backing singers who had been brought in to augment the Drifters on that record were a group of vocalists who had started out as members of a gospel group called the Drinkard singers: [Excerpt: The Drinkard Singers, "Singing in My Soul"] The Drinkard Singers had originally been a family group, whose members included Cissy Drinkard, who joined the group aged five (and who on her marriage would become known as Cissy Houston -- her daughter Whitney would later join the family business), her aunt Lee Warrick, and Warrick's adopted daughter Judy Clay. That group were discovered by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and spent much of the fifties performing with gospel greats including Jackson herself, Clara Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But Houston was also the musical director of a group at her church, the Gospelaires, which featured Lee Warrick's two daughters Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick (for those who don't know, the Warwick sisters' birth name was Warrick, spelled with two rs. A printing error led to it being misspelled the same way as the British city on a record label, and from that point on Dionne at least pronounced the w in her misspelled name). And slowly, the Gospelaires rather than the Drinkard Singers became the focus, with a lineup of Houston, the Warwick sisters, the Warwick sisters' cousin Doris Troy, and Clay's sister Sylvia Shemwell. The real change in the group's fortunes came when, as we talked about a while back in the episode on "The Loco-Motion", the original lineup of the Cookies largely stopped working as session singers to become Ray Charles' Raelettes. As we discussed in that episode, a new lineup of Cookies formed in 1961, but it took a while for them to get started, and in the meantime the producers who had been relying on them for backing vocals were looking elsewhere, and they looked to the Gospelaires. "Mexican Divorce" was the first record to feature the group as backing vocalists -- though reports vary as to how many of them are on the record, with some saying it's only Troy and the Warwicks, others saying Houston was there, and yet others saying it was all five of them. Some of these discrepancies were because these singers were so good that many of them left to become solo singers in fairly short order. Troy was the first to do so, with her hit "Just One Look", on which the other Gospelaires sang backing vocals: [Excerpt: Doris Troy, "Just One Look"] But the next one to go solo was Dionne Warwick, and that was because she'd started working with Bacharach and Hal David as their principal demo singer. She started singing lead on their demos, and hoping that she'd get to release them on her own. One early one was "Make it Easy On Yourself", which was recorded by Jerry Butler, formerly of the Impressions. That record was produced by Bacharach, one of the first records he produced without outside supervision: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler, "Make it Easy On Yourself"] Warwick was very jealous that a song she'd sung the demo of had become a massive hit for someone else, and blamed Bacharach and David. The way she tells the story -- Bacharach always claimed this never happened, but as we've already seen he was himself not always the most reliable of narrators of his own life -- she got so angry she complained to them, and said "Don't make me over, man!" And so Bacharach and David wrote her this: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Don't Make Me Over"] Incidentally, in the UK, the hit version of that was a cover by the Swinging Blue Jeans: [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "Don't Make Me Over"] who also had a huge hit with "You're No Good": [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "You're No Good"] And *that* was originally recorded by *Dee Dee* Warwick: [Excerpt: Dee Dee Warwick, "You're No Good"] Dee Dee also had a successful solo career, but Dionne's was the real success, making the names of herself, and of Bacharach and David. The team had more than twenty top forty hits together, before Bacharach and David had a falling out in 1971 and stopped working together, and Warwick sued both of them for breach of contract as a result. But prior to that they had hit after hit, with classic records like "Anyone Who Had a Heart": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Anyone Who Had a Heart"] And "Walk On By": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Walk On By"] With Doris, Dionne, and Dee Dee all going solo, the group's membership was naturally in flux -- though the departed members would occasionally join their former bandmates for sessions, and the remaining members would sing backing vocals on their ex-members' records. By 1965 the group consisted of Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, the Warwick sisters' cousin Myrna Smith, and Estelle Brown. The group became *the* go-to singers for soul and R&B records made in New York. They were regularly hired by Leiber and Stoller to sing on their records, and they were also the particular favourites of Bert Berns. They sang backing vocals on almost every record he produced. It's them doing the gospel wails on "Cry Baby" by Garnet Mimms: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And they sang backing vocals on both versions of "If You Need Me" -- Wilson Pickett's original and Solomon Burke's more successful cover version, produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "If You Need Me"] They're on such Berns records as "Show Me Your Monkey", by Kenny Hamber: [Excerpt: Kenny Hamber, "Show Me Your Monkey"] And it was a Berns production that ended up getting them to be Aretha Franklin's backing group. The group were becoming such an important part of the records that Atlantic and BANG Records, in particular, were putting out, that Jerry Wexler said "it was only a matter of common decency to put them under contract as a featured group". He signed them to Atlantic and renamed them from the Gospelaires to The Sweet Inspirations.  Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham wrote a song for the group which became their only hit under their own name: [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Sweet Inspiration"] But to start with, they released a cover of Pops Staples' civil rights song "Why (Am I treated So Bad)": [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Why (Am I Treated So Bad?)"] That hadn't charted, and meanwhile, they'd all kept doing session work. Cissy had joined Erma and Carolyn Franklin on the backing vocals for Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You"] Shortly after that, the whole group recorded backing vocals for Erma's single "Piece of My Heart", co-written and produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] That became a top ten record on the R&B charts, but that caused problems. Aretha Franklin had a few character flaws, and one of these was an extreme level of jealousy for any other female singer who had any level of success and came up in the business after her. She could be incredibly graceful towards anyone who had been successful before her -- she once gave one of her Grammies away to Esther Phillips, who had been up for the same award and had lost to her -- but she was terribly insecure, and saw any contemporary as a threat. She'd spent her time at Columbia Records fuming (with some justification) that Barbra Streisand was being given a much bigger marketing budget than her, and she saw Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and Dionne Warwick as rivals rather than friends. And that went doubly for her sisters, who she was convinced should be supporting her because of family loyalty. She had been infuriated at John Hammond when Columbia had signed Erma, thinking he'd gone behind her back to create competition for her. And now Erma was recording with Bert Berns. Bert Berns who had for years been a colleague of Jerry Wexler and the Ertegun brothers at Atlantic. Aretha was convinced that Wexler had put Berns up to signing Erma as some kind of power play. There was only one problem with this -- it simply wasn't true. As Wexler later explained “Bert and I had suffered a bad falling-out, even though I had enormous respect for him. After all, he was the guy who brought over guitarist Jimmy Page from England to play on our sessions. Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi, and I had started a label together—Bang!—where Bert produced Van Morrison's first album. But Bert also had a penchant for trouble. He courted the wise guys. He wanted total control over every last aspect of our business dealings. Finally it was too much, and the Erteguns and I let him go. He sued us for breach of contract and suddenly we were enemies. I felt that he signed Erma, an excellent singer, not merely for her talent but as a way to get back at me. If I could make a hit with Aretha, he'd show me up by making an even bigger hit on Erma. Because there was always an undercurrent of rivalry between the sisters, this only added to the tension.” There were two things that resulted from this paranoia on Aretha's part. The first was that she and Wexler, who had been on first-name terms up to that point, temporarily went back to being "Mr. Wexler" and "Miss Franklin" to each other. And the second was that Aretha no longer wanted Carolyn and Erma to be her main backing vocalists, though they would continue to appear on her future records on occasion. From this point on, the Sweet Inspirations would be the main backing vocalists for Aretha in the studio throughout her golden era [xxcut line (and when the Sweet Inspirations themselves weren't on the record, often it would be former members of the group taking their place)]: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] The last day of sessions for Aretha Arrives was July the twenty-third, 1967. And as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", that was the day that the Detroit riots started. To recap briefly, that was four days of rioting started because of a history of racist policing, made worse by those same racist police overreacting to the initial protests. By the end of those four days, the National Guard, 82nd Airborne Division, and the 101st Airborne from Clarksville were all called in to deal with the violence, which left forty-three dead (of whom thirty-three were Black and only one was a police officer), 1,189 people were injured, and over 7,200 arrested, almost all of them Black. Those days in July would be a turning point for almost every musician based in Detroit. In particular, the police had murdered three members of the soul group the Dramatics, in a massacre of which the author John Hersey, who had been asked by President Johnson to be part of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders but had decided that would compromise his impartiality and did an independent