Podcast appearances and mentions of Philip Norman

Rock writer Philip Norman guests on this brand new Fake Show to discuss his biography on Beatle George Harrison with host Jim Tofte...enjoy!!!

Erin and Karen discuss Philip Norman's latest biography about George Harrison. The book's relevance and contribution to Beatle historiography is critically examined.

Beatles biographer Philip Norman talks about the life and legacy of John Lennon. He shares insights into John's The post Philip Norman on John Lennon appeared first on The Strange Brew .

JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND with special guest Philip Norman. John Lennon's stunning debut album is quite rightly regarded as his best. Bleak, exhilarating and soulful, ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' is a true classic album. Legendary author & journalist, Philip Norman wrote 'Shout! The True Story Of The Beatles,' the multi million seller biography that was published in 1981. 'John Lennon: The Life' was published in 2008. In a classic conversation with Jason Barnard, PHILIP NORMAN reels off stories about the Fabs, Yoko, Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor, Margo Fontaine and David Bailey just to name a few. It's a funny, sad, poignant and riveting interview that had the sold-audience captivated throughout. If you would like to learn more about Philip's extraordinary life we highly recommend his memoir, ‘We Danced On Our Desks.' Philip's new blog, ‘Read Me Do' can be found at:https://open.substack.com/pub/philipnorman/p/the-man-who-made-the-beatles?r=2uoo5g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email JASON BARNARD was in the interviewer's chair. This event took place on 25th April 2024 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire. To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons. Happy Trails.

For several hundred years the Newgate Prison in London have seen countless inmates come and go, some would enter the prison and never leave. Hear about history, executions at both Tyburn Gallows and the orison itself and about the executioners themselves. CREDITS: INTRO SONG:  Courtesy of Bobby Mackey PIXABAY:  Mysterious And Mystic Strings Witches Cauldron Church Dark Ambient Gloomy Serious Exploring the Cursed Cemetery Melancholic Cinematic Waltz Haunting Music Chilliwave - Yesterday Mysterious Journey - Electronic Instrumental WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: Cover photo: A painting titled, Exterior view of Newgate Prison by English artist Philip Norman (1842–1931) Philip Norman Public domain

Philip Norman provides a revealing portrait of George Harrison. Despite being acknowledged as one of the era's best The post George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle appeared first on The Strange Brew .

The author of Shout: The Beatles In Their Generation has brought out his third Beatles individual biography, forty plus years after the publication of his group one. George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle was put together tapping Norman's body of old interviews (with witnesses now beyond reach) as well as fresh research and new conversations (including his star witness, Pattie … 274: George, The Reluctant Beatle with Philip Norman Read More »

In George Harrison, The Reluctant Beatle, veteran rock journalist and biographer Philip Norman (author of the definitive Beatles book, Shout!) gives us an access all areas portrait of a paradoxical figure who found fame a burden but emerged from the band, to grow into a new creative phase of life that was rewarding and productive in unexpected ways.   Based on extensive interviews with those who knew Harrison intimately,  this is a biography that is not always flattering to its subject. Harrison presents as a series of contradictions, but there is no doubt that he was eclipsed and under-estimated by Lennon and McCartney in the Beatles. He is, however, credited with writing one of its greatest hits and introducing the band to Eastern music, through his interest in learning to play the sitar, thanks to his deep friendship with Ravi Shankar.   Later he enjoyed global success in his own right, as well as becoming a pioneer of pop philanthropy, producing the landmark concert for Bangladesh and had a second career as a successful independent film producer, financing his friends The Pythons Life of Brian.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beatles biographer Philip Norman returns do discuss his new book, George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle.

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

Philip Norman - George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle...with TRE's Giles Brown

The Cult a partagé deux nouvelles chansons sous leur nom Death Cult, "Flesh and Bone" et "C.O.T.A.". La chanteuse de The Last Dinner Party, Abigail Morris, a rejoint Hozier à plusieurs reprises pour interpréter "Work Song". Une nouvelle biographie détaille les nombreuses humeurs (et muses) de George Harrison. Le journaliste Philip Norman sort ‘'George Harrison : The Reluctant Beatle'', l'un des thèmes principaux du livre : ce lien amour-haine avec le fait d'être un Beatles, ressenti par George Harrison, lui qui était fils d'un chauffeur de bus et d'une vendeuse. Patti Smith est sortie d'un hôpital en Italie en "en bonne santé", selon l'autorité sanitaire locale de Bologne. Un titre inédit de Bob Marley, ‘'Selassie is the Chapel", a été publié plus de 40 ans après sa mort, il rend hommage à Haile Selassie, l'empereur éthiopien et figure sacrée du mouvement Rastafari. Les Pogues rééditent leur classique de Noël, "Fairytale of New York", en vinyle 7'', afin de collecter des fonds pour une association caritative soutenue par le défunt chanteur Shane MacGowan. Mots-Clés : Instagram, anniversaire, Tom Verlaine, Mortimer Planno, Jamaïque, Ian Astbury, Billy Duffy, post-punk, deathrock, rythmes, Artiste, irlandais, tournée, Forest National, Belgique, Botanique, Bruxelles, Dublin Simon Community, prévention, sans-abrisme, show, Simon, Dirty Old Town, Urgence, Maggiore, théâtre, Duse, annulation, spectacle, soirée. --- Classic 21 vous informe des dernières actualités du rock, en Belgique et partout ailleurs. Le Journal du Rock, chaque jour à 7h30 et 18h30. Merci pour votre écoute Pour écouter Classic 21 à tout moment : www.rtbf.be/classic21 Retrouvez tous les contenus de la RTBF sur notre plateforme Auvio.be Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

SYNOPSIS: In A Prolonged Jealousy, we tackle one of Tune In's main talking points: that Paul McCartney is a fundamentally jealous person whose obsessive, one-sided jealousy of and over John Lennon was brought to a boil by the presence of Stuart Sutcliffe in the band.  Is Tune In's unforgiving portrayal of Paul's jealousy fair? Or is it over the top? We'll discuss! PLAYLIST Frenzy SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS Woo-Hoo ROCK*A*TEENS Raunchy BILL JUSTICE What'd I Say RAY CHARLES Lucille LITTLE RICHARD Flamenco Sketches MILES DAVIS Sleepwalk SANTO AND JOHNNY Let it Be Me THE EVERLY BROTHERS Just Walking in the Rain THE PRISONAIRES Go! Go! Go! ROY ORBISON Duck Tail JOE CLAY I'll Be On My Way THE BEATLES SOURCES The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles by Bob Spitz (2005) “The Beatles' Shadow: Stuart Sutcliffe” by Pauline Sutcliffe (2002) “The Lost Beatle: The Stuart Sutcliffe Story” BBC (2005) Paul McCartney The Life by Philip Norman (2016) Beatles Book Monthly Magazine (May 1994) Beatles Anthology (1995)

George Harrison was often described as ‘the quiet Beatle'. But with such an extraordinary life of ups and downs, it hardly seems a fair moniker. A new biography delves deep beneath the public persona. Tom Dunne was joined by Philip Norman, legendary rock biographer and author of The Reluctant Beatle...

George Harrison was often described as ‘the quiet Beatle'. But with such an extraordinary life of ups and downs, it hardly seems a fair moniker. A new biography delves deep beneath the public persona. Tom Dunne was joined by Philip Norman, legendary rock biographer and author of The Reluctant Beatle...

Juliet and Terence with a Beatles special: Now And Then; new TV documentary about the murder of John Lennon; Red and Blue albums remixed and extended; Philip Norman's new book on George Harrison; and Danny Baker's tweet about solo Beatles. {philandering}

The guest is Philip Norman, author of "George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle."Norman is also the author of the New York Times bestseller "John Lennon: The Life" and the million-copy selling "Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation"Get the book: https://a.co/d/gZ6VJhM

Was George Harrison really the “Economy Beatle”? Philip Norman wrote Shout!, the first grown-up biography of The Beatles, shortly before John Lennon was murdered. People told him he was crazy, that The Fabs were yesterday's news, that everybody already knew everything there was to know about the band. He wasn't crazy. Fifty-three years after they broke up The Beatles are still an industry, or as Philip puts it, practically a religion. Even today there is passionate disagreement about George Harrison. There are those who point to the triumphant first solo album, All Things Must Pass, as proof that he was always Lennon and McCartney's equal and was unfairly sidelined in … Continue reading →

Just when you think you know everything there is to know about the Beatles, the most famous group in history—you're wrong. Today on the show we have the Beatles expert himself, Philip Norman, here to break down George Harrison, as complex and complicated a character as they come. Just about as antithetical to fame as it gets, George never saw his talent like the rest of the world did, and his contributions to music are vast: “Something.” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” “Here Comes the Sun.” “My Sweet Lord.” In addition to his professional life, his personal life is compelling too. (Four words—Pattie Boyd. Eric Clapton.) He left us far too soon nearly 22 years ago, and I am excited to bring you part of his story through this conversation.

SUMMARY Welcome to STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, an AKOM series about Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney after John Lennon's death. It's the new millennium! Paul and Yoko get real and the truth comes out! Will it draw them and their families closer together? Or deepen the divide? How do Paul and Yoko see their own relationship? As kindred spirits or mortal enemies? Hear our conclusions in Episode 4! SOURCES Paul McCartney “The Howard Stern Show” (2001) Tampa Bay Times, Yoko Ono: 10 pressing questions: Details sketched by Yoko. (February 4th, 2002) Yoko Ono, interview w/ Paul Trynka for MOJO. (May, 2003)  Yoko Ono, Q Magazine Awards. (October 10th, 2005) Old guard of British music recognised at Q awards, The Guardian (Oct 11, 2005) “SIR PAUL: YOKO NOT BRIGHTEST”  Mirror (Oct 17, 2005) “John Lennon, The Life” by Philip Norman (2008) Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner” by Joe Hagan (2016) Paul McCaretney, “The Howard Stern Show” 2009 “Yoko in Her Own Words” BBC 2  (2010) “Still Prancing,” The David Frost Interview 2013 “The Esquire Interview” by Alex Bimes 2015 “Yoko: John Lennon was Bisexual” Daily Beast (Oct 15, 2015) The Truth About Paul McCartney's Relationship With Yoko Ono “The List” by Stephanie Kaloi (May 24, 2021) NMPA Awards Show; Sean and Yoko Accept Centennial Award (2017) Sean Lennon, London Telegraph (Nov 2010) “Lennon at 80” Sean Interviews Paul, BBC (2020) “Sean Ono Lennon Reflects on 10 John Lennon Solo Classics” Rolling Stone by Angie Martaccio (Oct 9 2020) Sean Instagram June 18, 2022 “Paul McCartney Doesn't Really Want to Stop the Show” The New Yorker by David Remnick (Oct 11, 2021) The LYRICS by Paul McCartney ed. Paul Muldoon (2021) PLAYLIST Everyman Everywoman YOKO ONO w/ BLOW UP All You Need is Love THE BEATLES Riding Into Jaipur PAUL MCCARTNEY Fine Line PAUL MCCARTNEY Give Peace a Chance (2005) YOKO ONO Only Mama Knows PAUL MCCARTNEY 222 PAUL MCCARTNEY Lovers in a Dream THE FIREMAN Dance Tonight PAUL MCCARTNEY Ever Present Past PAUL MCCARTNEY Kiss Kiss Kiss YOKO ONO w/ PEACHES Open Your Box YOKO ONO w/ ORANGE FACTORY Queenie Eye PAUL MCCARTNEY Road PAUL MCCARTNEY Struggle PAUL MCCARTNEY I Never Told You Did I? YOKO ONO w/ KIM GORDON and THURSTON MOORE Wait for Me SEAN LENNON Here There and Everywhere SEAN LENNON Dominoes PAUL MCCARTNEY

SUMMARY Welcome to STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, an AKOM series about Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney after John Lennon's death. Episode 1 delves deep into the 1980s! Discussed in this episode: Paul's grief and Yoko's peculiar comments in the aftermath of John's death, Yoko's kindness towards Paul and his efforts to reciprocate, Paul's failed attempt to recover the Lennon/McCartney catalog, the McCartney/Ono origin story, the burgeoning Lennon Industry, a lawsuit, an award, a tribute concert and more. It all culminates in a pivotal transition in Paul's public tone about John moving into the 90s. SOURCES Paul McCartney The Life, Philip Norman (2016) Yoko Ono, interview w/ Philip Norman for Sunday Times: Life after John. (May 25, 1981) Yoko Ono, Rolling Stone: Yoko: An intimate conversation. (October 1, 1981) Joe Hagan, Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner & Rolling Stone Magazine. (2017) Hunter Davies, THE BEATLES (originally published 1968; afterword printed 1985) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Bonici for Music Express. (May, 1982) McCartney Today, The Sunday Express Magazine (October 21, 1984) Paul McCartney Interview: Playboy magazine (December, 1984) Paul McCartney Interview for The Magazine (January 20, 1985) Paul McCartney Interview 1984 (sound clip) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chris Salewicz for Musician: Tug of war – Paul McCartney wants to lay his demons to rest. (October, 1986) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Anthony DeCurtis for Rolling Stone: The Paul McCartney interview. (November 5, 1987) Imagine, film by Andrew Solt (1988) Andrew Solt (filmmaker), Chicago Sun-Times: Director focuses on man & music, not the myth. (October 9, 1988) Paul McCartney interview with DJ Mike Reed (1989) Paul McCartney w/ Kurt Loder “Famous Last Words” MTV (October 19, 1990) Interview w/ Yoko Ono, BBC Radio #6 (1990) John Lennon Tribute Concert (1990): https://youtu.be/f3MSBKg74F4 PLAYLIST Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him YOKO ONO (1980) Tug of War PAUL McCARTNEY (1982) Just Like Starting Over JOHN LENNON (1980) No More Lonely Nights PAUL McCARTNEY (1984) The Honorary Consul PAUL McCARTNEY (1984) Say Say Say PAUL McCARTNEY & MICHAEL JACKSON (1983) Simple as That PAUL McCARTNEY (1983) Move Over Busker PAUL McCARTNEY (1986) However Absurd PAUL McCARTNEY (1986) I'm Moving On YOKO ONO (1980) Imagine JOHN LENNON (1971) I Saw Her Standing There (live) THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ROCK FRATERNITY (1988) Imagine ELTON JOHN (1990) This One PAUL McCARTNEY (1989)

When immigrants arrived in New Zealand in the Nineteenth Century, they brought with them some enthusiastic musician / composers. Their success rate was a bit hit or miss, according to composer and musicologist Philip Norman, who's about to deliver a talk about our early composers.

The University of Canterbury Musical Theatre Society has performed around 80 productions over its 50-year history, and many of the members involved on and off stage are about to gather for a reunion to mark its anniversary. MUSOC was formed to not only entertain, but to encourage people to hone their skills - performing, writing and as crew. Past members include singer and lecturer Judy Bellingham, jazz maestro Tom Rainey,and more recently actor/comedian Brynley Stent and composer Luke Di Somma who was our guest on the Laugh Track recently. One of the first productions was Cinderolla & The Fairy Oddmother, penned in 1972 by a young Philip Norman, who of course has gone on to have a respected career as a composer, conductor and educator. Lynn Freeman talks to Philip and to one of the reunion organisers and former MUSOC director, Cam Stewart. MUSOC 's 50th reunion is on at Haere-Roa, University of Canterbury starting on the 7th of October.

