Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert Plant

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

This podcast has introduced me to some wonderful and amazing people. One of them provided this recording of Robert Plant and Saving Grace with Suzi Dian, in Malmo, Sweden on May 9, 2025. I play a strong acoustic Four Sticks, a lovely Down to the Sea (off Fate of Nations), and a haunting Gillian Welch song, Orphan Girl. It's nice to hear Robert out and about and enjoying himself.

Nothing can beat a charismatic frontman. Then again, there are some Side Players that give them a run for their money. I mean… who is Bono without Edge? Freddie Mercury without Brian May? Roth or Haggar without Eddie Van Halen? Robert Plant without Jimmy Page? Anthony Kiedis without John Frusciante? Bon Scott or Brian Johnson without Angus & Malcolm? Or Mick Jagger without Keith Richards.Of course I would be remiss not to mention the few charismatic Frontmen that are also ripping guitarists. Like Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, John Mayer, Jimi Hendrix, Either of the Vaughn Brothers, Derek Trucks, Prince, Eric Clapton, Chet Atkins, Mark Knopfler, Vince Gill… and lets just say ALL of the Kings.But which is it better to be, a Frontman or a Side Player? Can you be both? Which carries more stress? Which carries more fame? Does one roll have more significance than the other? Who has the bigger influence on the sound? If we could give some advice, what would it be? When I think of a band, which member  comes to mind? And… job security… did I just get fired?Well we will discuss this, and more on this group therapy session with Lloyd, on the Tweed Couch.

Today's guest is a family favorite. That means I'm talking with Erika Wennerstrom from Heartless Bastards. There are times when I'm completely blown away that an artist agrees to be a guest on this podcast and this is one of those moments. But Erika was and is incredibly kind and gracious. We start off like we usually do, talking about what got her into music. It turns out that she knew she was going to be a singer by around the age of four.  We talk about early bands, like Shesus, the transformation from a shy, awkward person to fronting a band, and how she came up with the name Heartless Bastards. The band's sound has evolved over the course of six albums. Erika talks about struggling with writer's block, stepping back from the band to regroup, and doing her solo album.  After a brief tangent on designed obsolescence, Erika  pulls the curtain back on the latest Heartless Bastards album, A Beautiful Life. Disney and James Bond were influences to a few songs and Laurel Canyon asserts its influence.  Erika is full of great stories, like how Patrick Kearney of The Black Keys ended up with her demos, growing up with The Ohio Players (at least one of them), and swinging by Robert Plant's house to pick him up for drinks (he had shotgun, of course). Erika is currently writing music for the next Heartless Bastards album so keep following their social media accounts and theheartlessbastards.com for updates. Follow us @PerformanceAnx. Pick up merch at performanceanx.threadless.com. Or just give us money at ko-fi.com/performanceanxiety. And I hope you're as excited for this one as I was. It's Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards on Performance Anxiety on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode, we're joined by the dynamic and hilarious Nico D'Elisa, aka Nico Suave, for a wide-ranging convo on voice, vulnerability, and claiming the stage. From belting Led Zeppelin classics with her tribute band Nico Suave and the Mothership to cracking up crowds with improvised musical comedy, Nico is a true multi-hyphenate force.We get into her Goosemas debut with Goose the band, her unexpected side gig as a medical actress (yes, really), and what it's like to navigate the rock and comedy worlds as a woman with serious stage presence. Nico shares her origin story, her alter ego, and her dreams of hitting festival stages and maybe even SNL.Also in this episode: pelvic exams, frat bro roasts and Robert Plant channeling. It's weird, it's wild, and it's wonderfully Nico.You can find Nico on Instagram @nicosuavedamame and follow Nico Suave and the Mothership here.__Join WTed and the Wysteria Lane community! WTed Goose Radio is looking for women's voices on the air. Lend your voice and become a GORP (Goose Obsessed Radio Personality). Reach out if you're interested in talking about a specific show or curating a playlist for the station. Get involved or tune in here: community.wysterialane.org WTedRadio.comStay up to date with The Femme Flock!Our WebsiteBluesky

There is something that happens when two particular voices blend together that transcends all understanding or logic. And, when those voices share the same DNA, the magnetic pull is such that they become one voice. We've heard that family blend many times: The Everlys, The Wilsons, The Gibbs, The Andrew Sisters, etc. The list goes on.One of the most uncanny examples of this phenomenon belongs to Charlie and Ira Louvin, those titans of Country and Gospel music. When they sing with religious devotion, such as they do here in The River of Jordan - you can hear God and his miracles working in every keening, harmonic fifth. The other song presented today features Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, - a pair of folks about as far from siblings as you can get, but whose vocal cords also combine miraculously.THE LOUVINSThe first time I heard of Ira and Charlie Louvin was through Emmylou Harris's 1975 version of If I Could Only Win Your Love, and I had to know from whence this other-worldly sound originated. Like a hound on the scent, I tracked down several recordings from the brothers, and sat open mouthed as song after song cut through me. The Louvins, whose birth name was Loudermilk (cousins to the noted songwriter), had a contentious relationship, owing to Ira's drunken temperament and womanizing. Charlie contemplated going solo, but Ira's early demise, at 41, in a drunken car crash, made the decision permanent. Ira usually takes the high harmony, but they had the ability to switch mid way through a song so that it was often hard to tell who was covering which part.  Truly one of the all time great sibling singing duos. ALISON KRAUSS AND ROBERT PLANTA musical marriage made in heaven that no fiction writer could have invented, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss came together in one of the most celestial combos ever. The Led Zeppelin frontman, renowned for his soaring falsetto, melds with the rawboned steadiness of bluegrass's sweetheart in an eclectic stew of influences that somehow create a single entity. Today's featured song, Please Read the Letter, nestled among cuts by the Everlys, Gene Clark, Mel Tillis, and Townes Van Zandt was written by Plant and his Zeppelin brother, Jimmie Page, and is added seamlessly to the mix.The resulting album, Raising Sand, produced by the curatorial genius T-Bone Burnett, was released in 2007, and swept the Grammies and Americana Music Awards, taking its place in the pantheon of beautiful enigmas.  

Flesh & Blood, the third studio album by Poison, finds the group at the top of their form.  The team of Bret Michaels on lead vocals, C.C. DeVille on lead guitar, Bobby Doll on bass, and Rikki Rockett on drums had been quite successful in the glam metal genre of the mid-80's, and had developed a reputation for a "work hard, play hard" mentality.  While they had a legendary stage presence, they also were plagued with fights both within and outside of the band.  A number of lawsuits in various cities were predicated on Michaels' tendency to get into fights at parties and other events.  Despite these issues - or perhaps because of them - their reputation only grew over time. Flesh & Blood is an album that is more challenging musically than the earlier ones.  The band is toning down their glam metal persona and taking on more serious lyrical themes.  Songs cover a wide range from sex and motorcycles, to struggles with long term relationships, to frustration with the struggles seen in society.  The band would drop the excessive makeup of their earlier career, and found the songs on a more blues-oriented rock.  More piano work is included, with keyboardist John Webster contributing to the album sessions.The result was a success, reaching triple platinum status by 1991.  The album peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 3 on the UK albums chart. This album would be a kind of high water mark for the group, as the industry was moving away from the metal sound of the late 80's and into the grunge sound of the mid-1990's.  However, the group would go on to record and tour into the new millennium, and Bret Michaels would become both a solo act and a celebrity with his MTV reality show "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels."Lynch brings us a look at a somewhat more mature Poison on this week's for today's podcast. Unskinny BopNot every song has deep or significant lyrics.  This hit single from the album started as a nonsense lyric, a placeholder that stuck.  The catchy repetition would make it a crowd favorite at concerts, and it was a top 10, going to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.Valley of Lost SoulsA deeper cut, this song lyrics talk about the life of a rock artist struggling to make it in a place without compassion.  It is a slower piece, but definitely not a ballad.  Life Goes OnC.C. DeVille brought the original draft of this song to the band.  The lyrics were inspired by a girlfriend of DeVille who was shot and killed in a California bar fight, and describe the quest for light at the end of a dark period in life.Something to Believe InThis ballad was the second single released from the album, and went to number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Bret Michaels dedicated this song to his friend and bodyguard James Kimo Maano who had died previously.  The lyrics reflect the frustration in the failures of society, from poverty, to the treatment of Vietnam veterans, to the hypocrisy of televangelists. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:You're In the Doghouse Now by Brenda Lee (from the motion picture “Dick Tracy”)This action movie based on the comic series from the 1930's starred Warren Beatty in the title role, along with Al Pacino and Madonna. STAFF PICKS:Ball and Chain by Social DistortionWayne kicks off the staff picks with a more alternative rock song penned by a punk rock band from their third and self-titled album.  The lyrics describe a hard luck story of a man who can't escape his difficulties.  It could be about a relationship, a rut in life, or about any vice that holds you down.Way Down Now by World PartyRob's staff pick is the first single from World Party's second studio album, "Goodbye Jumbo."  If you hear echoes of "Sympathy for the Devil," that is deliberate - though the song is much more upbeat.  It reached number 1 on the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart.  World Party is primarily a one-man project from multi-instrumentalist Karl Wallinger from the Waterboys.Tie Dye on the Highway by Robert PlantBruce brings us a song off plant's fifth studio album "Manic Nirvana."  The spoken line, "What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000." is from Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm Collective, delivered at the Woodstock festival in 1969 announcing the intention to provide free breakfast to the crowd.  Kool Thing by Sonic YouthLynch closes out the staff picks with a song critical of the over-the-top masculinity of LL Cool J.  It was the first single from their sixth studio album, "Goo."  The track never mentions LL Cool J personally, but references a number of his works.  Chuck D. of Public Enemy provides the spoken vocals to the song.INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Mildred Pierce by Sonic YouthWe double up on Sonic Youth as we end today's podcast with their instrumental based on a 1945 film noir starring Joan Crawford.   Thanks for listening to “What the Riff?!?” NOTE: To adjust the loudness of the music or voices, you may adjust the balance on your device. VOICES are stronger in the LEFT channel, and MUSIC is stronger on the RIGHT channel.Please follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whattheriffpodcast/, and message or email us with what you'd like to hear, what you think of the show, and any rock-worthy memes we can share.Of course we'd love for you to rate the show in your podcast platform!**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.