journalistic investigation, said "The episode contained all the mythic themes of racial strife in the United States: the arm of the law taking the law into its own hands; interracial sex; the subtle poison of racist thinking by “decent” men who deny they are racists; the societal limbo into which, ever since slavery, so many young black men have been driven by our country; ambiguous justice in the courts; and the devastation in both black and white human lives that follows in the wake of violence as surely as ruinous and indiscriminate flood after torrents" But these were also the events that radicalised the MC5 -- the group had been playing a gig as Tim Buckley's support act when the rioting started, and guitarist Wayne Kramer decided afterwards to get stoned and watch the fires burning down the city through a telescope -- which police mistook for a rifle, leading to the National Guard knocking down Kramer's door. The MC5 would later cover "The Motor City is Burning", John Lee Hooker's song about the events: [Excerpt: The MC5, "The Motor City is Burning"] It would also be a turning point for Motown, too, in ways we'll talk about in a few future episodes.  And it was a political turning point too -- Michigan Governor George Romney, a liberal Republican (at a time when such people existed) had been the favourite for the Republican Presidential candidacy when he'd entered the race in December 1966, but as racial tensions ramped up in Detroit during the early months of 1967 he'd started trailing Richard Nixon, a man who was consciously stoking racists' fears. President Johnson, the incumbent Democrat, who was at that point still considering standing for re-election, made sure to make it clear to everyone during the riots that the decision to call in the National Guard had been made at the State level, by Romney, rather than at the Federal level.  That wasn't the only thing that removed the possibility of a Romney presidency, but it was a big part of the collapse of his campaign, and the, as it turned out, irrevocable turn towards right-authoritarianism that the party took with Nixon's Southern Strategy. Of course, Aretha Franklin had little way of knowing what was to come and how the riots would change the city and the country over the following decades. What she was primarily concerned about was the safety of her father, and to a lesser extent that of her sister-in-law Earline who was staying with him. Aretha, Carolyn, and Erma all tried to keep in constant touch with their father while they were out of town, and Aretha even talked about hiring private detectives to travel to Detroit, find her father, and get him out of the city to safety. But as her brother Cecil pointed out, he was probably the single most loved man among Black people in Detroit, and was unlikely to be harmed by the rioters, while he was too famous for the police to kill with impunity. Reverend Franklin had been having a stressful time anyway -- he had recently been fined for tax evasion, an action he was convinced the IRS had taken because of his friendship with Dr King and his role in the civil rights movement -- and according to Cecil "Aretha begged Daddy to move out of the city entirely. She wanted him to find another congregation in California, where he was especially popular—or at least move out to the suburbs. But he wouldn't budge. He said that, more than ever, he was needed to point out the root causes of the riots—the economic inequality, the pervasive racism in civic institutions, the woefully inadequate schools in inner-city Detroit, and the wholesale destruction of our neighborhoods by urban renewal. Some ministers fled the city, but not our father. The horror of what happened only recommitted him. He would not abandon his political agenda." To make things worse, Aretha was worried about her father in other ways -- as her marriage to Ted White was starting to disintegrate, she was looking to her father for guidance, and actually wanted him to take over her management. Eventually, Ruth Bowen, her booking agent, persuaded her brother Cecil that this was a job he could do, and that she would teach him everything he needed to know about the music business. She started training him up while Aretha was still married to White, in the expectation that that marriage couldn't last. Jerry Wexler, who only a few months earlier had been seeing Ted White as an ally in getting "product" from Franklin, had now changed his tune -- partly because the sale of Atlantic had gone through in the meantime. He later said “Sometimes she'd call me at night, and, in that barely audible little-girl voice of hers, she'd tell me that she wasn't sure she could go on. She always spoke in generalities. She never mentioned her husband, never gave me specifics of who was doing what to whom. And of course I knew better than to ask. She just said that she was tired of dealing with so much. My heart went out to her. She was a woman who suffered silently. She held so much in. I'd tell her to take as much time off as she needed. We had a lot of songs in the can that we could release without new material. ‘Oh, no, Jerry,' she'd say. ‘I can't stop recording. I've written some new songs, Carolyn's written some new songs. We gotta get in there and cut 'em.' ‘Are you sure?' I'd ask. ‘Positive,' she'd say. I'd set up the dates and typically she wouldn't show up for the first or second sessions. Carolyn or Erma would call me to say, ‘Ree's under the weather.' That