SUMMARY In the final (2 part) episode of our series, we'll address the final event in the Breakup drama of April 1970: the battle of Phil Spector's production of The Long and Winding Road.  We'll also take an in-depth look at Paul's revelatory interview in The Evening Standard. Candid, comprehensive and intriguing, this interview is an important piece of history we have dubbed “McCartney Remembers.” We'll examine some of the recurring issues highlighted by Paul in the interview and address the ultimate question: Could John and Paul Have Turned Things Around? SOURCES Conversations with McCartney by Paul DuNoyer (2015) You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett (2009) Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (2016) “Why The Beatles Broke Up” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Sept 3, 2009) “Why The Beatles Broke Up; The Story Behind our Cover” by Mikael Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Aug 18, 2009) The Beatles Anthology (1995) “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) “The Ex Beatles Tells His Story” Paul McCartney Interview: Life Magazine (April 16th 1971) Paul McCartney Interview w/ Chrissie Hynde for USA Weekend (1998) St. Regis Interview, Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld (1971) Q & A from McCartney LP (1970) “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“ by Tony Bramwell (2014) The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (2005) Paul McCartney Interview By Ray Connolly for Evening Standard (April 21-22, 1970) https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/interview/interview-for-the-evening-standard “The Party's Over for the Beatles” by Derek Taylor for Sunday Magazine, (July 26, 1970) http://www.meetthebeatlesforreal.com/2017/03/the-partys-over-for-beatles-written-by.html The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles Anthology (1995) Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein (1964) PLAYLIST You Never Give Me Your Money THE BEATLES (1969) Long and Winding Road THE BEATLES (1970) When the Wind is Blowing WINGS (1971) Rupert PAUL MCCARTNEY (1977) Let it Be THE BEATLES (1970) I Know (I Know) JOHN LENNON (1973)

SUMMARY In the final (2 part) episode of our series, we'll address the final event in the Breakup drama of April 1970: the battle of Phil Spector's production of The Long and Winding Road.  We'll also take an in-depth look at Paul's revelatory interview in The Evening Standard. Candid, comprehensive and intriguing, this interview is an important piece of history we have dubbed “McCartney Remembers.” We'll examine some of the recurring issues highlighted by Paul in the interview and address the ultimate question: Could John and Paul Have Turned Things Around? SOURCES Conversations with McCartney by Paul DuNoyer (2015) You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett (2009) Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (2016) “Why The Beatles Broke Up” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Sept 3, 2009) “Why The Beatles Broke Up; The Story Behind our Cover” by Mikael Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Aug 18, 2009) The Beatles Anthology (1995) “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) “The Ex Beatles Tells His Story” Paul McCartney Interview: Life Magazine (April 16th 1971) Paul McCartney Interview w/ Chrissie Hynde for USA Weekend (1998) St. Regis Interview, Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld (1971) Q & A from McCartney LP (1970) “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“ by Tony Bramwell (2014) The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (2005) Paul McCartney Interview By Ray Connolly for Evening Standard (April 21-22, 1970) https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/interview/interview-for-the-evening-standard “The Party's Over for the Beatles” by Derek Taylor for Sunday Magazine, (July 26, 1970) http://www.meetthebeatlesforreal.com/2017/03/the-partys-over-for-beatles-written-by.html The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles Anthology (1995) Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein (1964) PLAYLIST You Never Give Me Your Money THE BEATLES (1969) Long and Winding Road THE BEATLES (1970) When the Wind is Blowing WINGS (1971) Rupert PAUL MCCARTNEY (1977) Let it Be THE BEATLES (1970) I Know (I Know) JOHN LENNON (1973)

SUMMARY When John's attempts to lure Paul back to the fold prove unsuccessful, he orchestrates one final outrageous maneuver. But John's actions are another miscalculation; Paul responds irately to John's tactics and further digs in his heels with a combative questionnaire inserted into press copies of his McCartney LP.  Early April shows an escalation in the acrimony between Lennon and McCartney, and by the end of Episode 4, the floodgates are open and the Breakup of the Beatles irreversibly begins. PLAYLIST You Never Give Me Your Money THE BEATLES (1969) Valentine Day PAUL McCARTNEY (1970) Momma Miss America (1970) Kreen Akrore PAUL McCARTNEY (1970) Teddy Boy PAUL MCCARTNEY (1970) Teddy Boy THE BEATLES (1969)   SOURCES “Why The Beatles Broke Up” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Sept 3, 2009) Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (1997) “Why The Beatles Broke Up; The Story Behind our Cover” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Aug 18, 2009) The Beatles Anthology (1995) “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) “The Ex Beatles Tells His Story” Paul McCartney Interview: Life Magazine (April 16th 1971) Q & A from McCartney LP (1970) “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“ by Tony Bramwell (2014) The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (2005) Paul McCartney Interview By Ray Connolly for Evening Standard (April 21-22, 1970) “The Love You Make” by Peter Brown and Steve Gaines (1983) Paul McCartney THE LIFE by Philip Norman (2016)

This masterly written biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore—his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon—whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before—and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John. Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions—tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure—and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days. This interview was recorded in 2009. Hosted by Dr. Bob Hieronimus.  Produced by Hieronimus & Co. for 21st Century Radio®.  Edited version provided to Nightlight Radio with permission

This masterly written biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore—his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon—whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before—and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John. Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions—tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure—and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days. This interview was recorded in 2009. Hosted by Dr. Bob Hieronimus.  Produced by Hieronimus & Co. for 21st Century Radio®.  Edited version provided to Nightlight Radio with permission

This masterly written biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore—his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon—whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before—and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John.Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions—tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure—and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days. This interview was recorded in 2009.Hosted by Dr. Bob Hieronimus.  Produced by Hieronimus & Co. for 21st Century Radio®.  Edited version provided to Nightlight Radio with permission

Det här är berättelsen om en av världens största stjärnor, om livet på toppen och att ändå inte känna sig lycklig. Det är Thanksgiving år 1974 i den stora konsertarenan Madison Square Garden i New York. Sen över en och en halv timme har en man oroligt cirkulerat backstage. Han har beiga platåskor, mörkblå utsvängda byxor och en svart kavaj. Och snart är det hans tur att ge sig upp på scenen. Han har precis kräkts av nervositet. Svetten pärlas i pannan och ringlar sig ner i de klassiska 70-talspolisongerna. Paniken kryper längs med ryggraden. Mannen heter John Lennon.För tio år sedan var det här hans vardag. Kväll efter kväll ställde han sig på scen framför tusentals skrikande fans med sitt band The Beatles, utan minsta tvekan. Men mycket har hänt sen dess. Just ikväll spelar den extravaganta popartisten Elton John inför 20 000 jublande fans. Ingen i publiken vet om det, men John har lovat honom att han ska spela några låtar. Samtidigt som Elton röjer loss uppe på scenen, peppas John av medarbetare backstage. Men hans rädsla för att publiken varken vill se eller höra honom, gör att han nästan kräks igen. När Elton John börjar sin presentation, sveper ett infall över John att bara dra.Men när han hör sitt namn kickar de gamla Beatles-reflexerna in. Strålkastarna lyser upp hans axellånga hår och reflekteras i hans klassiska runda små Lennon-brillor när han kliver ut på scenen. Men vad John inte vet är att det här är den sista gången som han står på scen.P3 Musikdokumentär om John Lennon handlar om en vilsen mans jakt efter kärlek. Det handlar om odödlig musik, skrikande fans och om hur han blev förespråkare för världsfred.  John Lennon blev fyrtio år gammal och kanske lyckades han hitta ro precis innan han blev skjuten till döds 1980.Medverkande: Viktor Norén, Sven Hallberg, Michelle Ryberg.En dokumentär av Karin Valtonen Knutsson. Producent: Hanna Frelin och Joanna Korbutiak. Exekutiv producent: Anna Johannessen. Tekniker: Fredrik Nilsson. Programmet är gjort våren 2022 och görs av Tredje Statsmakten Media.Som stor källa för det här avsnittet har vi använt oss av boken John Lennon: The Life av Philip Norman och John av Cynthia Lennon.Ljudklipp i dokumentären kommer från Sveriges Radio (1980), John Lennon & Elton John LIVE - Whatever Gets You Thru the Night (1974), Rolling Stone (december 1980 och 1970), RKO Radio med Dave Sholin (December 1980), videon The Beatles funny interviews (Youtubekonto: Apple Scruff), BBC TV Concert: It's The Beatles´ Live (1963), CBS News New York A taste of Beatlemania in the 1960s (2014, dokumentärfilmen The Beatles: The First US Visit (1991), The Ed Sullivan show, CBS (1964), videon Beatles member John Lennon and new wife Yoko Ono stage a bed-in in Amsterdam (Youtubekonto: Iconic), The Dick Cavett Show, ABC (21/9 1971 och 11/5 1972), Lennons hemmavideo Little Sean singing his favourite Beatles-song to John (Youtubekonto: TheBeatlesStine), ABC News (1980) och CNN (1980).

