Podcasts about Slim Harpo

Con B.B. King ft. Luciano Pavarotti, Original Chicago Blues Band, Slim Harpo, Solomon Burke, Billy Preston, The Excitements, Pony Bravo, DeVotchKa, Mike Bahía, Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, Amaral, Barry B ft Carolina Durante, Amaia, Soleado y Maestro Espada.

Sammy & Matt are back with another great mix of 60s soul, garage, ska, 2tone and more. There's a bit of everything this week from Purple Haze to the Purple Hearts, Betty O'Brien to Blur, Spanky Wilson, Slim Harpo and The Streets.For more info and tracklisting, visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up/Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up! Sundays from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.//Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 1 of this season, we headed over to the Juke Joint and got Robert Barclay's back story on the past 39 years of the show. Robert gave his background, college history, photography interest, and ultimately the keys to the club as we got to go backstage with the Duke of Juke. For Episode 2, Robert goes into his passion for Tom Waits, venues like The Ark, Slim Harpo, Johnny Bassett, Hasting Street and Gatemouth Brown--and then some!    Tune in Thursday morning for the wrap up with the legendary Blues DJ--and don't forget to join Robert at the Juke Joint on 89.5 FM WCMU every Sunday night at 8pm for his three hour show. Thank you all for listening and Robert for the hospitality.

Join Matt & Sammy for another Blow Up show, bouncing around the decades with 60s classics from the Yardbirds and The Artwoods, right through to a brand new release from Junior Dell & The D-Lites.We also feature music from The Pioneers, Kula Shaker, Slim Harpo and Paul Weller.For more info and tracklisting, visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up/Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sundays from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.//Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the July 5 edition of Music History Today, Lilith Fair starts and lots of debuts, including the King. Also, happy birthday to Huey Lewis and the RZA.  For more music history, subscribe to my Spotify Channel or subscribe to the audio version of my music history podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts from ALL MUSIC HISTORY TODAY  PODCAST NETWORK LINKS - ⁠https://allmylinks.com/musichistorytoday⁠  On this date: In 1943, big band leader Harry James married actress Betty Grable. Coincidentally, Harry passed away on this date 40 years later. In 1954, Elvis had his first official recording session at Sun Studios. He recorded That's Alright Mama & 3 other songs. In 1957, Frank Sinatra divorced actress Ava Gardner. In 1958, Ray Charles recorded his performance at the Newport Jazz Festival for a live album. In 1961, blues great Slim Harpo performed on American Bandstand, becoming one of the few times that a blues artist performed on the show. In 1962, Little Eva performed the song Locomotion for the first time on television.  In 1965, Dick Clark's TV show Where the Action Is premiered. In 1966, Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers had vocal cord surgery. In 1966, Chas Chandler of the Animals was in the audience during a Jimi Hendrix performance in New York City. Chas decided to become Jimi's manager, based on that performance. In 1968, John Lennon sold his famous Rolls-Royce with the psychedelic paint scheme. In 1969, The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in London. In 1969, the Royal Albert Hall banned rock concerts from taking place after fans rushed the stage during a performance by Chuck Berry & The Who. In 1974, Linda Ronstadt recorded her song You're No Good. In 1975, Pink Floyd performed songs from their album Wish You Were Here at the Knebworth Music Festival. In 1980, drummer Simon Kirke of Bad Company became the last guest performer to play with Led Zeppelin, as the band called it quits after drummer John Bonham's death only 2 months later. In 1984, The Everly Brothers started their reunion show. In 1987, Ben E King & Elton John were among those who performed at the Prince's Trust Rock Gala charity concert in London. In 1989, Rod Stewart accidently knocked himself unconscious after hitting his head while performing on stage. In 1997, the first Lilith Fair tour started. The all-female tour featured Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega, and Jewel. In 2003, the Lollapalooza concert tour started for the first time in 6 years. In 2007, Marilyn Manson was divorced by burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese.  In 2014, Jessica Simpson married football player Eric Johnson. In 2015, Damon Albarn of Blur & The Gorillaz collapsed on stage after a long performance. In 2018, Stormzy partnered with Penguin Books to create the book publishing imprint #Merky Books. In 2022, Carlos Santana collapsed on stage during a performance from dehydration. In classical music: In 1942, Heitor Villa-Lobos' piece Choros 6/9/11 was first performed. In 1965, opera star Maria Callas gave her final opera performance. In theater:  In 1947, the Broadway musical Barefoot Boy With Cheek closed. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/musichistorytodaypodcast/support

This week we buzz awhile about Slim Harpo's 1957 concoction, "I'm a King Bee." A slow and syrupy groove, a slightly sinister mood, and drums which sound like someone's hammerin' a nail. Even the harmonica solo sounds like it's emerging out of the swamp! 7 years later, the song travelled from the Bayou to the Thames and The Rolling Stones beeswaxed the song. Apparently, this song is the first appearance of a fretless bass, which will lead to a very strange bonus episode later. In 1965, The Bad Seeds found the song in their bonnet and man, is their version great. It sounds like The Cramps about 12 years ahead of schedule. Finally, our friends  The Coachmen (see Episode 117) join the hive to make a very different, primitive-sounding groove. Kill your lawn, people!!

Here's two more packed hours of 1960s dance music from Slim Harpo, Chris Clark, Martha & The Vandellas, Barbara Lewis, Big Maybelle, The Dells, Bobby Bland, Timi Yuro and many more! Originally broadcast June 9, 2024 Willie Mitchell / That Driving BeatSlim Harpo / Shake Your HipsBilly Watkins / Go Billy GoChris Clark / Love's Gone BadThe Fantastic Four / Ain't Love WonderfulThe Capitols / Zig - ZaggingMartha & The Vandellas / I'm Ready for LoveOtis Brown & Band / Will You WaitThe Coasters / (When She Wants Good Lovin') My Baby Comes to MeP.J. Proby / You Can't Come Home Again (If You Leave Me Now)Jackie Ross / Haste Makes WasteClarence Murray / Don't Talk Like ThatThe Drifters / Baby What I MeanJames & Bobby Purify / Wish You Didn't Have To GoBarbara Lewis / I Remember the FeelingBig Maybelle / Eleanor RigbyBud Spudd And The Sprouts / The MashBobby Bland / Getting Used To The BluesJames Brown / James Brown's Boo-Ga-LooBrenda & The Tabulations / Hey BoyGabriel & The Angels / Don't Wanna Twist No MoreFrankie Valli / (You're Gonna) Hurt YourselfThe Swingin' Medallions / Don't Cry No MoreChris Clark / Put Yourself In My PlaceWillie Tee / I Want Somebody (To Show Me the Way Back Home)The Dells / There IsBarbara George / If You ThinkHowlin' Wolf / Pop It to MeThe Diplomats / Hey, Mr Taxi DriverSonny Hines / Nothing Like Your LoveBobby Harris / More of the JerkTimi Yuro / I Ain't Gonna Cry No MoreThe Shirelles / Are You Still My BabyThe O'Jays / I'll Never Let You GoThe Drifters / He's Just a PlayboyJackie Wilson / I'm So LonelyFats Domino / Something You Got BabyJewel Akens / Little Bitty Pretty OneBarbara Lewis / My Heart Went Do Dat DaDusty Springfield / A Brand New Me Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Singles Going Around- Holy Soul Jelly RollSide AThe Standells- "Mr Nobody"Otis Redding- "Nobody Knows You"Tony Joe White- "Widow Wimberley"The Rolling Stones- "Citadel"Slim Harpo- "Bobby Sox Baby"Captain Beefheart- "The Witch Doctor Life"Dr John- "Tipitina"The Yardbirds- "Think About It"Jimmy Smith- "Root Down (And Get It)Side BJimmy Liggins- "Drunk"The Beach Boys- "Summertime Blues"Nancy Sinatra- "Sorry About That"The Clash- Career Opportunties"The Uniques- "House Of the Rising Sun"Mitch Ryder- "Walking The Dog"Guitar Gable- "This Should Go On Forever"Charlie Rich- "I Feel Like Going Home"The Grateful Dead- "Casey Jones"

Singles Going Around- Whirlaway  Whirlaway is a all Louisiana show featuring music and artists from North, Central and South Louisiana. The music is taken from the original records.Cookie and his Cupcakes- "Mathilda" Bill Nettles- "Hadacol Boogie"The Sugar Bee's- "Sugar Bee"Slim Harpo- "I'm A King Bee"Tommy Mclain- "Before I Grow Too Old"Jerry Lee Lewis- "Jambalaya"Harry Choates- "Jole Blon"The Velvetiers- "Feelin' Right Saturday Night"Oscar Buddy Woods- "Don't Sell It"Nathan Abshire- "Crying Pine Grove Blues"Bobby Charles- "On Bended Knee" Edit out "See You Later Alligator"Al Ferrier- "Hello Josephine"Fats Domino- "The Fat Man"Warren Storm- "Troubles, Troubles"Boozoo Chavis- "Forty One Davis"Little Walter- "Juke"Johnnie Allan- "Promised Land"Little Bob- "I Got Loaded"Tony Joe White- "Whompt Out On You"Lawrence Walker- "Lena Mae"The Uniques- "Fast Way Of Living" 

"Exploring the Sweetness of 'Candyman': A Grateful Dead Classic"Larry Mishkin reflects on a Grateful Dead show from 44 years ago on April 1st, 1980, where the band played a prank on April Fool's Day, starting with a Chuck Berry tune and then transitioning to their usual instruments to perform the song again. Larry also talks about the significance of the song "Candyman" and its role in the Grateful Dead's repertoire, as well as Billy Joel's milestone 100th residency concert at Madison Square Garden. Larry also talks about "Friend of the Devil" and its origins, penned by lyricist Robert Hunter in collaboration with Jerry Garcia and John Dawson.    Grateful DeadApril 1, 1980 (44 years ago)Capitol TheaterPassaic, NJGrateful Dead Live at Capitol Theater on 1980-04-01 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive April Fool's DayOpener that's keeping with the theme INTRO:                 The Promised Land                                Track # 2                                1:14 – 3:18 Chuck Berry tune with the Boys having a bit of fun to celebrate April Fool's Day: Jerry and Brent on DrumsBobby on keyboardBilly on bass and background vocalsMickey on rhythm guitar and singing lead vocalsPhil on lead guitar Kind of plodded through the song, but the fans loved the idea and the effortThey then went back to normal instruments, played the tune again and killed it! A fun opener with a good reality check for the dosed fans in the crowd. SHOW No. 1:                    Candyman                                                Track #4                                                4:56 – 6:30 Garcia/Hunter masterpieceThe song Candyman is part of the album American Beauty, which found its way into the world in November 1970. American Beauty is an album that is cherished by many, as it brings stories and emotions that feel both personal and universal. Candyman, with its blend of sweetness and shadow, invites listeners to delve into a world that is rich, complex, and thoughtfully spun. The album, with its varied tales and emotions, continues to be a friend to listeners, offering stories that explore the many sides and shades of life's journey.The thought-provoking words of Candyman were penned by Robert Hunter, and the compelling music was created by Jerry Garcia. These two artists worked together to create many of the Grateful Dead's memorable songs. Their collaboration in Candyman offers a rich story that allows listeners to explore and imagine a world that is sweet, slightly shadowed, and full of interesting adventures. The images and tales spun by the words and music invite people to think, feel, and maybe even find bits of their own stories within the tale of the Candyman.Played a total of 273 times.  Almost always a Jerry first set tune alternated with Loser, West LA, and a few othersFirst played on April 3, 1970 (10 years earlier than today's show) at Armory Fieldhouse in Cincinnati, OHLast played on June 30, 1995 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. SHOW No. 3:          Friend of the Devil                                    Track #8                                    3:36 – 5:20 Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter told Relix that "Friend of the Devil" was the closest that the Grateful Dead ever came to creating "what may be called a classic song." Many Deadheads may disagree, but it's an interesting perspective from the man who penned the words for the majority of the Dead's most iconic pieces.Whether or not "Friend of the Devil" is the sole "classic" Dead tune, it's hard to argue that the band tapped into the outlaw's zeitgeist to find a timeless song with this one. Dead chronicler extraordinaire David Dodd, for one, agrees. "No other Dead tune gets played quite so often," Dodd writes in Greatest Stories Ever Told.Jerry Garcia and John Dawson of New Riders of the Purple Sage (NRPS) wrote the music for "Friend of the Devil." Hunter wrote the lyrics, but Dawson played a critical part in that area, as well.In his online journal, Robert Hunter recounted writing the lyrics for "Friend of the Devil" in a single afternoon in Madrone Canyon. He actually created the song with the intent of playing it with NRPS, after the band had asked him to be their bassist. This is why he first unveiled the song to David Nelson and John Dawson in their home in Kentfield. At that point, Hunter explains, "The 'Sweet Anne Marie' verse which was later to become a bridge was only one of the verses, not yet a bridge."Where things get really interesting in this story is where Hunter tells us that the chorus originally went:I set out running but I take my timeIt looks like water but it tastes like wineIf I get home before daylightI just might get some sleep tonightNotice how the line "A friend of the devil is a friend of mine" doesn't play into that chorus? This is where Dawson comes in.After showing the guys the song, Hunter explains, the band went down to the kitchen for espresso. "We got to talking about the tune and John said the verses were nifty except for 'it looks like water but it tastes like wine,' which I had to admit fell flat. Suddenly Dawson's eyes lit up and he crowed "How about 'a friend of the devil is a friend of mine.' Bingo, not only the right line but a memorable title as well!We ran back upstairs to Nelson's room and recorded the tune. I took the tape home and left it on the kitchen table. Next morning I heard earlybird Garcia (who hadn't been at the rehearsal - had a gig, you know) wanging away something familiar sounding on the peddle [sic] steel. Danged if it wasn't 'Friend of the Devil.' With a dandy bridge on the 'sweet Anne Marie' verse. He was not in the least apologetic about it. He'd played the tape, liked it, and faster than you can say dog my cats it was in the Grateful Dead repertoire."It's interesting to wonder whether or not the song would still have become a staple if Dawson hadn't popped those lyrics. The line, "a friend of the devil is a friend of mine" isn't the only great thing about the song, but it's definitely a critical part.Hunter dipped out of NRPS almost as fast he dipped in, and so the song became a Dead tune. Certainly a popular tune with the band and the Deadheads.  Played 310X, almost always a first set tune.First – March 20, 1970 at the Capitol Theatre in Port ChesterLast – June 2, 1995 at RFK Stadium in D.C.   SHOW No. 4:               I Used To Love Her But It's All Over Now                                         Track # 9                                         3:15 – 5:00 "It's All Over Now" is a song written by Bobby Womack and his sister-in-law Shirley Womack.[1] It was first released by The Valentinos, featuring Bobby Womack, in 1964. The Rolling Stones heard it on its release and quickly recorded a cover version, which became their first number-one hit in the United Kingdom, in July 1964. The Valentinos recorded the song at United Recording in Hollywood on March 24, 1964,[2] and released it two months later.[3] It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 27, 1964, and stayed on the chart for two weeks, peaking at number 94. The Rolling Stones landed in New York on June 1, 1964, for their first North American tour, around the time the Valentinos' recording was released. New York radio DJMurray the K played the song to the Rolling Stones. He also played the Stones' "King Bee" (their Slim Harpo cover) the same night and remarked on their ability to achieve an authentic blues sound. After hearing "It's All Over Now" on that WINS show, the band recorded their version nine days later at Chess Studios in Chicago. Years later, Bobby Womack said in an interview that he had told Sam Cooke he did not want the Rolling Stones to record their version of the song, and that he had told Mick Jagger to get his own song. Cooke convinced him to let the Rolling Stones record the song. Six months later on, after receiving the royalty check for the song, Womack told Cooke that Mick Jagger could have any song he wanted.The Rolling Stones' version of "It's All Over Now" is the most famous version of the song. It was first released as a single in the UK, where it peaked at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart, giving the Rolling Stones their first number one hit.[5] It was the band's third single released in America, and stayed in the Billboard Hot 100 for ten weeks, peaking at number 26. Months later it appeared on their second American album 12 X 5. The song was a big hit in Europe and was part of the band's live set in the 1960s. Cash Box described it as a "contagious cover of the Valentinos' click" and "an infectious thumper that should head right for chartsville." Dead played it 160 times, always a first set Bobby tune.First on Sept. 6, 1969 at Family Dog At The Great Highway in S.F.Last on July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek in Indy/ This version is great with the Brent solo leading into the Jerry solo.  Check out the entire clip. SHOW No. 4:               Shakedown Street                                      Track #19                                      4:30 – 5:57 When people think of the Grateful Dead, they often think of free-flowing improvisational music. However, the band was known for many things, including their ability to construct incredibly catchy songs with deep meanings. This is exemplified in one of their most iconic songs, “Shakedown Street.” Shakedown Street, the title track of the Grateful Dead's tenth studio album, released in 1978, has been interpreted in countless ways over the years.  According to Hunter in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, “Shakedown Street” was a place where the underbelly of society came out and did its trading. “It was a place for freaks, weirdos, and people who didn't fit in anywhere else. It was one of the only places where they could socialize and be themselves without fear of persecution.” The lyrics of “Shakedown Street” talk about this place where everybody is welcome, regardless of who they are or where they come from. As the song says, “Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart. Just gotta poke around.”The song is a reflection of the band's values and the alternative society that they represented. It highlights the idea that people should be treated equally, without judgment, and that everyone should be able to express themselves.Played 164XPopular show opener, second set opener and occasionally, as here, an encore.  Great way to end a show rocking out hard for 10+ minutes and then going home.First:  August 31, 1978 Red RocksLast:  July 9, 1995 Soldier Field – played it right up until the end! .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

Kenny Neal  is an American blues guitar player, singer and band member. Neal was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Raful Neal, and he comes from a musical family. He has often performed with his brothers in his band. Neal preserves the blues sound of his native south Louisiana, as befits someone who learned from Slim Harpo, Buddy Guy, and his father, harmonica player Raful Neal.In 1987, Neal cut his debut album for the Florida record producer Bob Greenlee — an updated swamp feast initially marketed on King Snake Records as Bio on the Bayou. Alligator Records picked it up the following year, retitling it Big News from Baton Rouge!!In 1991, he proved to be a talented actor in the Broadway production of the folk musical Mule Bone (by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston), singing numbers written by Taj Mahal. Hosted by: Mark Hummel

Here is my music podcast "Bluesland" from Thursday February 22, 2024. Music includes Albert Cummings along with an interview and songs from his new album Strong. Albert Cummings will be at Dimitrou's Jazz Alley in Seattle March 5th and 6th. Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, Slim Harpo, Larkin Poe, James "Super Chikan" Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan and more are on tonight's playlist. 

