Podcasts about Rufus

This week on Bet the Process, Jeff and Rufus answer questions asked by listeners. Topics include: golf betting strategies, reading habits, and the potential for a class on sports betting.

A former Spanish teacher, Marilyn Levinson writes mysteries, novels of suspense, and books for kids. Her books have received many accolades. As Allison Brook she writes the Haunted Library series. Death Overdue, the first in the series, was an Agatha nominee for Best Contemporary Novel in 2018. Other mysteries include the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club series, the Twin Lakes series, and Giving Up the Ghost. Her suspense, Come Home to Death, was released in April, 2024, and her suspense, Dangerous Relations, was republished earlier this year. Death on Dickens Island, the first book in her Books on the Beach series, will debut on October 21, 2025.Marilyn's juvenile novel, Rufus and Magic Run Amok, was an International Reading Association-Children's Book Council Children's Choice and has recently come out in a new edition. Rufus and the Witch's Drudge, the second book in the series, has been released and the third, Rufus and the Dark Side of Magic, will be released in May 2025. And Don't Bring Jeremy was a nominee for six state awards. Her YA horror, The Devil's Pawn, came out in a new edition in January, 2024.Marilyn lives on Long Island, where many of her books take place. She loves traveling, reading, doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku, chatting on FaceTime with her grandkids and playing with her cats, Romeo and Juliet. Website: http://www.marilynlevinson.comFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/marilyn.levinson.10?ref=ts&fref=tsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/marilynlevinsonauthor/https://www.bookbub.com/authors/marilyn-levinsonhttps://www.bookbub.com/authors/allison-brook*****************About SinCSisters in Crime (SinC) was founded in 1986 to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers. Through advocacy, programming and leadership, SinC empowers and supports all crime writers regardless of genre or place on their career trajectory.www.SistersinCrime.orgInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sincnational/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sincnational.bsky.socialThreads: https://www.threads.net/@sincnationalFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/sistersincrimeTikTok:: https://www.tiktok.com/@sincnationalThe SinC Writers' Podcast is produced by Julian Crocamo https://www.juliancrocamo.com/

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

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent tackles a question from Casey about extending the life of their laptop by installing Linux on it! Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent tackles a question from Casey about extending the life of their laptop by installing Linux on it! Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent tackles a question from Casey about extending the life of their laptop by installing Linux on it! Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent tackles a question from Casey about extending the life of their laptop by installing Linux on it! Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent tackles a question from Casey about extending the life of their laptop by installing Linux on it! Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Have you ever wondered who truly bears responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus? Beyond historical blame, this question cuts to the heart of Christian faith and personal accountability.We journey through Mark 15, examining the final hours before Jesus' crucifixion through a lens both historical and deeply personal. As the narrative unfolds, we witness Pilate's moral failure—recognizing Jesus' innocence yet condemning him to satisfy the crowd. This pivotal moment reveals how envy drove the religious leaders and how easily crowds can be manipulated into demanding injustice.The contrast between destructive envy and sacrificial love emerges as a central theme throughout this account. Where envy acts selfishly, Christ's love gives everything for others' benefit. This distinction challenges us to examine our own motivations and responses to opposition.Perhaps most relevant to our contemporary experience is the exploration of how Christians should respond when facing ridicule or pressure to compromise. The Roman soldiers' mockery of Jesus—crowning him with thorns, dressing him in purple, and offering false worship—serves as both historical account and cautionary tale. Their behavior reminds us that followers of Christ [The Mesiah] should expect opposition while remaining steadfast.The seemingly random encounter between Jesus and Simon of Cyrene reveals God's providence working through unexpected circumstances. This Passover pilgrim, forced to carry Christ's cross, was so transformed by the experience that his family became believers, with his son Rufus later recognized as "a choice man in the Lord."What strikes most profoundly about this passage is how it calls us to critical thinking and spiritual courage. In a world where crowds still follow charismatic but misleading voices, we're challenged to stand firmly on truth, even if standing alone. The crucifixion narrative isn't merely historical—it's a template for faithful discipleship in a hostile world.Have you reflected lately on how this ancient story continues to shape your response to contemporary challenges? Share your thoughts and join our conversation about standing firm when truth demands it.Support the showThank you for listening!! Please give us a five-star rating to help your podcast provider's algorithm spread RTTB among their listeners. You can find free study and leader resources at the following link - Resource Page - Reasoning Through the Bible Please prayerfully consider supporting RTTB to help us to continue providing content and free resources. You can do that at this link - Support RTTB - Reasoning Through the Bible May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve

Cette semaine : Marathon esquive la "concordisation", Nexus Mods change de proprio, les affres du remake de Final Fantasy Tactics, The Alters, Rufus 4.8, Ventoy, The Cure – Mixes Of A Lost World, leak Nvidia N1x, Microsoft continue les consoles avec AMD, Samsung Electronics dans la sauce, Matrox is BACK baby (lol no), Phison E28, et Norbauer Seneca. Lisez plutôt Torréfaction #336 : Marathon à bout de souffle, The Alters, Leak Nvidia N1x, Matrox bouge encore et Norbauer Seneca avec sa vraie mise en page sur Geekzone. Pensez à vos rétines.