was tough because we'd have asked people like Joe South and Bobby Womack to play on the sessions. Then I'd reschedule in the hopes she'd show." That third album she recorded in 1967, Lady Soul, was possibly her greatest achievement. The opening track, and second single, "Chain of Fools", released in November, was written by Don Covay -- or at least it's credited as having been written by Covay. There's a gospel record that came out around the same time on a very small label based in Houston -- "Pains of Life" by Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio: [Excerpt: Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio, "Pains of Life"] I've seen various claims online that that record came out shortly *before* "Chain of Fools", but I can't find any definitive evidence one way or the other -- it was on such a small label that release dates aren't available anywhere. Given that the B-side, which I haven't been able to track down online, is called "Wait Until the Midnight Hour", my guess is that rather than this being a case of Don Covay stealing the melody from an obscure gospel record he'd have had little chance to hear, it's the gospel record rewriting a then-current hit to be about religion, but I thought it worth mentioning. The song was actually written by Covay after Jerry Wexler asked him to come up with some songs for Otis Redding, but Wexler, after hearing it, decided it was better suited to Franklin, who gave an astonishing performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] Arif Mardin, the arranger of the album, said of that track “I was listed as the arranger of ‘Chain of Fools,' but I can't take credit. Aretha walked into the studio with the chart fully formed inside her head. The arrangement is based around the harmony vocals provided by Carolyn and Erma. To add heft, the Sweet Inspirations joined in. The vision of the song is entirely Aretha's.” According to Wexler, that's not *quite* true -- according to him, Joe South came up with the guitar part that makes up the intro, and he also said that when he played what he thought was the finished track to Ellie Greenwich, she came up with another vocal line for the backing vocals, which she overdubbed. But the core of the record's sound is definitely pure Aretha -- and Carolyn Franklin said that there was a reason for that. As she said later “Aretha didn't write ‘Chain,' but she might as well have. It was her story. When we were in the studio putting on the backgrounds with Ree doing lead, I knew she was singing about Ted. Listen to the lyrics talking about how for five long years she thought he was her man. Then she found out she was nothing but a link in the chain. Then she sings that her father told her to come on home. Well, he did. She sings about how her doctor said to take it easy. Well, he did too. She was drinking so much we thought she was on the verge of a breakdown. The line that slew me, though, was the one that said how one of these mornings the chain is gonna break but until then she'll take all she can take. That summed it up. Ree knew damn well that this man had been doggin' her since Jump Street. But somehow she held on and pushed it to the breaking point." [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] That made number one on the R&B charts, and number two on the hot one hundred, kept from the top by "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)" by John Fred and his Playboy Band -- a record that very few people would say has stood the test of time as well. The other most memorable track on the album was the one chosen as the first single, released in September. As Carole King told the story, she and Gerry Goffin were feeling like their career was in a slump. While they had had a huge run of hits in the early sixties through 1965, they had only had two new hits in 1966 -- "Goin' Back" for Dusty Springfield and "Don't Bring Me Down" for the Animals, and neither of those were anything like as massive as their previous hits. And up to that point in 1967, they'd only had one -- "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees. They had managed to place several songs on Monkees albums and the TV show as well, so they weren't going to starve, but the rise of self-contained bands that were starting to dominate the charts, and Phil Spector's temporary retirement, meant there simply wasn't the opportunity for them to place material that there had been. They were also getting sick of travelling to the West Coast all the time, because as their children were growing slightly older they didn't want to disrupt their lives in New York, and were thinking of approaching some of the New York based labels and seeing if they needed songs. They were particularly considering Atlantic, because soul was more open to outside songwriters than other genres. As it happened, though, they didn't have to approach Atlantic, because Atlantic approached them. They were walking down Broadway when a limousine pulled up, and Jerry Wexler stuck his head out of the window. He'd come up with a good title that he wanted to use for a song for Aretha, would they be interested in writing a song called "Natural Woman"? They said of course they would, and Wexler drove off. They wrote the song that night, and King recorded a demo the next morning: [Excerpt: Carole King, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (demo)"] They gave Wexler a co-writing credit because he had suggested the title.  