Hey, RadioWilderLive.com fans! We have a special treat for you this week. We're catching up on requests with two awesome songs for Lisa and Pop'z. Pop'z's song was so good that we made it our Sticky of the Week. You don't want to miss it! This week's show is also our Valentines special, where we reveal the perfect gifts for your sweethearts. Trust us, they will love Tony's Chocolonely Super Milk Bundle, a pack of four mouth-watering chocolate bars! We also have some amazing covers by Bobby Darin, Taj Mahal, and Soraia from Philly in The Deuces are Wilder segment. Plus, Slim Harpo brings the blues with ‘Rainin' in my Heart' and Tina Turner heats things up with her sexy ‘Private Dancer'. From the One Hit Wonders vault, we have ‘Peter Rabbit' by Cat Stevens, Veruca Call, Dee Clark, Traffic and Beaty Heart. We want to congratulate the Florida Self Storage Association for their successful Orlando Show. We're looking forward to recording another one of our ‘Conversations' with Brett W., one of our new partners. The show will be broadcasted on our Radio Wilder YouTube channel by the end of March. Thank you for supporting RadioWilderLive.com. Stay Wild and Happy Valentine's Day!

Singles Going Around- Singles Going Steady (Rainy Day 45's)Chris Kenner- "Sick and Tired" (Imperial X5448)Bill Justis- "Raunchy" (P 309)Randy & The Rockets- "Rocket's Twist" (Jin 161)The Johnny Otis Show- "Willie & The Hand Jive" (Capital 18745)Bobby Charles- "Take It Easy Greasy" (Chess 1832)The Everly Brothers- "Bird Dog" (Cadence 1350)Rod Bernard- "New Orleans Jail" (Hall-Way 19624)Frankie Ford- "Sea Cruise" (Ace 554)George Jones- "White Lightning" (Mercury 17090)Chuck Berry- "Thirty Days" (Chess 7899)Tommy McLain- "Before I Grow Too Old" (Jin 414)Guitar Gable- "Congo Mombo" (Excello 2082)Huey Piano Smith- "Don't You Just Know It" (Ace 545)Alex Broussard- "Aces & Aces" (Al-Moe 1001)Ricky Nelson- "I'm Walkin" (Verve 100747)Slim Harpo-"Shake Your Hips" (Excello 2278)Link Wray- "Rawide" (Epic 45486)Huey Piano Smith- "High Blood Pressure" (Ace 545)Warren Storm- "Mama Mama Mama" (Nasco 6015)*All original mono 45's.

Show 41 - Slim Harpo (James Moore). Broadcast on Otago Access Radio www.oar.org.nz

James ran the show solo this time around, and brought some Louisville groups like the Monarchs, the Carnations, the Tren-Dells, the Mercy Men, and The Mersey Beats USA to the dance floor along with tunes by Slim Harpo, the Shells, Madeline Bell, Nolan Porter, the Crystals, Mable John, and many more. Originally broadcast August 6, 2023 Willie Mitchell / That Driving BeatWillie Hightower / Walk A Mile in My ShoesLou Johnson / UnsatisfiedGarnet Mimms / Prove It to MeThe Tren-Dells / Hully Gully JonesRichard Berry & The Pharaohs / Louie LouieLittle Johnny Taylor / Somewhere Down the LineTroy Keyes / Love ExplosionThe Shells / WhiplashCharlie Rich / I Can't Go OnThe Monarchs / This Old HeartLloyd Price and His Orchestra and Chorus / Oh, Lady LuckLouis Jones / The Birds Is ComingSlim Harpo / Don't Start Cryin' NowSammy Turner / Goodnight, IreneLenny Welch / Coronet BlueMercy Men / You Made It ThunderPeaches and Herb / I Need Your Love So DesperatelyBob and Earl / Harlem ShuffleThe Carnations / CasualThe Chateaus / Count On MeMersey Beats USA / Stop Look and ListenCompany Front / I'm So Happy NowMadeline Bell / Picture Me GoneShades of Blue / Oh How HappyThe Jerms / I'm a TeardropNolan Porter / If I Could Only Be SureJimmy Hughes / I Want JusticeArthur Conley / I Can't Stop (No, No, No)Mable John / It's CatchingThe Time Keepers / 3 Minutes HeavyMajor Lance / The Monkey TimeLittle Emmett Sutton / Mom, Won't You Teach Me To MonkeyThe Crystals / Walkin' Along (La La La)Jay Wiggins / No Not MeJackie Verdell / HushThe Isley Brothers / You Better Come HomeAlvin Cash & The Crawlers / Twine TimeMary Ann Fisher / Forever MoreSoul Sisters / I Can't Stand ItErnie K Doe / Dancin' Man Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tu garito subterráneo favorito abre puertas otro viernes de verano para ofrecerte una sesión quitapenas sin interrupciones. Cocinamos un menú de boppin’ rhythm and blues que te ayudará a desentumecer huesos y articulaciones. A disfrutar. (Foto del podcast; Slim Harpo) Playlist; (sintonía) IKE TURNER and THE KINGS OF RHYTHM “Potatoe mash” MEMPHIS SLIM “We’re gonna rock” FRANKIE LEE SIMS “Hey Little girl” COUSIN LEROY “I’m lonesome” HARMONICA FATS “Tore up” CHAMPION JACK DUPREE “Nasty boogie” JEANNIE BARNES “Can’t get you out of my mind” WILD JIMMY SPRUILL “Country boy” TOMMY LOUIS “I love you so” JAMES BROWN “Choonie-on-chon” EMMETT DAVIS “I’m talking about you baby” JOHN LEE HOOKER “No more doggin’” ETTA JAMES “Nobody loves you like me” LITTLE WALTER “Diggin’ my potatoes” JIMMY ANDERSON “I wanna boogie” WILLIE KING with IKE TURNER BAND “Peg leg woman” FRANKIE LEE SIMS “She likes to boogie real low” SLIM HARPO “Shake your hips” JAY SWAN “You don’t love me” ROSE MITCHELL “Baby please don’t go” BUNKER HILL “You can’t make me doubt my baby” LITTLE ESTHER “Hound dog” HAL PAGE and THE WHALERS “Thunderbird” SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON “Polly put your kettle” Escuchar audio

El lema de esta penúltima edición de Ruta 61 es sencillo pero significativo: el blues tuvo un hijo y lo llamaron roc'n'rol. Playlist: Snatch It Back and Hold It – Junior Wells; I'm A King Bee – The Rolling Stones; I'm A King Bee – Slim Harpo; I'm A Lover Not A Fighter – The Kinks; I'm A Lover Not A Fighter – Lazy Lester; The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll – Muddy Waters; Ball and Chain – Big Mama Thornton; Ball And Chain – Janis Joplin; Back Door Man – The Doors; Back Door Man – Howlin' Wolf; Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues – Skip James; Hard Time Killing Floor – Pura Fé; Crow Jane – Skip James; Crow Jane – Samantha Fish; Wassulu Don – Oumou Sangaré. Escuchar audio

Tornem al cinema seguint el rastre del jazz en la filmografia de Francis Ford Coppola: de les bandes sonores m