La beauté sauvera-t-elle le monde ? Réponse moyen-orientale en trompette, piano, guitare, violoncelle et percussions. Notre 1ère invitée est la trompettiste anglo-bahreïnienne Yazz Ahmed.Le quatrième album studio de Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise in The Hold, s'inspire de la musique folklorique de Bahreïn, l'île des deux mers, dans laquelle les chants de travail des plongeurs de perles et leurs chants de nostalgie et de solitude contrastent avec la musique de célébration des groupes de tambours féminins traditionnels qui se produisent lors des mariages et des festivals.La suite originale de 90 minutes, Alhaan Al Siduri, qui constitue la base de cet album, a été composée en 2015. Le processus de création a commencé par un voyage de recherche à Bahreïn en 2014, au cours duquel j'ai assisté à un concert privé donné par les Pearl Divers de Muharraq, ma ville natale, et j'ai parcouru les librairies locales à la recherche de paroles de chansons de mariage et de poèmes. J'ai également eu le rare plaisir d'entendre mon grand-père me chanter des chansons de son propre mariage. À partir de ces deux éléments d'inspiration, les mots que j'ai trouvés et la musique que j'ai entendue, traitée avec mon nouvel intérêt pour la conception sonore, les compositions individuelles et la forme de la suite ont commencé à émerger. «La musique a évolué au cours de la dernière décennie grâce à des représentations en direct avec des ensembles de différentes tailles, des solos aux concerts avec orchestre symphonique. Pour cet enregistrement, j'ai adapté le matériel pour mettre en scène cinq chanteurs invités. Brigitte Beraha, Natacha Atlas, Randolph Matthews, Alba Nacinovich et Jason Singh se sont joints aux musiciens de mon groupe Hafla, élargissant ainsi la palette tonale de l'ensemble. Les paroles qu'ils chantent comprennent des fragments de chansons traditionnelles bahreïnies et des pensées issues de mes propres rêveries, des réflexions sur la lointaine maison de mon enfance.» Yazz Ahmed.Titres joués : Though My Eyes Go To Sleep, Al Naddaha, Dancing Barefoot et Into the Night.►  Album A Paradise In The Hold (Night Time Stories 2025).Site - Bandcamp - YouTube. Puis nous recevons le trio l'Antidote pour la sortie de L'Antidote.La beauté sauvera-t-elle le monde ? C'est le pari de Bijan Chemirani, Redi Hasa et Rami Khalifé, trois virtuoses réunis pour donner corps à L'Antidote, un répertoire instrumental qui oppose le pouvoir de guérison de la musique aux poisons des temps présents.Maître du zarb iranien et des percussions persanes qu'il aime plonger dans le jazz comme dans le grand bain méditerranéen, Bijan Chemirani croise ici sa science du rythme avec le violoncelliste albanais Redi Hasa — connu pour avoir œuvré au renouveau des musiques traditionnelles du sud de l'Italie, mais aussi aux côtés de Maria Mazzotta, Ludovico Einaudi ou encore Robert Plant — et le Libanais Rami Khalifé qui se joue avec maîtrise des frontières entre classique et électro sur les touches de son piano. Si leurs chemins s'étaient déjà croisés, la rencontre a véritablement lieu à l'orée de la pandémie, dans un studio des Pouilles, près de Lecce, alors que le temps semble sur le point de s'arrêter. Au cœur d'une mer de vignes, dans ce lieu magnifique baigné de lumière, les trois virtuoses se retrouvent à nouveau à l'automne 2024 pour enregistrer L'Antidote.«La musique est un antidote à la réalité qui, parfois, est entachée de déceptions et de rêves brisés», explique Rami Khalifé. «La musique a un effet thérapeutique sur l'esprit et sur le corps : elle nous apaise, elle nous donne de l'espoir, elle nous guérit et nous aide à voir les choses sous un nouvel angle. La musique transcende tout.»Titres interprétés au grand studio- Pomegranate Live RFI - L'Ombre qui passe, extrait de l'album- Dates, figues & Nuts Live RFI.Line Up : Redi Hasa (violoncelle), Rami Khalifé, (piano), Bijan Cherimani (percussions).Son : Benoît Letirant, Camille Roch.► Album L'Antidote (Ponderosa Music Rd 2025).Site - YouTube. Réalisation : Donatien Cahu, Hadrien Touraud.

La beauté sauvera-t-elle le monde ? Réponse moyen-orientale en trompette, piano, guitare, violoncelle et percussions. Notre 1ère invitée est la trompettiste anglo-bahreïnienne Yazz Ahmed.Le quatrième album studio de Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise in The Hold, s'inspire de la musique folklorique de Bahreïn, l'île des deux mers, dans laquelle les chants de travail des plongeurs de perles et leurs chants de nostalgie et de solitude contrastent avec la musique de célébration des groupes de tambours féminins traditionnels qui se produisent lors des mariages et des festivals.La suite originale de 90 minutes, Alhaan Al Siduri, qui constitue la base de cet album, a été composée en 2015. Le processus de création a commencé par un voyage de recherche à Bahreïn en 2014, au cours duquel j'ai assisté à un concert privé donné par les Pearl Divers de Muharraq, ma ville natale, et j'ai parcouru les librairies locales à la recherche de paroles de chansons de mariage et de poèmes. J'ai également eu le rare plaisir d'entendre mon grand-père me chanter des chansons de son propre mariage. À partir de ces deux éléments d'inspiration, les mots que j'ai trouvés et la musique que j'ai entendue, traitée avec mon nouvel intérêt pour la conception sonore, les compositions individuelles et la forme de la suite ont commencé à émerger. «La musique a évolué au cours de la dernière décennie grâce à des représentations en direct avec des ensembles de différentes tailles, des solos aux concerts avec orchestre symphonique. Pour cet enregistrement, j'ai adapté le matériel pour mettre en scène cinq chanteurs invités. Brigitte Beraha, Natacha Atlas, Randolph Matthews, Alba Nacinovich et Jason Singh se sont joints aux musiciens de mon groupe Hafla, élargissant ainsi la palette tonale de l'ensemble. Les paroles qu'ils chantent comprennent des fragments de chansons traditionnelles bahreïnies et des pensées issues de mes propres rêveries, des réflexions sur la lointaine maison de mon enfance.» Yazz Ahmed.Titres joués : Though My Eyes Go To Sleep, Al Naddaha, Dancing Barefoot et Into the Night.►  Album A Paradise In The Hold (Night Time Stories 2025).Site - Bandcamp - YouTube. Puis nous recevons le trio l'Antidote pour la sortie de L'Antidote.La beauté sauvera-t-elle le monde ? C'est le pari de Bijan Chemirani, Redi Hasa et Rami Khalifé, trois virtuoses réunis pour donner corps à L'Antidote, un répertoire instrumental qui oppose le pouvoir de guérison de la musique aux poisons des temps présents.Maître du zarb iranien et des percussions persanes qu'il aime plonger dans le jazz comme dans le grand bain méditerranéen, Bijan Chemirani croise ici sa science du rythme avec le violoncelliste albanais Redi Hasa — connu pour avoir œuvré au renouveau des musiques traditionnelles du sud de l'Italie, mais aussi aux côtés de Maria Mazzotta, Ludovico Einaudi ou encore Robert Plant — et le Libanais Rami Khalifé qui se joue avec maîtrise des frontières entre classique et électro sur les touches de son piano. Si leurs chemins s'étaient déjà croisés, la rencontre a véritablement lieu à l'orée de la pandémie, dans un studio des Pouilles, près de Lecce, alors que le temps semble sur le point de s'arrêter. Au cœur d'une mer de vignes, dans ce lieu magnifique baigné de lumière, les trois virtuoses se retrouvent à nouveau à l'automne 2024 pour enregistrer L'Antidote.«La musique est un antidote à la réalité qui, parfois, est entachée de déceptions et de rêves brisés», explique Rami Khalifé. «La musique a un effet thérapeutique sur l'esprit et sur le corps : elle nous apaise, elle nous donne de l'espoir, elle nous guérit et nous aide à voir les choses sous un nouvel angle. La musique transcende tout.»Titres interprétés au grand studio- Pomegranate Live RFI - L'Ombre qui passe, extrait de l'album- Dates, figues & Nuts Live RFI.Line Up : Redi Hasa (violoncelle), Rami Khalifé, (piano), Bijan Cherimani (percussions).Son : Benoît Letirant, Camille Roch.► Album L'Antidote (Ponderosa Music Rd 2025).Site - YouTube. Réalisation : Donatien Cahu, Hadrien Touraud.