King later wrote in her autobiography "Hearing Aretha's performance of “Natural Woman” for the first time, I experienced a rare speechless moment. To this day I can't convey how I felt in mere words. Anyone who had written a song in 1967 hoping it would be performed by a singer who could take it to the highest level of excellence, emotional connection, and public exposure would surely have wanted that singer to be Aretha Franklin." She went on to say "But a recording that moves people is never just about the artist and the songwriters. It's about people like Jerry and Ahmet, who matched the songwriters with a great title and a gifted artist; Arif Mardin, whose magnificent orchestral arrangement deserves the place it will forever occupy in popular music history; Tom Dowd, whose engineering skills captured the magic of this memorable musical moment for posterity; and the musicians in the rhythm section, the orchestral players, and the vocal contributions of the background singers—among them the unforgettable “Ah-oo!” after the first line of the verse. And the promotion and marketing people helped this song reach more people than it might have without them." And that's correct -- unlike "Chain of Fools", this time Franklin did let Arif Mardin do most of the arrangement work -- though she came up with the piano part that Spooner Oldham plays on the record. Mardin said that because of the song's hymn-like feel they wanted to go for a more traditional written arrangement. He said "She loved the song to the point where she said she wanted to concentrate on the vocal and vocal alone. I had written a string chart and horn chart to augment the chorus and hired Ralph Burns to conduct. After just a couple of takes, we had it. That's when Ralph turned to me with wonder in his eyes. Ralph was one of the most celebrated arrangers of the modern era. He had done ‘Early Autumn' for Woody Herman and Stan Getz, and ‘Georgia on My Mind' for Ray Charles. He'd worked with everyone. ‘This woman comes from another planet' was all Ralph said. ‘She's just here visiting.'” [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"] By this point there was a well-functioning team making Franklin's records -- while the production credits would vary over the years, they were all essentially co-productions by the team of Franklin, Wexler, Mardin and Dowd, all collaborating and working together with a more-or-less unified purpose, and the backing was always by the same handful of session musicians and some combination of the Sweet Inspirations and Aretha's sisters. That didn't mean that occasional guests couldn't get involved -- as we discussed in the Cream episode, Eric Clapton played guitar on "Good to Me as I am to You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Good to Me as I am to You"] Though that was one of the rare occasions on one of these records where something was overdubbed. Clapton apparently messed up the guitar part when playing behind Franklin, because he was too intimidated by playing with her, and came back the next day to redo his part without her in the studio. At this point, Aretha was at the height of her fame. Just before the final batch of album sessions began she appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, and she was making regular TV appearances, like one on the Mike Douglas Show where she duetted with Frankie Valli on "That's Life": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin and Frankie Valli, "That's Life"] But also, as Wexler said “Her career was kicking into high gear. Contending and resolving both the professional and personal challenges were too much. She didn't think she could do both, and I didn't blame her. Few people could. So she let the personal slide and concentrated on the professional. " Her concert promoter Ruth Bowen said of this time "Her father and Dr. King were putting pressure on her to sing everywhere, and she felt obligated. The record company was also screaming for more product. And I had a mountain of offers on my desk that kept getting higher with every passing hour. They wanted her in Europe. They wanted her in Latin America. They wanted her in every major venue in the U.S. TV was calling. She was being asked to do guest appearances on every show from Carol Burnett to Andy Williams to the Hollywood Palace. She wanted to do them all and she wanted to do none of them. She wanted to do them all because she's an entertainer who burns with ambition. She wanted to do none of them because she was emotionally drained. She needed to go away and renew her strength. I told her that at least a dozen times. She said she would, but she didn't listen to me." The pressures from her father and Dr King are a recurring motif in interviews with people about this period. Franklin was always a very political person, and would throughout her life volunteer time and money to liberal political causes and to the Democratic Party, but this was the height of her activism -- the Civil Rights movement was trying to capitalise on the gains it had made in the previous couple of years, and celebrity fundraisers and performances at rallies were an important way to do that. And at this point there were few bigger celebrities in America than Aretha Franklin. At a concert in her home town of Detroit on February the sixteenth, 1968, the Mayor declared the day Aretha Franklin Day. At the same show, Billboard, Record World *and* Cash Box magazines all presented her with plaques for being Female Vocalist of the Year. And Dr. King travelled up to be at the show and congratulate her publicly for all her work with his organisation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Backstage at that show, Dr. King talked to Aretha's father, Reverend Franklin, about what he believed would be the next big battle -- a strike in Memphis: [Excerpt, Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech" -- "And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right."] The strike in question was the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike which had started a few days before.  