Episode 165 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Dark Stat” and the career of the Grateful Dead. This is a long one, even longer than the previous episode, but don't worry, that won't be the norm. There's a reason these two were much longer than average. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Codine" by the Charlatans. Errata I mispronounce Brent Mydland's name as Myland a couple of times, and in the introduction I say "Touch of Grey" came out in 1988 -- I later, correctly, say 1987. (I seem to have had a real problem with dates in the intro -- I also originally talked about "Blue Suede Shoes" being in 1954 before fixing it in the edit to be 1956) Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Grateful Dead, and Grayfolded runs to two hours. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, partly because almost everything about the Grateful Dead is written from a fannish perspective that already assumes background knowledge, rather than to provide that background knowledge. Of the various books I used, Dennis McNally's biography of the band and This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson and David Gans are probably most useful for the casually interested. Other books on the Dead I used included McNally's Jerry on Jerry, a collection of interviews with Garcia; Deal, Bill Kreutzmann's autobiography; The Grateful Dead FAQ by Tony Sclafani; So Many Roads by David Browne; Deadology by Howard F. Weiner; Fare Thee Well by Joel Selvin and Pamela Turley; and Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the classic account of the Pranksters, though not always reliable. I reference Slaughterhouse Five a lot. As well as the novel itself, which everyone should read, I also read this rather excellent graphic novel adaptation, and The Writer's Crusade, a book about the writing of the novel. I also reference Ted Sturgeon's More Than Human. For background on the scene around Astounding Science Fiction which included Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, L. Ron Hubbard, and many other science fiction writers, I recommend Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. 1,000 True Fans can be read online, as can the essay on the Californian ideology, and John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". The best collection of Grateful Dead material is the box set The Golden Road, which contains all the albums released in Pigpen's lifetime along with a lot of bonus material, but which appears currently out of print. Live/Dead contains both the live version of "Dark Star" which made it well known and, as a CD bonus track, the original single version. And archive.org has more live recordings of the group than you can possibly ever listen to. Grayfolded can be bought from John Oswald's Bandcamp Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [Excerpt: Tuning from "Grayfolded", under the warnings Before we begin -- as we're tuning up, as it were, I should mention that this episode contains discussions of alcoholism, drug addiction, racism, nonconsensual drugging of other people, and deaths from drug abuse, suicide, and car accidents. As always, I try to deal with these subjects as carefully as possible, but if you find any of those things upsetting you may wish to read the transcript rather than listen to this episode, or skip it altogether. Also, I should note that the members of the Grateful Dead were much freer with their use of swearing in interviews than any other band we've covered so far, and that makes using quotes from them rather more difficult than with other bands, given the limitations of the rules imposed to stop the podcast being marked as adult. If I quote anything with a word I can't use here, I'll give a brief pause in the audio, and in the transcript I'll have the word in square brackets. [tuning ends] All this happened, more or less. In 1910, T. S. Eliot started work on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which at the time was deemed barely poetry, with one reviewer imagining Eliot saying "I'll just put down the first thing that comes into my head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", a book in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time, and starts living a nonlinear life, hopping around between times reliving his experiences in the Second World War, and future experiences up to 1976 after being kidnapped by beings from the planet Tralfamadore. Or perhaps he has flashbacks and hallucinations after having a breakdown from PTSD. It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature or of science fiction, depending on how you look at it. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote More Than Human. It is now considered one of the great classics of science fiction. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It is now considered either a bad piece of science fiction or one of the great revelatory works of religious history, depending on how you look at it. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 the composer John Oswald released, first as two individual CDs and then as a double-CD, an album called Grayfolded, which the composer says in the liner notes he thinks of as existing in Tralfamadorian time. The Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut's novels don't see time as a linear thing with a beginning and end, but as a continuum that they can move between at will. When someone dies, they just think that at this particular point in time they're not doing so good, but at other points in time they're fine, so why focus on the bad time? In the book, when told of someone dying, the Tralfamadorians just say "so it goes". In between the first CD's release and the release of the double-CD version, Jerry Garcia died. From August 1942 through August 1995, Jerry Garcia was alive. So it goes. Shall we go, you and I? [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Dark Star (Omni 3/30/94)"] "One principle has become clear. Since motives are so frequently found in combination, it is essential that the complex types be analyzed and arranged, with an eye kept single nevertheless to the master-theme under discussion. Collectors, both primary and subsidiary, have done such valiant service that the treasures at our command are amply sufficient for such studies, so extensive, indeed, that the task of going through them thoroughly has become too great for the unassisted student. It cannot be too strongly urged that a single theme in its various types and compounds must be made predominant in any useful comparative study. This is true when the sources and analogues of any literary work are treated; it is even truer when the bare motive is discussed. The Grateful Dead furnishes an apt illustration of the necessity of such handling. It appears in a variety of different combinations, almost never alone. Indeed, it is so widespread a tale, and its combinations are so various, that there is the utmost difficulty in determining just what may properly be regarded the original kernel of it, the simple theme to which other motives were joined. Various opinions, as we shall see, have been held with reference to this matter, most of them justified perhaps by the materials in the hands of the scholars holding them, but none quite adequate in view of later evidence." That's a quote from The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story, by Gordon Hall Gerould, published in 1908. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five opens with a chapter about the process of writing the novel itself, and how difficult it was. He says "I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big." This is an episode several of my listeners have been looking forward to, but it's one I've been dreading writing, because this is an episode -- I think the only one in the series -- where the format of the podcast simply *will not* work. Were the Grateful Dead not such an important band, I would skip this episode altogether, but they're a band that simply can't be ignored, and that's a real problem here. Because my intent, always, with this podcast, is to present the recordings of the artists in question, put them in context, and explain why they were important, what their music meant to its listeners. To put, as far as is possible, the positive case for why the music mattered *in the context of its time*. Not why it matters now, or why it matters to me, but why it matters *in its historical context*. Whether I like the music or not isn't the point. Whether it stands up now isn't the point. I play the music, explain what it was they were doing, why they were doing it, what people saw in it. If I do my job well, you come away listening to "Blue Suede Shoes" the way people heard it in 1956, or "Good Vibrations" the way people heard it in 1966, and understanding why people were so impressed by those records. That is simply *not possible* for the Grateful Dead. I can present a case for them as musicians, and hope to do so. I can explain the appeal as best I understand it, and talk about things I like in their music, and things I've noticed. But what I can't do is present their recordings the way they were received in the sixties and explain why they were popular. Because every other act I have covered or will cover in this podcast has been a *recording* act, and their success was based on records. They may also have been exceptional live performers, but James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner are remembered for great *records*, like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "River Deep, Mountain High". Their great moments were captured on vinyl, to be listened back to, and susceptible of analysis. That is not the case for the Grateful Dead, and what is worse *they explicitly said, publicly, on multiple occasions* that it is not possible for me to understand their art, and thus that it is not possible for me to explain it. The Grateful Dead did make studio records, some of them very good. But they always said, consistently, over a thirty year period, that their records didn't capture what they did, and that the only way -- the *only* way, they were very clear about this -- that one could actually understand and appreciate their music, was to see them live, and furthermore to see them live while on psychedelic drugs. [Excerpt: Grateful Dead crowd noise] I never saw the Grateful Dead live -- their last UK performance was a couple of years before I went to my first ever gig -- and I have never taken a psychedelic substance. So by the Grateful Dead's own criteria, it is literally impossible for me to understand or explain their music the way that it should be understood or explained. In a way I'm in a similar position to the one I was in with La Monte Young in the last episode, whose music it's mostly impossible to experience without being in his presence. This is one reason of several why I placed these two episodes back to back. Of course, there is a difference between Young and the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead allowed -- even encouraged -- the recording of their live performances. There are literally thousands of concert recordings in circulation, many of them of professional quality. I have listened to many of those, and I can hear what they were doing. I can tell you what *I* think is interesting about their music, and about their musicianship. And I think I can build up a good case for why they were important, and why they're interesting, and why those recordings are worth listening to. And I can certainly explain the cultural phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead. But just know that while I may have found *a* point, *an* explanation for why the Grateful Dead were important, by the band's own lights and those of their fans, no matter how good a job I do in this episode, I *cannot* get it right. And that is, in itself, enough of a reason for this episode to exist, and for me to try, even harder than I normally do, to get it right *anyway*. Because no matter how well I do my job this episode will stand as an example of why this series is called "*A* History", not *the* history. Because parts of the past are ephemeral. There are things about which it's true to say "You had to be there". I cannot know what it was like to have been an American the day Kennedy was shot, I cannot know what it was like to be alive when a man walked on the Moon. Those are things nobody my age or younger can ever experience. And since August the ninth, 1995, the experience of hearing the Grateful Dead's music the way they wanted it heard has been in that category. And that is by design. Jerry Garcia once said "if you work really hard as an artist, you may be able to build something they can't tear down, you know, after you're gone... What I want to do is I want it here. I want it now, in this lifetime. I want what I enjoy to last as long as I do and not last any longer. You know, I don't want something that ends up being as much a nuisance as it is a work of art, you know?" And there's another difficulty. There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead -- late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can't realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven't yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future. I can't explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can't not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead. So the best I can do is treat the story I'm telling as if it were in Tralfamadorian time. All of it's happening all at once, and some of it is happening in different episodes that haven't been recorded yet. The podcast as a whole travels linearly from 1938 through to 1999, but this episode is happening in 1968 and 1972 and 1988 and 1995 and other times, all at once. Sometimes I'll talk about things as if you're already familiar with them, but they haven't happened yet in the story. Feel free to come unstuck in time and revisit this time after episode 167, and 172, and 176, and 192, and experience it again. So this has to be an experimental episode. It may well be an experiment that you think fails. If so, the next episode is likely to be far more to your taste, and much shorter than this or the last episode, two episodes that between them have to create a scaffolding on which will hang much of the rest of this podcast's narrative. I've finished my Grateful Dead script now. The next one I write is going to be fun: [Excerpt: Grateful Dead, "Dark Star"] Infrastructure means everything. How we get from place to place, how we transport goods, information, and ourselves, makes a big difference in how society is structured, and in the music we hear. For many centuries, the prime means of long-distance transport was by water -- sailing ships on the ocean, canal boats and steamboats for inland navigation -- and so folk songs talked about the ship as both means of escape, means of making a living, and in some senses as a trap. You'd go out to sea for adventure, or to escape your problems, but you'd find that the sea itself brought its own problems. Because of this we have a long, long tradition of sea shanties which are known throughout the world: [Excerpt: A. L. Lloyd, "Off to Sea Once More"] But in the nineteenth century, the railway was invented and, at least as far as travel within a landmass goes, it replaced the steamboat in the popular imaginary. Now the railway was how you got from place to place, and how you moved freight from one place to another. The railway brought freedom, and was an opportunity for outlaws, whether train robbers or a romanticised version of the hobo hopping onto a freight train and making his way to new lands and new opportunity. It was the train that brought soldiers home from wars, and the train that allowed the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the industrial North. There would still be songs about the riverboats, about how ol' man river keeps rolling along and about the big river Johnny Cash sang about, but increasingly they would be songs of the past, not the present. The train quickly replaced the steamboat in the iconography of what we now think of as roots music -- blues, country, folk, and early jazz music. Sometimes this was very literal. Furry Lewis' "Kassie Jones" -- about a legendary train driver who would break the rules to make sure his train made the station on time, but who ended up sacrificing his own life to save his passengers in a train crash -- is based on "Alabamy Bound", which as we heard in the episode on "Stagger Lee", was about steamboats: [Excerpt: Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones"] In the early episodes of this podcast we heard many, many, songs about the railway. Louis Jordan saying "take me right back to the track, Jack", Rosetta Tharpe singing about how "this train don't carry no gamblers", the trickster freight train driver driving on the "Rock Island Line", the mystery train sixteen coaches long, the train that kept-a-rollin' all night long, the Midnight Special which the prisoners wished would shine its ever-loving light on them, and the train coming past Folsom Prison whose whistle makes Johnny Cash hang his head and cry. But by the 1960s, that kind of song had started to dry up. It would happen on occasion -- "People Get Ready" by the Impressions is the most obvious example of the train metaphor in an important sixties record -- but by the late sixties the train was no longer a symbol of freedom but of the past. In 1969 Harry Nilsson sang about how "Nobody Cares About the Railroads Any More", and in 1968 the Kinks sang about "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains". When in 1968 Merle Haggard sang about a freight train, it was as a memory, of a child with hopes that ended up thwarted by reality and his own nature: [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "Mama Tried"] And the reason for this was that there had been another shift, a shift that had started in the forties and accelerated in the late fifties but had taken a little time to ripple through the culture. Now the train had been replaced in the popular imaginary by motorised transport. Instead of hopping on a train without paying, if you had no money in your pocket you'd have to hitch-hike all the way. Freedom now meant individuality. The ultimate in freedom was the biker -- the Hell's Angels who could go anywhere, unburdened by anything -- and instead of goods being moved by freight train, increasingly they were being moved by truck drivers. By the mid-seventies, truck drivers took a central place in American life, and the most romantic way to live life was to live it on the road. On The Road was also the title of a 1957 novel by Jack Kerouac, which was one of the first major signs of this cultural shift in America. Kerouac was writing about events in the late forties and early fifties, but his book was also a precursor of the sixties counterculture. He wrote the book on one continuous sheet of paper, as a stream of consciousness. Kerouac died in 1969 of an internal haemmorage brought on by too much alcohol consumption. So it goes. But the big key to this cultural shift was caused by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, a massive infrastructure spending bill that led to the construction of the modern American Interstate Highway system. This accelerated a program that had already started, of building much bigger, safer, faster roads. It also, as anyone who has read Robert Caro's The Power Broker knows, reinforced segregation and white flight. It did this both by making commuting into major cities from the suburbs easier -- thus allowing white people with more money to move further away from the cities and still work there -- and by bulldozing community spaces where Black people lived. More than a million people lost their homes and were forcibly moved, and orders of magnitude more lost their communities' parks and green spaces. And both as a result of deliberate actions and unconscious bigotry, the bulk of those affected were Black people -- who often found themselves, if they weren't forced to move, on one side of a ten-lane highway where the park used to be, with white people on the other side of the highway. The Federal-Aid Highway Act gave even more power to the unaccountable central planners like Robert Moses, the urban planner in New York who managed to become arguably the most powerful man in the city without ever getting elected, partly by slowly compromising away his early progressive ideals in the service of gaining more power. Of course, not every new highway was built through areas where poor Black people lived. Some were planned to go through richer areas for white people, just because you can't completely do away with geographical realities. For example one was planned to be built through part of San Francisco, a rich, white part. But the people who owned properties in that area had enough political power and clout to fight the development, and after nearly a decade of fighting it, the development was called off in late 1966. But over that time, many of the owners of the impressive buildings in the area had moved out, and they had no incentive to improve or maintain their properties while they were under threat of demolition, so many of them were rented out very cheaply. And when the beat community that Kerouac wrote about, many of whom had settled in San Francisco, grew too large and notorious for the area of the city they were in, North Beach, many of them moved to these cheap homes in a previously-exclusive area. The area known as Haight-Ashbury. [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Grayfolded"] Stories all have their starts, even stories told in Tralfamadorian time, although sometimes those starts are shrouded in legend. For example, the story of Scientology's start has been told many times, with different people claiming to have heard L. Ron Hubbard talk about how writing was a mug's game, and if you wanted to make real money, you needed to get followers, start a religion. Either he said this over and over and over again, to many different science fiction writers, or most science fiction writers of his generation were liars. Of course, the definition of a writer is someone who tells lies for money, so who knows? One of the more plausible accounts of him saying that is given by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon's account is more believable than most, because Sturgeon went on to be a supporter of Dianetics, the "new science" that Hubbard turned into his religion, for decades, even while telling the story. The story of the Grateful Dead probably starts as it ends, with Jerry Garcia. There are three things that everyone writing about the Dead says about Garcia's childhood, so we might as well say them here too. The first is that he was named by a music-loving father after Jerome Kern, the songwriter responsible for songs like "Ol' Man River" (though as Oscar Hammerstein's widow liked to point out, "Jerome Kern wrote dum-dum-dum-dum, *my husband* wrote 'Ol' Man River'" -- an important distinction we need to bear in mind when talking about songwriters who write music but not lyrics). The second is that when he was five years old that music-loving father drowned -- and Garcia would always say he had seen his father dying, though some sources claim this was a false memory. So it goes. And the third fact, which for some reason is always told after the second even though it comes before it chronologically, is that when he was four he lost two joints from his right middle finger. Garcia grew up a troubled teen, and in turn caused trouble for other people, but he also developed a few interests that would follow him through his life. He loved the fantastical, especially the fantastical macabre, and became an avid fan of horror and science fiction -- and through his love of old monster films he became enamoured with cinema more generally. Indeed, in 1983 he bought the film rights to Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan, the first story in which the Tralfamadorians appear, and wrote a script based on it. He wanted to produce the film himself, with Francis Ford Coppola directing and Bill Murray starring, but most importantly for him he wanted to prevent anyone who didn't care about it from doing it badly. And in that he succeeded. As of 2023 there is no film of The Sirens of Titan. He loved to paint, and would continue that for the rest of his life, with one of his favourite subjects being Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. And when he was eleven or twelve, he heard for the first time a record that was hugely influential to a whole generation of Californian musicians, even though it was a New York record -- "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Garcia would say later "That was an important song. That was the first kind of, like where the voices had that kind of not-trained-singer voices, but tough-guy-on-the-street voice." That record introduced him to R&B, and soon he was listening to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, to Ray Charles, and to a record we've not talked about in the podcast but which was one of the great early doo-wop records, "WPLJ" by the Four Deuces: [Excerpt: The Four Deuces, "WPLJ"] Garcia said of that record "That was one of my anthem songs when I was in junior high school and high school and around there. That was one of those songs everybody knew. And that everybody sang. Everybody sang that street-corner favorite." Garcia moved around a lot as a child, and didn't have much time for school by his own account, but one of the few teachers he did respect was an art teacher when he was in North Beach, Walter Hedrick. Hedrick was also one of the earliest of the conceptual artists, and one of the most important figures in the San Francisco arts scene that would become known as the Beat Generation (or the Beatniks, which was originally a disparaging term). Hedrick was a painter and sculptor, but also organised happenings, and he had also been one of the prime movers in starting a series of poetry readings in San Francisco, the first one of which had involved Allen Ginsberg giving the first ever reading of "Howl" -- one of a small number of poems, along with Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and possibly Pound's Cantos, which can be said to have changed twentieth-century literature. Garcia was fifteen when he got to know Hedrick, in 1957, and by then the Beat scene had already become almost a parody of itself, having become known to the public because of the publication of works like On the Road, and the major artists in the scene were already rejecting the label. By this point tourists were flocking to North Beach to see these beatniks they'd heard about on TV, and Hedrick was actually employed by one cafe to sit in the window wearing a beret, turtleneck, sandals, and beard, and draw and paint, to attract the tourists who flocked by the busload because they could see that there was a "genuine beatnik" in the cafe. Hedrick was, as well as a visual artist, a guitarist and banjo player who played in traditional jazz bands, and he would bring records in to class for his students to listen to, and Garcia particularly remembered him bringing in records by Big Bill Broonzy: [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)"] Garcia was already an avid fan of rock and roll music, but it was being inspired by Hedrick that led him to get his first guitar. Like his contemporary Paul McCartney around the same time, he was initially given the wrong instrument as a birthday present -- in Garcia's case his mother gave him an accordion -- but he soon persuaded her to swap it for an electric guitar he saw in a pawn shop. And like his other contemporary, John Lennon, Garcia initially tuned his instrument incorrectly. He said later "When I started playing the guitar, believe me, I didn't know anybody that played. I mean, I didn't know anybody that played the guitar. Nobody. They weren't around. There were no guitar teachers. You couldn't take lessons. There was nothing like that, you know? When I was a kid and I had my first electric guitar, I had it tuned wrong and learned how to play on it with it tuned wrong for about a year. And I was getting somewhere on it, you know… Finally, I met a guy that knew how to tune it right and showed me three chords, and it was like a revelation. You know what I mean? It was like somebody gave me the key to heaven." He joined a band, the Chords, which mostly played big band music, and his friend Gary Foster taught him some of the rudiments of playing the guitar -- things like how to use a capo to change keys. But he was always a rebellious kid, and soon found himself faced with a choice between joining the military or going to prison. He chose the former, and it was during his time in the Army that a friend, Ron Stevenson, introduced him to the music of Merle Travis, and to Travis-style guitar picking: [Excerpt: Merle Travis, "Nine-Pound Hammer"] Garcia had never encountered playing like that before, but he instantly recognised that Travis, and Chet Atkins who Stevenson also played for him, had been an influence on Scotty Moore. He started to realise that the music he'd listened to as a teenager was influenced by music that went further back. But Stevenson, as well as teaching Garcia some of the rudiments of Travis-picking, also indirectly led to Garcia getting discharged from the Army. Stevenson was not a well man, and became suicidal. Garcia decided it was more important to keep his friend company and make sure he didn't kill himself than it was to turn up for roll call, and as a result he got discharged himself on psychiatric grounds -- according to Garcia he told the Army psychiatrist "I was involved in stuff that was more important to me in the moment than the army was and that was the reason I was late" and the psychiatrist thought it was neurotic of Garcia to have his own set of values separate from that of the Army. After discharge, Garcia did various jobs, including working as a transcriptionist for Lenny Bruce, the comedian who was a huge influence on the counterculture. In one of the various attacks over the years by authoritarians on language, Bruce was repeatedly arrested for obscenity, and in 1961 he was arrested at a jazz club in North Beach. Sixty years ago, the parts of speech that were being criminalised weren't pronouns, but prepositions and verbs: [Excerpt: Lenny Bruce, "To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb"] That piece, indeed, was so controversial that when Frank Zappa quoted part of it in a song in 1968, the record label insisted on the relevant passage being played backwards so people couldn't hear such disgusting filth: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Harry You're a Beast"] (Anyone familiar with that song will understand that the censored portion is possibly the least offensive part of the whole thing). Bruce was facing trial, and he needed transcripts of what he had said in his recordings to present in court. Incidentally, there seems to be some confusion over exactly which of Bruce's many obscenity trials Garcia became a transcriptionist for. Dennis McNally says in his biography of the