En 2013 à Courbessac, un village près de Nîmes, Robert Plant, 32 ans, mène une vie de Tanguy. Il vit avec sa mère dans une belle villa avec piscine : Robert Plant ne travaille pas, il occupe ses journées à boire et fumer des pétards. Jusqu'au jour où la PJ de Montpellier le suspecte du meurtre sauvage d'une joggeuse tout près de chez lui. Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

En 2013 à Courbessac, un village près de Nîmes, Robert Plant, 32 ans, mène une vie de Tanguy. Il vit avec sa mère dans une belle villa avec piscine : Robert Plant ne travaille pas, il occupe ses journées à boire et fumer des pétards. Jusqu'au jour où la PJ de Montpellier le suspecte du meurtre sauvage d'une joggeuse tout près de chez lui. Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

En 2013 à Courbessac, un village près de Nîmes, Robert Plant, 32 ans, mène une vie de Tanguy. Il vit avec sa mère dans une belle villa avec piscine : Robert Plant ne travaille pas, il occupe ses journées à boire et fumer des pétards. Jusqu'au jour où la PJ de Montpellier le suspecte du meurtre sauvage d'une joggeuse tout près de chez lui. Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

En 2013 à Courbessac, un village près de Nîmes, Robert Plant, 32 ans, mène une vie de Tanguy. Il vit avec sa mère dans une belle villa avec piscine : Robert Plant ne travaille pas, il occupe ses journées à boire et fumer des pétards. Jusqu'au jour où la PJ de Montpellier le suspecte du meurtre sauvage d'une joggeuse tout près de chez lui. Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

This is posted one day after the 52 anniversary of this wonderful show. Led Zeppelin playing to 58,000 people outside, in broad daylight, at Kezar Stadium on June 2, 1973. This show is famous for the photo of Robert Plant holding a dove in his hand. I play a very nice 31 minuted Dazed and Confused followed by the show closer, The Ocean. It's a really nice show overshadowed by the shows directly before and after.

Yasi and Steven talk with the energetic Jesùs Florido, a one-time competitive tennis player turned professional violinist, composer, producer and entrepreneur. An innovator at heart, Jesus takes you through his athletic career, its unintended impact in his musical development, his unique musical fusion style, developing into a music virtuoso, and his work in developing music careers through the Màs y Màs Music Foundation.For more on Jesùs' career, go to https://www.jesusflorido.comInstagram: @latinfiddlerBio: With his debut, Heading North, violinist, composer, and bandleader Jesus Florido introduces compelling artistry balanced on a fine axis of musical virtuosity and pure heart. "This album came about from what is not out there from an instrumental point of view," he explains. "Jazz, rock, classical, Latin -- my album is a melting pot."The savory list of sonic influences can be traced back to Venezuela, Jesus' home, and its pastiche of Cuban, Dominican, Trinidadian, and African cultures. Jesus' family is Italian, and in the grand European tradition, opera and classical music also informed his early years.He arrived in the U.S. to further his studies in musical academia but was soon performing in cavernous arenas to enormous audiences with Yo-Yo Ma, the Moody Blues, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, and Whitney Houston. This high-profile exposure fueled the fire to ignite his own solo career.Heading North is notable for the contributions of the musicians, producers, engineers, and programmers who join Jesus. "It was important to me that project was different from the get-go," he relates. "I wanted to communicate on a higher level." Heading North features a superlative ensemble.Jesus composes in an unconventional miracle of pure inspiration, building songs from a rhythmic and harmonic base -- chords and a drumbeat -- then improvising on top of them. "I may clean it up, but I assure you, on every track what you hear is exactly what came through my head at that moment. To write fresh music I have to recall exactly how I felt about the tune the first time I heard it," he reveals.Across this vivid spectrum of music, the unmistakable timbre of Jesus' violin remains an indelible voice connecting the songs that comprise Heading North. From the sophisticated veneer of the title track to the incendiary Latin grooves of "Mi Negra," the prog-rock influenced "Con Todo," the electro-Santeria vibe of "Gitano" to the funk-informed "Olividado," Jesus bends rhythmic and melodic structures to his will. "Every song is a story without words," he relates. "If I can tell it to the audience when they listen to my record, then I've succeeded." With his violin as a compass, Jesus Florido heads toward a limitless musical horizon with a stunning debut, Heading North."

Isabella 'Izzi' Manfredi was born to be a frontwoman. As lead singer for The Preatures, she brought rock n roll swagger and brilliant pop songwriting to the scene, when they arrived in the 2010's. They called it a day in 2020, but recently decided to reform and celebrate that brilliant debut album Blue Planet Eyes. It was the catalyst to invite Izzi in to Take 5, and hear about the music that had been the foundations and moulded around her ever-evolving existence.Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)Cat Power - RuinThe Angels  - Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again (live) Christine Anu - Island HomeCharli xcx & Bon Iver - I think about it all the time featuring bon iver

The great Bob Mosley—Mr. Blues himself—is known for a soul-belting voice that is a true force of nature.  As a man who's transcended his share of real blues (a bout of homelessness, a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia that'd sideline the average person), conversely Bob has fronted multiple bands, been idolized by Robert Plant, and played in a late-1970s supergroup with Neil Young called The Ducks. Here's just a few of the many things that Bob discusses with Discograffiti in this podcast:What it was like opening for The Rolling Stones;How he first found out that he could sing like that;His favorite song on Moby Grape's classic debut;What it was like living on the street;His relationship with Skip Spence, both of whom endured a lifetime struggle with the same severe psychological diagnoses, yet neither man ever admitted defeat. There'll be a short sneak peak running publicly for free, but the entirety of this podcast will only be accessible on the Major Tier of Discograffiti's Patreon. Don't miss it, or you'll only be getting part of the story. Get it as a one-off, or better yet just subscribe.Full Episode: Patreon.com/Discograffiti (available on the Major Tier & up)Free Sneak Peek: linktr.ee/discograffitiSubscribe to Discograffiti's Patreon and receive a ceaseless barrage (4 shows a week!) of must-hear binge-listening. I support a wife and a six-year-old son with Discograffiti as my sole source of income.It's completely free to be a basic member, $1 to get your backstage pass, $5/month for the weekly Sunday show by & for our community, $10 for weekly early release, ad-free, super-extended Director's Cuts of the main show plus half our Patreon episode archive, & $20 for Discograffiti's weekly bonus episodes and our entire Patreon episode archive. There are now over 300 Patreon episodes.CONNECTJoin our Soldiers of Sound Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1839109176272153Patreon: www.Patreon.com/DiscograffitiPodfollow: ⁠⁠https://podfollow.com/1592182331⁠⁠YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClyaQCdvDelj5EiKj6IRLhwInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/discograffitipod/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Discograffiti/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiscograffitiOrder the Digital version of the METAL MACHINE MUZAK 2xLP (feat. Lou Barlow, Cory Hanson, Mark Robinson, & W. Cullen Hart): www.patreon.com/discograffiti/shop/197404Order the $11 Digital version of the MMM 2xLP on Bandcamp: https://discograffiti.bandcamp.com/album/metal-machine-muzakOrder the METAL MACHINE MUZAK Double Vinyl + Digital package: www.patreon.com/discograffiti/shop/169954Merch Shop: https://discograffitipod.myspreadshop.com/allVenmo Dave A Tip: @David-GebroeWeb site: http://discograffiti.com/CONTACT DAVEEmail: dave@discograffiti.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/hooligandaveInstagram:  https://www.instagram.com/davidgebroe/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaveGebroeThere is no other Patreon in existence where you get more for your money. 4 shows a week is what it takes these days to successfully blot out our unacceptable reality…so do yourself a favor and give it a shot for at least one month to see what I'm talking about.  If you're already a member, please comment below about your experience.  www.Patreon.com/discograffiti#mobygrape #sanfrancisco #sixties #billgraham #fillmorewest #gordonstevens #doobiebrothers #weirdherald #billydeanandrus #donstevenson #peterlewis #bobmosley #jerrymiller #robertplant #skipspence #avalonballroom #familydog #thebyrds #jeffersonairplane #matthewkatz #camcobb #bellevue #jormakaukonen #discograffiti #metalmachinemuzak #soldiersofsound #grapeexpectations #thematrix #martybalin #omarspence 

The band HEART will be in Chicago at Ravina, The Hard Rock in Atlantic CityDetroit, Hinckley Minnesota, St Louis, and more cities ... Go to heart-music.com for details.Nancy Wilson of Heart is a a trailblazer , a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, and just an all-around cool person.Nancy joined us to talk:-Working with her sister Ann for over 50 years, "Because we had the other focus on the music itself, it took a lot of pressure off of us as a relationship"-Playing Radio City Music Hall (Ann Hathaway brought her kids)-Todd Rundgren has always been that cool-college girl-mind-expanding-person-Writing new music -Playing the Kennedy Center Honors for Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones-Inspired by the Beatles on Ed Sullivan   To subscribe to The Pete McMurray Show Podcast just click here

13ème porte d'entrée, et préparez vos marteaux et vos plumes car aujourd'hui, on explore l'univers gargantuesque de Led Zeppelin!Autour de la table: Erwan, JP, Seb & Clément.Tout est chapitré!Titres diffusés:Communication BreakdownBring It On HomeTangerineWhen The Levee BreaksD'yer Mak'erCustard PieAchille's Last StandFool In The RainSince I've Been Loving You (Live)Retrouvez-nous sur Instagram, Bluesky, Twitch et Patreon.Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/la_pause_clope_podcast/Bluesky -- https://bsky.app/profile/lapauseclope.bsky.socialTwitch -- https://www.twitch.tv/la_pause_clopeNotre Patreon -- https://www.patreon.com/lapauseclope Merci de votre fidélité, de nous écouter, et n'hésitez pas à vous abonner à nos flux (et à mettre 5 étoiles sur vos applis de podcast) pour ne rien louper!Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

This is an amazing send off for Robert Plant's higher range. December 8, 1972 at the Hard Rock in Manchester, UK is a great performance of a great band reaching their peak. The recording is clear and nice, and the instruments are all well balanced and represented. I play Since I've Been Loving You, and a raucous 27 minute Whole Lotta Love, with jams and medleys aplenty. It's great. It's 1972 Led Zeppelin. You should get the whole recording.