The Blueprint Show - Unlocking the Future of E-commerce with AI   Summary   In this episode of Seller Sessions, Danny McMillan and Andrew Joseph Bell explore the intersection of AI and e-commerce, with a focus on Amazon's technological advancements. They examine Amazon science papers versus patents, discuss challenges with large language models, and highlight the importance of semantic intent in product recommendations. The conversation explores the evolution from keyword optimization to understanding customer purchase intentions, showcasing how AI tools like Rufus are transforming the shopping experience. The hosts provide practical strategies for sellers to optimize listings and harness AI for improved product visibility and sales.   Key Takeaways     Amazon science papers predict future e-commerce trends.       AI integration is accelerating in Amazon's ecosystem.       Understanding semantic intent is crucial for product recommendations.       The shift from keywords to purchase intentions is significant.       Rufus enhances the shopping experience with AI planning capabilities.       Sellers should focus on customer motivations in their listings.       Creating compelling product content is essential for visibility.       Custom GPTs can optimize product listings effectively.       Inference pathways help align products with customer goals.       Asking the right questions is key to leveraging AI effectively.     Sound Bites     "Understanding semantic intent is crucial."       "You can bend AI to your will."       "Asking the right questions opens doors."     Chapters   00:00 Introduction to Seller Sessions and New Season   00:33 Exploring Amazon Science Papers vs. Patents   01:27 Understanding Rufus and AI in E-commerce   02:52 Challenges in Large Language Models and Product Recommendations   07:09 Research Contributions and Implications for Sellers   10:31 Strategies for Leveraging AI in Product Listings   12:42 The Future of Shopping with AI and Amazon's Innovations   16:14 Practical Examples: Using AI for Product Optimization   22:29 Building Tools for Enhanced E-commerce Experiences   25:38 Product Naming and Features Exploration   27:44 Understanding Inference Pathways in Product Descriptions   30:36 Building Tools for AI Prompting and Automation   38:58 Bending AI to Your Will: Creativity and Imagination   48:10 Practical Applications of AI in Business Automation

Lunar Sessions 127 Tracklist 1st Hour 1.Adana Twins, Ocean Flor - Keep On Coming (Club Mix) TAU 2. Grigoré, Serve Cold - You Feel It (Extended Version) Global Underground 3. Rufus du Sol - Break my Love (Samm Remix) Rose Avenue 4. Motip White - Opossum (Original Mix) Feines Tier 5. Samantha Loveridge - Backtrack Blow Up (Original Mix) When Stars Align 6. Manendria - I Like It (Original Mix) Monaberry 7. Rufus du Sol - Exhale (&Friends & David Mackay Remix) Rose Avenue 8. Atric - Flawless (Original Mix) Stil vor Talent 9. Krieger, Nico Cruz . Falling in Love (Original Mix) Not Too Fancy 10. Camelphat, Kölsch - Waste my Time (Original Mix) Ipso 11. Departamento - Crazy (Extended Mix) Trouble Dancing 12. James de Torres - Be Better (Extended Mix) Ginchies Records 2nd Hour 13. Rufus du Sol - Music is Better (Rufus du Sol Remix) Rose Avenue 14. Tommy Farrow - Set Me Free (Extended Mix) Purified Records 15. Bolth - Omen (Extended Mix) ONErpm 16. Odds against Us - Deepest Crazy Psycho Freaky Desire (Original Mix) Sirius Label 17. Jos & Eli - I Wish (Original Mix) When Stars Align 18. Nita, Leu Name - Loco (Original Mix) Phobiq 19. Lauren Mia - Feel the Groove (Extended Mix) Species Records 20. Th;en - My Head (Original Mix) Spectrum 21. Ankytrixx - Love Sensation (Extended Mix) Radikon 22. Mind Against - Love Seeking (Ame Remix) Life and Death 23. Konstantin Sibold - Afasia (Original Mix) Truesoul 24. Adam Beyer - The Distance Between Us (Original Mix) Drumcode 25. Future, Joy Orbison, Lil Yachty, Payboi Carti - Flex FM (freddit) XL Recordings

Guests include:   Sam Herder, HERO Sports  Chris Howell, Moorhead country club head pro Godson Rufus-Okomhanru, 2026 bison commit 

Manchmal schlüpft er voll und ganz in seine Figuren, dann wieder stellt er ihnen - oder ganzen Geschichten - ausschließlich seine Stimme zur Verfügung. Rufus Beck, der 1957 in Heidelberg zur Welt kam, wurde einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit in seiner Rolle als Walter bzw. Waltraud in Sönke Wortmanns „Der bewegte Mann“ bekannt. Dafür gab's den Bambi. Als Produzent, Sprecher oder vielleicht besser: Erzähler zahlreicher Hörbücher wurde er mit den wichtigsten Preisen der Branche ausgezeichnet, allein für Harry Potter regnete es Preise. Rufus Beck, dessen 3 Kinder längst erwachsen sind, lebt am Starnberger See. In Toast Hawaii schwärmt er von seinem chinesischen Bett aus Sumpfeiche und spricht von der Hausmannskost seiner Mutter, von Toblerone im Internat und Frühstück im Bett, dem Verzicht auf Kaffee, der Freude an Ahoi-Brause und er spricht über ein Brot namens „Bread Pitt“. *** WERBUNG Toast Hawaii wird unterstützt von dmBio, die Bio-Lebensmittelmarke von dm-drogerie markt. Ganz nach dem Motto „Natürlich lecker erleben“ bietet dmBio mit mehr als 550 Produkten eine vielfältige Auswahl – von leckeren Snacks für zwischendurch bis hin zu original italienischen Tomatensaucen. Haben auch Sie eine dmBio-Geschichte, die im Podcast erzählt werden soll? Dann schreiben Sie uns gerne unter rustberlin@icloud.com ÖKO-Kontrollstelle: DE-ÖKO-007

We had the privilege of hosting Rob and Glenda Rufus at the Tribe this weekend. They cam with an impartation of faith for healing, seeing the lost saved and the power of God at work in our lives. Take a listen and be blessed.

We had the privilege of hosting Rob and Glenda Rufus at the Tribe this weekend. They cam with an impartation of faith for healing, seeing the lost saved and the power of God at work in our lives. Take a listen and be blessed,

Everyone in England was angry with Rufus. He was fining, taxing, and now torturing his way through the country.  And Rufus was mad at everyone in England.   Which was why he was fining, taxing, and torturing his way through the country. The post 477 – Deus Did Not Vult: The People's Crusade first appeared on The British History Podcast.