The struggle for Black labour rights was an integral part of the civil rights movement, and while it's not told that way in the sanitised version of the story that's made it into popular culture, the movement led by King was as much about economic justice as social justice -- King was a democratic socialist, and believed that economic oppression was both an effect of and cause of other forms of racial oppression, and that the rights of Black workers needed to be fought for. In 1967 he had set up a new organisation, the Poor People's Campaign, which was set to march on Washington to demand a program that included full employment, a guaranteed income -- King was strongly influenced in his later years by the ideas of Henry George, the proponent of a universal basic income based on land value tax -- the annual building of half a million affordable homes, and an end to the war in Vietnam. This was King's main focus in early 1968, and he saw the sanitation workers' strike as a major part of this campaign. Memphis was one of the most oppressive cities in the country, and its largely Black workforce of sanitation workers had been trying for most of the 1960s to unionise, and strike-breakers had been called in to stop them, and many of them had been fired by their white supervisors with no notice. They were working in unsafe conditions, for utterly inadequate wages, and the city government were ardent segregationists. After two workers had died on the first of February from using unsafe equipment, the union demanded changes -- safer working conditions, better wages, and recognition of the union. The city council refused, and almost all the sanitation workers stayed home and stopped work. After a few days, the council relented and agreed to their terms, but the Mayor, Henry Loeb, an ardent white supremacist who had stood on a platform of opposing desegregation, and who had previously been the Public Works Commissioner who had put these unsafe conditions in place, refused to listen. As far as he was concerned, he was the only one who could recognise the union, and he wouldn't. The workers continued their strike, marching holding signs that simply read "I am a Man": [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Blowing in the Wind"] The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the NAACP had been involved in organising support for the strikes from an early stage, and King visited Memphis many times. Much of the time he spent visiting there was spent negotiating with a group of more militant activists, who called themselves The Invaders and weren't completely convinced by King's nonviolent approach -- they believed that violence and rioting got more attention than non-violent protests. King explained to them that while he had been persuaded by Gandhi's writings of the moral case for nonviolent protest, he was also persuaded that it was pragmatically necessary -- asking the young men "how many guns do we have and how many guns do they have?", and pointing out as he often did that when it comes to violence a minority can't win against an armed majority. Rev Franklin went down to Memphis on the twenty-eighth of March to speak at a rally Dr. King was holding, but as it turned out the rally was cancelled -- the pre-rally march had got out of hand, with some people smashing windows, and Memphis police had, like the police in Detroit the previous year, violently overreacted, clubbing and gassing protestors and shooting and killing one unarmed teenage boy, Larry Payne. The day after Payne's funeral, Dr King was back in Memphis, though this time Rev Franklin was not with him. On April the third, he gave a speech which became known as the "Mountaintop Speech", in which he talked about the threats that had been made to his life: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech": “And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."] The next day, Martin Luther King was shot dead. James Earl Ray, a white supremacist, pled guilty to the murder, and the evidence against him seems overwhelming from what I've read, but the King family have always claimed that the murder was part of a larger conspiracy and that Ray was not the gunman. Aretha was obviously distraught, and she attended the funeral, as did almost every other prominent Black public figure. James Baldwin wrote of the funeral: "In the pew directly before me sat Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis, Eartha Kitt—covered in black, looking like a lost, ten-year-old girl—and Sidney Poitier, in the same pew, or nearby. Marlon saw me, and nodded. The atmosphere was black, with a tension indescribable—as though something, perhaps the heavens, perhaps the earth, might crack. Everyone sat very still. The actual service sort of washed over me, in waves. It wasn't that it seemed unreal; it was the most real church service