Born in Lubbock, Texas, on September 7, 1936, Charles Hardin  Holley (he later dropped the "e"), after both grandfathers    the fourth child of Lawrence Odell "L.O." Holley and Ella Pauline Drake.    older siblings were Larry, Travis, and Patricia Lou.    nicknamed Buddy from a young age, and it stuck with him throughout his life.    Oddly enough, the newspaper announcement claimed that Buddy was actually a little girl. “A daughter weighing 8.5 lbs”, the Lubbock evening journal wrote. He was also only 6.5 pounds. And a boy. Buddy's family was mainly of English and Welsh descent and had some native American ancestry. During the Great Depression, the Holleys frequently moved residences within Lubbock; 17 in all.    His father changed jobs several times.    The Holley family were a musical household.  Except for Buddy's father, all family members could play an instrument or sing. His older brothers frequently entered local talent shows, and one time, his brothers signed up and Buddy wanted to play violin with them. However, Buddy couldn't play the violin.  Not wanting to break little Buddy's heart, his older brothers greased up the strings so it wouldn't make a sound. Buddy started singing his heart out and the three ended up winning the contest!  When WWII started, the U.S. government called his brothers into service. His brother Larry brought back a guitar he bought from a shipmate, and that guitar set Buddy's off. At 11 years old, Buddy started taking piano lessons.  Nine months later, he quit piano lessons and switched to guitar after seeing a classmate playing and singing on the school bus.    His parents initially bought him a steel guitar, but Buddy insisted he wanted a guitar like his brothers. They bought him a guitar, a gold top Gibson acoustic, from a pawn shop, and his brother Travis taught him to play it.  By 15, Buddy was proficient on guitar, banjo, and mandolin. During his early childhood, Holley was influenced by Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Snow, Bob Wills, and the Carter Family.  He started writing songs and working with his childhood friend Bob Montgomery. The two jammed together, practicing songs by the Louvin Brothers and Johnnie & Jack. They frequently listened to Grand Ole Opry's radio programs on WSM, Louisiana Hayride on KWKH (which they once drove 600 miles to okay just to be turned away), and Big D Jamboree.  If you're not familiar with the Grand Ol Opry, it's a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on Clearchannel's WSM, which first hit the airwaves on October 5, 1925. Its the longest-running radio broadcast in U.S. history.    At the same time he was practicing with Bob, Holley played with other musicians he met in high school, including Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison.    In 1952 Holley and Jack Neal participated as a duo billed as "Buddy and Jack" in a talent contest on a local television show.    After Neal left, he was replaced by his buddy Bob, and they were billed as "Buddy and Bob." By the mid-'50s, Buddy & Bob played their style of music called "western and bop ."    Holley was influenced by late-night radio stations that played the blues and rhythm and blues. Holley would sit in his car with Sonny Curtis and tune to distant “black” radio stations that could only be received at night when bigger stations turned off local transmissions.    Holley then changed his music by blending his earlier country and western influence with Rhythm and Blues. After seeing the legendary Elvis perform, Holly decided to pursue his career in music full-time once he graduated high school. By mid-1955, Buddy & Bob, who already worked with an upright bass player (played by Larry Welborn), added drummer Jerry Allison to their lineup. After seeing Elvis Presley performing live in Lubbock, who Pappy Dave Stone of KDAV booked, Buddy really wanted to get after it. In February, he opened for Elvis at the Fair Park Coliseum, in April at the Cotton Club, then again in June at the Coliseum. Elvis significantly influenced the group to turn more towards Rock n Roll. Buddy and the king became friends, with Buddy even driving Elvis around when he was in town. Eventually, Bob Montgomery, who leaned toward a traditional country sound, left the group, though they continued writing and composing songs together. Holly kept pushing his music toward a straight-ahead rock & roll sound, working with Allison, Welborn, and other local musicians, including his pal and guitarist Sonny Curtis and bassist Don Guess. In October, Holly was booked as the opener for Bill Haley & His Comets (Rock Around the Clock), to be seen by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall. Obviously impressed, Eddie Crandall talked Grand Ole Opry manager Jim Denny into finding a recording contract for Holley. Pappy Stone sent Denny a demo tape, which Denny forwarded to Paul Cohen. Cohen signed the band to Decca Records in February 1956.    In the contract, Decca accidentally misspelled Holley's surname as "Holly," From that point forward, he was known as "Buddy Holly." On January 26, 1956, Holly went to his first professional recording session with producer Owen Bradley. He was a part of two more sessions in Nashville.    the producer selected the session musicians and arrangements, Holly became frustrated by his lack of creative control. In April 1956, Decca released "Blue Days, Black Nights" as a single and "Love Me" on the B-side.    "B-sides" were secondary songs that were sent out with single records. They were usually just added to have something on the flip side. Later they became songs that bands would either not release or wait to release.  Jim Denny added Holly on tour as the opening act for Faron Young. While on this tour, they were promoted as "Buddy Holly and the Two Tones." Decca then called them "Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes." The label released Holly's second single, "Modern Don Juan," along with "You Are My One Desire."    Unfortunately, neither one of these singles tickled anyone's fancy. On January 22, 1957, Decca informed Holly that they wouldn't re-sign him and insisted he could not record the same songs for anyone else for five years. The same shit happened to Universal and me. A couple of classics, like "Midnight Shift" and "Rock Around with Ollie Vee," did come out of those Decca sessions, but nothing issued at the time went anywhere. It looked as though Holly had missed his shot at stardom.  Holly was disappointed with his time with Decca. inspired by Buddy Knox's "Party Doll" and Jimmy Bowen's "I'm Stickin' with You" he decided to visit Norman Petty, who produced and promoted both of those successful records.    Buddy, Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan pulled together and headed to Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico. The group recorded a demo of the now-classic, "That'll Be the Day," which they had previously recorded in Nashville. Now rockin' that lead guitar, Holly finally achieved the sound he wanted. They got the song nailed down and recorded. Along with Petty's help, the group got it picked up by Murray Deutsch, a publishing associate of Petty's, and Murray got it to Bob Thiele, an executive at Coral Records. Thiele loved it. Ironically, Coral Records was a subsidiary of Decca, the company Holly had signed with before. On a side note, a subsidiary is a smaller label under the major label's umbrella. For instance, Universal signed my band to Republic, a subsidiary of Universal Music that dealt primarily with rock genres, like Godsmack. Norman Petty saw the potential in Buddy and became his manager. He sent the record to Brunswick Records in New York City. Thiele saw the record as a potential hit, but there were some significant hurdles to overcome before it could be released.  According to author Philip Norman, in his book Rave On, Thiele would only get the most reluctant support from his record company. Decca had lucked out in 1954 when they'd signed Bill Haley & His Comets and saw their "Rock Around the Clock" top the charts. Still, very few of those in charge at Decca had a natural feel or appreciation for Rock & Roll, let alone any idea of where it might be heading or whether the label could (or should) follow it down that road. Also, remember that although Buddy had been dropped by Decca the year before, the contract that Holly signed explicitly forbade him from re-recording anything he had recorded for them, released or not, for five years. However, Coral was a subsidiary of Decca, and Decca's Nashville office could hold up the release and possibly even haul Holly into court.  "That'll Be the Day" was issued in May of 1957 mainly as an indulgence to Thiele, to "humor" him. The record was put out on the Brunswick label, more of jazz and R&B label, and credited to the Crickets. The group chose this name to prevent the suits at Decca -- and more importantly, Decca's Nashville office -- from finding out that this new release was from the guy they had just dropped. The name “The Crickets” was inspired by a band that Buddy and his group followed, called “the Spiders” and they initially thought about calling themselves “The Beetles”, with two E's, but Buddy said he was afraid people would want to “squash them.” So, they picked “The Crickets.” Petty also became the group's manager and producer, signing the Crickets, identified as Allison, Sullivan, and Mauldin, to a contract. Unfortunately, Holly wasn't listed as a member in the original document to keep his involvement with "That'll Be the Day" a secret. This ruse would later become the source of severe legal and financial problems for Buddy.    The song shot to #1 on the national charts that summer. But, of course, Decca knew Holly was in the band by then. So, with Thiele's persuasion and realizing they had a hit on their hands, the company agreed to release Holly from the five-year restriction on his old contract. This release left him free to sign any recording contract he wanted. While sorting out the ins and outs of Holly's legal situation, Thiele knew that Buddy was far more than a one-hit-wonder and that he could potentially write more and different types of hits. So, Holly found himself with two recording contracts, one with Brunswick as a member of the Crickets and the other with Coral Records as Buddy Holly, all thanks to Thiele's ingenious strategy to get the most out of Buddy and his abilities. By releasing two separate bodies of work, the Crickets could keep rockin' while allowing its apparent leader and "star" to break out on his own.    Petty, whose name seems fitting as we go through this, acted as their manager and producer. He handed out writing credits at random, gifting Niki Sullivan and Joe B. Mauldin (and himself) the co-authorship of the song, "I'm Gonna Love You Too," while leaving Holly's name off of "Peggy Sue." at first. The song title, “Peggy Sue” was named after Buddy's biggest fan. Petty usually added his own name to the credit line, something the managers and producers who wanted a more significant piece of the pie did back in the '50s. To be somewhat fair, Petty made some suggestions, which were vital in shaping certain Holly songs. However, he didn't contribute as much as all of his credits allow us to believe. Some confusion over songwriting was exacerbated by problems stemming from Holly's contracts in 1956. Petty had his own publishing company, Nor Va Jak Music, and Buddy signed a contract to publish his new songs. However, Holly had signed an exclusive agreement with another company the year before. To reduce his profile as a songwriter until a settlement could be made with Petty and convince the other publisher that they weren't losing too much in any compensation, buddy copyrighted many of his new songs under the pseudonym "Charles Hardin." So many names!   The dual recording contracts allowed Holly to record a crazy amount of songs during his short-lived 18 months of fame. Meanwhile, his band -- billed as Buddy Holly & the Crickets -- became one of the top attractions of the time. Holly was the frontman, singing lead and playing lead guitar, which was unusual for the era, and writing or co-writing many of their songs. But the Crickets were also a great band, creating a big and exciting sound (which is lost to history, aside from some live recordings from their 1958 British tour). Allison was a drummer ahead of his time and contributed to the songwriting more often than his colleagues, and Joe B. Mauldin and Niki Sullivan provided a solid rhythm section.   The group relied on originals for their singles, making them unique and years ahead of their time. In 1957-1958, songwriting wasn't considered a skill essential to a career in rock & Roll; the music business was still limping along the lines it had followed since the '20s. Songwriting was a specialized profession set on the publishing side of the industry and not connected to performing and recording. A performer might write a song or, even more rarely, like Duke Ellington (It Don't Mean A Thing), count composition among his key talents; however, this was generally left to the experts. Any rock & roller wanting to write songs would also have to get past the image of Elvis. He was set to become a millionaire at the young age of 22. He never wrote his songs, and the few songwriting credits he had resulted from business arrangements rather than writing anything.   Buddy Holly & the Crickets changed that seriously by hitting number one with a song they'd written and then reaching the Top Ten with originals like "Oh, Boy" and "Peggy Sue," They were regularly charging up the charts based on their songwriting. This ability wasn't appreciated by the public at the time and wouldn't be noticed widely until the '70s. Still, thousands of aspiring musicians, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney, from some unknown band called "The Beatles," took note of their success, and some of them decided to try and tried to be like Buddy. Also unknown at the time, Holly and his crew changed the primary industry method of recording, which was to bring the artist into the label's studio, working on their timetable. If an artist were highly successful, they got a blank check in the studio, and any union rules were thrown out, but that was rare and only happened to the highest bar of musicians. Buddy Holly & the Crickets, however, did their thing, starting with "That'll Be the Day," in Clovis, New Mexico, at Petty's studio. They took their time and experimented until they got the sound they were looking for. No union told them when to stop or start their work, and they delivered terrific records; not to mention, they were albums that sounded different than anything out there. The results changed the history of rock music. The group worked out a new sound that gave shape to the next wave of rock & Roll. Most definitely influenced was British rock & Roll and the British Invasion beat, with the lead and rhythm guitars working together to create a fuller, more complex sound. On songs such as "Not Fade Away," "Everyday," "Listen to Me," "Oh Boy!," "Peggy Sue," "Maybe Baby," "Rave On," "Heartbeat," and "It's So Easy," Holly took rock & roll's range and sophistication and pushed it without abandoning its excitement and, most importantly, it's fun. Holly and the band weren't afraid to push the envelope and try new things, even on their singles. "Peggy Sue" used changes in volume and timbre on the guitar that was usually only used in instrumental albums. "Words of Love" was one of the earliest examples of double-tracked vocals in rock & Roll, and the Beatles would jump on that train the following decade. Buddy Holly & the Crickets were extremely popular in America. Still, in England, they were even more significant; their impact was compared to Elvis and, in some ways, was even bigger. This success was because they toured England; Elvis didn't. They spent a month there in 1958, playing a list of shows that were still talked about 30 years later. It also had to do with their sound and Holly's persona on stage. The group's heavy use of rhythm guitar fit right in with the sound of skiffle music, a mix of blues, folk, country, and jazz elements that most of the younger British were introduced to playing music and their first taste of rock & Roll. Also, Holly looked a lot less likely a rock & roll star than Elvis. He was tall, skinny, and wore glasses; he looked like an ordinary dude who was good at music. Part of Buddy's appeal as a rock star was how he didn't look like one. He inspired tens of thousands of British teenagers who couldn't compare themselves to Elvis or Gene Vincent. (Be Bop A Lula) In the '50s, British guitarist Hank Marvin of the Shadows owed his look and that he wore his glasses proudly on-stage to Holly, and it was brought into the '70s by Elvis Costello.  Buddy may have played several different kinds of guitars but, he was specifically responsible for popularizing the Fender Stratocaster, especially in England. For many wannabe rock & rollers in the UK, Holly's 1958 tour was the first chance they'd had to see or hear this iconic guitar in action, and it quickly became the guitar of choice for anyone wanting to be a guitarist in England. In fact, Marvin is said to have had the first Stratocaster ever brought into England.   The Crickets became a trio with Sullivan dipping out in late 1957, right after the group's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, but a lot more would transpire over the next year or so. The group consolidated its success with the release of two L.P.s, The Chirping Crickets, and Buddy Holly. They had two successful international tours and performed more in the United States. Holly had also started to have different ideas and aspirations than Allison and Mauldin. They never thought of leaving Texas as their home, and they continued to base their lives there, while Buddy wanted to be in New York, not just to do business but to live. His marriage to Maria Elena Santiago, a receptionist in Murray Deutsch's office, made the decision to move to New York that much easier. By this time, Holly's music had become more sophisticated and complex, and he passed off the lead guitar duties in the studio to session player Tommy Alsup. He had done several recordings in New York using session musicians such as King Curtis. It was around this time that the band started to see a slight decline in sales. Singles such as "Heartbeat" didn't sell nearly as well as the 45s of 1957 that had rolled out of stores. It's said that Buddy might even have advanced further than most of the band's audience was willing to accept in late 1958. Critics believe that the song "Well...All Right" was years ahead of its time.   Buddy split with the group -- and Petty -- in 1958. This departure left him free to chase some of those newer sounds, which also left him low on funds. In the course of the split, it became clear to Holly and everyone else that Petty had been fudging the numbers and probably taken a lot of the group's income for himself. Unfortunately, there was almost no way of proving his theft because he never seemed to finish his "accounting" of the money owed to anyone. His books were ultimately found to be so screwed up that when he came up with various low five-figure settlements to the folks he robbed, they took it.   Holly vacationed with his wife in Lubbock, TX, and hung out in Waylin Jennings's radio station in December 1958. With no money coming in from Petty, Holly decided to earn some quick cash by signing to play the Midwest's Winter Dance Party package tour. For the start of the Winter Dance Party tour, he assembled a band consisting of Waylon Jennings (on bass), Tommy Allsup (on guitar), and Carl Bunch (on drums). Holly and Jennings left for New York City, arriving on January 15, 1959. Jennings stayed at Holly's apartment by Washington Square Park on the days before a meeting scheduled at the headquarters of the General Artists Corporation, the folks who organized the tour. They then traveled by train to Chicago to meet up with the rest of the band. The Winter Dance Party tour began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 23, 1959. The amount of travel involved created problems because whoever booked the tour dates didn't consider the distance between venues. On top of the scheduling conflicts, the unheated tour buses broke down twice in the freezing weather. In addition, Holly's drummer Carl Bunch was hospitalized for frostbite to his toes while aboard the bus, so Buddy looked for different transportation.  Buddy actually sat in on drums for the local bands while Richie Valenz played drums for Buddy.    On February 2, before their appearance in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza airplane for Jennings, Allsup, and himself, from Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa, for $108.  Holly wanted to leave after the performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake and fly to their next venue, in Moorhead, Minnesota, through Fargo, North Dakota. This plan would allow them time to rest, wash their clothes and avoid being on that crappy bus. The Clear Lake Show ended just before midnight, and Allsup agreed to flip a coin for the seat with Richie Valens. Valens called heads, and when he won, he reportedly said, "That's the first time I've ever won anything in my life" On a side note, Allsup later opened a restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas called Heads Up, in memory of this statement. Waylon Jennings voluntarily gave up his seat to J. P. Richardson (the Big Bopper), who had the flu and complained that the tour bus was too cold and uncomfortable for a man of his stature. When Buddy heard Waylon wouldn't be flying with him, he jokingly said, “I hope your old bus freezes up!” Then Waylon responded, “well, I hope your old plane crashes!” The last thing he would ever say to his friend. Roger Peterson, the pilot and only 21, took off in pretty nasty weather, although he wasn't certified to fly by instruments alone, failing an instrument test the year before. He was a big fan of Buddy's and didn't want to disappoint, so he called a more seasoned pilot to fly the trio to their destination. “I'm more of a Lawrence Welk fan.”  Sadly, shortly after 12:55 am on February 3, 1959, Holly, Valens, Richardson, and Peterson were killed instantly when the plane crashed into a frozen cornfield five miles northwest of Mason City, Iowa, airport shortly after takeoff. Buddy was in the front, next to the pilot. He loved flying and had been taking flying lessons. The three musicians were ejected from the plane upon impact, suffering severe head and chest injuries. Holly was 22 years old.   Holly's funeral was held on February 7, 1959, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX. It was officiated by Ben D. Johnson, who married the Hollys' just months earlier. Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Niki Sullivan, Bob Montgomery, and Sonny Curtis were pallbearers. Some sources say that Phil Everly, the one half of The Everly Brothers, was also the pallbearer, but he said at one time that he attended the funeral but was not a pallbearer. In addition, Waylon Jennings was unable to participate because of his commitment to the still-touring Winter Dance Party. Holly's body was buried in the City of Lubbock Cemetery, in the city's eastern part. His headstone has the correct spelling of his last name (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar. His wife, María Elena, had to see the first reports of her husband's death on T.V. She claimed she suffered a miscarriage the following day. Holly's mother, who heard the news on the radio in Lubbock, Texas, screamed and collapsed. Because of Elena's miscarriage, the authorities implemented a policy against announcing victims' names until the families were informed. As a result, Mary did not attend the funeral and has never visited the gravesite. She later told the Avalanche-Journal, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."    The accident wasn't considered a significant piece of news at the time, although sad. Most news outlets were run by out-of-touch older men and didn't think rock & Roll was anything more than to be exploited to sell newspapers or grab viewing audiences. However, Holly was clean-cut and scandal-free, and with the news of his recent marriage, the story contained more misery than other music stars of the period. For the teens of the time, it was their first glimpse of a public tragedy like this, and the news was heartbreaking. Radio station D.J.s were also traumatized. The accident and sudden way it happened, along with Holly and Valens being just 22 and 17, made it even worse. Hank Williams Sr had died at 29, but he was a drug user and heavy drinker, causing some to believe his young death was inevitable. The blues guitarist Johnny Ace had passed in 1954 while backstage at a show. However, that tragedy came at his hand in a game of Russian roulette. Holly's death was different, almost more personal to the public.     Buddy left behind dozens of unfinished recordings — solo transcriptions of his new compositions, informal jam sessions with bandmates, and tapes with songs intended for other musicians. Buddy recorded his last six original songs in his apartment in late 1958 and were his most recent recordings. In June 1959, Coral Records overdubbed two of the songs with backing vocals by the Ray Charles Singers and hired guns to emulate the Crickets sound. Since his death, the finished tracks became the first singles, "Peggy Sue Got Married"/"Crying, Waiting, Hoping." The new release was a success, and the fans and industry wanted more. As a result, all six songs were included in The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2 in 1960 using the other Holly demos and the same studio personnel. The demand for Holly records was so great, and Holly had recorded so many tracks that his record label could release new Holly albums and singles for the next ten years. Norman Petty, the alleged swindler, produced most of these new songs, using unreleased studio masters, alternative takes, audition tapes, and even amateur recordings (a few from 1954 with recorded with low-quality vocals). The final Buddy Holly album, "Giant," was released in 1969 with the single, "Love Is Strange," taking the lead.   These posthumous records did well in the U.S. but actually charted in England. New recordings of his music, like the Rolling Stones' rendition of "Not Fade Away" and the Beatles' rendition of "Words of Love," kept Buddy's name and music in the hearts and ears of a new generation of listeners. In the States, the struggle was a little more challenging. The rock & roll wave was constantly morphing, with new sounds, bands, and listeners continuously emerging, and the general public gradually forgot about Buddy and his short-lived legacy. Holly was a largely forgotten figure in his own country by the end of the '60s, except among older fans (then in their twenties) and hardcore oldies listeners. Things began to shift toward the end of the '60s with the start of the oldies boom. Holly's music was, of course, a part of this movement. But, as people listened, they also learned about the man behind the music. Even the highly respected rock zine Rolling Stone went out of its way to remind people who Buddy was. His posing images from 1957 and 1958, wearing his glasses, a jacket, and smiling, looked like a figure from another age. The way he died also set him apart from some of the deaths of rockers like Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, musicians who, at the time, overindulged in the rock in roll lifestyle. Holly was different. He was eternally innocent in all aspects of his life. Don McLean, a relatively unknown singer/songwriter, who proudly considered himself a Buddy Holly fan, wrote and released a song called "American Pie," in 1971, catapulting him into the musical ethos. Although listeners assumed McLean wrote the song about President Kennedy, he let it be known publicly that he meant February 3, 1959, the day Holly died. Maclean was a holly fan and his death devastated him when he was only 11. The song's popularity led to Holly suddenly getting more press exposure than he'd ever had the chance to enjoy in his lifetime.     The tragic plane accident launched a few careers in the years after. Bobby Vee became a star when his band took over Holly's spot on the Winter Dance Party tour.  Holly's final single, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," hit the British charts in the wake of his death and rose to number one. Two years after the event, producer Joe Meek and singer Mike Berry got together to make "Tribute to Buddy Holly," a memorial single. But, unfortunately, rumor has it that Meek never entirely got over Holly's death, and he killed himself on the anniversary of the plane accident.   The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Holly among its first class in 1986. Upon his induction, the Hall of Fame basked about the large quantity of material he produced during his short musical career. Saying, "He made a major and lasting impact on popular music ." Calling him an "innovator" for writing his own material, experimenting with double-tracking, and using orchestration. He was also revered for having "pioneered and popularized" the use of two guitars, bass, and drums by rock bands. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986, saying his contributions "changed the face of Rock' n' Roll." Along with Petty, Holly developed techniques like overdubbing and reverb and other innovative instrumentation. As a result, according to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Holly became "one of the most influential pioneers of rock and roll" who had a "lasting influence" on genre performers of the 1960s.   Paul McCartney bought the rights to Buddy Holly's entire song catalog on July 1, 1976.   Lubbock TX's Walk of Fame has a statue honoring Buddy of him rocking his Fender, which Grant Speed sculpted in 1980. There are other memorials to Buddy Holly, including a street named in his honor and the Buddy Holly Center, which contains a museum of memorabilia and fine arts gallery. The Center is located on Crickets Avenue, one street east of Buddy Holly Avenue.  There was a musical about Buddy. Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, a “pioneering jukebox musical which worked his familiar hits into a narrative,” debuted in the West End in 1989. It ran until 2008, where it also appeared on Broadway, as well as in Australia and Germany, not to mention touring companies in the U.K. and U.S.   In 1994 "Buddy Holly" became a massive hit from the band Weezer, paying homage to the fallen rocker and is still played on the radio and whenever MTV decides to play videos on one of their side stations. Again, in ‘94, Holly's style also showed up in Quentin Tarantino's abstract and groundbreaking film Pulp Fiction, which featured Steve Buscemi playing a waiter impersonating Buddy.   In 1997, Buddy received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He was inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, as well. In 2010, Grant Speed's statue of Buddy and his guitar was taken down for repairs, and construction of a new Walk of Fame began. On May 9, 2011, the City of Lubbock held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Buddy and Maria Elena Holly Plaza, the new home of the statue and the Walk of Fame. The same year, on why would be Buddy's 75th birthday, a star with his name was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.   There were two tribute albums released in 2011: Verve Forecast's Listen to Me: Buddy Holly,  featuring Stevie Nicks, Brian Wilson, and Ringo Starr plus 13 other artists, and Fantasy/Concord's Rave on Buddy Holly, which had tracks from Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, the Black Keys, and Nick Lowe, among others.  Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens released his own Holly tribute album in 2009. Universal released True Love Ways, an album where original Holly recordings were overdubbed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018, just in time for Christmas. That album debuted at number 10 on the U.K. charts. Groundbreaking was held on April 20, 2017, to construct a new performing arts center in Lubbock, TX, dubbed the Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences, a $153 million project in downtown Lubbock completed in 2020 located at 1300 Mac Davis Lane.   Recently, on May 5, 2019, an article on gearnews.com had a pretty cool story, if it's true.   The famous Fender Stratocaster played and owned by Buddy Holly that disappeared after his death in 1959 has been found, according to a new video documentary called "The '54".   Gill Matthews is an Australian drummer, producer, and collector of old Fender guitars. According to the documentary, he may have stumbled upon Buddy Holly's legendary guitar. The film is The '54 and tells the history of one particular 1954 Fender Stratocaster Gil purchased two decades after the plane crash that claimed Buddy's life. Experts cited in the film say there is a good chance that the guitar in Matthews' possession is indeed Buddy Holly's actual original '54 Fender Stratocaster. If this is true, it is possibly one of the most significant finds in guitar history. You can watch the video at gearnews.com and see all the evidence presented during the film.     Sources: A biography on allmusic.com written by Bruce Eder was the main source of information here with other info coming from the following Rave on: The Biography of Buddy Holly written by Phillip Norman   Buddy Holly : Rest In Peace by Don Mclean "Why Buddy Holly will never fade away" an article on The Telegraph website written by Phillip Norman   Various other articles were used and tidbits taken from wikipedia.   And Adam Moody   Consider becoming a producer of the show. www.accidentaldads.com www.iconsandoutlaws.com       