FLOYD WEST22 brings the 12th chapter of LIP BITER SOUNDS — your sonic passport to the world of cutting-edge electronic music. This mix begins in a dreamlike state with RÜFÜS DU SOL's Innerbloom — reimagined by RUMPUS into a hypnotic, bass-driven opener — and wastes no time diving into darker, grittier territory. Michael Bibi's Lil Freaky and MK's Dior bring undeniable heat, while Mau P's People Talk People Sing delivers cerebral vibes with a dancefloor twist. Along the way, ARTBAT and MORTEN inject epic melodic tension, and Glass Petals, Lesgo, and ESSEL elevate the groove with club-ready thump. Midway through, a surprise remix of AC/DC's Thunderstruck flips the script with a thunderous blend of rock and rave energy, setting the tone for the second half — where things get dirtier, weirder, and harder. Expect curveballs, underground bombs, and unforgettable flips that blur the lines between genres. This is not just a podcast. It's a statement — an expertly curated ride through house, tech, and festival-grade edits, designed for the dancefloor but made to be felt anywhere. ⚡️Like the Show? Click the [Repost] ↻ button so more people can hear it!

This week on Bet the Process, Jeff and Rufus recap last's weeks topic of AI in sports betting. Then, Ryan French of Monday Q Info on X/Twitter joins to discuss challenges faced by golfers in qualifying for tournaments, the mini-tour ecosystem, the physical attributes of successful golfers, and more.

The World's Zaniest 60s Radio Station, Every Wednesday at 5pm!Throwing it back to the glory days of long lunches, indoor smoking and infidelity in our beautiful vintage studio, broadcasting every Wednesday at 6pm on YouTube & All Podcast Platforms!WillNE - https://www.instagram.com/willnehttps://www.youtube.com/willneRufus - https://www.instagram.com/rufusrice_/https://www.tiktok.com/@rufusdailyAidan - https://www.instagram.com/aidanraff_/https://www.tiktok.com/@aidanraff_Follow Our Socials: https://linktr.ee/radiorufuspodListen on Spotify: https://shorturl.at/twSX8Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/aFHW0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 234th episode of Supernatural, Sam and Dean walk in the shoes of Bobby and Rufus, as both pairs tackle the same soul-eating monster at different points in time. Support Ghostfacers: A Supernatural Rewatch https://www.patreon.com/EditPoint Brought to you By: The Sonar Network https://thesonarnetwork.com/

This week we're talking dogs with Vaden Todd Lewis of the Texas rock stalwarts the Toadies whose song Possum Kingdom from their platinum debut album Rubberneck has been an alternative radio staple for the last 30 years. Vaden introduces us to his Pit Bulls Fauci and Coconut while paying tribute to his past dog Cooper, a tripod terrier mix, and Rufus, a Aussie Heeler. Great talk about overcoming the stigma of pit bulls, the benefits of adopting from a shelter and much more.Toadies recorded a new full-length album with the late great producer Steve Albini that they hope to release late in 2025/early 2026. To keep up to date on new music and concert dates visit thetoadies.com Vaden gave a shout out to the Dallas based The Love Pit Dog Rescue who are a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization on a mission to save bully breeds through rescue, rehabilitation, training, education, and advocacy. To adopt, foster, donate or volunteer visit thelovepitrescue.org for more info. For more pics and clips from this interview and the 140 before it follow the show on Instagram at @rockerdogpodcast

This week we're delighted to welcome Sony Sports CEO Rufus Hack to the show. Strap in, this is a reveal on how technology is changing sport, from the man that brings us Goal Line Technology, VAR, TMO, DRS and much more. Sony have been elevating their proposition, developing on the established Music, Entertainment and Playstation divisions to influence sport and deliver crossover value as sport converges with the modern entertainment industry. Through their ownership of Hawkeye, Rufus oversees the company that is implementing some of the most important changes in sport; the decision review systems aimed at increasing accuracy and elevating sporting products. As you know, this doesn't come without its challenges. What this conversation reveals is a fascinating perspective on how this tech is created and then implemented by the various sports with varying degrees of success. How do we ensure the tech delivers what we need it to via ensuring it is properly applied, because it's rarely a fault of the tech; normally a fault of the operator. On top of this, leveraging Toy Story IP in an NFL environment and an assessment of the crazy golfing landscape completes a truly unique and different show. On today's show we discuss: Sony's Role in Sport: How Sony's global footprint, spanning India, the UK, and South Asia, gives it a unique vantage point in the sports broadcasting world. The strategic importance of local relevance in international rights and how Sony tailors its offering to cricket, football, and combat sports fans. How Sony's sports business sits within the broader Sony Group and the advantages (and limitations) of operating within one of the world's most diversified media companies. What is the acqusition strategy of the company looking to make moves in a new environment? VAR & Decision Review: How VAR is implemented differently across sports and the importance of education supporting accurate usage. The global standardisation of officiating technology and what federations need to get right before adopting tools like Hawk-Eye. The importance of a move to fully automated offside and broader decision making, removing the chance of human error. Is 95+% VAR accuarcy reliable enough when the cost is so great on fan emotion and experience? The evolution of decision review systems (DRS) in cricket and the growing fan expectation for accuracy, transparency, and speed in officiating. Changing World of Sport: How fans' media habits are fragmenting, and why that makes sports content more valuable, not less. The tension between global streaming consolidation and the regional nuance required to serve true fanbases. Why leagues and federations need to rethink rights packaging, data usage, and storytelling in a world of short attention spans and instant feedback. The role of AI and automated production in driving cost-effective coverage, and how Sony is investing in next-gen workflows. What Rufus sees as the biggest challenges and opportunities for sports media businesses over the next 5–10 years, and why the traditional broadcaster vs. streamer narrative is missing the bigger picture. A huge thank you to our amazing partners on the show: RUNNA Whether you're an existing use or if it's your first time on the app, use the code below for exclusive access! https://join.runna.com/lKmc/redeem?code=BOSRUNNA Revolut Click the link below to sign up and get your £200 welcome bonus! https://get.revolut.com/z4lF/20VC    