What's better than one unique voice? Do you have to ask? Here in Top Ten Unique Voices That Sound Great Together, our good friend and returning champion Gabe Scalone lays out his vision for an obvious but awesome topic. Here it is in a nutshell - 2 singers that have unmistakable flair and originality, combining forces like the finest chocolate and some amazing peanut butter to create a taste sensation. Two great tastes that taste great together, as Madison Avenue used to say. Picks 10-6 are revealed here in Part 1.We've lowered our prices, but not our standards over at the ATTT Patreon! Those who are kindly contributing $2 a month are receiving an exclusive monthly Emergency Pod episode featuring our favorite guests and utilizing our patent-pending improv format in which we miraculously pull a playlist out of thin air. The Old Boy Himself Ryan Blake joined for May's bonus episode.Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/c/alltimetoptenWe're having a blast chatting it up about music over on the ATTT Facebook Group. Join us and start a conversation!https://www.facebook.com/groups/940749894391295

Special Zeppelin episode featuring a set up from Jimmy Page and then Robert Plant, in conversation with Jeff, about the magic of the mighty Zep, and what it was that first attracted them to the blues in the sixties, and then in the spotlight: every one of the fifteen songs over the four sides of the classic double album of 1975 -- Physical Graffiti. Jeff gets into how it got made, where each song was recorded and when, and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send us a textIn this episode, we discuss Led Zeppelin's double album, 'Physical Graffiti,' in belated celebration of the 50th anniversary of its February 24, 1975 release. It's rare for me to do one of these album deep-dives these days, but an over-the-top album warrants an over-the-top episode, right?Support the showSubscribe to Rock Talk with Dr. Cropper +Instagram & TikTok — @rocktalk.dr.cropperTwitter — @RockTalkDrCroppFacebook, LinkedIn & YouTube — Rock Talk with Dr. CropperEmail — rocktalk.dr.cropper@gmail.com

Valerie June is a Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter whose music has been praised by Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, NPR, and Bob Dylan himself (who is a self-proclaimed fan). She has performed with John Prine, Norah Jones, Booker T. Jones, Robert Plant, Meshell Ndegeocello, Dave Matthews, Angelique Kidjo, Willie Nelson, Brandi Carlile, and Elvis Costello, written books of poetry and on art, and is a certified yoga and mindfulness instructor. We talk to Valerie about intention setting and the law of attraction, learning to live with chronic illness, testing different approaches and your creative limits, manifesting, rituals and routines to get ready to be present for people, and a whole lot more.Get more access and support this show by subscribing to our Patreon, right here.Links:Valerie JuneEp 39 - Joe HenryEp 17 - Elizabeth Cook'The Artist's Way' Elizabeth CottonMississippi John HurtSkip JamesCarla ThomasClick here to watch this conversation on YouTube.Social Media:The Other 22 Hours InstagramThe Other 22 Hours TikTokMichaela Anne InstagramAaron Shafer-Haiss InstagramAll music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Become a subscribing member on our Patreon to gain more inside access including exclusive content, workshops, the chance to have your questions answered by our upcoming guests, and more.

Plus, cooler than expected encounters with "Steve Harrington" aka Joe Keery, Rob Thomas and the ViCON ROBERT SMITH (downing Goldschlager shots!). We play WTF and learn that Wisconsinites are crafter than we thought. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One rehearsal in the summer of '68 lit the fuse—Becoming Led Zeppelin captures the raw formation of a band that would change music forever. With newly unearthed John Bonham audio and exclusive interviews from Page, Plant, and Jones, this doc is pure voltage—no critics, no fluff, just Zeppelin, and a ton of great music, in their own words.*Want to win a free copy of Queen & A Night At The Opera: 50 Years?  It's easy, just send me an email to sign up. You can find a link to my email address below. *Reminder this is for US citizens only* *Want the latest in Rock N Roll Book and Documentaries news sent to your inbox? Sign up for the Monthly BLAST!! the newsletter that comes out on the last Friday of the month that features book buzz and doc news, recently released titles, top 5 lists, and more. Just shoot me over an email at the address below and say Big Rick, send me over that Blast!!Support the showemail Big Rick at:info@rocktalkstudio.com

This week on VRP Rocks, things take a slightly different turn! With a couple of last-minute interview cancellations and a holiday just around the corner, Paul dives into a really fun topic — "10 Supergroups and Side Projects Only Classic Rock Experts Will Remember!" Featuring stories behind forgotten collaborations from legends like Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, David Bowie and more, this episode uncovers the hidden gems of classic rock history. It's packed with music trivia, surprising facts, and deep cuts that even hardcore fans might have missed. Plus, Paul shares a quick update on what's coming up over the next few weeks. Whether you're a casual fan or a true rock historian, you'll love this journey through some of classic rock's best-kept secrets! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Bandwich Tapes, I sit down with renowned bassist, composer, and producer Viktor Krauss for a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about his musical path, creative process, and the many collaborations that have shaped his career.Viktor Krauss is one of contemporary music's most versatile and respected bassists. He's played with an astonishing array of artists, including Lyle Lovett, Bill Frisell, Robert Plant, and Alison Krauss. Equally at home in jazz, folk, rock, and beyond, Viktor brings a deep sense of melody, texture, and feel to everything he touches. In addition to his work as a sideman, he's also released his solo projects, blending cinematic soundscapes with expressive songwriting.This episode is a must-listen for fans of genre-defying musicianship, creative collaboration, and the subtle art of supporting a song from the low end.Music from the Episode:For A Good Time (Viktor Krauss)Pipe Down (Bill Frisell)Big Shoe (Bill Frisell)Penguins (Lyle Lovett)Grit Lap (Viktor Krauss)Big Log (Viktor Krauss)Pinky Ring (Viktor Krauss)Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Viktor Krauss)Trouble With My Lover (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss)Learn more about Viktor and his work at viktorkrauss.com.Thank you for listening! If you have any feedback or questions, or just want to say hi, reach out at info@thebandwichtapes.com — and please help spread the word about the show!Theme music: "Playcation" by Mark Mundy