Episode one hundred and forty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Hey Joe" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and is the longest episode to date, at over two hours. Patreon backers also have a twenty-two-minute bonus episode available, on "Making Time" by The Creation. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've put together a Mixcloud mix containing all the music excerpted in this episode. For information on the Byrds, I relied mostly on Timeless Flight Revisited by Johnny Rogan, with some information from Chris Hillman's autobiography. Information on Arthur Lee and Love came from Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love by John Einarson, and Arthur Lee: Alone Again Or by Barney Hoskyns. Information on Gary Usher's work with the Surfaris and the Sons of Adam came from The California Sound by Stephen McParland, which can be found at https://payhip.com/CMusicBooks Information on Jimi Hendrix came from Room Full of Mirrors by Charles R. Cross, Crosstown Traffic by Charles Shaar Murray, and Wild Thing by Philip Norman. Information on the history of "Hey Joe" itself came from all these sources plus Hey Joe: The Unauthorised Biography of a Rock Classic by Marc Shapiro, though note that most of that book is about post-1967 cover versions. Most of the pre-Experience session work by Jimi Hendrix I excerpt in this episode is on this box set of alternate takes and live recordings. And "Hey Joe" can be found on Are You Experienced? Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Just a quick note before we start – this episode deals with a song whose basic subject is a man murdering a woman, and that song also contains references to guns, and in some versions to cocaine use. Some versions excerpted also contain misogynistic slurs. If those things are likely to upset you, please skip this episode, as the whole episode focusses on that song. I would hope it goes without saying that I don't approve of misogyny, intimate partner violence, or murder, and my discussing a song does not mean I condone acts depicted in its lyrics, and the episode itself deals with the writing and recording of the song rather than its subject matter, but it would be impossible to talk about the record without excerpting the song. The normalisation of violence against women in rock music lyrics is a subject I will come back to, but did not have room for in what is already a very long episode. Anyway, on with the show. Let's talk about the folk process, shall we? We've talked before, like in the episodes on "Stagger Lee" and "Ida Red", about how there are some songs that aren't really individual songs in themselves, but are instead collections of related songs that might happen to share a name, or a title, or a story, or a melody, but which might be different in other ways. There are probably more songs that are like this than songs that aren't, and it doesn't just apply to folk songs, although that's where we see it most notably. You only have to look at the way a song like "Hound Dog" changed from the Willie Mae Thornton version to the version by Elvis, which only shared a handful of words with the original. Songs change, and recombine, and everyone who sings them brings something different to them, until they change in ways that nobody could have predicted, like a game of telephone. But there usually remains a core, an archetypal story or idea which remains constant no matter how much the song changes. Like Stagger Lee shooting Billy in a bar over a hat, or Frankie killing her man -- sometimes the man is Al, sometimes he's Johnny, but he always done her wrong. And one of those stories is about a man who shoots his cheating woman with a forty-four, and tries to escape -- sometimes to a town called Jericho, and sometimes to Juarez, Mexico. The first version of this song we have a recording of is by Clarence Ashley, in 1929, a recording of an older folk song that was called, in his version, "Little Sadie": [Excerpt: Clarence Ashley, "Little Sadie"] At some point, somebody seems to have noticed that that song has a slight melodic similarity to another family of songs, the family known as "Cocaine Blues" or "Take a Whiff on Me", which was popular around the same time: [Excerpt: The Memphis Jug Band, "Cocaine Habit Blues"] And so the two songs became combined, and the protagonist of "Little Sadie" now had a reason to kill his woman -- a reason other than her cheating, that is. He had taken a shot of cocaine before shooting her. The first recording of this version, under the name "Cocaine Blues" seems to have been a Western Swing version by W. A. Nichol's Western Aces: [Excerpt: W.A. Nichol's Western Aces, "Cocaine Blues"] Woody Guthrie recorded a version around the same time -- I've seen different dates and so don't know for sure if it was before or after Nichol's version -- and his version had himself credited as songwriter, and included this last verse which doesn't seem to appear on any earlier recordings of the song: [Excerpt: Woody Guthrie, "Cocaine Blues"] That doesn't appear on many later recordings either, but it did clearly influence yet another song -- Mose Allison's classic jazz number "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Mose Allison, "Parchman Farm"] The most famous recordings of the song, though, were by Johnny Cash, who recorded it as both "Cocaine Blues" and as "Transfusion Blues". In Cash's version of the song, the murderer gets sentenced to "ninety-nine years in the Folsom pen", so it made sense that Cash would perform that on his most famous album, the live album of his January 1968 concerts at Folsom Prison, which revitalised his career after several years of limited success: [Excerpt: Johnny Cash, "Cocaine Blues (live at Folsom Prison)"] While that was Cash's first live recording at a prison, though, it wasn't the first show he played at a prison -- ever since the success of his single "Folsom Prison Blues" he'd been something of a hero to prisoners, and he had been doing shows in prisons for eleven years by the time of that recording. And on one of those shows he had as his support act a man named Billy Roberts, who performed his own song which followed the same broad outlines as "Cocaine Blues" -- a man with a forty-four who goes out to shoot his woman and then escapes to Mexico. Roberts was an obscure folk singer, who never had much success, but who was good with people. He'd been part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1950s, and at a gig at Gerde's Folk City he'd met a woman named Niela Miller, an aspiring songwriter, and had struck up a relationship with her. Miller only ever wrote one song that got recorded by anyone else, a song called "Mean World Blues" that was recorded by Dave Van Ronk: [Excerpt: Dave Van Ronk, "Mean World Blues"] Now, that's an original song, but it does bear a certain melodic resemblance to another old folk song, one known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" or "In the Pines", or sometimes "Black Girl": [Excerpt: Lead Belly, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"] Miller was clearly familiar with the tradition from which "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" comes -- it's a type of folk song where someone asks a question and then someone else answers it, and this repeats, building up a story. This is a very old folk song format, and you hear it for example in "Lord Randall", the song on which Bob Dylan based "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall": [Excerpt: Ewan MacColl, "Lord Randall"] I say she was clearly familiar with it, because the other song she wrote that anyone's heard was based very much around that idea. "Baby Please Don't Go To Town" is a question-and-answer song in precisely that form, but with an unusual chord progression for a folk song. You may remember back in the episode on "Eight Miles High" I talked about the circle of fifths -- a chord progression which either increases or decreases by a fifth for every chord, so it might go C-G-D-A-E [demonstrates] That's a common progression in pop and jazz, but not really so much in folk, but it's the one that Miller had used for "Baby, Please Don't Go to Town", and she'd taught Roberts that song, which she only recorded much later: [Excerpt: Niela Miller, "Baby, Please Don't Go To Town"] After Roberts and Miller broke up, Miller kept playing that melody, but he changed the lyrics. The lyrics he added had several influences. There was that question-and-answer folk-song format, there's the story of "Cocaine Blues" with its protagonist getting a forty-four to shoot his woman down before heading to Mexico, and there's also a country hit from 1953. "Hey, Joe!" was originally recorded by Carl Smith, one of the most popular country singers of the early fifties: [Excerpt: Carl Smith, "Hey Joe!"] That was written by Boudleaux Bryant, a few years before the songs he co-wrote for the Everly Brothers, and became a country number one, staying at the top for eight weeks. It didn't make the pop chart, but a pop cover version of it by Frankie Laine made the top ten in the US: [Excerpt: Frankie Laine, "Hey Joe"] Laine's record did even better in the UK, where it made number one, at a point where Laine was the biggest star in music in Britain -- at the time the UK charts only had a top twelve, and at one point four of the singles in the top twelve were by Laine, including that one. There was also an answer record by Kitty Wells which made the country top ten later that year: [Excerpt: Kitty Wells, "Hey Joe"] Oddly, despite it being a very big hit, that "Hey Joe" had almost no further cover versions for twenty years, though it did become part of the Searchers' setlist, and was included on their Live at the Star Club album in 1963, in an arrangement that owed a lot to "What'd I Say": [Excerpt: The Searchers, "Hey Joe"] But that song was clearly on Roberts' mind when, as so many American folk musicians did, he travelled to the UK in the late fifties and became briefly involved in the burgeoning UK folk movement. In particular, he spent some time with a twelve-string guitar player from Edinburgh called Len Partridge, who was also a mentor to Bert Jansch, and who was apparently an extraordinary musician, though I know of no recordings of his work. Partridge helped Roberts finish up the song, though Partridge is about the only person in this story who *didn't* claim a writing credit for it at one time or another, saying that he just helped Roberts out and that Roberts deserved all the credit. The first known recording of the completed song is from 1962, a few years after Roberts had returned to the US, though it didn't surface until decades later: [Excerpt: Billy Roberts, "Hey Joe"] Roberts was performing this song regularly on the folk circuit, and around the time of that recording he also finally got round to registering the copyright, several years after it was written. When Miller heard the song, she was furious, and she later said "Imagine my surprise when I heard Hey Joe by Billy Roberts. There was my tune, my chord progression, my question/answer format. He dropped the bridge that was in my song and changed it enough so that the copyright did not protect me from his plagiarism... I decided not to go through with all the complications of dealing with him. He never contacted me about it or gave me any credit. He knows he committed a morally reprehensible act. He never was man enough to make amends and apologize to me, or to give credit for the inspiration. Dealing with all that was also why I made the decision not to become a professional songwriter. It left a bad taste in my mouth.” Pete Seeger, a friend of Miller's, was outraged by the injustice and offered to testify on her behalf should she decide to take Roberts to court, but she never did. Some time around this point, Roberts also played on that prison bill with Johnny Cash, and what happened next is hard to pin down. I've read several different versions of the story, which change the date and which prison this was in, and none of the details in any story hang together properly -- everything introduces weird inconsistencies and things which just make no sense at all. Something like this basic outline of the story seems to have happened, but the outline itself is weird, and we'll probably never know the truth. Roberts played his set, and one of the songs he played was "Hey Joe", and at some point he got talking to one of the prisoners in the audience, Dino Valenti. We've met Valenti before, in the episode on "Mr. Tambourine Man" -- he was a singer/songwriter himself, and would later be the lead singer of Quicksilver Messenger Service, but he's probably best known for having written "Get Together": [Excerpt: Dino Valenti, "Get Together"] As we heard in the "Mr. Tambourine Man" episode, Valenti actually sold off his rights to that song to pay for his bail at one point, but he was in and out of prison several times because of drug busts. At this point, or so the story goes, he was eligible for parole, but he needed to prove he had a possible income when he got out, and one way he wanted to do that was to show that he had written a song that could be a hit he could make money off, but he didn't have such a song. He talked about his predicament with Roberts, who agreed to let him claim to have written "Hey Joe" so he could get out of prison. He did make that claim, and when he got out of prison he continued making the claim, and registered the copyright to "Hey Joe" in his own name -- even though Roberts had already registered it -- and signed a publishing deal for it with Third Story Music, a company owned by Herb Cohen, the future manager of the Mothers of Invention, and Cohen's brother Mutt. Valenti was a popular face on the folk scene, and he played "his" song to many people, but two in particular would influence the way the song would develop, both of them people we've seen relatively recently in episodes of the podcast. One of them, Vince Martin, we'll come back to later, but the other was David Crosby, and so let's talk about him and the Byrds a bit more. Crosby and Valenti had been friends long before the Byrds formed, and indeed we heard in the "Mr. Tambourine Man" episode how the group had named themselves after Valenti's song "Birdses": [Excerpt: Dino Valenti, "Birdses"] And Crosby *loved* "Hey Joe", which he believed was another of Valenti's songs. He'd perform it every chance he got, playing it solo on guitar in an arrangement that other people have compared to Mose Allison. He'd tried to get it on the first two Byrds albums, but had been turned down, mostly because of their manager and uncredited co-producer Jim Dickson, who had strong opinions about it, saying later "Some of the songs that David would bring in from the outside were perfectly valid songs for other people, but did not seem to be compatible with the Byrds' myth. And he may not have liked the Byrds' myth. He fought for 'Hey Joe' and he did it. As long as I could say 'No!' I did, and when I couldn't any more they did it. You had to give him something somewhere. I just wish it was something else... 'Hey Joe' I was bitterly opposed to. A song about a guy who murders his girlfriend in a jealous rage and is on the way to Mexico with a gun in his hand. It was not what I saw as a Byrds song." Indeed, Dickson was so opposed to the song that he would later say “One of the reasons David engineered my getting thrown out was because I would not let Hey Joe be on the Turn! Turn! Turn! album.” Dickson was, though, still working with the band when they got round to recording it. That came during the recording of their Fifth Dimension album, the album which included "Eight Miles High". That album was mostly recorded after the departure of Gene Clark, which was where we left the group at the end of the "Eight Miles High" episode, and the loss of their main songwriter meant that they were struggling for material -- doubly so since they also decided they were going to move away from Dylan covers. This meant that they had to rely on original material from the group's less commercial songwriters, and on a few folk songs, mostly learned from Pete Seeger The album ended up with only eleven songs on it, compared to the twelve that was normal for American albums at that time, and the singles on it after "Eight Miles High" weren't particularly promising as to the group's ability to come up with commercial material. The next single, "5D", a song by Roger McGuinn about the fifth dimension, was a waltz-time song that both Crosby and Chris Hillman were enthused by. It featured organ by Van Dyke Parks, and McGuinn said of the organ part "When he came into the studio I told him to think Bach. He was already thinking Bach before that anyway.": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "5D"] While the group liked it, though, that didn't make the top forty. The next single did, just about -- a song that McGuinn had written as an attempt at communicating with alien life. He hoped that it would be played on the radio, and that the radio waves would eventually reach aliens, who would hear it and respond: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Mr. Spaceman"] The "Fifth Dimension" album did significantly worse, both critically and commercially, than their previous albums, and the group would soon drop Allen Stanton, the producer, in favour of Gary Usher, Brian Wilson's old songwriting partner. But the desperation for material meant that the group agreed to record the song which they still thought at that time had been written by Crosby's friend, though nobody other than Crosby was happy with it, and even Crosby later said "It was a mistake. I shouldn't have done it. Everybody makes mistakes." McGuinn said later "The reason Crosby did lead on 'Hey Joe' was because it was *his* song. He didn't write it but he was responsible for finding it. He'd wanted to do it for years but we would never let him.": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Hey Joe"] Of course, that arrangement is very far from the Mose Allison style version Crosby had been doing previously. And the reason for that can be found in the full version of that McGuinn quote, because the full version continues "He'd wanted to do it for years but we would never let him. Then both Love and The Leaves had a minor hit with it and David got so angry that we had to let him do it. His version wasn't that hot because he wasn't a strong lead vocalist." The arrangement we just heard was the arrangement that by this point almost every group on the Sunset Strip scene was playing. And the reason for that was because of another friend of Crosby's, someone who had been a roadie for the Byrds -- Bryan MacLean. MacLean and Crosby had been very close because they were both from very similar backgrounds -- they were both Hollywood brats with huge egos. MacLean later said "Crosby and I got on perfectly. I didn't understand what everybody was complaining about, because he was just like me!" MacLean was, if anything, from an even more privileged background than Crosby. His father was an architect who'd designed houses for Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin, his neighbour when growing up was Frederick Loewe, the composer of My Fair Lady. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's private pool, and his first girlfriend was Liza Minelli. Another early girlfriend was Jackie DeShannon, the singer-songwriter who did the original version of "Needles and Pins", who he was introduced to by Sharon Sheeley, whose name you will remember from many previous episodes. MacLean had wanted to be an artist until his late teens, when he walked into a shop in Westwood which sometimes sold his paintings, the Sandal Shop, and heard some people singing folk songs there. He decided he wanted to be a folk singer, and soon started performing at the Balladeer, a club which would later be renamed the Troubadour, playing songs like Robert Johnson's "Cross Roads Blues", which had recently become a staple of the folk repertoire after John Hammond put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Cross Roads Blues"] Reading interviews with people who knew MacLean at the time, the same phrase keeps coming up. John Kay, later the lead singer of Steppenwolf, said "There was a young kid, Bryan MacLean, kind of cocky but nonetheless a nice kid, who hung around Crosby and McGuinn" while Chris Hillman said "He was a pretty good kid but a wee bit cocky." He was a fan of the various musicians who later formed the Byrds, and was also an admirer of a young guitarist on the scene named Ryland Cooder, and of a blues singer on the scene named Taj Mahal. He apparently was briefly in a band with Taj Mahal, called Summer's Children, who as far as I can tell had no connection to the duo that Curt Boettcher later formed of the same name, before Taj Mahal and Cooder formed The Rising Sons, a multi-racial blues band who were for a while the main rivals to the Byrds on the scene. MacLean, though, firmly hitched himself to the Byrds, and particularly to Crosby. He became a roadie on their first tour, and Hillman said "He was a hard-working guy on our behalf. As I recall, he pretty much answered to Crosby and was David's assistant, to put it diplomatically – more like his gofer, in fact." But MacLean wasn't cut out for the hard work that being a roadie required, and after being the Byrds' roadie for about thirty shows, he started making mistakes, and when they went off on their UK tour they decided not to keep employing him. He was heartbroken, but got back into trying his own musical career. He auditioned for the Monkees, unsuccessfully, but shortly after that -- some sources say even the same day as the audition, though that seems a little too neat -- he went to Ben Frank's -- the LA hangout that had actually been namechecked in the open call for Monkees auditions, which said they wanted "Ben Franks types", and there he met Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols. Echols would later remember "He was this gadfly kind of character who knew everybody and was flitting from table to table. He wore striped pants and a scarf, and he had this long, strawberry hair. All the girls loved him. For whatever reason, he came and sat at our table. Of course, Arthur and I were the only two black people there at the time." Lee and Echols were both Black musicians who had been born in Memphis. Lee's birth father, Chester Taylor, had been a cornet player with Jimmie Lunceford, whose Delta Rhythm Boys had had a hit with "The Honeydripper", as we heard way back in the episode on "Rocket '88": [Excerpt: Jimmie Lunceford and the Delta Rhythm Boys, "The Honeydripper"] However, Taylor soon split from Lee's mother, a schoolteacher, and she married Clinton Lee, a stonemason, who doted on his adopted son, and they moved to California. They lived in a relatively prosperous area of LA, a neighbourhood that was almost all white, with a few Asian families, though the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson lived nearby. A year or so after Arthur and his mother moved to LA, so did the Echols family, who had known them in Memphis, and they happened to move only a couple of streets away. Eight year old Arthur Lee reconnected with seven-year-old Johnny Echols, and the two became close friends from that point on. Arthur Lee first started out playing music when his parents were talked into buying him an accordion by a salesman who would go around with a donkey, give kids free donkey rides, and give the parents a sales pitch while they were riding the donkey, He soon gave up on the accordion and persuaded his parents to buy him an organ instead -- he was a spoiled child, by all accounts, with a TV in his bedroom, which was almost unheard of in the late fifties. Johnny Echols had a similar experience which led to his parents buying him a guitar, and the two were growing up in a musical environment generally. They attended Dorsey High School at the same time as both Billy Preston and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Ella Fitzgerald and her then-husband, the great jazz bass player Ray Brown, lived in the same apartment building as the Echols family for a while. Ornette Coleman, the free-jazz saxophone player, lived next door to Echols, and Adolphus Jacobs, the guitarist with the Coasters, gave him guitar lessons. Arthur Lee also knew Johnny Otis, who ran a pigeon-breeding club for local children which Arthur would attend. Echols was the one who first suggested that he and Arthur should form a band, and they put together a group to play at a school talent show, performing "Last Night", the instrumental that had been a hit for the Mar-Keys on Stax records: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, "Last Night"] They soon became a regular group, naming themselves Arthur Lee and the LAGs -- the LA Group, in imitation of Booker T and the MGs – the Memphis Group. At some point around this time, Lee decided to switch from playing organ to playing guitar. He would say later that this was inspired by seeing Johnny "Guitar" Watson get out of a gold Cadillac, wearing a gold suit, and with gold teeth in his mouth. The LAGs started playing as support acts and backing bands for any blues and soul acts that came through LA, performing with Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Otis, the O'Jays, and more. Arthur and Johnny were both still under-age, and they would pencil in fake moustaches to play the clubs so they'd appear older. In the fifties and early sixties, there were a number of great electric guitar players playing blues on the West Coast -- Johnny "Guitar" Watson, T-Bone Walker, Guitar Slim, and others -- and they would compete with each other not only to play well, but to put on a show, and so there was a whole bag of stage tricks that West Coast R&B guitarists picked up, and Echols learned all of them -- playing his guitar behind his back, playing his guitar with his teeth, playing with his guitar between his legs. As well as playing their own shows, the LAGs also played gigs under other names -- they had a corrupt agent who would book them under the name of whatever Black group had a hit at the time, in the belief that almost nobody knew what popular groups looked like anyway, so they would go out and perform as the Drifters or the Coasters or half a dozen other bands. But Arthur Lee in particular wanted to have success in his own right. He would later say "When I was a little boy I would listen to Nat 'King' Cole and I would look at that purple Capitol Records logo. I wanted to be on Capitol, that was my goal. Later on I used to walk from Dorsey High School all the way up to the Capitol building in Hollywood -- did that many times. I was determined to get a record deal with Capitol, and I did, without the help of a fancy manager or anyone else. I talked to Adam Ross and Jack Levy at Ardmore-Beechwood. I talked to Kim Fowley, and then I talked to Capitol". The record that the LAGs released, though, was not very good, a track called "Rumble-Still-Skins": [Excerpt: The LAGs, "Rumble-Still-Skins"] Lee later said "I was young and very inexperienced and I was testing the record company. I figured if I gave them my worst stuff and they ripped me off I wouldn't get hurt. But it didn't work, and after that I started giving my best, and I've been doing that ever since." The LAGs were dropped by Capitol after one single, and for the next little while Arthur and Johnny did work for smaller labels, usually labels owned by Bob Keane, with Arthur writing and producing and Johnny playing guitar -- though Echols has said more recently that a lot of the songs that were credited to Arthur as sole writer were actually joint compositions. Most of these records were attempts at copying the style of other people. There was "I Been Trying", a Phil Spector soundalike released by Little Ray: [Excerpt: Little Ray, "I Been Trying"] And there were a few attempts at sounding like Curtis Mayfield, like "Slow Jerk" by Ronnie and the Pomona Casuals: [Excerpt: Ronnie and the Pomona Casuals, "Slow Jerk"] and "My Diary" by Rosa Lee Brooks: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] Echols was also playing with a lot of other people, and one of the musicians he was playing with, his old school friend Billy Preston, told him about a recent European tour he'd been on with Little Richard, and the band from Liverpool he'd befriended while he was there who idolised Richard, so when the Beatles hit America, Arthur and Johnny had some small amount of context for them. They soon broke up the LAGs and formed another group, the American Four, with two white musicians, bass player John Fleckenstein and drummer Don Costa. Lee had them wear wigs so they seemed like they had longer hair, and started dressing more eccentrically -- he would soon become known for wearing glasses with one blue lens and one red one, and, as he put it "wearing forty pounds of beads, two coats, three shirts, and wearing two pairs of shoes on one foot". As well as the Beatles, the American Four were inspired by the other British Invasion bands -- Arthur was in the audience for the TAMI show, and quite impressed by Mick Jagger -- and also by the Valentinos, Bobby Womack's group. They tried to get signed to SAR Records, the label owned by Sam Cooke for which the Valentinos recorded, but SAR weren't interested, and they ended up recording for Bob Keane's Del-Fi records, where they cut "Luci Baines", a "Twist and Shout" knock-off with lyrics referencing the daughter of new US President Lyndon Johnson: [Excerpt: The American Four, "Luci Baines"] But that didn't take off any more than the earlier records had. Another American Four track, "Stay Away", was recorded but went unreleased until 2006: [Excerpt: Arthur Lee and the American Four, "Stay Away"] Soon the American Four were changing their sound and name again. This time it was because of two bands who were becoming successful on the Sunset Strip. One was the Byrds, who to Lee's mind were making music like the stuff he heard in his head, and the other was their rivals the Rising Sons, the blues band we mentioned earlier with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. Lee was very impressed by them as an multiracial band making aggressive, loud, guitar music, though he would always make the point when talking about them that they were a blues band, not a rock band, and *he* had the first multiracial rock band. Whatever they were like live though, in their recordings, produced by the Byrds' first producer Terry Melcher, the Rising Sons often had the same garage band folk-punk sound that Lee and Echols would soon make their own: [Excerpt: The Rising Sons, "Take a Giant Step"] But while the Rising Sons recorded a full album's worth of material, only one single was released before they split up, and so the way was clear for Lee and Echols' band, now renamed once again to The Grass Roots, to become the Byrds' new challengers. Lee later said "I named the group The Grass Roots behind a trip, or an album I heard that Malcolm X did, where he said 'the grass roots of the people are out in the street doing something about their problems instead of sitting around talking about it'". After seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds live, Lee wanted to get up front and move like Mick Jagger, and not be hindered by playing a guitar he wasn't especially good at -- both the Stones and the Byrds had two guitarists and a frontman who just sang and played hand percussion, and these were the models that Lee was following for the group. He also thought it would be a good idea commercially to get a good-looking white boy up front. So the group got in another guitarist, a white pretty boy who Lee soon fell out with and gave the nickname "Bummer Bob" because he was unpleasant to be around. Those of you who know exactly why Bobby Beausoleil later became famous will probably agree that this was a more than reasonable nickname to give him (and those of you who don't, I'll be dealing with him when we get to 1969). So when Bryan MacLean introduced himself to Lee and Echols, and they found out that not only was he also a good-looking white guitarist, but he was also friends with the entire circle of hipsters who'd been going to Byrds gigs, people like Vito and Franzoni, and he could get a massive crowd of them to come along to gigs for any band he was in and make them the talk of the Sunset Strip scene, he was soon in the Grass Roots, and Bummer Bob was out. The Grass Roots soon had to change their name again, though. In 1965, Jan and Dean recorded their "Folk and Roll" album, which featured "The Universal Coward"... Which