Rufus read Howard's favourite book - Willie the Squowse (1973) by Ted Allen - and now Rufus is going to tell Howard the story... AS IF HE DIDN'T KNOW!!!! For more - join the gang at patreon.com/manbuycow

Grab your free Amazon Audit - https://flatworldnetwork.com/ Amazon's search algorithm is changing — fast. In this episode of Lunch With Norm, Max Sinclair, founder of Ecomtent, explains how AI is completely reshaping Amazon's search, discovery, and advertising ecosystem. We dive into how tools like COSMO and RUFUS are powering Amazon's next generation of search, what this means for listing optimization, and how sellers should approach Amazon PPC in 2025 and beyond.   If you're still using the same SEO strategies from 2022, you're already behind. Max shares actionable strategies for creating listings that rank in AI-powered search, how to align your content with the new ranking systems, and why traditional keyword-first thinking no longer works. We also cover how to structure your product pages, the importance of visuals, and how to test what actually converts. This is a must-watch for Amazon FBA sellers, agencies, and ecommerce brands who want to stay ahead of how AI is transforming the Amazon marketplace. In this episode: - How AI is changing Amazon SEO and PPC - Why Amazon's COSMO and RUFUS models matter - Creating content that performs in AI-driven search - The future of listing optimization and conversion - Tools like ProductPinion, PickFu, Ecomtent, and ChatGPT in action If you're an Amazon seller looking to future-proof your business, this episode breaks down what you need to know—and what you need to change.   Timestamps 00:00:00 - Amazon Search & AI 00:05:26 - AI Changing Search Discovery 00:09:11 - Amazon Rufus Usage Skyrocketing 00:12:00 - AI Open 24/7 00:14:51 - AI & Amazon Customer Experience 00:17:34 - Key Change: Cosmo Intro 00:20:12 - AI & Listing Optimization 00:22:49 - How to Optimize Amazon Listings: 4 Ways 00:25:13 - Amazon's Future: 3 Things 00:28:02 - Search Experience by Category 00:30:58 - Innovation is Key During the AI Era 00:34:20 - Creating a Non-Intrusive Experience For Customers 00:37:48 - New Innovations Coming  

"If it continues like it's going, it'll probably be our best year. ... The way it started out and the way it's going so far, it'll be our best year." --Flatbed owner-operator Ollie "Rufus" Morris reflecting on the year thus far May Trucker of the Month Rufus Morris of Youngsville, North Carolina, was sounding a lot like April's honoree and fellow flatbed owner-op George Kincaid reflecting on the year thus far: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/15745657 Morris is leased today to Material Logisitcs Management out of Pennsylvania, operating from that home base in North Carolina, and was nominated for Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year award by his wife and business partner in the one-truck, two-flatbed-trailer outfit Midnight Rider Transport. We featured Morris late last month in Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole's story about the decades of trucking experience behind Morris: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15747142/back-in-biz-owneroperator-rufus-morris-trucker-of-the-month In this week's Overdrive Radio, hear Morris directly in conversation with Cole, walking through his current operation and long history -- this is his second stint as a trucking business owner, after hauling logs in the late 1990s into this century as an owner-operator. Morris hauls flatbed steel, a good bit of it oversize, in a 2004 model Peterbilt 379 he purchased several years back. It's in tiptop shape, shined up and outfitted with plenty in the way of bright parts and lights and just generally well-maintained, delivering all manner of benefits from the pocketbook on down to the scale houses. He takes pride in safety, clearly, the truck too. "Get out there and stay consistent," he advised others on the safety front. "You just can't be in a hurry." Also: "Be proud of what you're doing. Keep maintenance up on your truck. I know they say, 'Chrome don't get you home,' but it does. Believe me." Most of the time crossing scales, Morris said, he's bypassed, the immaculate appearance of the rig he feels playing a big part in that. If your dog bites the inspector, though, all bets are off. (Catch an account of just such an incident in a recent-memory inspection in Matt Cole's story about the Morrises.) Morris and Midnight Rider you can for sure call a little old-school in approach, in some ways, yet he keeps an eye on new ways and new people, too. In today's episode of Overdrive Radio you'll hear from him a clear priority placed on business relationships invested in, cemented over time, a key characteristic of so many a successful trucking business owner. Morris offered this word of encouragement for the next generation coming up behind him: "A lot of people say, 'I wouldn't get into trucking for nothing in the world.' Don't get me wrong, it's dfiferent than it used to be. ... but I won't tell nobody don't get into it. If they want to do it? Trucking's done me good all these years. I can't complain one bit about it. If they've got a dream and want to do it, I'd say do it." Dive into Morris's history trucking: an early business, long experience driving, and the reboot that was inspired in part by Patricia Morris herself after 25 years in real estate. Enter your own business or that of another owner-operator you admire (up to three trucks) for Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year award here: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Rev. Rufus Smith continues our new summer sermon series "It Don't Mean That!" In the sermon "Boomerang Effect of Galatians 6:7," he teaches us that the term “you reap what you sow,” is often attributed to negative consequences, but the Bible primarily meant it for positive reinforcement!Stay connected with Hope Church Memphis:Website • HopeChurchMemphis.comInstagram • @Hope4MemphisTikTok • @Hope4MemphisFacebook • @Hope4MemphisPrayer • HopeChurchMemphis.com/PrayerGiving • HopeChurchMemphis.com/Give