band, published in 2002, that it was the most famous of them, in autumn 1964, but in a later book, Jerry on Jerry, a book of interviews of Garcia edited by McNally, McNally talks about it being when Garcia was nineteen, which would mean it was Bruce's first trial, in 1961. We can put this down to the fact that many of the people involved, not least Garcia, lived in Tralfamadorian time, and were rather hazy on dates, but I'm placing the story here rather than in 1964 because it seems to make more sense that Garcia would be involved in a trial based on an incident in San Francisco than one in New York. Garcia got the job, even though he couldn't type, because by this point he'd spent so long listening to recordings of old folk and country music that he was used to transcribing indecipherable accents, and often, as Garcia would tell it, Bruce would mumble very fast and condense multiple syllables into one. Garcia was particularly impressed by Bruce's ability to improvise but talk in entire paragraphs, and he compared his use of language to bebop. Another thing that was starting to impress Garcia, and which he also compared to bebop, was bluegrass: [Excerpt: Bill Monroe, "Fire on the Mountain"] Bluegrass is a music that is often considered very traditional, because it's based on traditional songs and uses acoustic instruments, but in fact it was a terribly *modern* music, and largely a postwar creation of a single band -- Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. And Garcia was right when he said it was "white bebop" -- though he did say "The only thing it doesn't have is the harmonic richness of bebop. You know what I mean? That's what it's missing, but it has everything else." Both bebop and bluegrass evolved after the second world war, though they were informed by music from before it, and both prized the ability to improvise, and technical excellence. Both are musics that involved playing *fast*, in an ensemble, and being able to respond quickly to the other musicians. Both musics were also intensely rhythmic, a response to a faster paced, more stressful world. They were both part of the general change in the arts towards immediacy that we looked at in the last episode with the creation first of expressionism and then of pop art. Bluegrass didn't go into the harmonic explorations that modern jazz did, but it was absolutely as modern as anything Charlie Parker was doing, and came from the same impulses. It was tradition and innovation, the past and the future simultaneously. Bill Monroe, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Lenny Bruce were all in their own ways responding to the same cultural moment, and it was that which Garcia was responding to. But he didn't become able to play bluegrass until after a tragedy which shaped his life even more than his father's death had. Garcia had been to a party and was in a car with his friends Lee Adams, Paul Speegle, and Alan Trist. Adams was driving at ninety miles an hour when they hit a tight curve and crashed. Garcia, Adams, and Trist were all severely injured but survived. Speegle died. So it goes. This tragedy changed Garcia's attitudes totally. Of all his friends, Speegle was the one who was most serious about his art, and who treated it as something to work on. Garcia had always been someone who fundamentally didn't want to work or take any responsibility for anything. And he remained that way -- except for his music. Speegle's death changed Garcia's attitude to that, totally. If his friend wasn't going to be able to practice his own art any more, Garcia would practice his, in tribute to him. He resolved to become a virtuoso on guitar and banjo. His girlfriend of the time later said “I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks.” But of course, you can't make ensemble music on your own: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter, "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" (including end)] "Evelyn said, “What is it called when a person needs a … person … when you want to be touched and the … two are like one thing and there isn't anything else at all anywhere?” Alicia, who had read books, thought about it. “Love,” she said at length." That's from More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, a book I'll be quoting a few more times as the story goes on. Robert Hunter, like Garcia, was just out of the military -- in his case, the National Guard -- and he came into Garcia's life just after Paul Speegle had left it. Garcia and Alan Trist met Hunter ten days after the accident, and the three men started hanging out together, Trist and Hunter writing while Garcia played music. Garcia and Hunter both bonded over their shared love for the beats, and for traditional music, and the two formed a duo, Bob and Jerry, which performed together a handful of times. They started playing together, in fact, after Hunter picked up a guitar and started playing a song and halfway through Garcia took it off him and finished the song himself. The two of them learned songs from the Harry Smith Anthology -- Garcia was completely apolitical, and only once voted in his life, for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to keep Goldwater out, and regretted even doing that, and so he didn't learn any of the more political material people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan were doing at the time -- but their duo only lasted a short time because Hunter wasn't an especially good guitarist. Hunter would, though, continue to jam with Garcia and other friends, sometimes playing mandolin, while Garcia played solo gigs and with other musicians as well, playing and moving round the Bay Area and performing with whoever he could: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia, "Railroad Bill"] "Bleshing, that was Janie's word. She said Baby told it to her. She said it meant everyone all together being something, even if they all did different things. Two arms, two legs, one body, one head, all working together, although a head can't walk and arms can't think. Lone said maybe it was a mixture of “blending” and “meshing,” but I don't think he believed that himself. It was a lot more than that." That's from More Than Human In 1961, Garcia and Hunter met another young musician, but one who was interested in a very different type of music. Phil Lesh was a serious student of modern classical music, a classically-trained violinist and trumpeter whose interest was solidly in the experimental and whose attitude can be summed up by a story that's always told about him meeting his close friend Tom Constanten for the first time. Lesh had been talking with someone about serialism, and Constanten had interrupted, saying "Music stopped being created in 1750 but it started again in 1950". Lesh just stuck out his hand, recognising a kindred spirit. Lesh and Constanten were both students of Luciano Berio, the experimental composer who created compositions for magnetic tape: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti"] Berio had been one of the founders of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio for producing contemporary electronic music where John Cage had worked for a time, and he had also worked with the electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lesh would later remember being very impressed when Berio brought a tape into the classroom -- the actual multitrack tape for Stockhausen's revolutionary piece Gesang Der Juenglinge: [Excerpt: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Gesang Der Juenglinge"] Lesh at first had been distrustful of Garcia -- Garcia was charismatic and had followers, and Lesh never liked people like that. But he was impressed by Garcia's playing, and soon realised that the two men, despite their very different musical interests, had a lot in common. Lesh was interested in the technology of music as well as in performing and composing it, and so when he wasn't studying he helped out by engineering at the university's radio station. Lesh was impressed by Garcia's playing, and suggested to the presenter of the station's folk show, the Midnight Special, that Garcia be a guest. Garcia was so good that he ended up getting an entire solo show to himself, where normally the show would feature multiple acts. Lesh and Constanten soon moved away from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, but both would be back -- in Constanten's case he would form an experimental group in San Francisco with their fellow student Steve Reich, and that group (though not with Constanten performing) would later premiere Terry Riley's In C, a piece influenced by La Monte Young and often considered one of the great masterpieces of minimalist music. By early 1962 Garcia and Hunter had formed a bluegrass band, with Garcia on guitar and banjo and Hunter on mandolin, and a rotating cast of other musicians including Ken Frankel, who played banjo and fiddle. They performed under different names, including the Tub Thumpers, the Hart Valley Drifters, and the Sleepy Valley Hog Stompers, and played a mixture of bluegrass and old-time music -- and were very careful about the distinction: [Excerpt: The Hart Valley Drifters, "Cripple Creek"] In 1993, the Republican political activist John Perry Barlow was invited to talk to the CIA about the possibilities open to them with what was then called the Information Superhighway. He later wrote, in part "They told me they'd brought Steve Jobs in a few weeks before to indoctrinate them in modern information management. And they were delighted when I returned later, bringing with me a platoon of Internet gurus, including Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Tony Rutkowski, and Vint Cerf. They sealed us into an electronically impenetrable room to discuss the radical possibility that a good first step in lifting their blackout would be for the CIA to put up a Web site... We told them that information exchange was a barter system, and that to receive, one must also be willing to share. This was an alien notion to them. They weren't even willing to share information among themselves, much less the world." 1962 brought a new experience for Robert Hunter. Hunter had been recruited into taking part in psychological tests at Stanford University, which in the sixties and seventies was one of the preeminent universities for psychological experiments. As part of this, Hunter was given $140 to attend the VA hospital (where a janitor named Ken Kesey, who had himself taken part in a similar set of experiments a couple of years earlier, worked a day job while he was working on his first novel) for four weeks on the run, and take different psychedelic drugs each time, starting with LSD, so his reactions could be observed. (It was later revealed that these experiments were part of a CIA project called MKUltra, designed to investigate the possibility of using psychedelic drugs for mind control, blackmail, and torture. Hunter was quite lucky in that he was told what was going to happen to him and paid for his time. Other subjects included the unlucky customers of brothels the CIA set up as fronts -- they dosed the customers' drinks and observed them through two-way mirrors. Some of their experimental subjects died by suicide as a result of their experiences. So it goes. ) Hunter was interested in taking LSD after reading Aldous Huxley's writings about psychedelic substances, and he brought his typewriter along to the experiment. During the first test, he wrote a six-page text, a short excerpt from which is now widely quoted, reading in part "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell-like (must I take you by the hand, ever so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells" Hunter's experience led to everyone in their social circle wanting to try LSD, and soon they'd all come to the same conclusion -- this was something special. But Garcia needed money -- he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, and they'd married (this would be the first of several marriages in Garcia's life, and I won't be covering them all -- at Garcia's funeral, his second wife, Carolyn, said Garcia always called her the love of his life, and his first wife and his early-sixties girlfriend who he proposed to again in the nineties both simultaneously said "He said that to me!"). So he started teaching guitar at a music shop in Palo Alto. Hunter had no time for Garcia's incipient domesticity and thought that his wife was trying to make him live a conventional life, and the two drifted apart somewhat, though they'd still play together occasionally. Through working at the music store, Garcia got to know the manager, Troy Weidenheimer, who had a rock and roll band called the Zodiacs. Garcia joined the band on bass, despite that not being his instrument. He later said "Troy was a lot of fun, but I wasn't good enough a musician then to have been able to deal with it. I was out of my idiom, really, 'cause when I played with Troy I was playing electric bass, you know. I never was a good bass player. Sometimes I was playing in the wrong key and didn't even [fuckin'] know it. I couldn't hear that low, after playing banjo, you know, and going to electric...But Troy taught me the principle of, hey, you know, just stomp your foot and get on it. He was great. A great one for the instant arrangement, you know. And he was also fearless for that thing of get your friends to do it." Garcia's tenure in the Zodiacs didn't last long, nor did this experiment with rock and roll, but two other members of the Zodiacs will be notable later in the story -- the harmonica player, an old friend of Garcia's named Ron McKernan, who would soon gain the nickname Pig Pen after the Peanuts character, and the drummer, Bill Kreutzmann: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Drums/Space (Skull & Bones version)"] Kreutzmann said of the Zodiacs "Jerry was the hired bass player and I was the hired drummer. I only remember playing that one gig with them, but I was in way over my head. I always did that. I always played things that were really hard and it didn't matter. I just went for it." Garcia and Kreutzmann didn't really get to know each other then, but Garcia did get to know someone else who would soon be very important in his life. Bob Weir was from a very different background than Garcia, though both had the shared experience of long bouts of chronic illness as children. He had grown up in a very wealthy family, and had always been well-liked, but he was what we would now call neurodivergent -- reading books about the band he talks about being dyslexic but clearly has other undiagnosed neurodivergences, which often go along with dyslexia -- and as a result he was deemed to have behavioural problems which led to him getting expelled from pre-school and kicked out of the cub scouts. He was never academically gifted, thanks to his dyslexia, but he was always enthusiastic about music -- to a fault. He learned to play boogie piano but played so loudly and so often his parents sold the piano. He had a trumpet, but the neighbours complained about him playing it outside. Finally he switched to the guitar, an instrument with which it is of course impossible to make too loud a noise. The first song he learned was the Kingston Trio's version of an old sea shanty, "The Wreck of the John B": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "The Wreck of the John B"] He was sent off to a private school in Colorado for teenagers with behavioural issues, and there he met the boy who would become his lifelong friend, John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately the two troublemakers got on with each other *so* well that after their first year they were told that it was too disruptive having both of them at the school, and only one could stay there the next year. Barlow stayed and Weir moved back to the Bay Area. By this point, Weir was getting more interested in folk music that went beyond the commercial folk of the Kingston Trio. As he said later "There was something in there that was ringing my bells. What I had grown up thinking of as hillbilly music, it started to have some depth for me, and I could start to hear the music in it. Suddenly, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies playing what they could. There was some depth and expertise and stuff like that to aspire to.” He moved from school to school but one thing that stayed with him was his love of playing guitar, and he started taking lessons from Troy Weidenheimer, but he got most of his education going to folk clubs and hootenannies. He regularly went to the Tangent, a club where Garcia played, but Garcia's bluegrass banjo playing was far too rigorous for a free spirit like Weir to emulate, and instead he started trying to copy one of the guitarists who was a regular there, Jorma Kaukonnen. On New Year's Eve 1963 Weir was out walking with his friends Bob Matthews and Rich Macauley, and they passed the music shop where Garcia was a teacher, and heard him playing his banjo. They knocked and asked if they could come in -- they all knew Garcia a little, and Bob Matthews was one of his students, having become interested in playing banjo after hearing the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies, played by the bluegrass greats Flatt and Scruggs: [Excerpt: Flatt and Scruggs, "The Beverly Hillbillies"] Garcia at first told these kids, several years younger than him, that they couldn't come in -- he was waiting for his students to show up. But Weir said “Jerry, listen, it's seven-thirty on New Year's Eve, and I don't think you're going to be seeing your students tonight.” Garcia realised the wisdom of this, and invited the teenagers in to jam with him. At the time, there was a bit of a renaissance in jug bands, as we talked about back in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful. This was a form of music that had grown up in the 1920s, and was similar and related to skiffle and coffee-pot bands -- jug bands would tend to have a mixture of portable string instruments like guitars and banjos, harmonicas, and people using improvised instruments, particularly blowing into a jug. The most popular of these bands had been Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, led by banjo player Gus Cannon and with harmonica player Noah Lewis: [Excerpt: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Viola Lee Blues"] With the folk revival, Cannon's work had become well-known again. The Rooftop Singers, a Kingston Trio style folk group, had had a hit with his song "Walk Right In" in 1963, and as a result of that success Cannon had even signed a record contract with Stax -- Stax's first album ever, a month before Booker T and the MGs' first album, was in fact the eighty-year-old Cannon playing his banjo and singing his old songs. The rediscovery of Cannon had started a craze for jug bands, and the most popular of the new jug bands was Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, which did a mixture of old songs like "You're a Viper" and more recent material redone in the old style. Weir, Matthews, and Macauley had been to see the Kweskin band the night before, and had been very impressed, especially by their singer Maria D'Amato -- who would later marry her bandmate Geoff Muldaur and take his name -- and her performance of Leiber and Stoller's "I'm a Woman": [Excerpt: Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, "I'm a Woman"] Matthews suggested that they form their own jug band, and Garcia eagerly agreed -- though Matthews found himself rapidly moving from banjo to washboard to kazoo to second kazoo before realising he was surplus to requirements. Robert Hunter was similarly an early member but claimed he "didn't have the embouchure" to play the jug, and was soon also out. He moved to LA and started studying Scientology -- later claiming that he wanted science-fictional magic powers, which L. Ron Hubbard's new religion certainly offered. The group took the name Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions -- apparently they varied the spelling every time they played -- and had a rotating membership that at one time or another included about twenty different people, but tended always to have Garcia on banjo, Weir on jug and later guitar, and Garcia's friend Pig Pen on harmonica: [Excerpt: Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions, "On the Road Again"] The group played quite regularly in early 1964, but Garcia's first love was still bluegrass, and he was trying to build an audience with his bluegrass band, The Black Mountain Boys. But bluegrass was very unpopular in the Bay Area, where it was simultaneously thought of as unsophisticated -- as "hillbilly music" -- and as elitist, because it required actual instrumental ability, which wasn't in any great supply in the amateur folk scene. But instrumental ability was something Garcia definitely had, as at this point he was still practising eight hours a day, every day, and it shows on the recordings of the Black Mountain Boys: [Excerpt: The Black Mountain Boys, "Rosa Lee McFall"] By the summer, Bob Weir was also working at the music shop, and so Garcia let Weir take over his students while he and the Black Mountain Boys' guitarist Sandy Rothman went on a road trip to see as many bluegrass musicians as they could and to audition for Bill Monroe himself. As it happened, Garcia found himself too shy to audition for Monroe, but Rothman later ended up playing with Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. On his return to the Bay Area, Garcia resumed playing with the Uptown Jug Champions, but Pig Pen started pestering him to do something different. While both men had overlapping tastes in music and a love for the blues, Garcia's tastes had always been towards the country end of the spectrum while Pig Pen's were towards R&B. And while the Uptown Jug Champions were all a bit disdainful of the Beatles at first -- apart from Bob Weir, the youngest of the group, who thought they were interesting -- Pig Pen had become enamoured of another British band who were just starting to make it big: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] 29) Garcia liked the first Rolling Stones album too, and he eventually took Pig Pen's point -- the stuff that the Rolling Stones were doing, covers of Slim Harpo and Buddy Holly, was not a million miles away from the material they were doing as Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. Pig Pen could play a little electric organ, Bob had been fooling around with the electric guitars in the music shop. Why not give it a go? The stuff bands like the Rolling Stones were doing wasn't that different from the electric blues that Pig Pen liked, and they'd all seen A Hard Day's Night -- they could carry on playing with banjos, jugs, and kazoos and have the respect of a handful of folkies, or they could get electric instruments and potentially have screaming girls and millions of dollars, while playing the same songs. This was a convincing argument, especially when Dana Morgan Jr, the son of the owner of the music shop, told them they could have free electric instruments if they let him join on bass. Morgan wasn't that great on bass, but what the hell, free instruments. Pig Pen had the best voice and stage presence, so he became the frontman of the new group, singing most of the leads, though Jerry and Bob would both sing a few songs, and playing harmonica and organ. Weir was on rhythm guitar, and Garcia was the lead guitarist and obvious leader of the group. They just needed a drummer, and handily Bill Kreutzmann, who had played with Garcia and Pig Pen in the Zodiacs, was also now teaching music at the music shop. Not only that, but about three weeks before they decided to go electric, Kreutzmann had seen the Uptown Jug Champions performing and been astonished by Garcia's musicianship and charisma, and said to himself "Man, I'm gonna follow that guy forever!" The new group named themselves the Warlocks, and started rehearsing in earnest. Around this time, Garcia also finally managed to get some of the LSD that his friend Robert Hunter had been so enthusiastic about three years earlier, and it was a life-changing experience for him. In particular, he credited LSD with making him comfortable being a less disciplined player -- as a bluegrass player he'd had to be frighteningly precise, but now he was playing rock and needed to loosen up. A few days after taking LSD for the first time, Garcia also heard some of Bob Dylan's new material, and realised that the folk singer he'd had little time for with his preachy politics was now making electric music that owed a lot more to the Beat culture Garcia considered himself part of: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"] Another person who was hugely affected by hearing that was Phil Lesh, who later said "I couldn't believe that was Bob Dylan on AM radio, with an electric band. It changed my whole consciousness: if something like that could happen, the sky was the limit." Up to that point, Lesh had been focused entirely on his avant-garde music, working with friends like Steve Reich to push music forward, inspired by people like John Cage and La Monte Young, but now he realised there was music of value in the rock world. He'd quickly started going to rock gigs, seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds, and then he took acid and went to see his friend Garcia's new electric band play their third ever gig. He was blown away, and very quickly it was decided that Lesh would be the group's new bass player -- though everyone involved tells a different story as to who made the decision and how it came about, and accounts also vary as to whether Dana Morgan took his sacking gracefully and let his erstwhile bandmates keep their instruments, or whether they had to scrounge up some new ones. Lesh had never played bass before, but he was a talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep understanding of music and an ability to compose and improvise, and the repertoire the Warlocks were playing in the early days was mostly three-chord material that doesn't take much rehearsal -- though it was apparently beyond the abilities of poor Dana Morgan, who apparently had to be told note-by-note what to play by Garcia, and learn it by rote. Garcia told Lesh what notes the strings of a bass were tuned to, told him to borrow a guitar and practice, and within two weeks he was on stage with the Warlocks: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, “Grayfolded"] In September 1995, just weeks after Jerry Garcia's death, an article was published in Mute magazine identifying a cultural trend that had shaped the nineties, and would as it turned out shape at least the next thirty years. It's titled "The Californian Ideology", though it may be better titled "The Bay Area Ideology", and it identifies a worldview that had grown up in Silicon Valley, based around the ideas of the hippie movement, of right-wing libertarianism, of science fiction authors, and of Marshall McLuhan. It starts "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete." [Excerpt: Grayfolded] The Warlocks' first gig with Phil Lesh on bass was on June the 18th 1965, at a club called Frenchy's with a teenage clientele. Lesh thought his playing had been wooden and it wasn't a good gig, and apparently the management of Frenchy's agreed -- they were meant to play a second night there, but turned up to be told they'd been replaced by a band with an accordion and clarinet. But by September the group had managed to get themselves a residency at a small bar named the In Room, and playing there every night made them cohere. They were at this point playing the kind of sets that bar bands everywhere play to this day, though at the time the songs they were playing, like "Gloria" by Them and "In the Midnight Hour", were the most contemporary of hits. Another song that they introduced into their repertoire was "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, another band which had grown up out of former jug band musicians. As well as playing their own sets, they were also the house band at The In Room and as such had to back various touring artists who were the headline acts. The first act they had to back up was Cornell Gunter's version of the Coasters. Gunter had brought his own guitarist along as musical director, and for the first show Weir sat in the audience watching the show and learning the parts, staring intently at this musical director's playing. After seeing that, Weir's playing was changed, because he also picked up how the guitarist was guiding the band while playing, the small cues that a musical director will use to steer the musicians in the right direction. Weir started doing these things himself when he was singing lead -- Pig Pen was the frontman but everyone except Bill sang sometimes -- and the group soon found that rather than Garcia being the sole leader, now whoever was the lead singer for the song was the de facto conductor as well. By this point, the Bay Area was getting almost overrun with people forming electric guitar bands, as every major urban area in America was. Some of the bands were even having hits already -- We Five had had a number three hit with "You Were On My Mind", a song which had originally been performed by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia: [Excerpt: We Five, "You Were On My Mind"] Although the band that was most highly regarded on the scene, the Charlatans, was having problems with the various record companies they tried to get signed to, and didn't end up making a record until 1969. If tracks like "Number One" had been released in 1965 when they were recorded, the history of the San Francisco music scene may have taken a very different turn: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "Number One"] Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were also forming, and Autumn Records was having a run of success with records by the Beau Brummels, whose records were produced by Autumn's in-house A&R man, Sly Stone: [Excerpt: The Beau Brummels, "Laugh Laugh"] The Warlocks were somewhat cut off from this, playing in a dive bar whose clientele was mostly depressed alcoholics. But the fact that they were playing every night for an audience that didn't care much gave them freedom, and they used that freedom to improvise. Both Lesh and Garcia were big fans of John Coltrane, and they started to take lessons from his style of playing. When the group played "Gloria" or "Midnight Hour" or whatever, they started to extend the songs and give themselves long instrumental passages for soloing. Garcia's playing wasn't influenced *harmonically* by Coltrane -- in fact Garcia was always a rather harmonically simple player. He'd tend to play lead lines either in Mixolydian mode, which is one of the most standard modes in rock, pop, blues, and jazz, or he'd play the notes of the chord that was being played, so if the band were playing a G chord his lead would emphasise the notes G, B, and D. But what he was influenced by was Coltrane's tendency to improvise in long, complex, phrases that made up a single thought -- Coltrane was thinking musically in paragraphs, rather than sentences, and Garcia started to try the same kind of th