I've ever sat through in my life, or ever hope to sit through; but I have a childhood hangover thing about not weeping in public, and I was concentrating on holding myself together. I did not want to weep for Martin, tears seemed futile. But I may also have been afraid, and I could not have been the only one, that if I began to weep I would not be able to stop. There was more than enough to weep for, if one was to weep—so many of us, cut down, so soon. Medgar, Malcolm, Martin: and their widows, and their children. Reverend Ralph David Abernathy asked a certain sister to sing a song which Martin had loved—“Once more,” said Ralph David, “for Martin and for me,” and he sat down." Many articles and books on Aretha Franklin say that she sang at King's funeral. In fact she didn't, but there's a simple reason for the confusion. King's favourite song was the Thomas Dorsey gospel song "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", and indeed almost his last words were to ask a trumpet player, Ben Branch, if he would play the song at the rally he was going to be speaking at on the day of his death. At his request, Mahalia Jackson, his old friend, sang the song at his private funeral, which was not filmed, unlike the public part of the funeral that Baldwin described. Four months later, though, there was another public memorial for King, and Franklin did sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at that service, in front of King's weeping widow and children, and that performance *was* filmed, and gets conflated in people's memories with Jackson's unfilmed earlier performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord (at Martin Luther King Memorial)"] Four years later, she would sing that at Mahalia Jackson's funeral. Through all this, Franklin had been working on her next album, Aretha Now, the sessions for which started more or less as soon as the sessions for Lady Soul had finished. The album was, in fact, bookended by deaths that affected Aretha. Just as King died at the end of the sessions, the beginning came around the time of the death of Otis Redding -- the sessions were cancelled for a day while Wexler travelled to Georgia for Redding's funeral, which Franklin was too devastated to attend, and Wexler would later say that the extra emotion in her performances on the album came from her emotional pain at Redding's death. The lead single on the album, "Think", was written by Franklin and -- according to the credits anyway -- her husband Ted White, and is very much in the same style as "Respect", and became another of her most-loved hits: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Think"] But probably the song on Aretha Now that now resonates the most is one that Jerry Wexler tried to persuade her not to record, and was only released as a B-side. Indeed, "I Say a Little Prayer" was a song that had already once been a hit after being a reject.  Hal David, unlike Burt Bacharach, was a fairly political person and inspired by the protest song movement, and had been starting to incorporate his concerns about the political situation and the Vietnam War into his lyrics -- though as with many such writers, he did it in much less specific ways than a Phil Ochs or a Bob Dylan. This had started with "What the World Needs Now is Love", a song Bacharach and David had written for Jackie DeShannon in 1965: [Excerpt: Jackie DeShannon, "What the "World Needs Now is Love"] But he'd become much more overtly political for "The Windows of the World", a song they wrote for Dionne Warwick. Warwick has often said it's her favourite of her singles, but it wasn't a big hit -- Bacharach blamed himself for that, saying "Dionne recorded it as a single and I really blew it. I wrote a bad arrangement and the tempo was too fast, and I really regret making it the way I did because it's a good song." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "The Windows of the World"] For that album, Bacharach and David had written another track, "I Say a Little Prayer", which was not as explicitly political, but was intended by David to have an implicit anti-war message, much like other songs of the period like "Last Train to Clarksville". David had sons who were the right age to be drafted, and while it's never stated, "I Say a Little Prayer" was written from the perspective of a woman whose partner is away fighting in the war, but is still in her thoughts: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] The recording of Dionne Warwick's version was marked by stress. Bacharach had a particular way of writing music to tell the musicians the kind of feel he wanted for the part -- he'd write nonsense words above the stave, and tell the musicians to play the parts as if they were singing those words. The trumpet player hired for the session, Ernie Royal, got into a row with Bacharach about this unorthodox way of communicating musical feeling, and the track ended up taking ten takes (as opposed to the normal three for a Bacharach session), with Royal being replaced half-way through the session. Bacharach was never happy with the track even after all the work it had taken, and he fought to keep it from being released at all, saying the track was taken at too fast a tempo. It eventually came out as an album track nearly eighteen months after it was recorded -- an eternity in 1960s musical timescales -- and DJs started playing it almost as soon as it came out. Scepter records rushed out a single, over Bacharach's objections, but as he later said "One thing I love about the record business is how wrong I was. Disc jockeys all across the country started playing the track, and the song went to number four on the charts and then became the biggest hit Hal and I had ever written for Dionne." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Oddly, the B-side for Warwick's single, "Theme From the Valley of the Dolls" did even better, reaching number two. Almost as soon as the song was released as a single, Franklin started playing around with the song backstage, and in April 1968, right around the time of Dr. King's death, she recorded a version. Much as Burt Bacharach had been against releasing Dionne Warwick's version, Jerry Wexler was against Aretha even recording the song, saying later “I advised Aretha not to record it. I opposed it for two reasons. First, to cover a song only twelve weeks after the original reached the top of the charts was not smart business. You revisit such a hit eight months to a year later. That's standard practice. But more than that, Bacharach's melody, though lovely, was peculiarly suited to a lithe instrument like Dionne Warwick's—a light voice without the dark corners or emotional depths that define Aretha. Also, Hal David's lyric was also somewhat girlish and lacked the gravitas that Aretha required. “Aretha usually listened to me in the studio, but not this time. She had written a vocal arrangement for the Sweet Inspirations that was undoubtedly strong. Cissy Houston, Dionne's cousin, told me that Aretha was on the right track—she was seeing this song in a new way and had come up with a new groove. Cissy was on Aretha's side. Tommy Dowd and Arif were on Aretha's side. So I had no choice but to cave." It's quite possible that Wexler's objections made Franklin more, rather than less, determined to record the song. She regarded Warwick as a hated rival, as she did almost every prominent female singer of her generation and younger ones, and would undoubtedly have taken the implication that there was something that Warwick was simply better at than her to heart. [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Wexler realised as soon as he heard it in the studio that Franklin's version was great, and Bacharach agreed, telling Franklin's biographer David Ritz “As much as I like the original recording by Dionne, there's no doubt that Aretha's is a better record. She imbued the song with heavy soul and took it to a far deeper place. Hers is the definitive version.” -- which is surprising because Franklin's version simplifies some of Bacharach's more unusual chord voicings, something he often found extremely upsetting. Wexler still though thought there was no way the song would be a hit, and it's understandable that he thought that way. Not only had it only just been on the charts a few months earlier, but it was the kind of song that wouldn't normally be a hit at all, and certainly not in the kind of rhythmic soul music for which Franklin was known. Almost everything she ever recorded is in simple time signatures -- 4/4, waltz time, or 6/8 -- but this is a Bacharach song so it's staggeringly metrically irregular. Normally even with semi-complex things I'm usually good at figuring out how to break it down into bars, but here I actually had to purchase a copy of the sheet music in order to be sure I was right about what's going on. I'm going to count beats along with the record here so you can see what I mean. The verse has three bars of 4/4, one bar of 2/4, and three more bars of 4/4, all repeated: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] While the chorus has a bar of 4/4, a bar of 3/4 but with a chord change half way through so it sounds like it's in two if you're paying attention to the harmonic changes, two bars of 4/4, another waltz-time bar sounding like it's in two, two bars of four, another bar of three sounding in two, a bar of four, then three more bars of four but the first of those is *written* as four but played as if it's in six-eight time (but you can keep the four/four pulse going if you're counting): [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] I don't expect you to have necessarily followed that in great detail, but the point should be clear -- this was not some straightforward dance song. Incidentally, that bar played as if it's six/eight was something Aretha introduced to make the song even more irregular than how Bacharach wrote it. And on top of *that* of course the lyrics mixed the secular and the sacred, something that was still taboo in popular music at that time -- this is only a couple of years after Capitol records had been genuinely unsure about putting out the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows", and Franklin's gospel-inflected vocals made the religious connection even more obvious. But Franklin was insistent that the record go out as a single, and eventually it was released as the B-side to the far less impressive "The House That Jack Built". It became a double-sided hit, with the A-side making number two on the R&B chart and number seven on the Hot One Hundred, while "I Say a Little Prayer" made number three on the R&B chart and number ten overall. In the UK, "I Say a Little Prayer" made number four and became her biggest ever solo UK hit. It's now one of her most-remembered songs, while the A-side is largely forgotten: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] For much of the