Carney Freyfogle, CEO of CR3 American Exteriors, returns to the Lava Hot Podcast with a powerful story of transformation and growth. Since his last appearance, CR3 has evolved from a fledgling franchisor with six locations to a thriving enterprise with 15-16 active locations across 14 states, earning recognition as #65 on Entrepreneur's list of top new and emerging franchises.Behind this success lies a fascinating journey of reinvention. Freyfogle candidly shares how they discovered that what works for a single location doesn't automatically translate to franchise success across diverse regions with franchisees of varying skills. This realization triggered a complete system overhaul, with CR3 investing "almost every single dollar" back into infrastructure—rebuilding their foundation to support current franchisees while positioning for future growth toward 100+ locations.The conversation takes a deep dive into CR3's approach to franchise culture, where they balance system compliance with allowing franchisees (whom they call "strategic partners") to put their personal stamp on the business. "Take things away from this, but make it your own," Freyfogle advises during training, fostering authenticity while maintaining brand integrity.Perhaps most compelling is CR3's pioneering integration of artificial intelligence. They've developed an AI chatbot aptly named "Rufus" that's been fed their 400-page operations manual and years of training videos. This innovation allows franchisees to get immediate answers without waiting for corporate responses, accelerating business operations while maintaining consistency. Freyfogle shares broader insights about AI's transformative impact on business, noting, "It's not just a buzzword, it's very real," as he discusses how it's reshaping everything from customer support to legal document preparation.The interview also offers valuable economic insights from someone with visibility across multiple states, noting that while Q1 showed slower activity, recent weeks have brought encouraging upticks. For entrepreneurs considering franchise opportunities in the exterior remodeling space, CR3 presents an attractive option with average ticket sizes exceeding $15,000, with Texas representing a particularly appealing market for expansion.Ready to learn more about franchise opportunities or CR3's services? Visit CR3Franchise.com or find them across all social media platforms as CR3 American Exteriors.

This week on Bet the Process, the founder of 4C Predictions, Alan Levy, shares his platform's goal of connecting AI prediction models with consumers seeking better decision-making assistance, along with the evolving role of AI in both sports betting and financial markets. Jeff and Rufus also discuss the impact of Data Golf on betting markets.

En este episodio especial, Raúl Ulloa, co-host del podcast Wizards of Ecom, comparte su historia personal y las estrategias más importantes que ha aprendido en su recorrido como vendedor en Amazon. Lo hace en primera persona, con una sinceridad poco común, y con un objetivo claro: ayudarte a evitar errores y entender qué se necesita realmente para lanzar un producto de Marca Privada. “En el 2020, justo en el Covid, pasé de ser dueño de varios bares en República Dominicana a caer en la bancarrota”, recuerda Raúl. En medio del caos, apareció una oportunidad: “Es cuando se me abre la posibilidad de vender en Amazon. En el primer mes, vendí más de 52,000 dólares y hoy, cinco años después, he lanzado múltiples marcas para mí y mis clientes facturando millones. Pero no siempre fue así… antes de tener resultados he fracasado muchas veces”. Ese punto de partida marcó un antes y un después. Para Raúl, todo lo que vino después se basó en entender al detalle cada paso del proceso. Y el primero fue identificar qué vender. “Cuando vamos a lanzar un producto de Marca Privada, tenemos que estar muy seguros sobre qué es lo que la gente está buscando. Esa idea de diferenciación ya la ha hecho alguien… podemos copiarlo, mejorarlo si es posible y venderlo”. Pero elegir bien el producto no basta. La rentabilidad es clave desde el primer día. “Sé cuánto me queda limpio después de todos los fees”, dice, y enfatiza la importancia de anticiparse a los costos. “Cualquier fee de Amazon hay que tenerlo en cuenta antes de lanzar un producto. Tienes muchas calculadoras, como la de Helium 10, que te van a dar una idea del precio que le tienes que poner a tu producto. Incluso te pueden ayudar a jugar con los precios para ver qué te conviene o no”. Una vez que el producto está definido, empieza el verdadero desafío: construir una marca que la gente quiera comprar. “Debemos ser pacientes, tener una estrategia clara, saber que hay un marketing que es muy importante… porque una cosa es lanzar nuestro producto y otra es que la gente lo conozca. Debemos hacer una inversión antes de vender. Trataría de ver otro negocio similar al nuestro para ver cuánto tarda retornar el dinero invertido”, explica nuestro co-host. Ese plan de lanzamiento, según Raúl, no puede omitirse: “Si estás lanzando un producto de Marca Privada, tienes que tener un plan. Si no tienes reviews no vas a rankear y te va a costar mucho más caro vender. Yo trato de tener al menos 10 reviews en el primer mes de amigos o conocidos”. Y cuando se trata de atraer clics y convertir en ventas, hay un elemento que pesa más que todos: la imagen principal. “Para mí, el 70 por ciento de las ventas en Amazon viene de la foto principal, porque realmente hace que la gente quiera comprar o no el producto. Traten de pasar tiempo para mejorarla. Pueden usar herramientas como Pickfu para hacer encuestas y ver qué foto es mejor. Si en Pickfu quedamos primeros, vamos bien; si no, hay algo que cambiar. Hay que gastar para ganar”. El entusiasmo por lanzar no debe nublar los riesgos. Raúl advierte que muchos emprendedores pasan por alto pasos esenciales. “Si nos copiamos de un producto y lo lanzamos en Amazon sin revisar si tiene una patente, vamos a tener problemas. Hay que revisar las políticas de Amazon antes de escoger cualquier producto”, alerta. Lo mismo ocurre con la relación con los proveedores. No basta con tener uno confiable: “Hoy puedes estar muy tranquilo con tu producto de Wholesale, pero mañana te pueden dejar de vender. Siempre debes abrir nuevas puertas con distintos proveedores”. Y no menos importante, entender bien el proceso logístico: “Conocí mucha gente que no sabía los requisitos de etiquetado, empaque y envío. Lo que pueden hacer es buscar algún video en YouTube y hacerlo de una forma que nos sea más barato, porque cada dólar que puedas guardar, es cada dólar que va a quedar en tu bolsillo”. Elegir un producto por moda, sin validación, también es un error frecuente. “Si ven que alguien pone un producto en TikTok que se vende mucho, es una alerta, porque es un producto que seguramente esté saturado y tenga mucha competencia. Se debe validar con datos, porque si no, se va a hacer muy difícil venderlo”, subraya Raúl. Otra área crítica que muchos subestiman es la gestión del inventario: “Es importante saber cuánto tarda en llegar mi producto al almacén de Amazon. Si nos quedamos sin inventario estamos perdiendo dinero en Amazon y también estamos perdiendo ranking, y nos va a costar el doble volver a posicionarnos. Es muy importante no quedarnos sin stock”. Raúl insiste en que el producto no solo debe ser viable, sino diferente: “No podemos vender un producto que todo el mundo vende. Debemos saber que nuestro producto es diferente y tiene más valor que el de los demás para poder mantener sus ventas en el tiempo”. Y la investigación no puede faltar: “Hay que revisar los reviews antes de elegir el producto. Es algo tan importante como saber en qué nicho nos estamos metiendo. Puedes usar a Rufus como guía a la hora de vender para tener las herramientas necesarias, ver qué vende tu competencia y vencerla”. Para Raúl, no se trata de vender mucho, sino de vender bien. “Hay productos que venden muchas cantidades, pero tienen un margen del 10 al 15 por ciento. Yo prefiero un mejor margen y que vendan menos, porque con el margen hacemos el dinero”. En este sentido, el flujo de caja es un punto de inflexión: “Hay personas que invierten en productos, pero no tienen dinero para hacer las fotos del producto o para volver a comprar. Si te está yendo muy bien, considera pedir dinero prestado para sostener el negocio, pero para ello debemos tener claridad sobre nuestro flujo de caja”. Con honestidad y experiencia, Raúl deja claro que no existen atajos, pero sí decisiones inteligentes: “El que está dispuesto a hacer algo bien con su negocio y vivir del mismo siempre va a tener un mejor resultado”.