Entre une légende du rap sud-africain et un poète angevin, mon cœur balance… Notre 1er invité est Stogie T pour la sortie de l'EP ShallowVétéran du hip-hop sud-africain, Stogie T (Tumi Molekane) n'est pas un parolier classique. Son travail consiste à trouver un équilibre délicat entre différents mondes ; il a prouvé qu'il était la voix du peuple, mais il n'hésite pas à tendre un miroir à l'ensemble de la société, et le reflet est toujours plus complexe que les clichés bien-pensants du «rap conscient» et la nature stéréotypée et banale du «rap commercial».Le message dominant de Shallow est la psychose collective. Le dernier EP publié par Stogie T depuis la pandémie mondiale contient des chansons percutantes qui reflètent une forme particulière de cynisme prévalant en Afrique. Le rêve différé, la perte d'espoir sous le poids écrasant d'un État de plus en plus défaillant. Stogie T a déjà parlé de cet état, mais cette fois-ci, il se penche sur les effets qu'il a sur ses habitants. Ce qu'il advient de la pensée des gens, de leurs dysfonctionnements et de leurs pathologies.Stogie T (alias Tumi Molekane) est sur la voie de l'autoréflexion, de l'introspection, de l'évolution et de la restitution, tout en jouant la carte du progrès. Il s'interroge sur les valeurs et les règles qui régissent notre vie, sur les raisons de désespérer ou d'espérer d'un pays entouré d'un pillage flagrant, sur les raisons d'être cynique et sur les raisons de croire et de se soucier des autres.Les chansons de cet EP ont été conçues et enregistrées pendant Covid et entre les moments d'anxiété intense dus au dysfonctionnement et au désordre sociétal, à la perte d'amis proches et de membres de la famille, et à la disparition tragique de ses pairs. En tant qu'artiste cherchant à trouver une voix dans le désordre et à s'élever au-dessus du bruit de la machine médiatique mondiale, Stogie T a trouvé du réconfort dans la tragédie et le traumatisme. Offrant un contrepoint à l'air du temps par le biais d'une poésie artistique nous rappelant, ainsi qu'à lui-même, qu'en tant qu'artiste, c'est son travail qui apporte de l'espoir pour l'avenir, mais qu'il doit faire preuve d'un grand discernement, d'espoir pour l'avenir, mais qu'il doit rester fidèle à lui-même, à sa famille et à sa communauté.Titres interprétés grand studio- Shallow Live RFI- Zimkile feat Msaki, extrait album- Too Late For Mama Live RFI.Line Up : Tumi Molekane (voix), Shane Cooper (basse), Bonj (voix), Bokani Dyer (claviers, voix), Clem Carr (claviers)et Justin Badenhorst (batterie).Traduction : Enora LouisSon : Benoît Letirant, Mathias Taylor.► EP Shallow (Sakifo Rd 2024).Facebook - Youtube. Puis la #SessionLive invite Lo'Jo pour la sortie de l'album Feuilles Mauves. De leur Anjou natal à tous les continents, des instruments traditionnels au rock, Lo'Jo a toujours su passer de la feuille blanche à la poésie. La lumière et les mots de Feuilles Fauves magnifient une nouvelle fois l'insaisissable. Car si nous sommes Peu de choses, écrit Denis Péan, heureusement, « on peut faire chavirer le cœur le plus fané sur le tempo du chamamé ». Il y a de ces groupes qui ne sont enchaînés nulle part si ce n'est aux instruments du monde ou aux feuilles de papier. Sans chaîne ni code ni dogme, Lo'Jo sera toujours ces explorateurs de la musique, ces chercheurs des mots. Le collectif Lo'Jo continue avec Feuilles Fauves à puiser dans ce qu'il sait faire de mieux : ne rien se refuser. Pourquoi ne pas mêler le kamele n'goni, instrument acoustique malien au violon, pourquoi ne pas faire fusionner le piano au kayamn, sur toile d'électro, pour donner à ce disque, aussi, les couleurs des Mascareignes ?Chaque disque est une réinvention : Feuilles Fauves n'y fait pas exception. Par ses traditions musicales absorbées lors de leurs innombrables voyages, comme par ses collaborations prestigieuses : de Robert Wyatt à Tony Allen, Robert Plant, Tinariwen, Erik Truffaz, ou encore Archie Shepp... l'utopie Lo'Jo a « le pouvoir d'hypnotiser et de ravir à chaque morceau » (Billboard).Des feuilles de l'automne aux feuilles de papier Le titre Mandiego, qui ouvre ce nouvel album, aux notes de piano douces et enveloppantes, est une invitation bienveillante au nouveau voyage que nous offre Lo'Jo. Car « l'Homme est bien peu de choses mon ami. Si le soir il est hasard, le matin il est destin », écrit Denis Péan. Feuilles Fauves est brut, comme primitif et sauvage. Aidé par la réalisation de Clément Petit (entendu aux côtés de Piers Faccini ou Blick Bassy) et Alexandre Finkin, les voix pénètrent l'esprit, les instruments du monde régalent le corps avec une intensité vivante et organique. Parce que malgré le chaos du monde, Lo'Jo nous invite avec Feuilles Fauves à un périple solaire : grâce à cette langue inventée, au créole comme aux sons du monde et d'ailleurs. Grâce aux textes sensibles, parfois espiègles ou envoûtants. Grâce à l'étincelle de Jupiter & Okwess sur deux titres, à la malice de Mélissa Laveaux dans Julie, non plus en chanteuse mais en lectrice pétillante.Feuilles Fauves nous emmène danser des Valses Étranges, s'attarde sur notre vanité, interroge sur Le temps (avec René Lacaille), « le thème favori des poètes » admet Denis Péan. Celui qui s'étend et qu'on pourra donc toujours écrire. En écoutant Aswar (« ce soir » en créole maison), on s'anime en terres argentines sur le tempo du chamamé, un genre musical traditionnel de la province de Corrientes. Grâce à Brother Barrett, on découvre la communauté rasta du Pinnacle, en Jamaïque. On apprend avec eux, leur humour et leur finesse d'esprit aussi à exprimer La Kolèr, dont les mélodies entêtantes prennent des allures chamaniques. Titres interprétés grand studio- La Kolèr Live RFI- Aswar, extrait de l'album - Joséphine Live RFI. Line Up : Denis Péan (chant, harmonium), Yamina Nid El Mourid (chant percussions), Nadia Nid El Mourid (chant percussions), Richard Bourreau (violon) et Alex Cochennec (basse).Son : Benoît Letirant, Mathias Taylor.► Album Feuilles Mauves (Yotanka Rd 2024).YouTube - Site.(Rediffusion du 17 novembre 2024).

Entre une légende du rap sud-africain et un poète angevin, mon cœur balance… Notre 1er invité est Stogie T pour la sortie de l'EP ShallowVétéran du hip-hop sud-africain, Stogie T (Tumi Molekane) n'est pas un parolier classique. Son travail consiste à trouver un équilibre délicat entre différents mondes ; il a prouvé qu'il était la voix du peuple, mais il n'hésite pas à tendre un miroir à l'ensemble de la société, et le reflet est toujours plus complexe que les clichés bien-pensants du «rap conscient» et la nature stéréotypée et banale du «rap commercial».Le message dominant de Shallow est la psychose collective. Le dernier EP publié par Stogie T depuis la pandémie mondiale contient des chansons percutantes qui reflètent une forme particulière de cynisme prévalant en Afrique. Le rêve différé, la perte d'espoir sous le poids écrasant d'un État de plus en plus défaillant. Stogie T a déjà parlé de cet état, mais cette fois-ci, il se penche sur les effets qu'il a sur ses habitants. Ce qu'il advient de la pensée des gens, de leurs dysfonctionnements et de leurs pathologies.Stogie T (alias Tumi Molekane) est sur la voie de l'autoréflexion, de l'introspection, de l'évolution et de la restitution, tout en jouant la carte du progrès. Il s'interroge sur les valeurs et les règles qui régissent notre vie, sur les raisons de désespérer ou d'espérer d'un pays entouré d'un pillage flagrant, sur les raisons d'être cynique et sur les raisons de croire et de se soucier des autres.Les chansons de cet EP ont été conçues et enregistrées pendant Covid et entre les moments d'anxiété intense dus au dysfonctionnement et au désordre sociétal, à la perte d'amis proches et de membres de la famille, et à la disparition tragique de ses pairs. En tant qu'artiste cherchant à trouver une voix dans le désordre et à s'élever au-dessus du bruit de la machine médiatique mondiale, Stogie T a trouvé du réconfort dans la tragédie et le traumatisme. Offrant un contrepoint à l'air du temps par le biais d'une poésie artistique nous rappelant, ainsi qu'à lui-même, qu'en tant qu'artiste, c'est son travail qui apporte de l'espoir pour l'avenir, mais qu'il doit faire preuve d'un grand discernement, d'espoir pour l'avenir, mais qu'il doit rester fidèle à lui-même, à sa famille et à sa communauté.Titres interprétés grand studio- Shallow Live RFI- Zimkile feat Msaki, extrait album- Too Late For Mama Live RFI.Line Up : Tumi Molekane (voix), Shane Cooper (basse), Bonj (voix), Bokani Dyer (claviers, voix), Clem Carr (claviers)et Justin Badenhorst (batterie).Traduction : Enora LouisSon : Benoît Letirant, Mathias Taylor.► EP Shallow (Sakifo Rd 2024).Facebook - Youtube. Puis la #SessionLive invite Lo'Jo pour la sortie de l'album Feuilles Mauves. De leur Anjou natal à tous les continents, des instruments traditionnels au rock, Lo'Jo a toujours su passer de la feuille blanche à la poésie. La lumière et les mots de Feuilles Fauves magnifient une nouvelle fois l'insaisissable. Car si nous sommes Peu de choses, écrit Denis Péan, heureusement, « on peut faire chavirer le cœur le plus fané sur le tempo du chamamé ». Il y a de ces groupes qui ne sont enchaînés nulle part si ce n'est aux instruments du monde ou aux feuilles de papier. Sans chaîne ni code ni dogme, Lo'Jo sera toujours ces explorateurs de la musique, ces chercheurs des mots. Le collectif Lo'Jo continue avec Feuilles Fauves à puiser dans ce qu'il sait faire de mieux : ne rien se refuser. Pourquoi ne pas mêler le kamele n'goni, instrument acoustique malien au violon, pourquoi ne pas faire fusionner le piano au kayamn, sur toile d'électro, pour donner à ce disque, aussi, les couleurs des Mascareignes ?Chaque disque est une réinvention : Feuilles Fauves n'y fait pas exception. Par ses traditions musicales absorbées lors de leurs innombrables voyages, comme par ses collaborations prestigieuses : de Robert Wyatt à Tony Allen, Robert Plant, Tinariwen, Erik Truffaz, ou encore Archie Shepp... l'utopie Lo'Jo a « le pouvoir d'hypnotiser et de ravir à chaque morceau » (Billboard).Des feuilles de l'automne aux feuilles de papier Le titre Mandiego, qui ouvre ce nouvel album, aux notes de piano douces et enveloppantes, est une invitation bienveillante au nouveau voyage que nous offre Lo'Jo. Car « l'Homme est bien peu de choses mon ami. Si le soir il est hasard, le matin il est destin », écrit Denis Péan. Feuilles Fauves est brut, comme primitif et sauvage. Aidé par la réalisation de Clément Petit (entendu aux côtés de Piers Faccini ou Blick Bassy) et Alexandre Finkin, les voix pénètrent l'esprit, les instruments du monde régalent le corps avec une intensité vivante et organique. Parce que malgré le chaos du monde, Lo'Jo nous invite avec Feuilles Fauves à un périple solaire : grâce à cette langue inventée, au créole comme aux sons du monde et d'ailleurs. Grâce aux textes sensibles, parfois espiègles ou envoûtants. Grâce à l'étincelle de Jupiter & Okwess sur deux titres, à la malice de Mélissa Laveaux dans Julie, non plus en chanteuse mais en lectrice pétillante.Feuilles Fauves nous emmène danser des Valses Étranges, s'attarde sur notre vanité, interroge sur Le temps (avec René Lacaille), « le thème favori des poètes » admet Denis Péan. Celui qui s'étend et qu'on pourra donc toujours écrire. En écoutant Aswar (« ce soir » en créole maison), on s'anime en terres argentines sur le tempo du chamamé, un genre musical traditionnel de la province de Corrientes. Grâce à Brother Barrett, on découvre la communauté rasta du Pinnacle, en Jamaïque. On apprend avec eux, leur humour et leur finesse d'esprit aussi à exprimer La Kolèr, dont les mélodies entêtantes prennent des allures chamaniques. Titres interprétés grand studio- La Kolèr Live RFI- Aswar, extrait de l'album - Joséphine Live RFI. Line Up : Denis Péan (chant, harmonium), Yamina Nid El Mourid (chant percussions), Nadia Nid El Mourid (chant percussions), Richard Bourreau (violon) et Alex Cochennec (basse).Son : Benoît Letirant, Mathias Taylor.► Album Feuilles Mauves (Yotanka Rd 2024).YouTube - Site.(Rediffusion du 17 novembre 2024).