I am not going to excerpt again. I only put that pause in to terrify Tilt, who edits these podcasts, and has very strong opinions about that song. But P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the songwriters who also performed as the Fantastic Baggies, had come up with a song for that album called "Where Where You When I Needed You?": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Where Were You When I Needed You?"] Sloan and Barri decided to cut their own version of that song under a fake band name, and then put together a group of other musicians to tour as that band. They just needed a name, and Lou Adler, the head of Dunhill Records, suggested they call themselves The Grass Roots, and so that's what they did: [Excerpt: The Grass Roots, "Where Were You When I Needed You?"] Echols would later claim that this was deliberate malice on Adler's part -- that Adler had come in to a Grass Roots show drunk, and pretended to be interested in signing them to a contract, mostly to show off to a woman he'd brought with him. Echols and MacLean had spoken to him, not known who he was, and he'd felt disrespected, and Echols claims that he suggested the name to get back at them, and also to capitalise on their local success. The new Grass Roots soon started having hits, and so the old band had to find another name, which they got as a joking reference to a day job Lee had had at one point -- he'd apparently worked in a specialist bra shop, Luv Brassieres, which the rest of the band found hilarious. The Grass Roots became Love. While Arthur Lee was the group's lead singer, Bryan MacLean would often sing harmonies, and would get a song or two to sing live himself. And very early in the group's career, when they were playing a club called Bido Lito's, he started making his big lead spot a version of "Hey Joe", which he'd learned from his old friend David Crosby, and which soon became the highlight of the group's set. Their version was sped up, and included the riff which the Searchers had popularised in their cover version of  "Needles and Pins", the song originally recorded by MacLean's old girlfriend Jackie DeShannon: [Excerpt: The Searchers, "Needles and Pins"] That riff is a very simple one to play, and variants of it became very, very, common among the LA bands, most notably on the Byrds' "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better"] The riff was so ubiquitous in the LA scene that in the late eighties Frank Zappa would still cite it as one of his main memories of the scene. I'm going to quote from his autobiography, where he's talking about the differences between the LA scene he was part of and the San Francisco scene he had no time for: "The Byrds were the be-all and end-all of Los Angeles rock then. They were 'It' -- and then a group called Love was 'It.' There were a few 'psychedelic' groups that never really got to be 'It,' but they could still find work and get record deals, including the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Sky Saxon and the Seeds, and the Leaves (noted for their cover version of "Hey, Joe"). When we first went to San Francisco, in the early days of the Family Dog, it seemed that everybody was wearing the same costume, a mixture of Barbary Coast and Old West -- guys with handlebar mustaches, girls in big bustle dresses with feathers in their hair, etc. By contrast, the L.A. costumery was more random and outlandish. Musically, the northern bands had a little more country style. In L.A., it was folk-rock to death. Everything had that" [and here Zappa uses the adjectival form of a four-letter word beginning with 'f' that the main podcast providers don't like you saying on non-adult-rated shows] "D chord down at the bottom of the neck where you wiggle your finger around -- like 'Needles and Pins.'" The reason Zappa describes it that way, and the reason it became so popular, is that if you play that riff in D, the chords are D, Dsus2, and Dsus4 which means you literally only wiggle one finger on your left hand: [demonstrates] And so you get that on just a ton of records from that period, though Love, the Byrds, and the Searchers all actually play the riff on A rather than D: [demonstrates] So that riff became the Big Thing in LA after the Byrds popularised the Searchers sound there, and Love added it to their arrangement of "Hey Joe". In January 1966, the group would record their arrangement of it for their first album, which would come out in March: [Excerpt: Love, "Hey Joe"] But that wouldn't be the first recording of the song, or of Love's arrangement of it – although other than the Byrds' version, it would be the only one to come out of LA with the original Billy Roberts lyrics. Love's performances of the song at Bido Lito's had become the talk of the Sunset Strip scene, and soon every band worth its salt was copying it, and it became one of those songs like "Louie Louie" before it that everyone would play. The first record ever made with the "Hey Joe" melody actually had totally different lyrics. Kim Fowley had the idea of writing a sequel to "Hey Joe", titled "Wanted Dead or Alive", about what happened after Joe shot his woman and went off. He produced the track for The Rogues, a group consisting of Michael Lloyd and Shaun Harris, who later went on to form the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and Lloyd and Harris were the credited writers: [Excerpt: The Rogues, "Wanted Dead or Alive"] The next version of the song to come out was the first by anyone to be released as "Hey Joe", or at least as "Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go?", which was how it was titled on its initial release. This was by a band called The Leaves, who were friends of Love, and had picked up on "Hey Joe", and was produced by Nik Venet. It was also the first to have the now-familiar opening line "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?": [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe Where You Gonna Go?"] Roberts' original lyric, as sung by both Love and the Byrds, had been "where you going with that money in your hand?", and had Joe headed off to *buy* the gun. But as Echols later said “What happened was Bob Lee from The Leaves, who were friends of ours, asked me for the words to 'Hey Joe'. I told him I would have the words the next day. I decided to write totally different lyrics. The words you hear on their record are ones I wrote as a joke. The original words to Hey Joe are ‘Hey Joe, where you going with that money in your hand? Well I'm going downtown to buy me a blue steel .44. When I catch up with that woman, she won't be running round no more.' It never says ‘Hey Joe where you goin' with that gun in your hand.' Those were the words I wrote just because I knew they were going to try and cover the song before we released it. That was kind of a dirty trick that I played on The Leaves, which turned out to be the words that everybody uses.” That first release by the Leaves also contained an extra verse -- a nod to Love's previous name: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe Where You Gonna Go?"] That original recording credited the song as public domain -- apparently Bryan MacLean had refused to tell the Leaves who had written the song, and so they assumed it was traditional. It came out in November 1965, but only as a promo single. Even before the Leaves, though, another band had recorded "Hey Joe", but it didn't get released. The Sons of Adam had started out as a surf group called the Fender IV, who made records like "Malibu Run": [Excerpt: The Fender IV, "Malibu Run"] Kim Fowley had suggested they change their name to the Sons of Adam, and they were another group who were friends with Love -- their drummer, Michael Stuart-Ware, would later go on to join Love, and Arthur Lee wrote the song "Feathered Fish" for them: [Excerpt: Sons of Adam, "Feathered Fish"] But while they were the first to record "Hey Joe", their version has still to this day not been released. Their version was recorded for Decca, with producer Gary Usher, but before it was released, another Decca artist also recorded the song, and the label weren't sure which one to release. And then the label decided to press Usher to record a version with yet another act -- this time with the Surfaris, the surf group who had had a hit with "Wipe Out". Coincidentally, the Surfaris had just changed bass players -- their most recent bass player, Ken Forssi, had quit and joined Love, whose own bass player, John Fleckenstein, had gone off to join the Standells, who would also record a version of “Hey Joe” in 1966. Usher thought that the Sons of Adam were much better musicians than the Surfaris, who he was recording with more or less under protest, but their version, using Love's arrangement and the "gun in your hand" lyrics, became the first version to come out on a major label: [Excerpt: The Surfaris, "Hey Joe"] They believed the song was in the public domain, and so the songwriting credits on the record are split between Gary Usher, a W. Hale who nobody has been able to identify, and Tony Cost, a pseudonym for Nik Venet. Usher said later "I got writer's credit on it because I was told, or I assumed at the time, the song was Public Domain; meaning a non-copyrighted song. It had already been cut two or three times, and on each occasion the writing credit had been different. On a traditional song, whoever arranges it, takes the songwriting credit. I may have changed a few words and arranged and produced it, but I certainly did not co-write it." The public domain credit also appeared on the Leaves' second attempt to cut the song, which was actually given a general release, but flopped. But when the Leaves cut the song for a *third* time, still for the same tiny label, Mira, the track became a hit in May 1966, reaching number thirty-one: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe"] And *that* version had what they thought was the correct songwriting credit, to Dino Valenti. Which came as news to Billy Roberts, who had registered the copyright to the song back in 1962 and had no idea that it had become a staple of LA garage rock until he heard his song in the top forty with someone else's name on the credits. He angrily confronted Third Story Music, who agreed to a compromise -- they would stop giving Valenti songwriting royalties and start giving them to Roberts instead, so long as he didn't sue them and let them keep the publishing rights. Roberts was indignant about this -- he deserved all the money, not just half of it -- but he went along with it to avoid a lawsuit he might not win. So Roberts was now the credited songwriter on the versions coming out of the LA scene. But of course, Dino Valenti had been playing "his" song to other people, too. One of those other people was Vince Martin. Martin had been a member of a folk-pop group called the Tarriers, whose members also included the future film star Alan Arkin, and who had had a hit in the 1950s with "Cindy, Oh Cindy": [Excerpt: The Tarriers, "Cindy, Oh Cindy"] But as we heard in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful, he had become a Greenwich Village folkie, in a duo with Fred Neil, and recorded an album with him, "Tear Down the Walls": [Excerpt: Fred Neil and Vince Martin, "Morning Dew"] That song we just heard, "Morning Dew", was another question-and-answer folk song. It was written by the Canadian folk-singer Bonnie Dobson, but after Martin and Neil recorded it, it was picked up on by Martin's friend Tim Rose who stuck his own name on the credits as well, without Dobson's permission, for a version which made the song into a rock standard for which he continued to collect royalties: [Excerpt: Tim Rose, "Morning Dew"] This was something that Rose seems to have made a habit of doing, though to be fair to him it went both ways. We heard about him in the Lovin' Spoonful episode too, when he was in a band named the Big Three with Cass Elliot and her coincidentally-named future husband Jim Hendricks, who recorded this song, with Rose putting new music to the lyrics of the old public domain song "Oh! Susanna": [Excerpt: The Big Three, "The Banjo Song"] The band Shocking Blue used that melody for their 1969 number-one hit "Venus", and didn't give Rose any credit: [Excerpt: Shocking Blue, "Venus"] But another song that Rose picked up from Vince Martin was "Hey Joe". Martin had picked the song up from Valenti, but didn't know who had written it, or who was claiming to have written it, and told Rose he thought it might be an old Appalchian murder ballad or something. Rose took the song and claimed writing credit in his own name -- he would always, for the rest of his life, claim it was an old folk tune he'd heard in Florida, and that he'd rewritten it substantially himself, but no evidence of the song has ever shown up from prior to Roberts' copyright registration, and Rose's version is basically identical to Roberts' in melody and lyrics. But Rose takes his version at a much slower pace, and his version would be the model for the most successful versions going forward, though those other versions would use the lyrics Johnny Echols had rewritten, rather than the ones Rose used: [Excerpt: Tim Rose, "Hey Joe"] Rose's version got heard across the Atlantic as well. And in particular it was heard by Chas Chandler, the bass player of the Animals. Some sources seem to suggest that Chandler first heard the song performed by a group called the Creation, but in a biography I've read of that group they clearly state that they didn't start playing the song until 1967. But however he came across it, when Chandler heard Rose's recording, he knew that the song could be a big hit for someone, but he didn't know who. And then he bumped into Linda Keith, Keith Richards' girlfriend,  who took him to see someone whose guitar we've already heard in this episode: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] The Curtis Mayfield impression on guitar there was, at least according to many sources the first recording session ever played on by a guitarist then calling himself Maurice (or possibly Mo-rees) James. We'll see later in the story that it possibly wasn't his first -- there are conflicting accounts, as there are about a lot of things, and it was recorded either in very early 1964, in which case it was his first, or (as seems more likely, and as I tell the story later) a year later, in which case he'd played on maybe half a dozen tracks in the studio by that point. But it was still a very early one. And by late 1966 that guitarist had reverted to the name by which he was brought up, and was calling himself Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix and Arthur Lee had become close, and Lee would later claim that Hendrix had copied much of Lee's dress style and attitude -- though many of Hendrix's other colleagues and employers, including Little Richard, would make similar claims -- and most of them had an element of truth, as Lee's did. Hendrix was a sponge. But Lee did influence him. Indeed, one of Hendrix's *last* sessions, in March 1970, was guesting on an album by Love: [Excerpt: Love with Jimi Hendrix, "Everlasting First"] Hendrix's name at birth was Johnny Allen Hendrix, which made his father, James Allen Hendrix, known as Al, who was away at war when his son was born, worry that he'd been named after another man who might possibly be the real father, so the family just referred to the child as "Buster" to avoid the issue. When Al Hendrix came back from the war the child was renamed James Marshall Hendrix -- James after Al's first name, Marshall after Al's dead brother -- though the family continued calling him "Buster". Little James Hendrix Junior didn't have anything like a stable home life. Both his parents were alcoholics, and Al Hendrix was frequently convinced that Jimi's mother Lucille was having affairs and became abusive about it. They had six children, four of whom were born disabled, and Jimi was the only one to remain with his parents -- the rest were either fostered or adopted at birth, fostered later on because the parents weren't providing a decent home life, or in one case made a ward of state because the Hendrixes couldn't afford to pay for a life-saving operation for him. The only one that Jimi had any kind of regular contact with was the second brother, Leon, his parents' favourite, who stayed with them for several years before being fostered by a family only a few blocks away. Al and Lucille Hendrix frequently split and reconciled, and while they were ostensibly raising Jimi (and for a  few years Leon), he was shuttled between them and various family members and friends, living sometimes in Seattle where his parents lived and sometimes in Vancouver with his paternal grandmother. He was frequently malnourished, and often survived because friends' families fed him. Al Hendrix was also often physically and emotionally abusive of the son he wasn't sure was his. Jimi grew up introverted, and stuttering, and only a couple of things seemed to bring him out of his shell. One was science fiction -- he always thought that his nickname, Buster, came from Buster Crabbe, the star of the Flash Gordon serials he loved to watch, though in fact he got the nickname even before that interest developed, and he was fascinated with ideas about aliens and UFOs -- and the other was music. Growing up in Seattle in the forties and fifties, most of the music he was exposed to as a child and in his early teens was music made by and for white people -- there wasn't a very large Black community in the area at the time compared to most major American cities, and so there were no prominent R&B stations. As a kid he loved the music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and when he was thirteen Jimi's favourite record was Dean Martin's "Memories are Made of This": [Excerpt: Dean Martin, "Memories are Made of This"] He also, like every teenager, became a fan of rock and roll music. When Elvis played at a local stadium when Jimi was fifteen, he couldn't afford a ticket, but he went and sat on top of a nearby hill and watched the show from the distance. Jimi's first exposure to the blues also came around this time, when his father briefly took in lodgers, Cornell and Ernestine Benson, and Ernestine had a record collection that included records by Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters, all of whom Jimi became a big fan of, especially Muddy Waters. The Bensons' most vivid memory of Jimi in later years was him picking up a broom and pretending to play guitar along with these records: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "Baby Please Don't Go"] Shortly after this, it would be Ernestine Benson who would get Jimi his very first guitar. By this time Jimi and Al had lost their home and moved into a boarding house, and the owner's son had an acoustic guitar with only one string that he was planning to throw out. When Jimi asked if he could have it instead of it being thrown out, the owner told him he could have it for five dollars. Al Hendrix refused to pay that much for it, but Ernestine Benson bought Jimi the guitar. She said later “He only had one string, but he could really make that string talk.” He started carrying the guitar on his back everywhere he went, in imitation of Sterling Hayden in the western Johnny Guitar, and eventually got some more strings for it and learned to play. He would play it left-handed -- until his father came in. His father had forced him to write with his right hand, and was convinced that left-handedness was the work of the devil, so Jimi would play left-handed while his father was somewhere else, but as soon as Al came in he would flip the guitar the other way up and continue playing the song he had been playing, now right-handed. Jimi's mother died when he was fifteen, after having been ill for a long time with drink-related problems, and Jimi and his brother didn't get to go to the funeral -- depending on who you believe, either Al gave Jimi the bus fare and told him to go by himself and Jimi was too embarrassed to go to the funeral alone on the bus, or Al actually forbade Jimi and Leon from going.  After this, he became even more introverted than he was before, and he also developed a fascination with the idea of angels, convinced his mother now was one. Jimi started to hang around with a friend called Pernell Alexander, who also had a guitar, and they would play along together with Elmore James records. The two also went to see Little Richard and Bill Doggett perform live, and while Jimi was hugely introverted, he did start to build more friendships in the small Seattle music scene, including with Ron Holden, the man we talked about in the episode on "Louie Louie" who introduced that song to Seattle, and who would go on to record with Bruce Johnston for Bob Keane: [Excerpt: Ron Holden, "Gee But I'm Lonesome"] Eventually Ernestine Benson persuaded Al Hendrix to buy Jimi a decent electric guitar on credit -- Al also bought himself a saxophone at the same time, thinking he might play music with his son, but sent it back once the next payment became due. As well as blues and R&B, Jimi was soaking up the guitar instrumentals and garage rock that would soon turn into surf music. The first song he learned to play was "Tall Cool One" by the Fabulous Wailers, the local group who popularised a version of "Louie Louie" based on Holden's one: [Excerpt: The Fabulous Wailers, "Tall Cool One"] As we talked about in the "Louie Louie" episode, the Fabulous Wailers used to play at a venue called the Spanish Castle, and Jimi was a regular in the audience, later writing his song "Spanish Castle Magic" about those shows: [Excerpt: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Spanish Castle Magic"] He was also a big fan of Duane Eddy, and soon learned Eddy's big hits "Forty Miles of Bad Road", "Because They're Young", and "Peter Gunn" -- a song he would return to much later in his life: [Excerpt: Jimi Hendrix, "Peter Gunn/Catastrophe"] His career as a guitarist didn't get off to a great start -- the first night he played with his first band, he was meant to play two sets, but he was fired after the first set, because he was playing in too flashy a manner and showing off too much on stage. His girlfriend suggested that he might want to tone it down a little, but he said "That's not my style".  This would be a common story for the next several years. After that false start, the first real band he was in was the Velvetones, with his friend Pernell Alexander. There were four guitarists, two piano players, horns and drums, and they dressed up with glitter stuck to their pants. They played Duane Eddy songs, old jazz numbers, and "Honky Tonk" by Bill Doggett, which became Hendrix's signature song with the band. [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk"] His father was unsupportive of his music career, and he left his guitar at Alexander's house because he was scared that his dad would smash it if he took it home. At the same time he was with the Velvetones, he was also playing with another band called the Rocking Kings, who got gigs around the Seattle area, including at the Spanish Castle. But as they left school, most of Hendrix's friends were joining the Army, in order to make a steady living, and so did he -- although not entirely by choice. He was arrested, twice, for riding in stolen cars, and he was given a choice -- either go to prison, or sign up for the Army for three years. He chose the latter. At first, the Army seemed to suit him. He was accepted into the 101st Airborne Division, the famous "Screaming Eagles", whose actions at D-Day made them legendary in the US, and he was proud to be a member of the Division. They were based out of Fort Campbell, the base near Clarksville we talked about a couple of episodes ago, and while he was there he met a bass player, Billy Cox, who he started playing with. As Cox and Hendrix were Black, and as Fort Campbell straddled the border between Kentucky and Tennessee, they had to deal with segregation and play to only Black audiences. And Hendrix quickly discovered that Black audiences in the Southern states weren't interested in "Louie Louie", Duane Eddy, and surf music, the stuff he'd been playing in Seattle. He had to instead switch to playing Albert King and Slim Harpo songs, but luckily he loved that music too. He also started singing at this point -- when Hendrix and Cox started playing together, in a trio called the Kasuals, they had no singer, and while Hendrix never liked his own voice, Cox was worse, and so Hendrix was stuck as the singer. The Kasuals started gigging around Clarksville, and occasionally further afield, places like Nashville, where Arthur Alexander would occasionally sit in with them. But Cox was about to leave the Army, and Hendrix had another two and a bit years to go, having enlisted for three years. They couldn't play any further away unless Hendrix got out of the Army, which he was increasingly unhappy in anyway, and so he did the only thing he could -- he pretended to be gay, and got discharged on medical grounds for homosexuality. In later years he would always pretend he'd broken his ankle parachuting from a plane. For the next few years, he would be a full-time guitarist, and spend the periods when he wasn't earning enough money from that leeching off women he lived with, moving from one to another as they got sick of him or ran out of money. The Kasuals expanded their lineup, adding a second guitarist, Alphonso Young, who would show off on stage by playing guitar with his teeth. Hendrix didn't like being upstaged by another guitarist, and quickly learned to do the same. One biography I've used as a source for this says that at this point, Billy Cox played on a session for King Records, for Frank Howard and the Commanders, and brought Hendrix along, but the producer thought that Hendrix's guitar was too frantic and turned his mic off. But other sources say the session Hendrix and Cox played on for the Commanders wasn't until three years later, and the record *sounds* like a 1965 record, not a 1962 one, and his guitar is very audible – and the record isn't on King. But we've not had any music to break up the narration for a little while, and it's a good track (which later became a Northern Soul favourite) so I'll play a section here, as either way it was certainly an early Hendrix session: [Excerpt: Frank Howard and the Commanders, "I'm So Glad"] This illustrates a general problem with Hendrix's life at this point -- he would flit between bands, playing with the same people at multiple points, nobody was taking detailed notes, and later, once he became famous, everyone wanted to exaggerate their own importance in his life, meaning that while the broad outlines of his life are fairly clear, any detail before late 1966 might be hopelessly wrong. But all the time, Hendrix was learning his craft. One story from around this time  sums up both Hendrix's attitude to his playing -- he saw himself almost as much as a scientist as a musician -- and his slightly formal manner of speech.  He challenged the best blues guitarist in Nashville to a guitar duel, and the audience actually laughed at Hendrix's playing, as he was totally outclassed. When asked what he was doing, he replied “I was simply trying to get that B.B. King tone down and my experiment failed.” Bookings for the King Kasuals dried up, and he went to Vancouver, where he spent a couple of months playing in a covers band, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, whose lead guitarist was Tommy Chong, later to find fame as one half of Cheech and Chong. But he got depressed at how white Vancouver was, and travelled back down south to join a reconfigured King Kasuals, who now had a horn section. The new lineup of King Kasuals were playing the chitlin circuit and had to put on a proper show, and so Hendrix started using all the techniques he'd seen other guitarists on the circuit use -- playing with his teeth like Alphonso Young, the other guitarist in the band, playing with his guitar behind his back like T-Bone Walker, and playing with a fifty-foot cord that allowed him to walk into the crowd and out of the venue, still playing, like Guitar Slim used to. As well as playing with the King Kasuals, he started playing the circuit as a sideman. He got short stints with many of the second-tier acts on the circuit -- people who had had one or two hits, or were crowd-pleasers, but weren't massive stars, like Carla Thomas or Jerry Butler or Slim Harpo. The first really big name he played with was Solomon Burke, who when Hendrix joined his band had just released "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)": [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)"] But he lacked discipline. “Five dates would go beautifully,” Burke later said, “and then at the next show, he'd go into this wild stuff that wasn't part of the song. I just couldn't handle it anymore.” Burke traded him to Otis Redding, who was on the same tour, for two horn players, but then Redding fired him a week later and they left him on the side of the road. He played in the backing band for the Marvelettes, on a tour with Curtis Mayfield, who would be another of Hendrix's biggest influences, but he accidentally blew up Mayfield's amp and got sacked. On another tour, Cecil Womack threw Hendrix's guitar off the bus while he slept. In February 1964 he joined the band of the Isley Brothers, and he would watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan with them during his first days with the group. Assuming he hadn't already played the Rosa Lee Brooks session (and I think there's good reason to believe he hadn't), then the first record Hendrix played on was their single "Testify": [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Testify"] While he was with them, he also moonlighted on Don Covay's big hit "Mercy, Mercy": [Excerpt: Don Covay and the Goodtimers, "Mercy Mercy"] After leaving the Isleys, Hendrix joined the minor soul singer Gorgeous George, and on a break from Gorgeous George's tour, in Memphis, he went to Stax studios in the hope of meeting Steve Cropper, one of his idols. When he was told that Cropper was busy in the studio, he waited around all day until Cropper finished, and introduced himself. Hendrix was amazed to discover that Cropper was white -- he'd assumed that he must be Black -- and Cropper was delighted to meet the guitarist who had played on "Mercy Mercy", one of his favourite records. The two spent hours showing each other guitar licks -- Hendrix playing Cropper's right-handed guitar, as he hadn't brought along his own. Shortly after this, he joined Little Richard's band, and once again came into conflict with the star of the show by trying to upstage him. For one show he wore a satin shirt, and after the show Richard screamed at him “I am the only Little Richard! I am the King of Rock and Roll, and I am the only one allowed to be pretty. Take that shirt off!” While he was with Richard, Hendrix played on his "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me", which like "Mercy Mercy" was written by Don Covay, who had started out as Richard's chauffeur: [Excerpt: Little Richard, "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me"] According to the most likely version of events I've read, it was while he was working for Richard that Hendrix met Rosa Lee Brooks, on New Year's Eve 1964. At this point he was using the name Maurice James, apparently in tribute to the blues guitarist Elmore James, and he used various names, including Jimmy James, for most of his pre-fame performances. Rosa Lee Brooks was an R&B singer who had been mentored by Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and when she met Hendrix she was singing in a girl group who were one of the support acts for Ike & Tina Turner, who Hendrix went to see on his night off. Hendrix met Brooks afterwards, and told her she looked like his mother -- a line he used on a lot of women, but which was true in her case if photos are anything to go by. The two got into a relationship, and were soon talking about becoming a duo like Ike and Tina or Mickey and Sylvia -- "Love is Strange" was one of Hendrix's favourite records. But the only recording they made together was the "My Diary" single. Brooks always claimed that she actually wrote that song, but the label credit is for Arthur Lee, and it sounds like his work to me, albeit him trying hard to write like Curtis Mayfield, just as Hendrix is trying to play like him: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] Brooks and Hendrix had a very intense relationship for a short period. Brooks would later recall Little