Sleep is often seen as a waste of time. Many businessmen, politicians, and celebrities boast about sleeping only 5 hours per night or even being insomniacs. However, despite its sometimes bad reputation, sleep is essential for maintaining good health and aging well. Bear in mind that no one has ever gone longer than 11 and a half days without sleeping. As a point of comparison, Scottish man Angus Barbieri went 382 days without eating any solid food in the 1960s, and in 1979 an Austrian man survived 18 days without any food or water. So you can understand just how essential sleep is for human life. What does our body do during sleep ? What happens during REM sleep ? Does sleep also help us assimilate experiences we've had during the daytime ? Are there any other theories out there? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: ⁠What is Rufus the Hawks job at Wimbledon?⁠ ⁠What is an eco-friendly beach ?⁠ ⁠Why do we get grumpy when we're hungry?⁠ A Bababam Originals podcast, written and produced by Joseph Chance. First Broadcast: 5/7/2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this conversation, Rufus interviews Zak about his early learning journey, exploring the corruption of graduate education, the sacredness of measurement for ancient man & what kind of new wise agency is needed amidst existential risk and all pervasive information warfare.Listen above or watch the episode here:About the episode:In their second interview, Rufus explores Dr. Zak Stein's formative experiences of education, music and standardised testing. They explore the sacred and esoteric history of measurement in the pre-modern world compared with today. Zak Shares on what he learned conducting research into the all-pervasive landscape of propaganda and information warfare for the Consilience Project. They close exploring the possibility of 'a new archetype of wise agency' which, unlike previous monastic wisdom traditions, is deeply responsive and engaged with worldly agency, politics, power and strategy.This conversation supports the recent book First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come. See detailed notes on the book and our summary here.Chapters00:00 Zak's Early Education Experience 09:46 Zak's Journey Through Jazz Musicians 14:33 Ken Wilber and Developmental Psychology 17:44 The Creation of Lectica & Entering Harvard Without a GPA 24:02 What Happened to Developmental Psychology at Harvard? 28:00 The Academy Is Broken & the Frame of Institutional Decay 31:47 Government and Industry Cannibalize Graduate Education 39:29 The Problem of Metrication & Civilizational Collapse 45:35 The Magic of Measurement for Ancient Man & Measurement as a Sacred Act 58:18 Consilience Project's Findings on Psychological Warfare 1:01:00 Rufus: Culture War, Printing Press, and the Modern Age 1:03:45 Information War Erodes the Possibility of Truth 1:20:00 How Can a Second Renaissance Counter Propaganda Culture? 1:22:45 The “Long Game” of Wisdom in the Past vs. the Need for Active Engagement in the Metacrisis 1:24:12 The New Archetype of “Wise Agency”1:32:00 How Do We Use Power Wisely? About Zak SteinDr. Zachary Stein is co-founder of the Civilizational Research Institute, the Center for World Philosophy and Religion and Lectica, Inc, and is a widely sought after and award winning speaker. Zak is a leading authority on the future of education and contemporary issues in human development. He was trained at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and education, and now works in fields related to the mitigation of global catastrophic risk. Dr. Stein is the author of several books and many peer-reviewed papers, including most recently First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, by Zak Stein, Marc Gafni and Ken Wilber writing under the name David J. Temple.About Rufus PollockRufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: rufuspollock.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit news.lifeitself.org

The World's Zaniest 60s Radio Station, Every Wednesday at 5pm!Throwing it back to the glory days of long lunches, indoor smoking and infidelity in our beautiful vintage studio, broadcasting every Wednesday at 6pm on YouTube & All Podcast Platforms!Rufus -https://www.instagram.com/rufusrice_/https://www.tiktok.com/@rufusdailyAidan -https://www.instagram.com/aidanraff_/https://www.tiktok.com/@aidanraff_Follow Our Socials: https://linktr.ee/radiorufuspodListen on Spotify: https://shorturl.at/twSX8Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/aFHW0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Curve of Time, Chapter 71 —— Smear Together, in which Mica learns about Zeno's death.Followed by Rufus musing on turning points in life.Explore more at www.writtenbyrufus.com where you can join in a discussion of this chapter at the bottom of the text version of this episode.