Title: SNL Hall of Fame: Celebrating the Life and Laughs of John BelushiIntroduction:Join us as we take an unforgettable journey through the life and career of legendary comedian John Belushi. With our insightful guest, Justin Renwick, we explore Belushi's early beginnings, his rise to fame with Second City and the National Lampoon, and his undeniable charisma that made him one of the most iconic comedians of all time.Chapters:- (0:00:08) SNL Hall of Fame Podcast: Introduction and overview of the episode, including John Belushi's early beginnings and his rise to fame.- (0:12:44) John Belushi's Career and Charisma: Exploring Belushi's journey to Second City, his success with the National Lampoon, and his charismatic stage presence.- (0:17:12) The Brilliance of John Belushi: Examining Belushi's confidence, his ability to immerse himself in characters, and his incredible comedic timing.- (0:24:37) Belushi's Impact on SNL and Comedy: Reflecting on Belushi's unforgettable performances, including his iconic Samurai character and the chemistry he shared with fellow castmates.- (0:34:24) Remembering John Belushi's SNL Sketches: Diving into Belushi's memorable sketches, his impersonations, and the impact of his comedic skills.- (0:46:42) John Belushi's Legacy: Discussing Belushi's influence on future comedians and whether he is the greatest SNL actor of all time.Keywords:- John Belushi- SNL- Second City- National Lampoon- Comedy- Chevy Chase- Samurai character- Animal HouseTranscript0:00:08 - AnnouncerIt's the SNL Hall of Fame podcast with your host, jamie Dube, chief Librarian Thomas Senna, and featuring Matt Bardille And now Curator of the Hall, jamie Dube. 0:00:42 - jDAll right, thank you so much, doug Denats. It's JD here, and welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. It's a weekly affair where each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Once the nominees have all been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside these hallowed halls. You won in and I can let you in, but not until you wipe your goddamn feet. That's right. Wipe your feet at the door, you filthy animal. How are you doing today? I am, i'm actually really great. Thanks for asking. We've got a barn burner of a show today. It is Justin Renwick joining Thomas Senna in conversation about the very intriguing John Belushi. This should be a good one. I can tell you that the conversations I've had on Reddit, this is probably the most anticipated episode of the season, based on feedback that I've been getting about who we haven't seen nominated in the hall. Now, in case you're curious the way things work, we work together with a committee and choose who will be nominated each year from a pool based on the parameters that have been outlined by the SNL Hall of Fame. Once those selections are made, we sort of piece them together and produce a podcast and we make that show and we put them out every week and you get to listen And that's great. But the real key here is the voting, and the voting is coming up real soon. In fact, next week we are nominating Amy Poehler on the show and then Tuesday, the 23rd of May, voting will begin and it will run through to June 17th. So you will have from May 23rd to June 17th to cast your votes, to cast 15 votes, 15 votes up to 15 votes, i should say, for the SNL Hall of Fame. It's exciting. After Amy Poehler we'll do a few roundtables and then we'll do the reveal, and the reveal is quite exciting. I'm really curious to see if any of our legacy holdovers make it this year. There's Dave Grohl is really close. Lonely Island is super close and Lonely Island should be on. It should have been, you know, a first ballot Hall of Famer as far as I'm concerned, but I don't control the vote. So there's that If you're looking to register to vote, what you want to do is you want to go to SNLHofcom and click on the voting tab and click register to vote. You can do that right there and you will get a ballot on the 23rd emailed to you and Bob's, your uncle, from there. So there's that. Let's go over and talk to our friend Matt in his minutiae minute corner and learn a little bit more about Mr John Belushi. Oh, matthew, hey, hi, jimmy, how are you doing? 0:04:21 - MattI'm great. How about you, matt? I'm good. Thanks, i'm good. Really excited to talk about one of the classic cast members here today, john Belushi, the one and only five. Five foot eight, born January 24th 1949. He credit his grandmother, his Albanian grandmother, for getting him into show business. She didn't understand English, so she would have him act things out for her which made her laugh, and thus a career was born. He actually had very humble beginnings in the start of his career, which was as a youth instructor at a theater camp, the Shawnee Summer Theater of Green County. But from there he went on to become a member of the West Compass Trio, second city in the National Lampoon Lemmings. Prior to joining SNL, he attended the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, which is where he actually got the college shirt, as seen in Animal House. There's a gift shop there in an area known as the Strip, which is still operating today if you wanted to go and get one for yourself. So while living in New York, he was next door neighbor to SNL fixture Elliot Gould, who we've talked about in the past. He is a huge nerd, or he was a huge nerd. He was a fan of many things, from Lucille Ball, whose entire career he committed to memory And this is something that actually seems to come up a bit. He had a razor sharp memory. He was also a Star Trek fan and with Kirk in particular, to the point Shatner said he preferred Belushi's take on Kirk And he was a big Marvel fan. On one visit to their offices in New York He could summarize any specific issue. Just by looking at the cover. He could people say, well, that's this one. He's like oh, this is the issue where Spider-Man is fighting the Green Goblin and so on and so dies, which must have made him really happy when he and the not ready for primetime players were featured in a Spider-Man comic And he ends up having stolen the Silver Samurai sword and used it in the sketch, so that my wife got that for me, actually that issue. It was shockingly inexpensive for a double memorabilia whammy, but she got that for me from our anniversary last year. That's very cool. Now he was well known for being very judgmental. One of the ways he would evaluate people is by borrowing $20 and seeing how they reacted, so you know if they're kind of a jerk about it. You knew, oh, they were a jerk, but he just gauged how they behaved, that's a good trick. Yeah, yeah, it was an interesting one. I have to remember that Now he was a heavy metal fan, which I did not realize. But when he met Dan Ackroyd, having performed together, dan tried to entice him onto the SNL cast At a Speak Easy, because of course, with those two is at a Speak Easy. Dan put on a blues album which stirred a fascination in John that became career defining, because he had never listened to blues before that meeting and then went on to create the Blues Brothers together. Now he was such a huge star. There were a bunch of roles that he was supposed to be a part of in films. Peter Venkman was originally written for him. He was replaced by James Woods in Once Upon a Time in America on his passing and was to appear in an adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Ackroyd. Many more projects, but one of the more interesting, given it kind of ties back to his time on SNL. Harold Ramis was guest hosting an episode of Siskel and Ebert and discussed how it was John's dream to play Ludwig von Beethoven in a film, which is a weird one, but given he played him on the show, i guess that could have been a technically SNL spin-off. Now, sorry, go ahead. So he had the nickname of America's guest, as he had a habit of knocking on strangers' doors, entering their homes and eating things from their refrigerator and then crashing out on their couch. This never resulted in any problems because he was so well known, but speaks to how different the 70s were from today. Now he required an income of between $500,000 and a million dollars a year to maintain his lifestyle and his entourage. Now, while he would often make use of strangers' generosity, he himself was also very generous, lending large sums of money to friends and family Towards the end of his life. His manager pushed him to start collecting on these debts, but John refused. Now he is buried in Martha's Vineyard, where his epitaph reads he made us laugh and now he can make us think, but his grave was so popular with visitors, they moved his casket to an unmarked grave in a quiet corner of the cemetery, after which his fans posted a new epitaph based on his catchphrase. He could have given us a lot more laughs, but no, that is John Belushi. 0:10:21 - jDThat's great. Take it away, Thomas. 0:10:48 - ThomasAlright, Justin Renwick is joining me today. Thank you so much for joining me here on the SNL Hall of Fame. 0:10:54 - JustinIt's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 0:10:56 - ThomasYeah, so this one is a big one to me. This is probably to a lot of people The legendary John Belushi will be talking about. So he was on SNL 1975 to 1980, part of the original cast. He seemed to be made for sketch comedy and had a lot of reps before he started at Saturday Night Live. So you talk about his path to SNL and his prior work in sketch comedy. 0:11:23 - JustinSo we could go way back to high school, which is where he caught the acting bug. He was a very accomplished athlete. He was a football player, he was a drummer, he was in a band that actually released a single believe it or not And to show what a small world Chicago and the greater Chicago area is, because he grew up. He was born in Chicago but he grew up in Wheaton, illinois. He knew Dick Lesucci, who was somebody he would also work with at Second City, and Dick Lesucci went on to SCTV as a writer, which I think he formed an alliance with Joe Flaherty at some point, which is how that came about, but we're getting a little bit off topic. So yeah, john, when he was in high school, did drama and his drama teacher noticed something. He's like there's something special about this kid And if anyone's read the book Wired this is where I know this story from. Apparently, this teacher took him to. If I'm remembering correctly, he took him to. I know it was Indiana, but I don't know if he went and auditioned somewhere else, but basically he got into summer stock in Indiana a year before most people were eligible when he was 17. Like that's how preternaturally talented he was And they did a whole series of plays there That went very well. He enrolled in when he graduated from high school, enrolled at the University of Wisconsin And I was doing drama there, but left after a year and then wound up going to the College of DuPage in West Chicago. Somewhere along that period he went to see Second City and had an epiphany, just realized this is what I was put on earth to do and formed the West Compass Players, which was a reference to the pre-Second City Compass Players, with his friends Tino Insana and Steve Bachecas who people that watch John Belushi on Saturday Night Live will be very familiar with that name because he brought it up a lot in his vits. So the three of them were able to audition en masse for Second City And I think it was Bernie Salons that auditioned them And he saw John's potential right away, saw something in Tino Insana. Well, i think Tino was put in the touring company or asked to take some more classes, but he wound up joining as well. But yeah, john went into Second City. I believe he went right into the main stage cast, which at the time had Brian Doyle, murray, harold Ramis, joe Flaherty, so he was punching well above his weight. I don't know if that's the right term to use, because that sounds more like he was not very good, but was somehow anyway he did very well, but he was young at the time. 0:13:51 - ThomasSo, like you know, being able to be in that company at his age says a lot about it. I think, it's fair to say, at that time punching up above his weight. 0:14:00 - JustinYeah, you're right. Yeah, he wouldn't have been around 22. Joe Flaherty was. I think he was in his late 20s at that point. He was a good 10 years older than the STTV cast, but anyway, that obviously went very well. He made a real reputation for himself there And through that got involved with the national ampoon, so much so that he moved to New York after he'd been in the Lemmings review with Chevy Chase and Christopher Gast, which is one of my favorite comedy albums of all time National Ampoon's Lemmings, which was a takeoff on Woodstock and was where he did Joe Cocker among. he also played the, the MC. But then, yeah, through that world of national ampoon and then writing, producing and performing for the radio hour, that's what brought him to the attention of Lauren Michaels through Chevy Chase and Michael O'Donoghue when they were putting Saturday Night Live together. 0:14:47 - ThomasEven at the National Ampoon's radio hour. that's where he came across with Bill Murray, gilda Radner, some of his future SNL cohorts, just a who's who working on that show at the time. Richard Belzer was even part of that. So it was just a really, really talented cast And, would you say I know a lot of them had their gifts and talents, but there was something magnetic about Belushi that even stood out amongst that type of talent. 0:15:14 - JustinBelushi has that thing like. The charisma is just unbelievable. But he has that mischievous glint. Jimmy Fallon has it as well. Many other people do where you're even if you know not only his stage presence. Right Just the minute John Belushi walked on to stage, eyes were drawn to him. John Candy had the same thing. Anyone that's tall I mean, john Belushi wasn't tall, but anyone that has a big presence and can exude that kind of charisma right away stills focused. But he always wanted to see what he was going to do next. Same thing with Jimmy Fallon When he was fucking around in a sketch and messing up. You wanted to know, oh, you know what's. He got up his sleeve What's going to happen next? And that was very much John Belushi too. This electric performer is the word that comes to mind. 0:15:53 - ThomasThat's why a lot of us watch live sketch and SNL in particular is because there's I mean there's that element of you don't know it's going to be a live show, you don't know what's going to happen. There's almost that danger involved in. Belushi really did personify. He did bring that energy to the show. Yeah. 0:16:11 - JustinAnd he has like Kate McKinnon is the same Melissa McCarthy just fearless performers that you can throw anything at them And they'll. You know, like even something as simple. I'm sure the tomato was cut beforehand, but like the samurai deli, when he throws the tomato up in the air and chops it with no-transcript, there's a million ways that can go wrong on a live TV show. But I don't think it bothered him at all, he just knew. 0:16:35 - ThomasSo he, like I said, he started with. You know he was an original cast member at SNL. They started in 1975. Where did you become familiar with Belushi's work and kind of what stood out to you? 0:16:46 - JustinNot to get too deep into the archives, but my introduction to Saturday Night Live was a friend's Mr Bill t-shirt in 1979. I'm like what's Mr Bill? Oh it's this thing that's on Saturday Night Live. It's really funny. Oh, it's this show, it's on Saturday nights, it's live, ha ha. Anyway, i asked my mom about it. She knew she was a big Second City fan so she'd been watching Saturday Night Live since day one And yeah, they let me stay up and Mr Bill was the gateway. But then in between the sketches I'm trying to think the first thing that really stood out with me, stood out for me with John Belushi, was probably I'm going to say the Bs, because this was 1979. So they were still back then. The reruns weren't just shows from the current season, they were showing shows from the first season on. So I got to sort of catch up over that season. That's probably the first thing that stood out. But it's just, it's that confidence. He was so confident. It's really magnetic, like it really draws you in. I mean, to be a performer on Saturday Night Live you have to have a certain degree of confidence. But there's different levels. Like if you look at somebody like Dan Ackroyd, who was incredibly talented, really funny and just able to like rattle off details. You know, at a moment's notice there's a difference between sort of him and Belushi, which I think is why they complimented each other so well. Dan Ackroyd is more of a technical actor, whereas to me anyway, john Belushi is a little more instinctive. 0:18:06 - ThomasYeah, what stood out to me a lot, when you know rewatching a lot of his sketches and everything, was just how he would dissolve into a character And then he just gave off this. Really, the audience knew that they were in good hands with him up there because he exuded just like you know, i'm supposed to be here, i'm doing Don Corleone impression and I'm the one who's supposed to be doing this and I'm good enough. And he did have that confidence, definitely, and his relationship with some of his castmates, from what I've read, really played into that, especially his relationship with Chevy Chase. 0:18:42 - Speaker 1Yeah, And how he viewed. 0:18:43 - ThomasChevy Chase, getting attention early on. 0:18:46 - JustinIt's funny that they weren't. you know, they didn't get along very well, even in the lampoon days, And when Chevy was still smart enough and got over his own ego, it was him and Michael O'Donoghue that suggested him. I think I mentioned that before to Lauren. But yeah, that of course, when Chevy took off in the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live, yeah, John Belushi was not happy about it. 0:19:07 - ThomasNo, i think maybe John looked at Chevy is getting you know, maybe I don't know if it's cheap laughs, but he's certainly got a lot of mileage off falling prat falls. And I think what Belushi felt that he did was maybe more elevated than what Chevy did. So I think each Belushi thought, from what I've read, belushi thought that he was supposed he was the star of the of the cast. Yeah, not Absolutely. 0:19:30 - JustinChevy Chase is. That's a whole lot of problems to unpack that that guy has, but let's just suffice it to say I he is, is incredible at what he does. You know what I mean? Like to you were saying the falling, the falling down, like the mimicking people behind their back, just the, the sort of boyish humor and the looks. The looks helped as well, the dimple chin and the sort of he had a glint in his eye as well. But yeah, he's miles away And I'm pretty sure Chevy Chase will be the first one to tell you that in the acting realm from John Belushi. 0:20:02 - ThomasWhen Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford, he didn't sink into Gerald Ford. That was Chevy Chase just calling himself Gerald. 0:20:09 - JustinFord, which made it even funnier for some reason. 0:20:12 - ThomasYeah, it definitely worked for sure, but then, if you know, belushi played a character, belushi just really transformed into that character And I think that that was a lot of acting chops, like you mentioned. 0:20:25 - JustinI think the other amazing thing about Belushi and another reason, a big reason that would put him in the the Hall of Fame is not only could he, he's an incredible mimic, He has a great comic timing, like Jackie Gleason is one of his heroes, and it really shows. And, yeah, he can sink into a character and become somebody else, But at the same time you put him on update as himself and it's unbelievable, Like he's still amazing Just playing. You know, as a comedian's play slightly heightened versions of themselves. He was comfortable playing himself as well as playing other characters which we're going to. We'll use the same analogy. Dan Ackroyd was more comfortable sinking into characters. You saw his season on Weekend Update with Jane Curtin. He never looked very comfortable playing himself. 0:21:09 - ThomasBelushi on those update pieces. It was incredible He would. He would start off, just, you know, even kill. I think that was the most Belushi, the most human, for lack of a better term that I would see Belushi on the show. But then he would go from zero to a hundred and like two seconds The whole. The luck of the Irish rant, the famous one that he had on Weekend. 0:21:29 - Speaker 3Update. 0:21:30 - ThomasAnd you know it starts off level headed. 0:21:33 - Speaker 8Well, it's that time again. St Patrick's Day has come and gone, and well, the sons of Ireland are basking in the globe. You know, when I think of Ireland I think of a lot of colorful Irish expressions like top of the morning to you, kiss the Blarney stone. May the road rise to meet you. May you be in heaven. An hour before the devil knows you're dead, i'd like to smash you in the face with my shillelie Danny boy begora. Whale of the banshee. Whiskey for the leprechauns, whiskey for the leprechauns. But the expression I think most people identify with the Irish is, of course, the luck of the Irish. 0:22:09 - ThomasAnd Beluce, he's just kind of this nice guy just saying what he has to say and then he just, he just is like a bull in a china shop. 0:22:15 - Speaker 9I said bye man. I said hey man. I never even seen $5,000 in my life. So don't ask me for it Now watch, ask your mother which is a dumb thing for me to say, because his mother just died. Now I got, right now I got this drunken Irish junkie who wants to kill me because of what I said about his mother being in terminal dreamland. You know, one thing would just get me out One thing They love their mothers, boy. Oh, they love their mothers. It's Mama Diff and Mama Dan. Oh, my Irish mother. I really must be heaven because my mother comes up there. Ah, ah, ah. 0:23:01 - ThomasHe would do like a, like an army, roll off the desk and then you would never see him after that, until the next sketch. Yeah, yeah. 0:23:10 - JustinAnd again that's on. That's on live TV again. There's so many ways that could go wrong. 0:23:14 - ThomasJust don't no fear no fear, yeah, totally fearless, i think. I think that's such a great way to put it. An element of Belushi that I love too was that he reminded me of like a Charlie Chaplin or a Buster Keaton in a lot of ways, and one of the examples, one of, yeah, just a very expressive face and he didn't have to have any lines necessarily to convey something to do really great sketch work. And one of the things that really pops out to me, his most famous character, the samurai, is like the perfect example. John reminded me of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Like I said, in those sketches It just really was striking, just like the physical ability of him to convey something. 0:23:56 - Speaker 3All I know is that the third quarter net of Kentucky Mines was up 6.2%. 0:24:00 - Speaker 1Look at this graph. 0:24:02 - Speaker 3Look, it went right up here And what happened September, October, November into the well-known toilet. 0:24:09 - Speaker 9I love her over there. 0:24:10 - Speaker 10Who's here? Who? Who Did Who Who? I don't know what you mean, but I need security. 0:24:23 - Speaker 9That's the point. 0:24:23 - JustinI'm sure you're aware of this, and other listeners maybe as well that that was based on Toshiro Mifuni, his character in Yojimbo, and they called his name with samurai futaba And that was his audition piece for Saturday Night Live. The Samurai Pool Hustler I don't know if it was his, probably his wife and it remembers was saying that yeah right, he was in the apartment messing around with that character for a while with a bathrobe and he'd grab the dowel from the like the clothes rod, from the closet, use it as a sword And, if I'm not mistaken in the audition he used that obviously as a pool cue. 0:24:55 - ThomasWell, i could see why he got the job then. I mean, that's such a Got the gig. yeah, i think I underestimated how much I enjoyed the Samurai until I took a deep dive into Belushi over the last few weeks And I could see why it was held in such high regard. I mean those facial expressions, the interplay he had, mostly with Buck Henry but with a few other hosts. it was just incredible to watch. I couldn't take my eyes off of Belushi during those sketches. 0:25:23 - JustinI just read today. apparently it was Buck Henry who turned it into a recurring character because he first played the Samurai with Richard Pryor. Apparently, when Buck Henry came in, it was his request to be in a sketch with the Samurai, And it went so well that every time Buck came back they would bust out another Samurai sketch with Buck playing the same character. 0:25:42 - ThomasThey had such good chemistry. I think, belushi, he had good chemistry with some of the other, the hosts that did the Samurai with him. Oh, samurai Hotel, that's what it was. It was the Samurai Hotel, okay. 0:25:54 - JustinYo. 0:25:54 - ThomasMama-san. Yes, he and Richard Pryor. Yeah, that was awesome. Another example that I had just about Belushi being a great silent actor like just he didn't have to speak one word was he and Gilda had this sketch where they met in the laundromat and they share a washer at the laundromat and they begin to flirt, and that was just all the no dialogue. They share a cigarette at the end They share a cigarette at Belushi's pouring champagne. At one point That was just such great comedic acting without having to say one word. 0:26:26 - JustinI don't have any proof of this, but that kind of strikes me as what's known as a trunk piece. I would imagine and again, i could be very wrong. I would imagine either Gilda or John may have brought that from Second City, so there was a few of those in the first season. like there's a Dan Aykroyd Gilda Radner sketch where Dan Aykroyd plays a mechanic and he's putting his daughter to bed and she wants to hear a story and he's tired and wants her to go to bed, so he just makes up a story that involves all these car parts or whatever. That was definitely something that two of them had done in Toronto. But yeah, i'm getting a little ahead of myself here. It's speculation. 0:27:00 - ThomasYeah, no, that definitely makes sense. I think when they were doing Second City stuff and it's a lot like SNL in that they have to come up with idea after idea after idea, And a lot of it tends to be slice of life kind of things, Like you find the funny bits in these seemingly ordinary slice of life kind of things. So in this example they were at the laundromat and they want to both use the same washer, the work. Can we go from there? That does strike me as an idea that they would have used at Second. 0:27:26 - JustinCity. It feels very much like, yeah, it feels a lot like a Second City or a Groundling sketch. I mean they still do that today Not, i doubt, as often. but I know Melissa McCarthy the first time she hosted when they did the Focus Group on the Hidden Valley Ranch. I didn't know it at the time. I only learned this about a year ago that that was a sketch she was doing every night at the Groundlings that she'd written. So shout out to Melissa. 0:27:47 - ThomasThis isn't about Melissa. Yeah, she finds it. She finds it, though I think there's a lot of Belushi spirit in Melissa as a performer. 0:27:55 - JustinOh, 100%, yeah, definitely She's also fearless and she's also a really good actor. Yeah, And that's John. like John Belushi's secret sauce is what a great actor he was. Being funny is one thing, but being a good actor is like 70, 80% of it. 0:28:10 - ThomasHe was an animal house and he wasn't the lead. I think hindsight tells people that Belushi was the lead in that film but he wasn't. 0:28:18 - JustinOh yeah, But he totally commanded attention in that movie, even the first scene when he's holding the beer and he pisses on Thomas Hulse's leg. It's like I want to know what this guy's doing next. I know the food scene in Animal House where he's stealing all the stuff out of the cafeteria. John Landis has said he was off camera like guiding him and saying, like I want you to be Cookie Monster, basically. 0:28:43 - ThomasWhen you're watching that movie. You got excited when Belushi would get on the screen. I mean when the hippie guy was kind of playing the guitar on the stairwell and Belushi just takes the guitar Poor Steve Ambition, Yeah. He takes the guitar and smashes it against the wall And then he just kind of looks at him and goes, sorry, And then walks away. 0:29:03 - JustinI mean, He doesn't even say it like, it's not even snide, it's like sorry, it's like it's this thing I had to do. It's not personal, yeah. 0:29:12 - ThomasYeah, nothing against you, It was just I had to do this. Yeah, yeah. So people I think, looking back at Animal House, think that that was a Belushi vehicle And it kind of wasn't. I mean, it was very much an ensemble but there were definitely leads that weren't Belushi in the movie, but that just speaks to the presence that he had about him. 0:29:29 - JustinWell, to speak again to the Chevy, John Dilemma, let's call it. You probably know they wanted Chevy Chase to play Eric Stratton, which was Tim, Tim, what's his last name? Anyway, the guy that played Eric Stratton, it was Otter and, yeah, Otter was the character's nickname, I think. Anyway, that was supposed to be Chevy And he didn't want to be second fiddle to John Belushi again, even though technically, yeah, he would have been. I guess you'd say he was the lead and they wanted Dan Ackroyd as D-Day, but Dan apparently was not ready. He felt he wasn't ready to make movies yet, which is weird because he'd made them in Canada. 0:30:04 - Thomasbut be that as it may, Yeah, that would have been such a perfect role for Ackroyd too. He would have just slid right in. 0:30:11 - JustinWell, the guy that I can't remember the actor's name, but the guy that played D-Day did a great job, bruce, yeah. 0:30:15 - ThomasBruce McGill. Yeah, he was really good in that. Belushi set a template too for we were talking about. I see a lot of him in Melissa McCarthy. I see a lot of him, of course, the comparison when Chris Farley got on the show that comparison was just out there for the taking and Chris Farley idolized John Belushi as well. He wanted to be Belushi We'll get to this but unfortunately he was like Belushi in a lot of ways good and bad, but Belushi, yeah, but Belushi, just he definitely set a template for a lot of performers as far as how they performed and as far as also what SNL was looking for in cast members going forward. I think a lot of times they were trying to find a Belushi sort of role when they were trying to feel a cast going forward. 0:31:00 - JustinWell, there's a through line with John Belushi and a lot of the other similar actors. I mean Bill Murray sort of has that kamikaze kind of go for it, fearless attitude as well. John Candy and Bill Murray and John Candy are also both incredible actors, and even Chris Farley, the through line. There is a guy named Del Close who was in the Compass Players. I think he was in the St Louis. There was an offshoot in St Louis And then eventually everything morphed into Second City And Del also worked with Second City for quite some time And then years later, when often started in Provolympic with so Sharna Halpern, they all received the tutelage of Del Close And I think he helped. I mean, stuff is there, but I think he helped bring that out in them as well. 0:31:44 - ThomasYeah, for sure, del Close, like a lot of people look at him as the godfather of improv, especially he worked with so many great improv and sketch actors. So a lot of these conversations point back to Del Close in a lot of ways, for sure. And I think you know, when they hired Farley, of course everybody said you know, they found their Belushi When the Horatio Sands started on the show. I think people made a lot of those comparisons And even Bobby Moynihan they said, oh, that's the Belushi or Farley archetype. So that's just, you know, john Belushi setting a template and just an example for the show, as far as what works on the show and what Lorne was trying to find. So what are some other characters or sketches or performances on SNL that you think our listeners should familiarize themselves with when discussing Belushi? 0:32:37 - JustinSo, getting back to the bees, i mean the bees weren't a great sketch, they were just stupid. But it was just funny seeing everybody dressed up in bees costumes. But the good thing that I think that came out of the bees was King Bee, john Belushi and Dan Ackroyd is a. You know, it was kind of a proto-Bloose brothers. They're dressed up in the bees costumes. They got the shades on Dan's playing the harmonica. They're playing with the Howard Shore band It was a Saturday Night Live band at the time And they do Slim Harpo's King Bee, and you know, john in the middle starts doing cartwheels and all kinds of other acrobatics And then it ends with him doing that when your man is doomed, when you're about to do Getting crazier and crazier and then getting up and falling off the stool. 0:33:30 - Speaker 10Want you to be my queen. 0:33:35 - Speaker 8We are together, we can make honey baby, but we'll never see. Okay, let's buzz a while. 0:33:54 - JustinYes, that's the place to start. I think there's there's other sketches that are that are worth mentioning, where he would try to show off his acting, you know, in the early days of Saturday Night Live and even further along, but they don't really do them anymore. There were always these little almost one-act plays, you know. Some of them were dramatic, didn't even have any any comedy in them, and John seemed to be featured in a lot of those. He was. There's one he did on the Sissy's basic show, which I think was in the third season. That's worth watching when that didn't work, that didn't help you find your manly powers. 0:34:24 - Speaker 9I started thinking about dead people and And if dead people secretly watched to see if you go to their funeral, you looking at certain parts of my body and You thinking the word dead. 0:34:38 - Speaker 8Well, no wonder. If you're wondering why there is no wonder, well, there is no wonder. You know I have been with if you know what I mean a semi-professional singer. I've had adult relations with a semi-professional singer, not to mention many others. Only mention the one that proves to a man who has been to Houston and left behind a satisfied semi-professional. 0:35:11 - JustinHe goes toe-to-toe with with Sissy and they both come out looking very good. 0:35:15 - ThomasYou get the sense that John, you know, relished being able to play opposite those great actors. I'm reminded of the dueling Brando's one that he did with Peter Boyle, where they traded Brando impressions. 0:35:30 - SketchI could have been a contender, could have been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face it, charlie. 0:35:40 - SketchI got him a son of the callion governor. 0:35:46 - ThomasAnd you can tell Belushi was probably just having such a good time trading those with Peter Boyle, peter. 0:35:51 - JustinBoyle, another second city, chicago, alum, yeah they're probably super comfortable working with each other and there's that, and Joe Cocker, of course, and especially the Joe Cocker he did to Joe Cocker. 0:36:04 - ThomasThat's right. Yeah, one of the first kind of celebrities who gets impersonated walk-ons In SNL. Yeah, that that kind of became a thing a lot in the 90s. Yeah, that Joe Cocker was great. He did that really early too. You said that he had auditioned with it. He did that first in the third episode of season one, yeah, the Rob Reiner episode. 0:36:24 - JustinAnd there's another thing I was just gonna bring up That's also from the Rob Reiner episode when they They're dressed up as the bees and Rob has to tell them the bee sketch has been cut. 0:36:32 - SketchI'm sorry if you think we're ruining your show, mr Reiner, but See, you don't understand. We didn't ask the Beebees, you see, you, you've got Norman Lear and a first-rate riding staff, but this is all they came up with for us. 0:37:01 - SketchDo you think we like this? 0:37:04 - SketchNo, no, mr Reiner, but we don't have any choice. 0:37:15 - JustinThat's one of the first time he did one of those. I don't. I don't think there was a but, no, in it, but there could have been. That was leading, you know, laying the groundwork for those care, for those bits that he would do where he'd become increasingly frustrated with somebody. I could have gone out and done this, but Yeah, oh my gosh. 0:37:34 - ThomasAnd there's also in season three, The Olympia Cafe. I think that's another one that one of his famous ones from SNL that we should probably hit it was him. Bill Murray Played a great role in that. What do you remember what watching him in the Olympia Cafe sketches? 0:37:51 - JustinI love the history of those sketches. I think it was not. Novello had come in as a writer in season three and he brought that idea because he and John were both Familiar with the, the tavern in Chicago that was based on I think it was the Billy Goat Tavern. That's basically what happened. You know, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, no, no, fries, chips, no, coke, pepsi, all that kind of stuff, and John could also draw on his Background because his father was a restaurant owner, so I'm sure a lot of it came from that as well. But even the, the decision to make the owner Greek, and he appeared in a season two sketch as That character on one of those Jane Curtin talk shows. Even before they did those sketches and, yeah, i know in the history of the family they were Albanian and apparently in you know, chicago in the 40s or 50s That was still considered too ethnic, so they would often poses Greek to avoid, to avoid trouble. Yeah, i didn't know that. Guess that's where that comes from. Yeah, yeah, the only sketches were very, very ambitious, like to have a working grill and that you've ever been a studio 8h like it's? it's not huge, no no, it's not. 0:38:56 - ThomasYeah, rewatching those because I was fortunate enough to be able to, in the spring of 2022, go see SNL in person for the first time, and so it's kind of you? 0:39:05 - Justindid you dress for the or the or the? 0:39:07 - ThomasWe saw a dress rehearsal, getting a perspective of actually how small that studio is and then going back to watch sketches and, like you said, with the Olympia cafe, for example, they've put a working grill, they had, you know, it seems like elaborate for how small that studio is for sure. And John, in those sketches He seemed to me like he was the run, the one who was anchoring the sketch and kind of running things and taking it. Oh for sure, you're to there, you know, and he would interact with maybe Jane Curtin as an annoyed customer or Bill Murray is the sheepish Worker, but it was John sketch that he was just controlling. 0:39:43 - ThomasI'm sure he's playing a version of his father there. 0:39:46 - JustinOh yeah, Absolutely you can tell that's, that's just effortless. 0:40:11 - ThomasAnother sketch that it's a pre-tape. That's just lived in my brain since I was a kid. Inside that sort of showed Belushi's more kind of human relatable side was the little chocolate donuts. 0:40:30 - SketchA lot of miles training for that day and I'm down a lot of donuts. It tastes good and they've got the sugar I need to get me going in the morning. That's why a little chocolate don'ts have been on my training table since I was a kid. 0:40:48 - SketchLittle chocolate donuts, the donuts of champions. 0:40:55 - ThomasAnd that was more so because I don't feel as a viewer and this is a compliment to Belushi because, like I said, he would sink into his characters but I never felt totally like I knew who he was as a human being in a lot of ways Contrast that with Chris Farley, whose human nature just oozed out, but with little chocolate donuts. That was one of the times where I kind of saw relatability in Belushi. 0:41:20 - JustinYeah, i think my first was I think it's during the first season. They would do bits sometimes, i guess, maybe to fill time, like they'd have Gilda Radner do her You know what Gilda ate segment. Or just say, you know, hey, ma'am, you can go to bed. I'm not in the show this week, but there was one where John Belushi came out and tried to sell a bunch of his old records. Yes yes, but it was just him playing himself honestly with, i'm sure, albums that he owned, yeah, and that's yeah. I kind of got a better sense of him from that. 0:41:48 - ThomasRe-watching a lot of his stuff. I love getting those, those moments here and there of like, oh, i think that's Belushi, i think, yeah, i think that's hit, who he really is kind of coming through. But he was think he was Consciously, didn't. You know? I think he liked to play characters rather than I'm gonna play a version of myself, which is a testament to him. My gosh, like we said, he was so, so great at that. So unfortunately, after SNL he didn't have much time. He had two movies that came out after SNL that he starred in. It was continental divide and neighbors. I don't know if you've ever seen either of those. 0:42:23 - JustinI've seen neighbors. I've never seen continental divide. I've always wanted to but just haven't got around to it. But I only recently saw, even to go back, old boyfriends from 1978 where he plays Basically a more spiffed-up version of of Jake blues. He's just this guy that works for the local. I think it's the local flower shop that tell you Shire, who's the lead was. You know, she knew him back in high school, yeah, and he's got this band that he fronts at nights. But anyway, it's a shame that Him and Don Avello's movie noble rot didn't get made. 0:42:54 - ThomasDo you know what? what was the premise behind the movie with the that Don Avello was working on with him? 0:42:59 - Justinnoble rot It had something to do with. It wasn't abscam, but it was something like that. It was a, not a Ponzi scheme, but something along those lines. Reading a fuller outline of the of the premise, it sounded like it was gonna be a really good movie. But I think the film company was forcing John to be in the national ampoune's joy of sex. But she didn't want to do and they said well, if you don't do this, you don't get to make noble rot. But unfortunately none of it came to pass anyway, sadly. Cuz cuz of a speedball. 0:43:30 - ThomasSo yeah, march 5th 1982 he unfortunately passed away only 33 years old, gosh, i mean that I'm yeah. That must have sent shockwaves through the comedy world and through Hollywood in general. 0:43:43 - JustinI can't imagine. And even the people like the people that were there that day, like Robert De Niro was there, robin Williams was there. Robin Williams credits it with helping him stop taking cocaine, so at least something good came out of it But yeah, you can only imagine. And also the guilt like somebody like Lauren Michaels. How would you feel? See, i should have intervened, i should have helped. I'm just using his and him as an example. I'm not trying to put any guilt on him or anything, but yeah, like, not only is it a warning sign, maybe you should Curb your lifestyle a little bit, but also you should also try to help people that are, that are in trouble. But in the 70s, 70s and 80s, you know, people didn't really do that, we didn't have the equipment. It even happened to. You know, ten years later, with Kurt Cobain, nobody knew to just put the brakes on and say just stop for a while, go away, get your head together. See somebody talk about your feelings, whatever. 0:44:36 - ThomasBut yeah, it was just go, go, go And it was so prevalent around that time too. There's always stories about how SNL in the late 70s, there was a lot of cocaine, everything like that. So it must have been hard to tell somebody like Belushi that they have a problem, when he could just look and say, well, i've done this with you. Like, who are you to tell me? 0:44:57 - Justinthat I have a problem. It's a little different from the same bowl here, buddy. Yeah, so it must have been hard to intervene with somebody back then when it was just so prevalent. Nobody wants to be the parent right. 0:45:09 - ThomasYeah, yeah, exactly. And you know what's interesting to me? He was going to be in Ghostbusters And that was so unfortunate that we didn't get to see him in that form in Ghostbusters. But the monster Slimer, I believe, was modeled after Belushi. I don't know if that's apocryphal. 0:45:27 - JustinNow that you say that it sure looks like him. 0:45:30 - ThomasYeah. I think I believe that I've read that they kind of modeled Slimer after Belushi, And when you look at Slimer you can maybe see a nod to Belushi. What kind of career do you think that Belushi could have had had he? 0:45:44 - Justinkept clean. I think it would have been very similar to Bill Murray's. Oh, yeah, i think he would have continued doing comedy, obviously Like who's not going to hire him to be in a comedy. But even with Continental Divide, which is sort of a again, i haven't seen it, but from what I know it's sort of a comedy drama almost. You know what I mean. It's not balls to the wall, animal house or Blues Brothers with jokes and explosions and gags and everything. But yeah, i could see him doing a lot more dramatic roles And then maybe being like what happened with Bill Murray being taken on by somebody like Sophia Coppola who would bring him in every time because she knows he can deliver. 0:46:19 - ThomasOr somebody like Wes Anderson. Maybe there could have been a cool partnership with someone like Wes Anderson, like, yeah, belushi was that talented He could have. I think I could have seen him in more dramatic roles like Lost in Translation or something like that, like Murray got to do for sure. That's definitely not a stretch. So what is your final case if you had to sum it up, for John Belushi to be inducted into the SNL Hall of Fame. 0:46:42 - JustinTotal commitment. Larger than life persona, hugely talented actor, The first major star to emerge from the show post Chevy. Natural charisma, being a member of the first cast ever, I think, puts him above a lot of people, setting a template for many to follow, Best example being Chris Farley that we've discussed. But unfortunately, some of those habits also bled in The ability to upstage others with his mere presence on stage, the eyebrow cocking the one eyebrow. It's amazing what he could do with that. Unbelievable comic timing, preter natural talent, given that at the age of 16 or 17, a drama teacher at a high school was like there's something here That's very rare. Being a great actor and having it serve comedy, which doesn't happen, is a hard thing to do And it's more than half. The battle really is being a good actor, as we mentioned earlier, And I'd say a lot of people have come close to his level, like we said earlier Kate McKinnon on another area of the spectrum, Somebody like Dan Ackroyd, But I don't think anyone's reached that height yet. I think he is the greatest Saturday Night Live actor of all time. 0:48:06 - jDSo there's that. I want to thank Justin Renwick, i want to thank Thomas Senna, i want to thank Matt Ardill. I want to thank you for listening, but before we go any further, i want to listen to a sketch. I want to listen to something that Belushi did that seals the deal, that makes me feel that he is a legit, absolute Hall of Famer. I think that Justin's comment that he's the greatest SNL actor of all time is a bold statement. A bold statement There have been a lot. One who joined just three years after Belushi left is Eddie Murphy, and I don't know how you get bigger than Eddie Murphy. So is Belushi a Hall of Famer? Yeah, i think so. Is he a first ballot Hall of Famer? Likely, like, very likely. Is he the greatest of all time? I don't know, maybe that's another podcast for another time, but let's listen to this sketch now and get a better sense of what Mr Belushi brought to the table. 0:49:28 - SketchI guess this is my style. Well, they all thought I'd be the first to go. I was one of those live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse type, you know. Well, i guess they were wrong. There they are, all my friends. This is a not ready for prime time cemetery. Come on up. Well, here's Gilda Radner. She had her own show on Canadian television for years and years the Gilda Radner show. At least now I can see her on reruns. Here's a button. God bless her. Here's what Lorraine is, they say. She murdered her DJ husband and moved to the valley in California and had a pecan farm. She was this big when she died Jane Curtin. She married a stockbroker, had two children, moved upstate New York. She died of complications during cosmetic surgery. Here's Eric Morris. Eric went to the show and worked in the black theater for years And he died of an overdose of heroin. Here's Bill Murray. He lived the longest, 38 years. He was happy when he died, though He just grown his mustache back, probably still growing. Here's Chevy Chase. He died when that was first movie with Goldie Haan. Over here is Danny Ackroyd. I guess he loved his Harley too much. It clocked him at 175 miles an hour before the crash. It was a blur. I had to be called in to identify his body. I recognized him by his web toes. Well. Saturday Night Show was the best experience of my life. Now they're all gone. I miss every one of them. Why me? Why did I live so long? They're all dead. I'll tell you why Because I'm a dancer. 0:53:10 - jDThat was Don't Look Back in Anger, directed by Tom Schiller. You didn't get to see it, but it features an old John Belushi. If you're listening to this podcast, you're a big enough fan of SNL that you've seen the sketch, but if you haven't check it out, it's worth watching as well. It works on an audio level but it certainly is worth watching to see Belushi's chops as he is dressed up as an old man. It's very eerie. It's a great place to see that old man come Here. He is lamenting his deceased co-workers and reminiscing that it was the best time of his life. We never got to experience that old man Belushi and get to hear that from his lips. Schiller created a premonition. In a sense It's a wonderful piece of art. You can check it out for sure. That, my friends, is what I have for you this week. Make sure to register to vote. S and l h o f dot com. Click on the voting tab, click register to vote and you'll be in. Voting begins the 23rd of May, wraps up the 17th of June And on the 19th of June we will induct the class of season three. So on your way out, if you do me a favor, as you're walking past the weekend update exhibit turn out the lights, because the s and l hall of fame is now closed. 0:54:56 - AnnouncerThanks for listening to the s and l hall of fame podcast. Make sure to rate, review, share and subscribe to the show. Wherever you get your podcasts, follow us on social media at s and l h o f. This is Doug Denance saying. This is Doug Denance saying see you next week. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/snlhof/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