In Part 2 of our podcast we explore what inspired Paul McCartney to write the song, “She's Leaving Home.” We learn how John Lennon's childhood experiences formed an important contribution to the lyrics to this song. We'll share more insights into the grand songwriting competition between Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, of The Beach Boys, and reveal the inspiring, fateful, and tearful conclusion. Songs: She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and Winter You Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Because, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike Sugar Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Look Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky), Bill Conti, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins; performed by Mike Sugar That Day is Done, Paul McCartney and Declan MacManus; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Penny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain) California Dreamin, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar God Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar The End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain) Original music score composed, performed, and produced by Mike Sugar Sources: Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company, 2016 Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York, 2006 With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company, 1994 I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press, 2016 All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press, 1979 The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000 The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press, 2003 Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker, 1997 Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone, May 23, 2017 A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books, 1994 Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/ Macmillan, 1973 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Part 2 of our podcast we explore what inspired Paul McCartney to write the song, “She's Leaving Home.” We learn how John Lennon's childhood experiences formed an important contribution to the lyrics to this song. We'll share more insights into the grand songwriting competition between Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, of The Beach Boys, and reveal the inspiring, fateful, and tearful conclusion.Songs:She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and WinterYou Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarBecause, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike SugarSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarLook Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarGonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky), Bill Conti, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins; performed by Mike SugarThat Day is Done, Paul McCartney and Declan MacManus; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)California Dreamin, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarGod Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Original music score composed, performed, and produced by Mike SugarSources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company, 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York, 2006With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company, 1994I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press, 2016All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press, 1979The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press, 2003Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker, 1997Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone,May 23, 2017A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books, 1994Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/ Macmillan, 1973