Le duo Aïta Mon Amour revisite le chant rural de la Aïta marocaine. Aïta Mon Amour au Cabaret Sauvage + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante au 360 Paris Music FactoryWidad Mjama, pionnière du rap marocain et diplômée du Conservatoire de Casablanca (danse et art dramatique) est passionnée par les traditions orales ancestrales. Khalil Epi, multi-instrumentiste tunisien, fusionne musique classique arabe, jazz et sonorités mondiales (N3rdistan, Frigya, Dhamma, Seydou Boro, Deena Abdelwahed, arabstazy),Ce projet est le fruit de leur fascination pour la Aïta, un genre musical incarné par les Chikhates, ces femmes chanteuses et gardiennes d'une pratique vieille de plusieurs siècles. Ce projet mêlant électronique et tradition nous transporte dans un voyage envoûtant à travers la culture marocaine.En néo chikhate, Widad nous confie « La Aïta, c'est la poésie rurale. Le rap est une expression urbaine, et je me retrouve dans ces deux styles, car je fais partie de la première génération à être née en ville, toute ma famille vient de la campagne. Mes racines sont paysannes et mes fleurs sont citadines ».Extraits du concert du 23 janvier au Cabaret Sauvage (Mixage Benoît le Tirant, Mastering Mathias Taylor)L'wed L'wed, Kebet El Khayl et Heda Wiyet►  Album Abda (Shouka Rd 2025)Bandcamp / Instagram / YouTube Puis, nous nous rendons au 360 Music Factory où s'est tenu le Festival Au Fil des Voix, pour rencontrer Justin Adams qui présente le nouvel album Sweet Release en duo avec le violoniste et chanteur italien Mauro DuranteQuand Justin Adams, guitar hero et compagnon de route de Robert Plant, rencontre Mauro Durante, visionnaire héritier de la Taranta de sa région natale, les Pouilles, l'alchimie est immédiate. Le premier est habité par une approche post punk qu'il adoucit au contact du groove nord-africain en produisant des albums iconiques pour Tinariwen ou Rachid Taha. Le second, violoniste et percussionniste à l'énergie débridée, parcourt le monde avec le virtuose Ludovico Einaudi, partage la scène avec Ibrahim Maalouf, Goran Bregović ou Piers Faccini, puis reprend, après son père, la direction de l'ensemble perpétuant la taranta, cousine de la tarentelle napolitaine. Mais depuis cette rencontre musicale fortuite, et après Still Moving, un premier disque acclamé, ce projet, déroutant, tend à devenir une entité unique et fusionnelle qui elle-même se perpétue. Sweet Release, qu'ils présenteront pour la première fois au public parisien, en est la preuve. Entre vibrations ancestrales et esprit punk, ferveur du tamburello et riffs électriques, Justin et Mauro créent un son brut, dépouillé, qui émeut et envoute. Mauro étant grippé (se reposait pour assurer le concert du soir), nous avons parlé avec Justin Adams.Extraits du concert du 30 janvier au 360 Paris Music Factory (Mixage Camille Roch, Mastering Mathias Taylor)Djinn Pulse, Leuca et Cupa Cupa►  Album Sweet Release (Ponderosa Rd 2025)Facebook / YouTube (Rediffusion du 15 février 2025).

Le duo Aïta Mon Amour revisite le chant rural de la Aïta marocaine. Aïta Mon Amour au Cabaret Sauvage + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante au 360 Paris Music FactoryWidad Mjama, pionnière du rap marocain et diplômée du Conservatoire de Casablanca (danse et art dramatique) est passionnée par les traditions orales ancestrales. Khalil Epi, multi-instrumentiste tunisien, fusionne musique classique arabe, jazz et sonorités mondiales (N3rdistan, Frigya, Dhamma, Seydou Boro, Deena Abdelwahed, arabstazy),Ce projet est le fruit de leur fascination pour la Aïta, un genre musical incarné par les Chikhates, ces femmes chanteuses et gardiennes d'une pratique vieille de plusieurs siècles. Ce projet mêlant électronique et tradition nous transporte dans un voyage envoûtant à travers la culture marocaine.En néo chikhate, Widad nous confie « La Aïta, c'est la poésie rurale. Le rap est une expression urbaine, et je me retrouve dans ces deux styles, car je fais partie de la première génération à être née en ville, toute ma famille vient de la campagne. Mes racines sont paysannes et mes fleurs sont citadines ».Extraits du concert du 23 janvier au Cabaret Sauvage (Mixage Benoît le Tirant, Mastering Mathias Taylor)L'wed L'wed, Kebet El Khayl et Heda Wiyet►  Album Abda (Shouka Rd 2025)Bandcamp / Instagram / YouTube Puis, nous nous rendons au 360 Music Factory où s'est tenu le Festival Au Fil des Voix, pour rencontrer Justin Adams qui présente le nouvel album Sweet Release en duo avec le violoniste et chanteur italien Mauro DuranteQuand Justin Adams, guitar hero et compagnon de route de Robert Plant, rencontre Mauro Durante, visionnaire héritier de la Taranta de sa région natale, les Pouilles, l'alchimie est immédiate. Le premier est habité par une approche post punk qu'il adoucit au contact du groove nord-africain en produisant des albums iconiques pour Tinariwen ou Rachid Taha. Le second, violoniste et percussionniste à l'énergie débridée, parcourt le monde avec le virtuose Ludovico Einaudi, partage la scène avec Ibrahim Maalouf, Goran Bregović ou Piers Faccini, puis reprend, après son père, la direction de l'ensemble perpétuant la taranta, cousine de la tarentelle napolitaine. Mais depuis cette rencontre musicale fortuite, et après Still Moving, un premier disque acclamé, ce projet, déroutant, tend à devenir une entité unique et fusionnelle qui elle-même se perpétue. Sweet Release, qu'ils présenteront pour la première fois au public parisien, en est la preuve. Entre vibrations ancestrales et esprit punk, ferveur du tamburello et riffs électriques, Justin et Mauro créent un son brut, dépouillé, qui émeut et envoute. Mauro étant grippé (se reposait pour assurer le concert du soir), nous avons parlé avec Justin Adams.Extraits du concert du 30 janvier au 360 Paris Music Factory (Mixage Camille Roch, Mastering Mathias Taylor)Djinn Pulse, Leuca et Cupa Cupa►  Album Sweet Release (Ponderosa Rd 2025)Facebook / YouTube (Rediffusion du 15 février 2025).

Dive into the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction drama, sparking heated debates over Styx's shocking snub despite selling 50 million albums. Is the Hall favoring “irrelevant” acts like Oasis or Phish's cult-following jam band vibes over rock legends? Listeners flood the lines with spicy takes—Doug's ready to “duke it out” over Jeff's White Stripes vs. Led Zeppelin comparison, insisting Jack White's just a Robert Plant wannabe. Meanwhile, Mr. Rat Pack Can Dance schools Jeff on comma usage with a hilarious “Let's eat, Grandpa” jab, and Trump Hater Rhonda stirs the pot with a hypothetical: What if California, the world's fourth-largest economy, split from the U.S.? Jeremy crunches the numbers, proving the U.S. would still top China's economy, but listener Daniel reminds everyone of California's massive deficits. From Canada-for-California trade fantasies to nostalgic '80s California dreams, this episode is a rollercoaster of laughs, rants, and listener chaos. Catch the full madness and vote on the poll at KZOZ.com!