218. Rockin' with the flavor of real 50's Rock 'N' Roll! Serve yourself a satisfying selection of old school boppin' blues, raucous R'n'B, twangy country & outragous rock-a-billy sounds with DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO! The Rock-A-Billy Show!" Super stoked to finally be able to spin the new Daddy Long Legs disc "Street Sermons" (YepRoc Records) as well as recent favorites like Angela Tini, The Flea Bops, Murray Robe, The Backyard Casanovas, Rev. Horton Heat, Mozzy Dee, The Royal Flush, Danny McVey Trio, Peter Egris' One Man Boogie '55, The Televisionaries & Les Greene and even Little Dave & The Sun Session! WOW! As if that weren't enough to make you stop, stare and flop around, we've also got classics from Esquerita, Rusty York, Thumper Jones, Jack Scott, Sid King & The 5 Strings, Billy Mize, Slim Harpo, Ronnie Hawkins, Ferlin Huskey & Benny Cliff! Oh, my! 4 hours of the finest roots rockin' Ameripolitan grooves inside this edition of the 'Aztec Werewolf,' DJ Del Villarreal's "Go Kat, GO!" -it's good to the last bop!™Please follow on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter!

Sometimes you don't realize the hidden gems that are in plain sight. SLIM HARPO was such an influential artist that stemmed from Baton Rouge and gained international recognition from artists all over the world. With major hits like "I'm a King Bee", "Rainin' in My Heart" and "Baby Scratch My Back", which reached number one on Billboard's R&B chart and number 16 on its broader Hot 100 singles chart. Johnny Palazzotto and his amazing team has given next level dedication over with over two decades worth of work to present the Slim Harpo Documentary. With a long list of accomplishments of his own, I found that I had more questions that needed answers!  Make plans to join us Saturday, April 15, 2023 at the Main Library on Goodwood for the showing of this amazing documentary. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited... Please RSVP. Watch full interview HERE Read more on the man behind the scene running the scene.  Johnny Palazzotto, a veteran of the entertainment industry, has become synonymous with discovering new talent and putting Louisiana artists on the international map, thus earning him a music business Lifetime Achievement Award from Offbeat Magazine (2011) as well as an induction into the Southern University Jazz Hall of Fame (2002). His work also landed him a spot on the Board of Governors' Memphis Chapter of the Recording Academy. The Baton Rouge native has helped to shape the careers of dozens of artists including Loggins & Messina. He has managed artists, auditioned and signed new writers, filed copyrights, negotiated contracts for recording artists, produced and distributed albums, and produced concerts from Los Angeles to Louisiana. Palazzotto is co-founder of Baton Rouge Blues Foundation,Inc. He currently produces the Slim Harpo Music Awards and presents Music in the Schools throughout Louisiana. This program introduces elementary, middle school and high school students to a music curriculum beyond the origins of all-American blues to gospel, rock and hip-hop. Palazzotto presented Baton Rouge Blues Week in conjunction with the Blues Festival including artists such as: Luther Kent, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Luther Allison, Johnny Adams, Percy Sledge, Ruthie Foster, Sonny Landreth, Bonnie Bramlett, Earl King, Philip Guy, Coco Montoya, Derrick Trucks, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Delbert McClinton, Jimmie Vaughan, Lou Ann Barton and Tony Joe White among local Blues Legends, Tabby Thomas, Henry Gray, Raful Neal, Larry Garner, ChrisThomas King, Kenny Neal. ************************************************************************************************* NEW MUSIC ALERT NEVER KNEW - LaTangela Fay NEW BOOK ALERT P.O.O.F. (Power Over Obstacles Forever) - LaTangela Fay Sherman ************************************************************************************ THE LATANGELA SHOW RADIO -  WEMX- Baton Rouge, La. Mon-Fri 10a.m.-3p.m.CST TV - WLFT - Baton Rouge, La. KGLA  - New Orleans, La. The Louisiana Film Channel YouTube - #LaTangelaFay Podcast - ALL digital platforms www.LaTangela.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Intro Song –  Mikey Junior, “Ninety Nine”, South Philly Blues Party - Live! 
 First Set -
 Omar Coleman, “I'm Ready”, Live!
 Slim Harpo, “Little Queen Bee”, Shake Your Hips
 Rod Piazza, “Sharp Harp”, So Glad To Have The Blues