Episode 10 She's Leaving Home–Origins of a Masterpiece part 2In Part 2 of our podcast we explore what inspired Paul McCartney to write the song, “She's Leaving Home.” We learn how John Lennon's childhood experiences formed an important contribution to the lyrics to this song. We'll share more insights into the grand songwriting competition between Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, of The Beach Boys, and reveal the inspiring, fateful, and tearful conclusion.Songs:She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and WinterYou Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarBecause, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike SugarSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarLook Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarGonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky), Bill Conti, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins; performed by Mike SugarThat Day is Done, Paul McCartney and Declan MacManus; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)California Dreamin, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarGod Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Original music score composed, performed, and produced by Mike SugarSources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company, 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York, 2006With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company, 1994I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press, 2016All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press, 1979The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press, 2003Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker, 1997Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone,May 23, 2017A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books, 1994Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/ Macmillan, 1973

Episode 10 She's Leaving Home–Origins of a Masterpiece part 2 In Part 2 of our podcast we explore what inspired Paul McCartney to write the song, “She's Leaving Home.” We learn how John Lennon's childhood experiences formed an important contribution to the lyrics to this song. We'll share more insights into the grand songwriting competition between Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, of The Beach Boys, and reveal the inspiring, fateful, and tearful conclusion. Songs: She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and Winter You Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Because, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike Sugar Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Look Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky), Bill Conti, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins; performed by Mike Sugar That Day is Done, Paul McCartney and Declan MacManus; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar Penny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain) California Dreamin, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar God Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar The End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain) Original music score composed, performed, and produced by Mike Sugar Sources: Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company, 2016 Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York, 2006 With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company, 1994 I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press, 2016 All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press, 1979 The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000 The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press, 2003 Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker, 1997 Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone, May 23, 2017 A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books, 1994 Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/ Macmillan, 1973 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We explore the origins of Paul McCartney's song She's Leaving Home and John Lennon's contributions. Our investigation uncovers the connections to Brian Wilson's song, God Only Knows. More than this, we explore the hurling of great, songwriting thunderbolts across the Atlantic Ocean in a grand competition between Paul and Brian Wilson.Songs:She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and WinterLook Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarYou Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarYou Won't See Me, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar(S)he Drives Me Crazy, Roland Gift, David Steele; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarBeatlus Rubbere Soulus Gregorian chant, Mike Sugar; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss; performed by Mike SugarGod Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarHere, There, and Everywhere, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarFrère Jacques, Unknown, traditional; unknown performer.Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Penny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company; 1994I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press; 2016All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press; 1979The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle Books; 2000The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker; 1997Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone; May 23, 2017A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books; 1994Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/Macmillan; 1973

Episode 9 She's Leaving Home - Origins Of A Masterpiece Part 1We explore the origins of Paul McCartney's song She's Leaving Home and John Lennon's contributions. Our investigation uncovers the connections to Brian Wilson's song, God Only Knows. More than this, we explore the hurling of great, songwriting thunderbolts across the Atlantic Ocean in a grand competition between Paul and Brian Wilson.Songs:She's Leaving Home, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and WinterLook Away (theme song for the television series, a Series of Unfortunate Events), Nick Urata and Daniel Handler; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarYou Keep Me Hangin' On, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarYou Won't See Me, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar(S)he Drives Me Crazy, Roland Gift, David Steele; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarBeatlus Rubbere Soulus Gregorian chant, Mike Sugar; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss; performed by Mike SugarGod Only Knows, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarHere, There, and Everywhere, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarFrère Jacques, Unknown, traditional; unknown performer.Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Penny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006With a Little Help from my Friends, the making of Sgt. Pepper, George Martin, with William Pearson; Little Brown and Company; 1994I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman; Da Capo Press; 2016All You Need Is Ears, George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Press; 1979The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle Books; 2000The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003Many Years From Now, Barry Miles; Vintage Books, Harvill Secker; 1997Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She's Leaving Home, Jordan Runtagh; Rolling Stone; May 23, 2017A Hard Day's Write; The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Steve Turner; !T Books; 1994Twilight of the Gods, the Music of the Beatles, Wilfrid Mellers; Schirmer/Macmillan; 1973

The Magpie House has been shortlisted in the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards in the Culture & The Arts podcast category.In 1959, Douglas Lilburn moves into the Magpie House at 22 Ascot Terrace. It's slightly over ‘teacup throwing' distance from the cottage of his longtime friend—and onetime lover—Rita Angus and offers privacy and a generous living room in which to entertain guests. His musical output at the time draws mixed opinions, and eventually, his experiments with portable tape recorders lead him to discover the machines that are destined to fascinate and terrify him for the rest of his career.Douglas Lilburn was a very private man, and in this episode, we invade a little of that privacy. With the help of those who knew him well, we peek into the living room where he held court with aspiring young composers, and into the music room where he had a crisis of confidence. We march up the hill to the University for a squiz at the machines he became obsessed with, and we look over his shoulder as he writes letters to his dear, lifelong friends Rita Angus and Douglas McDiarmid.Host: Kirsten JohnstoneGuests: Chris Cochran, Philip Norman, Jill Trevelyan, Jenny McLeod, Margaret Neilsen, Ross Harris, Noel Sanders, Bruce GreenfieldFor the show website including information about the music in this podcast, please follow this link.This series is supported with funding from Creative New Zealand.--Podcast Series: The Magpie HouseOff a bustling Wellington city thoroughfare, there's a quaint, narrow lane called Ascot Street, where sits a modernist house whose tar-black weatherboard and stark white trim inspired the name ‘the Magpie House'. Out back, lies an overgrown jungle of a garden where New Zealand's ‘father of classical music composition' Douglas Lilburn, who lived in that house for over forty years, liked to spend time growing vegetables and listening to the calls of the Tūī. In this four-part series, host Kirsten Johnstone delves into the colourful legacy of the Magpie House and its inhabitants, weaving their intriguing—and often surprising—stories into a Forrest-Gump-esque saga of war, music, cold-war espionage, persecution, and the search for identity and a place to call home.© Centre for New Zealand Music Trust See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Magpie House has been shortlisted in the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards in the Culture & The Arts podcast category.1940 marks a period of great change in the cultural landscape of New Zealand. It has been 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and pākehā artists including composer Douglas Lilburn are keen to develop a character in their work that reflects the nation they've grown up in — the landscape, the people, and the history. Meanwhile, New Zealand has been pulled into World War Two, and there is an influx of European refugees, including composers and performers, architects, artists and supporters of the arts, all bringing their own ideas of what home and nationhood should look and sound like. Many of them would go on to face difficulties and, for some, persecution, when trying to establish a life in their new homeland.Host: Kirsten JohnstoneGuests: Chris Cochran, Philip Norman, Ann Beaglehole, Danny Mulheron, Tom McGrath, Nick BollingerFor the show website including information about the music in this podcast, please follow this link.This series is supported with funding from Creative New Zealand.--Podcast Series: The Magpie HouseOff a bustling Wellington city thoroughfare there's a quaint, narrow lane called Ascot Street, where sits a modernist house whose tar black weatherboard and stark white trim inspired the name ‘the Magpie House'. Out back, lies an overgrown jungle of a garden where New Zealand's ‘father of classical music composition' Douglas Lilburn, who lived in that house for over forty years, liked to spend time growing vegetables and listening to the calls of the Tūī. In this four-part series, host Kirsten Johnstone delves into the colourful legacy of the Magpie House and its inhabitants, weaving their intriguing—and often surprising—stories into a Forrest-Gump-esque saga of war, music, cold-war espionage, persecution, and the search for identity and a place to call home.© Centre for New Zealand Music Trust See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stroll Down Penny LaneEpisode 7 Band on the Run – the origin of a hit song Part 1Discover how a throw-away line by George Harrison provided the inspiration for the Beatles' song, You Never Give Me Your Money – AND how three years later, this also formed the basis for Paul's massive hit, Band on the Run. As we connect these dots, we join a 3,110-mile, transcontinental travel adventure with Paul – and we learn how he flew without his Wings.So settle in for a series of revelations that you will find entertaining and informative, for in this Episode we will connect all these dots, and more!SongsBand on the Run, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, and Mike SugarGet Back, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott and Matt Twain)You Never Give Me Your Money, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott and Matt Twain)I've Got a Secret, performed by Mike SugarBrain Wave Bowl and Bass, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarMy Love, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss; performed by Mike SugarI've Got A [Certain] Feeling - Paul McCartney and John Lennon; performed by Mike SugarDra-mocku-mystery Tour I, II, and III, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarBeltin' Suspense I and II, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Band on the Run, a History of Paul McCartney and Wings, Garry McGee; Taylor Trade Publishing; 2003Fab, an intimate life of Paul McCartney; Howard Sounes; Da Capo Press; 2010Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books; San Francisco; 2000Funeral takes place of former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, David Roy; The Irish News; June 19, 2016Paul McCartney pays tribute to 'super-talented' Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, Nick Levine; nme.com; June 15, 2016Paul McCartney and Wings, Band on the Run; Paul McCartney Archive Collection; Deluxe EditionThe Beatles play with the Moog Synthesizer, 1969; Elena the Beatles photosBand on the Run: Moog or ARP? on Fab Forum; www.beatlesbible.comMoog synthesizer; WikipediaMinimoog; WikipediaFab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Beatles – and More!, Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez; Hal Leonard; 2007McCartney, songwriter, Howard Elson; W.H. Allen; 1986

Episode 8 Band on the Run – the origin of a hit song Part 2Join us in Part 2 of our story where we investigate the challenges that Paul faced in recording his hit song Band on the Run; his life-threatening encounter, abandonment, culture shock, and using the new instruments of the 60s and 70s. We also investigate how Band on the Run is somehow connected to the song Desperado by the Eagles! So settle in for Part 2 of our narrative. You will be intrigued by a series of revelations that you will find entertaining and informative!Band on the Run, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarDrama-pizza, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarDramockumystery Tour, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarSuspenseful Stridi, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarHotel (Theme), Henry Mancini; performed by Mike SugarAm Be Into Background, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarAbandon The Run (interstitial rabbit hole), based on Paul and Linda McCartney's Band On the Run, rearranged and performed by Mike SugarGoodbye, Paul McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Two Part Invention in D Minor, J.S. Bach; performed by Mike SugarI Want You (She's So Heavy), Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike SugarThus Mooged MaccaThustra, Richard Strauss, Paul McCartney, Phil Medley and Bert Berns; [Twist and Shout, Band on the Run, and Also Sprach Zarathustra] mashed up and performed by Mike SugarMaxwell's Silver Hammer, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarKalider Story, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarBaroque Inn, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarSuperstition, Stevie Wonder; performed by Mike SugarShe Drives Me Crazy, Roland Gift, David Steele; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarPopcorn, Gershon Kingsley; performed by Mike SugarFrankenstein; Edgar Winter: performed by Mike SugarMy Love, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarWhats' My Line, Charles Fox; performed by Mike SugarThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Theme; Ennio Morricone, performed by Mike SugarDesperado, Glenn Frey and Don Henley; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, and Mark Abbott of Stroll Down Penny LaneThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain of Stroll Down Penny LaneSources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Band on the Run, a History of Paul McCartney and Wings, Garry McGee; Taylor Trade Publishing; 2003Fab, an intimate life of Paul McCartney; Howard Sounes; Da Capo Press; 2010Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books; San Francisco; 2000Funeral takes place of former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, David Roy; The Irish News; June 19, 2016Paul McCartney pays tribute to 'super-talented' Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, Nick Levine; nme.com; June 15, 2016Paul McCartney and Wings, Band on the Run; Paul McCartney Archive Collection; Deluxe EditionThe Beatles play with the Moog Synthesizer, 1969; Elena the Beatles photosBand on the Run: Moog or ARP? / Fab Forum; www.beatlesbible.comMoog synthesizer; WikipediaMinimoog; WikipediaFab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Beatles – and More!, Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez; Hal Leonard; 2007McCartney, songwriter, Howard Elson; W.H. Allen; 1986