Here comes the second of two parts featuring some of rock's most celebrated artists who had a penchant for the rich traditions of the corner stone of rock and roll music that leans to the country, including Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale, U2, more Neil Young, more Rolling Stones, Allman Bros, CCR, John Hiatt, Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe, The Who, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Pink Floyd plus a Canadian tribute to them, PLUS a ton of bonus content (making this the most in depth radio show podcast episode yet, with yet another dozen plus rock bands, some of whom are sure to surprise, who found themselves in the country too. I'll give you a hint: Metallica country?!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of The Bandwich Tapes, I sit down with the remarkably versatile vocalist and musician David Blamires for a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about his global musical journey, his time with the Pat Metheny Group, and his solo career.Born in the UK and raised in Canada, David's voice has left its mark across genres. He's perhaps best known for his work with the Pat Metheny Group, where his signature harmonies and unmistakable tone helped shape the sound of albums like Still Life (Talking) and We Live Here. But his career spans far beyond that, including an extensive resume as a session singer, live performer, and solo artist.Whether you're curious about the world of studio vocals, the dynamics of life on the road, or the creative spark that brings voices together in harmony, this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the art and craft of a world-class musician.Music from the Episode:Minuano (Six-Eight) (Pat Metheny Group)Last Train Home (Pat Metheny Group)Across the Sky (Pat Metheny Group)Follow Me (Pat Metheny Group)Something to Remind You (Pat Metheny Group)Deep is the Midnight Sea (David Blamires Group)This Time (David Blamires)With Every Passing Day (David Blamires)Learn more about David and his work at davidblamires.com.Thank you for listening! If you have any feedback or questions, or just want to say hi, reach out at info@thebandwichtapes.com — and please help spread the word about the show!Theme music: "Playcation" by Mark Mundy

Listeners of our show know of our love for Led Zeppelin and their iconic lead singer, Robert Plant. Already this year we've devoted 2 shows to Physical Graffiti as it turned 50, a show on The Firm's debut album featuring Jimmy Page and one on the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin which is now available on streaming services. And though we've reviewed several classic Zeppelin albums, we've also gone track x track on Unledded, Robert's reunion with Jimmy Page in 1994, and his first two solo efforts. Based on the strength of Pictures at 11 and The Principle of Moments and the fact that Robert was working with the same bandmates, we thought it only right that we review his 3rd solo effort, Shaken N Stirred. However, Shaken N Stirred found Robert yearning for a more modern and synthesized sound which is not only different from his first two solo albums but not in the wheelhouse of his talented bandmates. In an effort to sound more like Talking Heads, Robert embraced the latest technology and styles of the day. The result is not only a departure from his signature sound but a miss in making a record that would sound good in 1985, nevermind 40 years later. While Little By Little was a hit in the US (#1 Mainstream Rock), the rest of the record is a mish mash of sounds that don't necessarily make listenable songs. The listening public in the US revolted against the 2nd single Too Loud and rock fans in Chicago demanded that they "Get that sh*t off the air!" While we admire artists for going in new directions and not wanting to be stuck by what the public deems as "their sound", this album didn't win Robert any new fans and alienated many that he already had. With that in mind, we did our best to pick out what we did like and tried to understand what Robert was attempting to do. Amidst the backdrop of his marriage ending and his unsure footing in the music world post Led Zeppelin, this one stands out in his catalog as one maybe he wishes he could do over (or at least we wish he would). Robert would continue to reinvent himself throughout his career with some amazing results. But as this misstep turns 40, we dive into what went wrong. Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a couple of weeks off for rest and recalibration, Badass Records is back with a new episode, and this one features the fantastic Cole Bales of Black Light Animals.Cole is a son, a brother, a boyfriend, a bandmate times two, and he's my guest for Episode No. 164.Black Light Animals has an upcoming RecordBar gig. That's Thursday, May 1st at RecordBar. They also have a new album out. It's called Last Call Love Songs, and you can find it digitally or get yourself a vinyl copy via their Bandcamp, or at blacklightanimalsband.com. Cole's also a member of The Freedom Affair, and they have a gig, Friday, May 2nd at The Madrid. So, please check them out, too.My conversation with Cole involved growing up, the art of recording and producing, bandmates, family, and -- of course -- a few of his favorite albums. Those were these:The White Album (1968), The BeatlesGeorge Harrison's All Things Must Pass (1970)Exile on Main Street (1972), The Rolling StonesThe Black Keys' Brothers (2010)Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018), The Arctic MonkeysIt was both a pleasure and a joy meeting Cole and chatting with him. Follow @blacklightanimalsband on Instagram, and make sure you're dialed in with all that Cole has going on.Cheers.copyright disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the audio clips contained within this episode. They are snippets from a track called, "Rich Woman" by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and it's the leadoff track from their 2007 release, Raising Sand (c/o Rounder Records, distributed by Concord).

Listeners of our show know of our love for Led Zeppelin and their iconic lead singer, Robert Plant. Already this year we've devoted 2 shows to Physical Graffiti as it turned 50, a show on The Firm's debut album featuring Jimmy Page and one on the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin which is now available on streaming services. And though we've reviewed several classic Zeppelin albums, we've also gone track x track on Unledded, Robert's reunion with Jimmy Page in 1994, and his first two solo efforts. Based on the strength of Pictures at 11 and The Principle of Moments and the fact that Robert was working with the same bandmates, we thought it only right that we review his 3rd solo effort, Shaken N Stirred. However, Shaken N Stirred found Robert yearning for a more modern and synthesized sound which is not only different from his first two solo albums but not in the wheelhouse of his talented bandmates. In an effort to sound more like Talking Heads, Robert embraced the latest technology and styles of the day. The result is not only a departure from his signature sound but a miss in making a record that would sound good in 1985, nevermind 40 years later. While Little By Little was a hit in the US (#1 Mainstream Rock), the rest of the record is a mish mash of sounds that don't necessarily make listenable songs. The listening public in the US revolted against the 2nd single Too Loud and rock fans in Chicago demanded that they "Get that sh*t off the air!" While we admire artists for going in new directions and not wanting to be stuck by what the public deems as "their sound", this album didn't win Robert any new fans and alienated many that he already had. With that in mind, we did our best to pick out what we did like and tried to understand what Robert was attempting to do. Amidst the backdrop of his marriage ending and his unsure footing in the music world post Led Zeppelin, this one stands out in his catalog as one maybe he wishes he could do over (or at least we wish he would). Robert would continue to reinvent himself throughout his career with some amazing results. But as this misstep turns 40, we dive into what went wrong. Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eight days after the shambolic Live Aid reunion Jimmy Page joined Robert Plant onstage at the Brendan Byrne Arena, in East Rutherford, NJ. The contrast between the two gigs couldn't be greater. Robert's voice is virtually perfect and Jimmy's guitar (and Jimmy himself) are in tune. I play an aching beautiful Young Boy Blues from his then current Honeydrippers EP, and then I play the two encores Jimmy played with the band; the first being a standard blues number (I don't know if it has a name), and then a fiery run through of Treat Her Right, which calls back to when they jammed the same tune two years earlier. This is a great performance and a shining testimony to the viability of a Page/Plant collaboration even back then, when they sniped at each other in the press.

EPISODE 127: Francis Dunnery defies easy categorization. His work reflects a deep commitment to personal freedom and individuality. While his style is often playfully philosophical, he's also capable of crafting achingly profound, beautiful music. Dunnery first gained public recognition in the 1980s as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the progressive rock band It Bites, achieving chart success across Europe and Asia. Since then, he has embarked on a diverse musical journey spanning over three decades, collaborating with renowned artists such as Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Carlos Santana, Chris Difford (Squeeze), Ian Brown (The Stone Roses), Lauryn Hill, and Steve Hackett (Genesis). He has also performed with legendary bands like Yes and Hootie and the Blowfish, and shared the stage with the iconic Chris Squire. Beyond these collaborations, Dunnery is a celebrated rock icon in his own right, having released over ten albums of original and diverse compositions, achieving international chart success. He is also the founder and president of The Charlie and Kathleen Dunnery Children's Fund (CKDCF), a charity dedicated to children's health and wellness in West Cumbria, England. The CKDCF hosts an annual benefit concert and charity walk, attracting support from some of the biggest names in rock and roll history. Dunnery is more than just a musician. He's an educator, a master songwriter, a mentor, and a storyteller. As Robert Plant once observed, “Francis Dunnery should be a public service.” For over four decades, he has consistently created original and engaging entertainment for his fans, from new CDs and live concerts to astrology readings and house concerts. Today, more than ever, Dunnery remains dedicated to his own personal freedom and individuality, and encourages the same in his audience. He continues his music and philosophical studies and plans to live a long and fulfilling life.Contact us: makingsoundpodcast.comFollow on Instagram: @makingsoundpodcastFollow on Threads: @jannkloseJoin our Facebook GroupPlease support the show with a donation, thank you for listening!

This show, February 27, 1996, is the third to the last for Page/Plant's No Quarter tour, and it is smokin'! The band hasn't lost a step since their legendary Japanese shows of a few days prior. This is an excellent audience recording which maintains the high bar set in Japan, quality-wise. I play a ridiculously hot In The Evening, and the two encores which took the roof off the place. Black Dog and Rock and Roll. The latter two are sung with Robert Plant going alllllll out; hitting notes one doesn't expect. The band are in a great mood and the audience is locked in all the way. A great show with top of their game performances.

When Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham, the world never wanted to accept the fact that the group would be no more. While we can't go see the band play live, Sony Pictures Classics has provided a chance for us to witness the next best thing, a docu-concert film called Becoming Led Zeppelin. Join us as we celebrate this fantastic film along with John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant! Hear some stories, and of course, some amazing Rock and Roll music that DESERVES to be heard!

Some modern bands—ones like Jack White, Larkin Poe, Greta Van Fleet and Marcus King among others—they are beginning to standout for their exceptional musical talents while still holding onto what has become somewhat of a lost art form.  “It's not uncommon that young people are making music that nods to the past,” according to the lead guitarist of one of those bands, Tyler Armstrong of The Band Feel, during the first episode of Season 6 of The Load Out Music Podcast.  Only about two years old, The Band Feel evolved out of the now-defunct Alton, Illinois-based band known as Nick Bifano and the Innocents. It has quickly become a dynamic quartet, driven by the partnership of Armstrong and lead vocalist Garrett Barcus. Rounded out by drummer T.J. Steinwart and Kadin Rea on bass guitar, the band has quickly become known for its sizzling performances that pay homage to the classic rock era while adding a modern twist. Most comparisons place the The Band Feel somewhere between Led Zeppelin and The Black Crowes, and indeed, watching Armstrong and Barcus on stage is reminiscent of the chemistry once displayed by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.   The Band Feel had what Armstrong calls its “coming out party” just after Covid, releasing an EP that was produced by the five-time Grammy-nominated and ASCAP award winning producer, Paul Moak, at The Smokestack in Nashville. The quartet hit the road in support of Dirty Honey last Fall on the “Can't Find The Breaks” tour, playing more 30 markets in theatres across the US.    So with the newness of success, Armstrong—who is remarkably quiet and unassuming—is taking it day-by-day, just trying to focus on building a stronger brotherhood with his bandmates.  “We're still pretty new to this thing,” he said with great humility. “I think we view ourselves as special but it's always interesting hearing it. The only expectation in this world is to treat someone as good as you can. It goes deeper than my service level statement. With the band the only expectation is that you treat those of us in the band the best you can.” Special indeed. Welcome to Episode 1 of Season 6 of The Load Out Music Podcast with Tyler Armstrong of The Band Feel. You should be hearing a lot about the band in the coming years.

On this special episode of Wolves Express we celebrate the career of Steve Bull as the Wolves legend turns 60. We hear from fans, journalists and senior figures from Wolves including Robert Plant and Suzi Perry. Despite not kicking a football in nearly a quarter of a century, Bully still has a massive impact and legacy at Molineux. Get more of the latest Wolves news at www.wolves.co.uk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As long-time followers of our show are aware, The Wolf and Action Jackson are HUGE Led Zeppelin fans. When it was announced several years back that there would be a Led Zep documentary coming, we were psyched and knew that we'd not only have to go see it on the big screen but do a review on UAWIL. However, we we didn't know that director Bernard MacMahon had not only unearthed and cleaned up video of a performance by the band in Bath from 1969, but he also uncovered a never-before-heard audio interview of John Bonham. Thanks to that interview, he was able to get reflections from all four members of Led Zeppelin on their journey to becoming the biggest band in the world. Instead of being a complete career retrospective, this film focused on the back stories of each member - how they grew up, when they became fascinated with rock music, which artists turned them on and how they found their way into the music business. Most fans know that Jimmy Page was on tv with his skiffle group as a kid before becoming a premier session guitarist in London. But did you know that John Paul Jones learned so much from his father, pianist John Baldwin, and was a choirmaster at age 14? Did you know Robert Plant would try many different types of groups, hairstyles and scenes before he ever became a Golden God? Learning how Jimmy Page put the first record together so he would have leverage with record companies to not only get better royalties but to not be forced into releasing singles is just one amazing insight into how Led Zeppelin became the juggernaut, especially in the US, that would define their legacy. Action went to great lengths to see this movie and offer his perspective so give us a listen and see this film in the theaters while you can - the video and sound is amazing!! Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Visit our sponsor RareVinyl.com and use the code UGLY to save 10%! Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As long-time followers of our show are aware, The Wolf and Action Jackson are HUGE Led Zeppelin fans. When it was announced several years back that there would be a Led Zep documentary coming, we were psyched and knew that we'd not only have to go see it on the big screen but do a review on UAWIL. However, we we didn't know that director Bernard MacMahon had not only unearthed and cleaned up video of a performance by the band in Bath from 1969, but he also uncovered a never-before-heard audio interview of John Bonham. Thanks to that interview, he was able to get reflections from all four members of Led Zeppelin on their journey to becoming the biggest band in the world. Instead of being a complete career retrospective, this film focused on the back stories of each member - how they grew up, when they became fascinated with rock music, which artists turned them on and how they found their way into the music business. Most fans know that Jimmy Page was on tv with his skiffle group as a kid before becoming a premier session guitarist in London. But did you know that John Paul Jones learned so much from his father, pianist John Baldwin, and was a choirmaster at age 14? Did you know Robert Plant would try many different types of groups, hairstyles and scenes before he ever became a Golden God? Learning how Jimmy Page put the first record together so he would have leverage with record companies to not only get better royalties but to not be forced into releasing singles is just one amazing insight into how Led Zeppelin became the juggernaut, especially in the US, that would define their legacy. Action went to great lengths to see this movie and offer his perspective so give us a listen and see this film in the theaters while you can - the video and sound is amazing!! Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Visit our sponsor RareVinyl.com and use the code UGLY to save 10%! Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back with a Very Special Episode of The Pod Remains The Same!This time, we tackle the new documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin.  This long awaited documentary delves into the origins of the band, from their upbringings in England, to how they came to be musicians, and finally, how they...became Led Zeppelin.The documentary is chock full of new interviews with John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, as well as newly discovered audio interviews with the late John Bonham that tell the story of how this legendary band came together to conquer the rock world like no other.Hosted by Chris Karam and Brad Page

Dave and Milt delve into the week of March 12, 1988, examining the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. They analyze songs from artists like Mike Oldfield, George Thorogood, and INXS, and critique what has aged well and what hasn't. Highlights include discussions on Aerosmith's 'Angel,' John Cougar Mellencamp's 'Check It Out,' and David Lee Roth's 'Damn Good.' They also explore notable tracks that didn't make the top 10, with a focus on the three-name artists in their 'Playdate' segment.  Topics 01:29 Listener Reactions and Feedback 07:32 Time Machine: March 12th, 1988 08:40 Mainstream Rock Chart: 1988 40:24 Controversial Jokes and Boundaries 40:45 Discussing Michael Hutchence and Family Guy 41:36 Rock Countdown and In Excess 42:44 Kingdom Come and Led Zeppelin Comparisons 50:44 Sting's Solo Career and Grammy Nominations 59:25 David Lee Roth's Solo Hits and Career 01:08:48 Play Date: Artists with Three Names 01:21:30 Debating Song Titles and Expressions 01:21:32 The Beastie Boys and Clarifications 01:22:15 Colloquial Expressions and Ivy League 01:22:53 At the End of the Day: A New Expression 01:23:24 Comedy and Self-Deprecation 01:24:15 John Cougar Mellencamp and Brad Pitt 01:28:07 Aerosmith's Ballads and Comebacks 01:34:45 Guitar Hero and Aerosmith's Success 01:40:28 Robert Plant's Solo Career 01:45:00 Recap and Reflections

JD McPherson is a singer-songwriter and guitar player who's put out records on Decca, Rounder and New West, toured or collaborated with Dan Auerbach, Nick Lowe, and Lucius, is the guitar player for Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, as well as opening the shows with his own band, and is the producer of the recently-announced Jessica Simpson (comeback?) record.. We talk to JD about all modes of touring - from bus to plane to our shared affinity for van and trailer, touring to experience different cultures and meet new people, the long game of building a body of work and the value of word of mouth, Tulsa Oklahoma, and the advice that Nick Lowe shared with him backstage.Get more access and support this show by subscribing to our Patreon, right here.Links:JD McPhersonEp 3 - The Milk Carton KidsNick LoweJP HarrisEp 73 - Edwin McCainSpike Leetourfood.usBobnet.rocksRobert Plant & Allison KraussWe Jam Econo docPaul AcklingTheo LawrenceKen PomeroyWilderadoEp 41 - Samantha CrainEp 80 - John MorelandBronchoClick here to watch this conversation on YouTube.Social Media:The Other 22 Hours InstagramThe Other 22 Hours TikTokMichaela Anne InstagramAaron Shafer-Haiss InstagramAll music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Become a subscribing member on our Patreon to gain more inside access including exclusive content, workshops, the chance to have your questions answered by our upcoming guests, and more.

This week, in Newfane, Vermont, a simple house party turns into a complete mess, and turns violent, when one particular guest can't stop attempting to start fights, hitting on women, or trying to steal the host's car. All seems well, once he finally leaves, but party's host is later found, brutally murdered, with a ski pole stuck in his neck, while the troublemaker is found, wearing the victim's clothes. But that doesn't mean it's open & shut!!Along the way, we find out that dogs apparently don't mix well with crafts, that you shouldn't challenge random people to fights, and that a ski pole makes a very deadly weapon!!New episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: crimeinsports@gmail.comGo to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.