 Second Set –
 Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, “Contemporary”, Contemporary
 Sonny Terry, “I'm Crazy ‘Bout Your Pie”, Wizard of the Harmonica
 Little Willie Anderson, “Lester Leaps In”, Swinging The Blues 

 Third Set – 
 The Billy Gibson Band, “Down Home”, The Billy Gibson Band 
Louis Myers, “Bottom Of The Harp”, Tell My Story Movin' 
The Suitcase Brothers, “Baby Couldn't Be Found”, Walk On 
 Fourth Set – 
 Lazy Lester, “Alligator Shuffle”, Harp & Soul
 Big Harp George, “My Dog Is Better Than You”, Cut My Spirit Loose
 Watermelon Slim, “They Call Me Watermelon Slim”, Big Shoes To Fill John Bull Band, “J.B.'s Boogie”, Memphis Money


Show 04 - Slim Harpo - was an American blues musician, a leading exponent of the swamp blues style, and "one of the most commercially successful blues artists of his day".He played guitar and was a master of the blues harmonica, known in blues circles as a "harp". His most successful and influential recordings included "I'm a King Bee" (1957), "Rainin' in My Heart" (1961), and "Baby Scratch My Back" (1966), which reached number one on Billboard. Broadcast on Otago Access Radio www.oar.org.nz

Singles Going Around- ThirteenJimi Hendrix- "Catfish Blues" Bob Dylan- "Gonna Serve Somebody"Muddy Waters- "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man"Captain Beefheart- "Dirty Blue Gene"Jerry Lee Lewis- "Ubangi Stomp"The Kills- "Pull A You"Loretta Lynn- "Mrs. Leroy Brown"Little Walter- "My Babe"Johnny Cash- "Thirteen"Buffalo Springfield- "Go and Say Goodbye"Dave Edmunds- " Get Out of Denver"Sun Ra & The Blues Project- "Batman Theme"The White Stripes- "Black Jack Davey"Junior Wells- "Cut That Out"Nirvana- "Sliver"The Byrds- "Drug Store Truck Driving Man"Slim Harpo- "Blues Hang Over"Johnny Cash- "Don't Think Twice"Leon Rebone- "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"* All Vinyl.

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

Singles Going Around- Blues Out Of CrowleyJ.D. Miller first began recording Cajun music on his Fais Do-Do and Feature labels in the late 1940's, but when Rock and Roll came along in 1955;he changed direction. He then opened his studio to local blues acts. The blues music he recorded had a certain hypnotic sound that became known as Swamp Blues..His contacts led him to a deal with Excello Records where he recorded a host of local musicians. This week's episode features many of the great Blues artiststhat J.D. recorded in his studio in Crowley.Lightnin Slim- "Just Made Twenty-One" 1956 (Excello 2075)Lonesome Sundown- "My Home Is A Prison" 1957 (Excello 2102)Slim Harpo- "I'm A King Bee" 1957 (Excello 2113)Blue Charlie- "Don't Bring No Friend" 1957 (Nasco 2002)Lazy Lester- "Tell Me Pretty Baby" 1958 (Excello 2129)Lonesome Sundown- "Goin To Stick To You Baby" 1959 (Excello 2163)Slim Harpo- "I Got Love If You Want It" 1957 (Excello 2113)Lightnin Slim- "Nothing But The Devil" 1960 (Excello 2186)Slim Harpo- "Snoopin Around" 1960 (Excello 8003)Jimmy Anderson- "Frankie & Johnny" 1961 (Excello 8011)Silas Hogan- "Everybody Needs Somebody" 1964 (Excello 2255)Slim Harpo- "Rainin In My Heart" 1960 (Excello 2194)Tabby Thomas- "Hoodoo Party" 1962 (Excello 2212)Guitar Gable- "This Should Go On Forever" 1958 (Excello 2153)Slim Harpo- "Blues Hangover" 1960 (Excello 2184)Slim Harpo- "Dont Start Crying Now" 1960 (Excello 2194)*All selections from the original vinyl.