1. Rachel Chinouriri - All I Ever Asked (Zerb Remix) 2. Modjo - Lady (5HOURS & Loruare Remix) 3. Dua Lipa - Training Season (Ernani Afro House Remix) 4. Rufus du Sol - In the moment (Adriatique Extended Remix) 3. DJ Memê - Saudade (Original Mix) 4. Mochakk - Maria (Extended Mix) 5. PAWSA - Rendezvous (Extended Mix) 6. Mau P - Like I Like It (Extended Mix) 7. Unfazed - A Gira (David Guetta Extended Remix) 8. Delerium ft. Sarah McLachlan - Silence (John Summit Extended Remix) 9. Billie Eilish - Birds Of A Feather (Arthur Tan Remix) 10. Prospa - Don't Stop (Sammy Porter Remix) 11. James Hype - Don't Wake Me Up (Martin Ikin Extended Remix) 12. Riordan - Straight From The Underground (Extended Mix) 13. Lenny Kravitz - Let It Ride (HoneyLuv Extended) 14. DJ Snake & Bipolar Sunshine - Paradise (PAJANE Extended Remix) 15. Dasha - Not At This Party (David Guetta Club Mix)

With tracks from Rufus & Chaka Khan, Pet Shop Boys, Gayle Adams, Buscemi, Bernardo Pinheiro, Vinny Villbass, Spinners, Captain Sensible, Curses, HAAi, Totem Projects, Buena Vista Social Club (Vijay & Sofía Remix), Joutro Mundo, GLOK, Totem Projects, Spirit Catcher, Sir Own, Teno Afrika, Animl, Sun Sone, Baby Berserk, Edward Ka-Spel. Contact: dj@ribeaud.ch.

Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She's currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves … … growing up in a folk dynasty in Montreal.   … the sight of Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen, backing singers on Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man tour, “who made me want to be onstage too”. … the story of ‘Matapedia', the song Kate McGarrigle wrote when an old boyfriend thought she was her teenage daughter.   … her first shows playing Elvis, Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs on the coffeehouse circuit. … singing with her brother Rufus and her cousins with Kate & Anna McGarrigle at folk festivals. … onstage at the Roches' Christmas shows in New York. … the time her brother stole the show over Emmylou Harris: “I thought I want that kind of attention!” … seeing Pink Floyd's The Wall in a Montreal hockey stadium, aged 9 – “a very marking experience”. … the songs of her mother's she always plays: “I'm obsessed with her legacy”. Martha Wainwright 20th Anniversary tour tickets here: https://marthawainwright.com/showsFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She's currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves … … growing up in a folk dynasty in Montreal.   … the sight of Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen, backing singers on Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man tour, “who made me want to be onstage too”. … the story of ‘Matapedia', the song Kate McGarrigle wrote when an old boyfriend thought she was her teenage daughter.   … her first shows playing Elvis, Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs on the coffeehouse circuit. … singing with her brother Rufus and her cousins with Kate & Anna McGarrigle at folk festivals. … onstage at the Roches' Christmas shows in New York. … the time her brother stole the show over Emmylou Harris: “I thought I want that kind of attention!” … seeing Pink Floyd's The Wall in a Montreal hockey stadium, aged 9 – “a very marking experience”. … the songs of her mother's she always plays: “I'm obsessed with her legacy”. Martha Wainwright 20th Anniversary tour tickets here: https://marthawainwright.com/showsFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She's currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves … … growing up in a folk dynasty in Montreal.   … the sight of Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen, backing singers on Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man tour, “who made me want to be onstage too”. … the story of ‘Matapedia', the song Kate McGarrigle wrote when an old boyfriend thought she was her teenage daughter.   … her first shows playing Elvis, Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs on the coffeehouse circuit. … singing with her brother Rufus and her cousins with Kate & Anna McGarrigle at folk festivals. … onstage at the Roches' Christmas shows in New York. … the time her brother stole the show over Emmylou Harris: “I thought I want that kind of attention!” … seeing Pink Floyd's The Wall in a Montreal hockey stadium, aged 9 – “a very marking experience”. … the songs of her mother's she always plays: “I'm obsessed with her legacy”. Martha Wainwright 20th Anniversary tour tickets here: https://marthawainwright.com/showsFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is AI the tool that can take everything from your podcasting workflow, from idea generation to marketing strategy, up a notch? On this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Erich Archer, an Emmy-winning AI video specialist, sits down to talk about the practical applications of AI for podcasters while busting some common myths. From generative videos to AI-powered research and workflow automation, we dive deep into how AI tools like ChatGPT can revolutionize your content creation process. This week, episode 210 of Podcasting Unlocked is about leveling up your podcast with AI tools! Emmy-winning AI video specialist Erich Archer, creator of the AI tool ecosystem Smarty Pants, bridges creativity and technology. His generative AI work includes the short film "RUFUS" and "The First Artist," a collaboration with DreamFlare AI. Archer has received Telly and Communicator Awards for AI innovation and is a fellow at The AI Exchange. A speaker on AI's potential, he is also the Executive Director of 1623 Studios.In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Erich Archer is sharing the importance of utilizing AI-generated content to save time and actionable steps you can take right now to start learning about how AI can work for you. Erich and I also chat about the following: The current state of generative video production and its similarities to digital music production.The benefits of using AI for research, automation, and creating custom GPTs for regular use.Maintaining the human element of creation and production when using assistive AI tools.How AI applications are not one-size-fits-all, and using different applications for different purposes.Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don't forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ CONNECT WITH ERICH ARCHER:LinkedInInstagramWebsiteCONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:InstagramLinkedInWork with Galati Media! Work with Alesia 1:1LINKS MENTIONED:PodmatchDescriptProud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Max Sinclair is the Founder and CEO of Azoma (formerly Ecomtent), which generates AI-powered product content across eCommerce sites. Before founding Azoma, he spent six years at Amazon, where he launched Amazon Business in the UK, Amazon.sg in Singapore, and Amazon Grocery across the EU. Max is also the host of New Frontier: The AI for ecommerce podcast. In this episode… Traditional search engines are losing their dominance as consumers turn to AI-powered tools for product discovery. This shift challenges eCommerce brands to stay visible in a digital landscape driven by conversational interfaces and personalized recommendations. How can businesses optimize their online presence when search requires context, intent, and interaction? AI-driven search optimization expert Max Sinclair maintains that brands can remain competitive by aligning their content strategies with the mechanics of large language models. Appearing in AI search results involves more than traditional SEO; it requires crafting semantically rich content that aligns with customer personas, goals, and use cases. Max emphasizes the importance of visual elements, customer sentiment, and AI's multimodal capabilities, allowing brands to improve visibility and relevance on emerging platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Amazon's Rufus. Tune in to this episode of The Digital Deep Dive as Aaron Conant hosts Max Sinclair, Founder and CEO of Azoma, to discuss the evolution of product search in the age of generative AI. Max talks about the rise of conversational and voice-based search, how direct checkout integrations could disrupt traditional online marketplaces, and his predictions for AI shopping assistants.