Episode 7 Band on the Run – the origin of a hit song Part 1Discover how a throw-away line by George Harrison provided the inspiration for the Beatles' song, You Never Give Me Your Money – AND how three years later, this also formed the basis for Paul's massive hit, Band on the Run. As we connect these dots, we join a 3,110-mile, transcontinental travel adventure with Paul – and we learn how he flew without his Wings.So settle in for a series of revelations that you will find entertaining and informative, for in this Episode we will connect all these dots, and more!SongsBand on the Run, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, and Mike SugarGet Back, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott and Matt Twain)You Never Give Me Your Money, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott and Matt Twain)I've Got a Secret, performed by Mike SugarBrain Wave Bowl and Bass, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarMy Love, Paul and Linda McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss; performed by Mike SugarI've Got A [Certain] Feeling - Paul McCartney and John Lennon; performed by Mike SugarDra-mocku-mystery Tour I, II, and III, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarBeltin' Suspense I and II, Mike Sugar; performed by Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Band on the Run, a History of Paul McCartney and Wings, Garry McGee; Taylor Trade Publishing; 2003Fab, an intimate life of Paul McCartney; Howard Sounes; Da Capo Press; 2010Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books; San Francisco; 2000Funeral takes place of former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, David Roy; The Irish News; June 19, 2016Paul McCartney pays tribute to 'super-talented' Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, Nick Levine; nme.com; June 15, 2016Paul McCartney and Wings, Band on the Run; Paul McCartney Archive Collection; Deluxe EditionThe Beatles play with the Moog Synthesizer, 1969; Elena the Beatles photosBand on the Run: Moog or ARP? on Fab Forum; www.beatlesbible.comMoog synthesizer; WikipediaMinimoog; WikipediaFab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Beatles – and More!, Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez; Hal Leonard; 2007McCartney, songwriter, Howard Elson; W.H. Allen; 1986

Stroll Down Penny LaneEpisode 5 Yesterday – and the song that got awaySongsYesterday, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar.What's My Line Opening Theme Song - 1968, performed by Mike SugarRabbit Hole Interstitial Music – Live and Let Die Melody, Paul McCartney; arranged and performed by Mike SugarTwilight Zone Opening Theme, Marius Constant; 1962; performed by Mike SugarFandanguillo, Federico Moreno Torroba; performed by Mike SugarChances Are, Robert Allen and Al Stillman; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarRabbit Hole Interstitial Music – Eleanor Rigby Melody, Lennon and McCartney; arranged and performed by Mike SugarThe Girl from Ipanema, Antônio Carlos Jobim; Portuguese lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes; English lyrics by Norman Gimbel.Help! Lennon and McCartney; performed by performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarFields of Gold, Gordon Sumner and Dusan Bogdanovic; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)SourcesPlayboy interview; Paul McCartney; 1984Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Beatlesongs; William J. Dowling; Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989.Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now; Barry Miles; Secker &Warburg; 1997McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles; Hunter Davis; McGraw-Hill; 1968The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions; Mark Lewisohn; Hamlyn (a division of the Octopus Publishing Group); 1988All You Need Is Ears, George Martin, with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Griffin; 1979This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007“MOJO COLLECTIONS;” interview of Paul McCartneyevacassidy.orgThe Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Rosetta Stone; The British MuseumMcCartney: Yesterday and Today, Ray Coleman; Boxtree, 1996.The Beatles as Musicians. The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul, Walter Everett; Oxford University Press; 2001.A Hard Day's Write - The Stories Behind Every Beatles' Song, Steve Turner; Carbon, 1994.In Search of the Sources of ‘I Saw Her Standing There' and ‘Yesterday,' Ian Hammond; Journal on Media Culture; Old Sweet Songs; http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME05/Oldsweetsongs.shtmlPaul McCartney in Casual Conversation with Jarvis Cocker at LIPA; August 15, 2018

Episode 5 Yesterday – and the song that got awaySongsYesterday, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar.What's My Line Opening Theme Song - 1968, performed by Mike SugarRabbit Hole Interstitial Music – Live and Let Die Melody, Paul McCartney; arranged and performed by Mike SugarTwilight Zone Opening Theme, Marius Constant; 1962; performed by Mike SugarFandanguillo, Federico Moreno Torroba; performed by Mike SugarChances Are, Robert Allen and Al Stillman; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarRabbit Hole Interstitial Music – Eleanor Rigby Melody, Lennon and McCartney; arranged and performed by Mike SugarThe Girl from Ipanema, Antônio Carlos Jobim; Portuguese lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes; English lyrics by Norman Gimbel.Help! Lennon and McCartney; performed by performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarFields of Gold, Gordon Sumner and Dusan Bogdanovic; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike SugarThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)SourcesPlayboy interview; Paul McCartney; 1984Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Beatlesongs; William J. Dowling; Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989.Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now; Barry Miles; Secker &Warburg; 1997McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles; Hunter Davis; McGraw-Hill; 1968The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions; Mark Lewisohn; Hamlyn (a division of the Octopus Publishing Group); 1988All You Need Is Ears, George Martin, with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Griffin; 1979This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007“MOJO COLLECTIONS;” interview of Paul McCartneyevacassidy.orgThe Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books, 2000Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Rosetta Stone; The British MuseumMcCartney: Yesterday and Today, Ray Coleman; Boxtree, 1996.The Beatles as Musicians. The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul, Walter Everett; Oxford University Press; 2001.A Hard Day's Write - The Stories Behind Every Beatles' Song, Steve Turner; Carbon, 1994.In Search of the Sources of ‘I Saw Her Standing There' and ‘Yesterday,' Ian Hammond; Journal on Media Culture; Old Sweet Songs; http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME05/Oldsweetsongs.shtmlPaul McCartney in Casual Conversation with Jarvis Cocker at LIPA; August 15, 2018

February 1, 2021Stroll Down Penny LaneEpisode 4 Michelle – where voodoo meets the devil!In this chapter in our podcast series we explore the creation story for this song, Michelle. We also uncover how Paul McCartney's bass playing was transformed by his experience in the recording of Michelle. Finally, in this episode we will explore an unusual subject – the voodoo and the devil in this song, Michelle.So settle in for a story that will knock your socks off!SongsMichelle, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)Twenty Flight Rock, Eddie Cochran, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneGetting Closer, Paul McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa Mer, Charles Trenet, Albert Lasry; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa belle Vie; Sacha Distel, with French lyrics by Jean Broussolle; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneThat's Amore; Harry Warren and Jack Brooks; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneMoney Honey, Jesse Stone; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneJailhouse Rock, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa Vie En Rose, Édith Piaf (lyrics), Louiguy and Marguerite Monnot;; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar)Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix; performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneTill There Was You, Meredith Wilson; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)I Put a Spell on You; Screamin' Jay Hawkins; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneAnother Day, Paul McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)Patience, Guns N' Roses; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneMoment of Truth, Bill Conti, Dennis Lambert & Peter Beckett; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneThus Spoke Zarathustra, Richard WagnerTristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner; Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwangler; Philharmonia OrchestraThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Beatlesongs; William J. Dowling; Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989.Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now; Barry Miles; Secker &Warburg; 1997McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles; Hunter Davis; McGraw-Hill; 1968The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions; Mark Lewisohn; Hamlyn (a division of the Octopus Publishing Group); 1988All You Need Is Ears, George Martin, with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Griffin; 1979This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007Paul McCartney After the Beatles; Understanding Michelle; Adrian Allan; 2020Michelle History; Beatlesbooks.comLast Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick, Little Brown, 1994Careless Love, the unmaking of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick, Little Brown, 1999Music Historian Peter Guralnick — Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O'Brien; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZY7L0p2Gj0Screamin' Jay Hawkins; SongfactsI Put a Spell on You, Wikipedia.Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord, Wikipedia.What is the ‘Hendrix Chord'? Fender; articles, tech-talk; Purple Reign: the ‘Hendrix Chord'McCartney: Yesterday … and Today, Ray Coleman; Boxtree Ltd; 1998.

Episode 4 Michelle – where voodoo meets the devil!In this chapter in our podcast series we explore the creation story for this song, Michelle. We also uncover how Paul McCartney's bass playing was transformed by his experience in the recording of Michelle. Finally, in this episode we will explore an unusual subject – the voodoo and the devil in this song, Michelle.So settle in for a story that will knock your socks off!SongsMichelle, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)Twenty Flight Rock, Eddie Cochran, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneGetting Closer, Paul McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa Mer, Charles Trenet, Albert Lasry; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa belle Vie; Sacha Distel, with French lyrics by Jean Broussolle; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneThat's Amore; Harry Warren and Jack Brooks; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneMoney Honey, Jesse Stone; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneJailhouse Rock, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneLa Vie En Rose, Édith Piaf (lyrics), Louiguy and Marguerite Monnot;; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar)Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix; performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneTill There Was You, Meredith Wilson; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)I Put a Spell on You; Screamin' Jay Hawkins; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneAnother Day, Paul McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)Patience, Guns N' Roses; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneMoment of Truth, Bill Conti, Dennis Lambert & Peter Beckett; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneThus Spoke Zarathustra, Richard WagnerTristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner; Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwangler; Philharmonia OrchestraThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.Beatlesongs; William J. Dowling; Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989.Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now; Barry Miles; Secker &Warburg; 1997McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles; Hunter Davis; McGraw-Hill; 1968The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions; Mark Lewisohn; Hamlyn (a division of the Octopus Publishing Group); 1988All You Need Is Ears, George Martin, with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Griffin; 1979This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007Paul McCartney After the Beatles; Understanding Michelle; Adrian Allan; 2020Michelle History; Beatlesbooks.comLast Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick, Little Brown, 1994Careless Love, the unmaking of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick, Little Brown, 1999Music Historian Peter Guralnick — Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O'Brien; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZY7L0p2Gj0Screamin' Jay Hawkins; SongfactsI Put a Spell on You, Wikipedia.Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord, Wikipedia.What is the ‘Hendrix Chord'? Fender; articles, tech-talk; Purple Reign: the ‘Hendrix Chord'McCartney: Yesterday … and Today, Ray Coleman; Boxtree Ltd; 1998.

Episode 3 Penny Lane – and the ‘other song' to which it is inextricably linked!In this chapter in our podcast series we explore the genesis of this song and the characters that inhabit Paul McCartney's memories of his childhood days in Liverpool. We also examine the songwriting elements that make Penny Lane so compelling – including what is called a ‘truck driver's modulation.'The third thread in our podcast narrative covers the ‘other song' that is inextricably linked to Paul's song, Penny Lane. Get ready for a surprise here!SongsPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain, and Chris Barnes)Strawberry Fields Forever, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny Lane Twilight Zone Theme, Bernard Herrmann and Marius Constant; performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneGood Day Sunshine, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny Lane The Dance of the Salty Sardines; Mike Sugar, performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneAnd I Love Her, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneAnother Day, Paul McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott)Rabbit Hole Interstitial Music - Penny Lane melody, Lennon and McCartney, arranged and performed by Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny LaneBrandenburg Concerto Number 2 in F Major; Johann Sebastian Bach; piccolo trumpet solo, performed by Chris Barnes, of Stroll Down Penny LaneRelease Me, Robert Yount, Eddie Miller and Dub Williams; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of Stroll Down Penny Lane. The End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Stroll Down Penny Lane (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)Sources:Rolling Stone Magazine; George Martin; interview; 2001 Recording the Beatles; Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew; Curvebender; 2006.500 Greatest Songs of All Time; Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest songs of all time; by Rolling Stone; interview with Paul McCartneyThe Beatles Anthology; George Martin interview; John Lennon interviewBeatlesongs; William J. Dowling; Simon & Shuster, New York, 1989.Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey; Gotham Books; New York; 2006Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now; Barry Miles; Secker &Warburg; 1997McCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003The Beatles; Hunter Davis; McGraw-Hill; 1968The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions; Mark Lewisohn; Hamlyn (a division of the Octopus Publishing Group); 1988All You Need Is Ears, George Martin, with Jeremy Hornsby; St. Martin's Griffin; 1979This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007Engelbert Humperdinck (singer); WikipediaRelease Me (Eddie Miller song); WikipediaVoice Actors Joe AnastasiMike Sugar

In our second chapter, we explore the creation myth surrounding the song, Eleanor Rigby. Travel back in time with us to the very moment of formation of … the Beatles.Why this moment in time? Because it provides fascinating clues about the creation of this song. Join us in our investigation as we discover what in the world a psychological phenomenon known as cryptomnesia, has to do with the creation of Eleanor Rigby.Buckle up, for we are going to visit a very specific graveyard just outside Liverpool where everything will be revealed. Well, almost everything. Try to figure out now, in advance if you can, what the film “Psycho” has to do with the song Eleanor Rigby!SongsEleanor Rigby; Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and Winter, of SDPLYesterday, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, of SDPLOla-na Tung-eee; Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLA Day in the Life; Lennon and McCartney, ‘outro,' performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLMellow Yellow; Donovan; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLDa-Zi-Di-Da-Zu; Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLA Hard Day's Night, Lennon and McCartney; ‘intro,' performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30; Richard Strauss"Think!," Merv Griffin; mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLTwilight Zone Theme, Bernard Herrmann and Marius Constant, original recording cue, mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPL1985, Paul McCartney: ‘outro,' performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, and Matt Twain)The Girl Can't Help It; Bobby Troup; performed by Little RichardTwenty Flight Rock; Ned Fairchild and Eddie Cochran; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, and Matt Twain)Cry Me a River; Arthur Hamilton; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLShake It Off; Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellbac; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLMoonlight Sonata, Piano Sonata No. 14, Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLEasier Said Than Done; William Linton and Larry Huff; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLBarracuda; Ann and Nancy Wilson, Roger Fisher and Michael DeRosier; performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLManiac; Michael Sembello; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLString Concerto, Vivaldi; performed by Baroque BandBad Idea, Ariana Grande, Peter Svensson, Savan Kotecha, Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLPsycho!, Bernard Herrmann, original recording cue, mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)SourcesMcCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007Recording the Beatles, Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew, Curvebender Publishing; 2006The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books; 2000www.merriam-webster.com/medical/cryptomnesiawww.dictionary.apa.org/cryptomnesiaSunbeams Music Trust; Annie Mawson, Director;The Girl Can't Help It; produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, screenplay adapted by Frank Tashlin and Herbert Baker; 1956Psycho! directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock; written by Joseph Stefano; 1960Voice Actors Joe AnastasiMike SugarAnnie Mawson -- as herself.This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.

Episode 2: Eleanor Rigby – The Counter-Narrative!In our second chapter, we explore the creation myth surrounding the song, Eleanor Rigby. Travel back in time with us to the very moment of formation of … the Beatles.Why this moment in time? Because it provides fascinating clues about the creation of this song. Join us in our investigation as we discover what in the world a psychological phenomenon known as cryptomnesia, has to do with the creation of Eleanor Rigby.Buckle up, for we are going to visit a very specific graveyard just outside Liverpool where everything will be revealed. Well, almost everything. Try to figure out now, in advance if you can, what the film “Psycho” has to do with the song Eleanor Rigby!SongsEleanor Rigby; Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, and Winter, of SDPLYesterday, Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi, of SDPLOla-na Tung-eee; Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLA Day in the Life; Lennon and McCartney, ‘outro,' performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLMellow Yellow; Donovan; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLDa-Zi-Di-Da-Zu; Paul McCartney, performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLA Hard Day's Night, Lennon and McCartney; ‘intro,' performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLAlso Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30; Richard Strauss"Think!," Merv Griffin; mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLTwilight Zone Theme, Bernard Herrmann and Marius Constant, original recording cue, mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Lennon and McCartney; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPL1985, Paul McCartney: ‘outro,' performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, and Matt Twain)The Girl Can't Help It; Bobby Troup; performed by Little RichardTwenty Flight Rock; Ned Fairchild and Eddie Cochran; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLPenny Lane, Lennon and McCartney; performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, and Matt Twain)Cry Me a River; Arthur Hamilton; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLShake It Off; Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellbac; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLMoonlight Sonata, Piano Sonata No. 14, Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLEasier Said Than Done; William Linton and Larry Huff; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLBarracuda; Ann and Nancy Wilson, Roger Fisher and Michael DeRosier; performed by Mike Sugar, of SDPLManiac; Michael Sembello; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLString Concerto, Vivaldi; performed by Baroque BandBad Idea, Ariana Grande, Peter Svensson, Savan Kotecha, Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh; performed by Joe Anastasi and Mike Sugar, of SDPLPsycho!, Bernard Herrmann, original recording cue, mangled by Mike Sugar, of SDPLThe End, Lennon and McCartney; performed by SDPL (Joe Anastasi, Mike Sugar, Winter, Mark Abbott, Matt Twain)SourcesMcCartney, Christopher Sandford; Carroll and Graf Publishers; 2006Paul McCartney, the Life, Philip Norman; Little Brown and Company; 2016Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, Dominic Pedler; Omnibus Press; 2003This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession; Daniel J. Levitin; Plume; 2007Recording the Beatles, Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew, Curvebender Publishing; 2006The Beatles Anthology; Chronicle Books; 2000www.merriam-webster.com/medical/cryptomnesiawww.dictionary.apa.org/cryptomnesiaSunbeams Music Trust; Annie Mawson, Director;The Girl Can't Help It; produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, screenplay adapted by Frank Tashlin and Herbert Baker; 1956Psycho! directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock; written by Joseph Stefano; 1960Voice Actors Joe AnastasiMike SugarAnnie Mawson -- as herself.This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.