The Meseta is about to end and I'm about to head south for a few days for a family party. The break has come at a good time to help my feet recover from a pounding.  Beth and Andrew take responsibility for Rufus, a bowling ball. Weird? Yep. 

Rev. Rufus Smith concludes our sermon series, "Pillars," with "Gideon's Victory: 300 + God = Majority." He reminds us that while we count numbers, God makes the number count.Stay connected with Hope Church Memphis:Website • HopeChurchMemphis.comInstagram • @Hope4MemphisTikTok • @Hope4MemphisFacebook • @Hope4MemphisPrayer • HopeChurchMemphis.com/PrayerGiving • HopeChurchMemphis.com/Give

In episode three of our mini-series, Destaney and Gabi welcome Dayexi Tomko to join them. In this episode, they're covering brand building and creative opportunities on Amazon and how the platform's transformations have changed consumer interactions and brand storytelling. They discuss the critical shifts in Amazon's creative landscape, including the growing importance of optimized main images, engaging carousel content, and strategic use of premium features like brand stores and enhanced A+ content.Focus of This Episode:Understanding Amazon's evolution in creative brand-building opportunities.Insights into optimizing main images and PDP content to capture consumer attention.Strategies for leveraging brand stores and premium content for the best impact.Tips for navigating Amazon's innovative modules, including quizzes and branded recipes.Exploring the role of AI tools (like Creative Studio AI and Rufus) in streamlining creative production and optimization.Connect with Destaney on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/destaney-wishon/ Connect with Gabi on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaviljoen/ Connect with Dayexi Tomko on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dayexi-tomko-26916864/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

[RE-UPLOAD FROM MARCH 24, 2020]In this episode, we spoke to Dr. Rufus Isaacs about his career journey, as well as his experiences doing research on pollinators and berry crop pestsYou can follow Bug Talk on Instagram and Twitter @bugtalkpodcast, and YouTube @bugtalk6645

Great images. Strong copy. Positive reviews. But… still not converting? It's happening everywhere. In this episode, Daniela Bolzmann (Founder of MindfulGoods.co and speaker at Amazon Accelerate 2024) breaks down why most Amazon listings are failing in 2025 — and what top sellers are doing differently. DANIELA'S FREEBIES: Premium A+ Content 2 free tutorials: https://mindfulgoods.co/brand-story-magic Best performing product images Swipe File: https://bit.ly/mindfulswipes You'll learn how AI is reshaping content strategy, how Rufus is changing the buyer journey, and the image testing method that tripled sales for brands you know.

This week on eTown, we have Part Two of our special on-the-road show from Macky Auditorium in Boulder, Colorado featuring Rufus Wainwright and Madison Cunningham! Madison and Rufus perform more wonderful songs on their own, and also a few magical tunes together! Nick also has a sit-down with author and climate activist Margaret Klein Salamon, Ph.D.   That's all this week on eTown!   Visit our Youtube Channel to see artist interviews, live recordings, studio sessions, and more! Be a part of the audience at our next recording: https://www.etown.org/etown-hall/all-events/ Your support helps us bring concerts, tapings and conversations to audiences while fostering connection through music, ideas and community. If you'd like to support eTown's mission to educate, entertain and inspire a diverse audience through music and conversation, please consider a donation: https://www.etown.org/get-involved/donate-orig/.  

With our live show in Washington, DC coming up on May 29, we thought it'd be fun to share one of our previous live recordings from Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC w/ guests Molly Worthen, Doug Heye & Rufus Edmisten!   Dr. Molly Worthen (Department of History at UNC-Chapel Hill), Doug Heye (CNN/former RNC Communication Director) & Rufus Edmisten (Deputy Chief Council, Senate Watergate Committee/ former NC Secretary of State & Attorney General) join Bob & Ben for a conversation about charisma in American politics and society. Recorded live at the legendary Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC on January 25, 2020.   Join us for our next live recording on May 29, 2025 at The Hamilton Live in Washington, DC. Click here for tickets!   Click here to check out upcoming Avett Brothers shows   Click here for Ben's comedy dates   This is a rebroadcast of episode #158 which originally aired on January 27, 2020. This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.  

Rufus was marching North to directly challenge de Mowbray and anyone foolish enough to follow  him.  And of course he was.  There was only one response this King was ever going to have to de Mowbray's instigation.  War.   The post 474 – Malvoisin, the Evil Neighbor first appeared on The British History Podcast.