Episode one hundred and fifty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “See Emily Play", the birth of the UK underground, and the career of Roger Barrett, known as Syd. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "First Girl I Loved" by the Incredible String Band. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this time, due to the number of Pink Floyd songs. I referred to two biographies of Barrett in this episode -- A Very Irregular Head by Rob Chapman is the one I would recommend, and the one whose narrative I have largely followed. Some of the information has been superseded by newer discoveries, but Chapman is almost unique in people writing about Barrett in that he actually seems to care about the facts and try to get things right rather than make up something more interesting. Crazy Diamond by Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson is much less reliable, but does have quite a few interview quotes that aren't duplicated by Chapman. Information about Joe Boyd comes from Boyd's book White Bicycles. In this and future episodes on Pink Floyd I'm also relying on Nick Mason's Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd: All the Songs by Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin. The compilation Relics contains many of the most important tracks from Barrett's time with Pink Floyd, while Piper at the Gates of Dawn is his one full album with them. Those who want a fuller history of his time with the group will want to get Piper and also the box set Cambridge St/ation 1965-1967. Barrett only released two solo albums during his career. They're available as a bundle here. Completists will also want the rarities and outtakes collection Opel.  ERRATA: I talk about “Interstellar Overdrive” as if Barrett wrote it solo. The song is credited to all four members, but it was Barrett who came up with the riff I talk about. And annoyingly, given the lengths I went to to deal correctly with Barrett's name, I repeatedly refer to "Dave" Gilmour, when Gilmour prefers David. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A note before I begin -- this episode deals with drug use and mental illness, so anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to skip this one. But also, there's a rather unique problem in how I deal with the name of the main artist in the story today. The man everyone knows as Syd Barrett was born Roger Barrett, used that name with his family for his whole life, and in later years very strongly disliked being called "Syd", yet everyone other than his family called him that at all times until he left the music industry, and that's the name that appears on record labels, including his solo albums. I don't believe it's right to refer to people by names they choose not to go by themselves, but the name Barrett went by throughout his brief period in the public eye was different from the one he went by later, and by all accounts he was actually distressed by its use in later years. So what I'm going to do in this episode is refer to him as "Roger Barrett" when a full name is necessary for disambiguation or just "Barrett" otherwise, but I'll leave any quotes from other people referring to "Syd" as they were originally phrased. In future episodes on Pink Floyd, I'll refer to him just as Barrett, but in episodes where I discuss his influence on other artists, I will probably have to use "Syd Barrett" because otherwise people who haven't listened to this episode won't know what on Earth I'm talking about. Anyway, on with the show. “It's gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. “Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.” That's a quote from a chapter titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" from the classic children's book The Wind in the Willows -- a book which for most of its length is a fairly straightforward story about anthropomorphic animals having jovial adventures, but which in that one chapter has Rat and Mole suddenly encounter the Great God Pan and have a hallucinatory, transcendental experience caused by his music, one so extreme it's wiped from their minds, as they simply cannot process it. The book, and the chapter, was a favourite of Roger Barrett, a young child born in Cambridge in 1946. Barrett came from an intellectual but not especially bookish family. His father, Dr. Arthur Barrett, was a pathologist -- there's a room in Addenbrooke's Hospital named after him -- but he was also an avid watercolour painter, a world-leading authority on fungi, and a member of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society who was apparently an extraordinarily good singer; while his mother Winifred was a stay-at-home mother who was nonetheless very active in the community, organising a local Girl Guide troupe. They never particularly encouraged their family to read, but young Roger did particularly enjoy the more pastoral end of the children's literature of the time. As well as the Wind in the Willows he also loved Alice in Wonderland, and the Little Grey Men books -- a series of stories about tiny gnomes and their adventures in the countryside. But his two big passions were music and painting. He got his first ukulele at age eleven, and by the time his father died, just before Roger's sixteenth birthday, he had graduated to playing a full-sized guitar. At the time his musical tastes were largely the same as those of any other British teenager -- he liked Chubby Checker, for example -- though he did have a tendency to prefer the quirkier end of things, and some of the first songs he tried to play on the guitar were those of Joe Brown: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, "I'm Henry VIII I Am"] Barrett grew up in Cambridge, and for those who don't know it, Cambridge is an incubator of a very particular kind of eccentricity. The university tends to attract rather unworldly intellectual overachievers to the city -- people who might not be able to survive in many other situations but who can thrive in that one -- and every description of Barrett's father suggests he was such a person -- Barrett's sister Rosemary has said that she believes that most of the family were autistic, though whether this is a belief based on popular media portrayals or a deeper understanding I don't know. But certainly Cambridge is full of eccentric people with remarkable achievements, and such people tend to have children with a certain type of personality, who try simultaneously to live up to and rebel against expectations of greatness that come from having parents who are regarded as great, and to do so with rather less awareness of social norms than the typical rebel has. In the case of Roger Barrett, he, like so many others of his generation, was encouraged to go into the sciences -- as indeed his father had, both in his career as a pathologist and in his avocation as a mycologist. The fifties and sixties were a time, much like today, when what we now refer to as the STEM subjects were regarded as new and exciting and modern. But rather than following in his father's professional footsteps, Roger Barrett instead followed his hobbies. Dr. Barrett was a painter and musician in his spare time, and Roger was to turn to those things to earn his living. For much of his teens, it seemed that art would be the direction he would go in. He was, everyone agrees, a hugely talented painter, and he was particularly noted for his mastery of colours. But he was also becoming more and more interested in R&B music, especially the music of Bo Diddley, who became his new biggest influence: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "Who Do You Love?"] He would often spend hours with his friend Dave Gilmour, a much more advanced guitarist, trying to learn blues riffs. By this point Barrett had already received the nickname "Syd". Depending on which story you believe, he either got it when he started attending a jazz club where an elderly jazzer named Sid Barrett played, and the people were amused that their youngest attendee, like one of the oldest, was called Barrett; or, more plausibly, he turned up to a Scout meeting once wearing a flat cap rather than the normal scout beret, and he got nicknamed "Sid" because it made him look working-class and "Sid" was a working-class sort of name. In 1962, by the time he was sixteen, Barrett joined a short-lived group called Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, on rhythm guitar. The group's lead singer, Geoff Mottlow, would go on to join a band called the Boston Crabs who would have a minor hit in 1965 with a version of the Coasters song "Down in Mexico": [Excerpt: The Boston Crabs, "Down in Mexico"] The bass player from the Mottoes, Tony Sainty, and the drummer Clive Welham, would go on to form another band, The Jokers Wild, with Barrett's friend Dave Gilmour. Barrett also briefly joined another band, Those Without, but his time with them was similarly brief. Some sources -- though ones I consider generally less reliable -- say that the Mottoes' bass player wasn't Tony Sainty, but was Roger Waters, the son of one of Barrett's teachers, and that one of the reasons the band split up was that Waters had moved down to London to study architecture. I don't think that's the case, but it's definitely true that Barrett knew Waters, and when he moved to London himself the next year to go to Camberwell Art College, he moved into a house where Waters was already living. Two previous tenants at the same house, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, had formed a loose band with Waters and various other amateur musicians like Keith Noble, Shelagh Noble, and Clive Metcalfe. That band was sometimes known as the Screaming Abdabs, The Megadeaths, or The Tea Set -- the latter as a sly reference to slang terms for cannabis -- but was mostly known at first as Sigma 6, named after a manifesto by the novelist Alexander Trocchi for a kind of spontaneous university. They were also sometimes known as Leonard's Lodgers, after the landlord of the home that Barrett was moving into, Mike Leonard, who would occasionally sit in on organ and would later, as the band became more of a coherent unit, act as a roadie and put on light shows behind them -- Leonard was himself very interested in avant-garde and experimental art, and it was his idea to play around with the group's lighting. By the time Barrett moved in with Waters in 1964, the group had settled on the Tea Set name, and consisted of Waters on bass, Mason on drums, Wright on keyboards, singer Chris Dennis, and guitarist Rado Klose. Of the group, Klose was the only one who was a skilled musician -- he was a very good jazz guitarist, while the other members were barely adequate. By this time Barrett's musical interests were expanding to include folk music -- his girlfriend at the time talked later about him taking her to see Bob Dylan on his first UK tour and thinking "My first reaction was seeing all these people like Syd. It was almost as if every town had sent one Syd Barrett there. It was my first time seeing people like him." But the music he was most into was the blues. And as the Tea Set were turning into a blues band, he joined them. He even had a name for the new band that would make them more bluesy. He'd read the back of a record cover which had named two extremely obscure blues musicians -- musicians he may never even have heard. Pink Anderson: [Excerpt: Pink Anderson, "Boll Weevil"] And Floyd Council: [Excerpt: Floyd Council, "Runaway Man Blues"] Barrett suggested that they put together the names of the two bluesmen, and presumably because "Anderson Council" didn't have quite the right ring, they went for The Pink Floyd -- though for a while yet they would sometimes still perform as The Tea Set, and they were sometimes also called The Pink Floyd Sound. Dennis left soon after Barrett joined, and the new five-piece Pink Floyd Sound started trying to get more gigs. They auditioned for Ready Steady Go! and were turned down, but did get some decent support slots, including for a band called the Tridents: [Excerpt: The Tridents, "Tiger in Your Tank"] The members of the group were particularly impressed by the Tridents' guitarist and the way he altered his sound using feedback -- Barrett even sent a letter to his girlfriend with a drawing of the guitarist, one Jeff Beck, raving about how good he was. At this point, the group were mostly performing cover versions, but they did have a handful of originals, and it was these they recorded in their first demo sessions in late 1964 and early 1965. They included "Walk With Me Sydney", a song written by Roger Waters as a parody of "Work With Me Annie" and "Dance With Me Henry" -- and, given the lyrics, possibly also Hank Ballard's follow-up "Henry's Got Flat Feet (Can't Dance No More) and featuring Rick Wright's then-wife Juliette Gale as Etta James to Barrett's Richard Berry: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Walk With Me Sydney"] And four songs by Barrett, including one called "Double-O Bo" which was a Bo Diddley rip-off, and "Butterfly", the most interesting of these early recordings: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Butterfly"] At this point, Barrett was very unsure of his own vocal abilities, and wrote a letter to his girlfriend saying "Emo says why don't I give up 'cos it sounds horrible, and I would but I can't get Fred to join because he's got a group (p'raps you knew!) so I still have to sing." "Fred" was a nickname for his old friend Dave Gilmour, who was playing in his own band, Joker's Wild, at this point. Summer 1965 saw two important events in the life of the group. The first was that Barrett took LSD for the first time. The rest of the group weren't interested in trying it, and would indeed generally be one of the more sober bands in the rock business, despite the reputation their music got. The other members would for the most part try acid once or twice, around late 1966, but generally steer clear of it. Barrett, by contrast, took it on a very regular basis, and it would influence all the work he did from that point on. The other event was that Rado Klose left the group. Klose was the only really proficient musician in the group, but he had very different tastes to the other members, preferring to play jazz to R&B and pop, and he was also falling behind in his university studies, and decided to put that ahead of remaining in the band. This meant that the group members had to radically rethink the way they were making music. They couldn't rely on instrumental proficiency, so they had to rely on ideas. One of the things they started to do was use echo. They got primitive echo devices and put both Barrett's guitar and Wright's keyboard through them, allowing them to create new sounds that hadn't been heard on stage before. But they were still mostly doing the same Slim Harpo and Bo Diddley numbers everyone else was doing, and weren't able to be particularly interesting while playing them. But for a while they carried on doing the normal gigs, like a birthday party they played in late 1965, where on the same bill was a young American folk singer named Paul Simon, and Joker's Wild, the band Dave Gilmour was in, who backed Simon on a version of "Johnny B. Goode". A couple of weeks after that party, Joker's Wild went into the studio to record their only privately-pressed five-song record, of them performing recent hits: [Excerpt: Joker's Wild, "Walk Like a Man"] But The Pink Floyd Sound weren't as musically tight as Joker's Wild, and they couldn't make a living as a cover band even if they wanted to. They had to do something different. Inspiration then came from a very unexpected source. I mentioned earlier that one of the names the group had been performing under had been inspired by a manifesto for a spontaneous university by the writer Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi's ideas had actually been put into practice by an organisation calling itself the London Free School, based in Notting Hill. The London Free School was an interesting mixture of people from what was then known as the New Left, but who were already rapidly aging, the people who had been the cornerstone of radical campaigning in the late fifties and early sixties, who had run the Aldermaston marches against nuclear weapons and so on, and a new breed of countercultural people who in a year or two would be defined as hippies but at the time were not so easy to pigeonhole. These people were mostly politically radical but very privileged people -- one of the founder members of the London Free School was Peter Jenner, who was the son of a vicar and the grandson of a Labour MP -- and they were trying to put their radical ideas into practice. The London Free School was meant to be a collective of people who would help each other and themselves, and who would educate each other. You'd go to the collective wanting to learn how to do something, whether that's how to improve the housing in your area or navigate some particularly difficult piece of bureaucracy, or how to play a musical instrument, and someone who had that skill would teach you how to do it, while you hopefully taught them something else of value. The London Free School, like all such utopian schemes, ended up falling apart, but it had a wider cultural impact than most such schemes. Britain's first underground newspaper, the International Times, was put together by people involved in the Free School, and the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which is now one of the biggest outdoor events in Britain every year with a million attendees, came from the merger of outdoor events organised by the Free School with older community events. A group of musicians called AMM was associated with many of the people involved in the Free School. AMM performed totally improvised music, with no structure and no normal sense of melody and harmony: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] Keith Rowe, the guitarist in AMM, wanted to find his own technique uninfluenced by American jazz guitarists, and thought of that in terms that appealed very strongly to the painterly Barrett, saying "For the Americans to develop an American school of painting, they somehow had to ditch or lose European easel painting techniques. They had to make a break with the past. What did that possibly mean if you were a jazz guitar player? For me, symbolically, it was Pollock laying the canvas on the floor, which immediately abandons European easel technique. I could see that by laying the canvas down, it became inappropriate to apply easel techniques. I thought if I did that with a guitar, I would just lose all those techniques, because they would be physically impossible to do." Rowe's technique-free technique inspired Barrett to make similar noises with his guitar, and to think less in terms of melody and harmony than pure sound. AMM's first record came out in 1966. Four of the Free School people decided to put together their own record label, DNA, and they got an agreement with Elektra Records to distribute its first release -- Joe Boyd, the head of Elektra in the UK, was another London Free School member, and someone who had plenty of experience with disruptive art already, having been on the sound engineering team at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric. AMM went into the studio and recorded AMMMusic: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] After that came out, though, Peter Jenner, one of the people who'd started the label, came to a realisation. He said later "We'd made this one record with AMM. Great record, very seminal, seriously avant-garde, but I'd started adding up and I'd worked out that the deal we had, we got two percent of retail, out of which we, the label, had to pay for recording costs and pay ourselves. I came to the conclusion that we were going to have to sell a hell of a lot of records just to pay the recording costs, let alone pay ourselves any money and build a label, so I realised we had to have a pop band because pop bands sold a lot of records. It was as simple as that and I was as naive as that." Jenner abandoned DNA records for the moment, and he and his friend Andrew King decided they were going to become pop managers. and they found The Pink Floyd Sound playing at an event at the Marquee, one of a series of events that were variously known as Spontaneous Underground and The Trip. Other participants in those events included Soft Machine; Mose Allison; Donovan, performing improvised songs backed by sitar players; Graham Bond; a performer who played Bach pieces while backed by African drummers; and The Poison Bellows, a poetry duo consisting of Spike Hawkins and Johnny Byrne, who may of all of these performers be the one who other than Pink Floyd themselves has had the most cultural impact in the UK -- after writing the exploitation novel Groupie and co-writing a film adaptation of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, Byrne became a TV screenwriter, writing many episodes of Space: 1999 and Doctor Who before creating the long-running TV series Heartbeat. Jenner and King decided they wanted to sign The Pink Floyd Sound and make records with them, and the group agreed -- but only after their summer holidays. They were all still students, and so they dispersed during the summer. Waters and Wright went on holiday to Greece, where they tried acid for the first of only a small number of occasions and were unimpressed, while Mason went on a trip round America by Greyhound bus. Barrett, meanwhile, stayed behind, and started writing more songs, encouraged by Jenner, who insisted that the band needed to stop relying on blues covers and come up with their own material, and who saw Barrett as the focus of the group. Jenner later described them as "Four not terribly competent musicians who managed between them to create something that was extraordinary. Syd was the main creative drive behind the band - he was the singer and lead guitarist. Roger couldn't tune his bass because he was tone deaf, it had to be tuned by Rick. Rick could write a bit of a tune and Roger could knock out a couple of words if necessary. 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' was the first song Roger ever wrote, and he only did it because Syd encouraged everyone to write. Syd was very hesitant about his writing, but when he produced these great songs everyone else thought 'Well, it must be easy'" Of course, we know this isn't quite true -- Waters had written "Walk with me Sydney" -- but it is definitely the case that everyone involved thought of Barrett as the main creative force in the group, and that he was the one that Jenner was encouraging to write new material. After the summer holidays, the group reconvened, and one of their first actions was to play a benefit for the London Free School. Jenner said later "Andrew King and myself were both vicars' sons, and we knew that when you want to raise money for the parish you have to have a social. So in a very old-fashioned way we said 'let's put on a social'. Like in the Just William books, like a whist drive. We thought 'You can't have a whist drive. That's not cool. Let's have a band. That would be cool.' And the only band we knew was the band I was starting to get involved with." After a couple of these events went well, Joe Boyd suggested that they make those events a regular club night, and the UFO Club was born. Jenner and King started working on the light shows for the group, and then bringing in other people, and the light show became an integral part of the group's mystique -- rather than standing in a spotlight as other groups would, they worked in shadows, with distorted kaleidoscopic lights playing on them, distancing themselves from the audience. The highlight of their sets was a long piece called "Interstellar Overdrive", and this became one of the group's first professional recordings, when they went into the studio with Joe Boyd to record it for the soundtrack of a film titled Tonite Let's All Make Love in London. There are conflicting stories about the inspiration for the main riff for "Interstellar Overdrive". One apparent source is the riff from Love's version of the Bacharach and David song "My Little Red Book". Depending on who you ask, either Barrett was obsessed with Love's first album and copied the riff, or Peter Jenner tried to hum him the riff and Barrett copied what Jenner was humming: [Excerpt: Love, "My Little Red Book"] More prosaically, Roger Waters has always claimed that the main inspiration was from "Old Ned", Ron Grainer's theme tune for the sitcom Steptoe and Son (which for American listeners was remade over there as Sanford and Son): [Excerpt: Ron Grainer, "Old Ned"] Of course it's entirely possible, and even likely, that Barrett was inspired by both, and if so that would neatly sum up the whole range of Pink Floyd's influences at this point. "My Little Red Book" was a cover by an American garage-psych/folk-rock band of a hit by Manfred Mann, a group who were best known for pop singles but were also serious blues and jazz musicians, while Steptoe and Son was a whimsical but dark and very English sitcom about a way of life that was slowly disappearing. And you can definitely hear both influences in the main riff of the track they recorded with Boyd: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Interstellar Overdrive"] "Interstellar Overdrive" was one of two types of song that The Pink Floyd were performing at this time -- a long, extended, instrumental psychedelic excuse for freaky sounds, inspired by things like the second disc of Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention. When they went into the studio again with Boyd later in January 1967, to record what they hoped would be their first single, they recorded two of the other kind of songs -- whimsical story songs inspired equally by the incidents of everyday life and by children's literature. What became the B-side, "Candy and a Currant Bun", was based around the riff from "Smokestack Lightnin'" by Howlin' Wolf: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] That song had become a favourite on the British blues scene, and was thus the inspiration for many songs of the type that get called "quintessentially English". Ray Davies, who was in many ways the major songwriter at this time who was closest to Barrett stylistically, would a year later use the riff for the Kinks song "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", but in this case Barrett had originally written a song titled "Let's Roll Another One", about sexual longing and cannabis. The lyrics were hastily rewritten in the studio to remove the controversial drug references-- and supposedly this caused some conflict between Barrett and Waters, with Waters pushing for the change, while Barrett argued against it, though like many of the stories from this period this sounds like the kind of thing that gets said by people wanting to push particular images of both men. Either way, the lyric was changed to be about sweet treats rather than drugs, though the lascivious elements remained in. And some people even argue that there was another lyric change -- where Barrett sings "walk with me", there's a slight "f" sound in his vocal. As someone who does a lot of microphone work myself, it sounds to me like just one of those things that happens while recording, but a lot of people are very insistent that Barrett is deliberately singing a different word altogether: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Candy and a Currant Bun"] The A-side, meanwhile, was inspired by real life. Both Barrett and Waters had mothers who used  to take in female lodgers, and both had regularly had their lodgers' underwear stolen from washing lines. While they didn't know anything else about the thief, he became in Barrett's imagination a man who liked to dress up in the clothing after he stole it: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Arnold Layne"] After recording the two tracks with Joe Boyd, the natural assumption was that the record would be put out on Elektra, the label which Boyd worked for in the UK, but Jac Holzman, the head of Elektra records, wasn't interested, and so a bidding war began for the single, as by this point the group were the hottest thing in London. For a while it looked like they were going to sign to Track Records, the label owned by the Who's management, but in the end EMI won out. Right as they signed, the News of the World was doing a whole series of articles about pop stars and their drug use, and the last of the articles talked about The Pink Floyd and their association with LSD, even though they hadn't released a record yet. EMI had to put out a press release saying that the group were not psychedelic, insisting"The Pink Floyd are not trying to create hallucinatory effects in their audience." It was only after getting signed that the group became full-time professionals. Waters had by this point graduated from university and was working as a trainee architect, and quit his job to become a pop star. Wright dropped out of university, but Mason and Barrett took sabbaticals. Barrett in particular seems to have seen this very much as a temporary thing, talking about how he was making so much money it would be foolish not to take the opportunity while it lasted, but how he was going to resume his studies in a year. "Arnold Layne" made the top twenty, and it would have gone higher had the pirate radio station Radio London, at the time the single most popular radio station when it came to pop music, not banned the track because of its sexual content. However, it would be the only single Joe Boyd would work on with the group. EMI insisted on only using in-house producers, and so while Joe Boyd would go on to a great career as a producer, and we'll see him again, he was replaced with Norman Smith. Smith had been the chief engineer on the Beatles records up to Rubber Soul, after which he'd been promoted to being a producer in his own right, and Geoff Emerick had taken over. He also had aspirations to pop stardom himself, and a few years later would have a transatlantic hit with "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?" under the name Hurricane Smith: [Excerpt: Hurricane Smith, "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?"] Smith's production of the group would prove controversial among some of the group's longtime fans, who thought that he did too much to curtail their more experimental side, as he would try to get the group to record songs that were more structured and more commercial, and would cut down their improvisations into a more manageable form. Others, notably Peter Jenner, thought that Smith was the perfect producer for the group. They started work on their first album, which was mostly recorded in studio three of Abbey Road, while the Beatles were just finishing off work on Sgt Pepper in studio two. The album was titled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, after the chapter from The Wind in the Willows, and other than a few extended instrumental showcases, most of the album was made up of short, whimsical, songs by Barrett that were strongly infused with imagery from late-Victorian and Edwardian children's books. This is one of the big differences between the British and American psychedelic scenes. Both the British and American undergrounds were made up of the same type of people -- a mixture of older radical activists, often Communists, who had come up in Britain in the Ban the Bomb campaigns and in America in the Civil Rights movement; and younger people, usually middle-class students with radical politics from a privileged background, who were into experimenting with drugs and alternative lifestyles. But the  social situations were different. In America, the younger members of the underground were angry and scared, as their principal interest was in stopping the war in Vietnam in which so many of them were being killed. And the music of the older generation of the underground, the Civil Rights activists, was shot through with influence from the blues, gospel, and American folk music, with a strong Black influence. So that's what the American psychedelic groups played, for the most part, very bluesy, very angry, music, By contrast, the British younger generation of hippies were not being drafted to go to war, and mostly had little to complain about, other than a feeling of being stifled by their parents' generation's expectations. And while most of them were influenced by the blues, that wasn't the music that had been popular among the older underground people, who had either been listening to experimental European art music or had been influenced by Ewan MacColl and his associates into listening instead to traditional old English ballads, things like the story of Tam Lin or Thomas the Rhymer, where someone is spirited away to the land of the fairies: [Excerpt: Ewan MacColl, "Thomas the Rhymer"] As a result, most British musicians, when exposed to the culture of the underground over here, created music that looked back to an idealised childhood of their grandparents' generation, songs that were nostalgic for a past just before the one they could remember (as opposed to their own childhoods, which had taken place in war or the immediate aftermath of it, dominated by poverty, rationing, and bomb sites (though of course Barrett's childhood in Cambridge had been far closer to this mythic idyll than those of his contemporaries from Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle, or London). So almost every British musician who was making music that might be called psychedelic was writing songs that were influenced both by experimental art music and by pre-War popular song, and which conjured up images from older children's books. Most notably of course at this point the Beatles were recording songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" about places from their childhood, and taking lyrical inspiration from Victorian circus posters and the works of Lewis Carroll, but Barrett was similarly inspired. One of the books he loved most as a child was "The Little Grey Men" by BB, a penname for Denys Watkins-Pitchford. The book told the story of three gnomes,  Baldmoney, Sneezewort, and Dodder, and their adventures on a boat when the fourth member of their little group, Cloudberry, who's a bit of a rebellious loner and more adventurous than the other three, goes exploring on his own and they have to go off and find him. Barrett's song "The Gnome" doesn't use any precise details from the book, but its combination of whimsy about a gnome named Grimble-gromble and a reverence for nature is very much in the mould of BB's work: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "The Gnome"] Another huge influence on Barrett was Hillaire Belloc. Belloc is someone who is not read much any more, as sadly he is mostly known for the intense antisemitism in some of his writing, which stains it just as so much of early twentieth-century literature is stained, but he was one of the most influential writers of the early part of the twentieth century. Like his friend GK Chesterton he was simultaneously an author of Catholic apologia and a political campaigner -- he was a Liberal MP for a few years, and a strong advocate of an economic system known as Distributism, and had a peculiar mixture of very progressive and extremely reactionary ideas which resonated with a lot of the atmosphere in the British underground of the time, even though he would likely have profoundly disapproved of them. But Belloc wrote in a variety of styles, including poems for children, which are the works of his that have aged the best, and were a huge influence on later children's writers like Roald Dahl with their gleeful comic cruelty. Barrett's "Matilda Mother" had lyrics that were, other than the chorus where Barrett begs his mother to read him more of the story, taken verbatim from three poems from Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children -- "Jim, Who Ran away from his Nurse, and was Eaten by a Lion", "Henry King (Who chewed bits of String, and was cut off in Dreadful Agonies)", and "Matilda (Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death)" -- the titles of those give some idea of the kind of thing Belloc would write: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Matilda Mother (early version)"] Sadly for Barrett, Belloc's estate refused to allow permission for his poems to be used, and so he had to rework the lyrics, writing new fairy-tale lyrics for the finished version. Other sources of inspiration for lyrics came from books like the I Ching, which Barrett used for "Chapter 24", having bought a copy from the Indica Bookshop, the same place that John Lennon had bought The Psychedelic Experience, and there's been some suggestion that he was deliberately trying to copy Lennon in taking lyrical ideas from a book of ancient mystic wisdom. During the recording of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the group continued playing live. As they'd now had a hit single, most of their performances were at Top Rank Ballrooms and other such venues around the country, on bills with other top chart groups, playing to audiences who seemed unimpressed or actively hostile. They also, though made two important appearances. The more well-known of these was at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, a benefit for International Times magazine with people including Yoko Ono, their future collaborator Ron Geesin, John's Children, Soft Machine, and The Move also performing. The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream is now largely regarded as *the* pivotal moment in the development of the UK counterculture, though even at the time some participants noted that there seemed to be a rift developing between the performers, who were often fairly straightforward beer-drinking ambitious young men who had latched on to kaftans and talk about enlightenment as the latest gimmick they could use to get ahead in the industry, and the audience who seemed to be true believers. Their other major performance was at an event called "Games for May -- Space Age Relaxation for the Climax of Spring", where they were able to do a full long set in a concert space with a quadrophonic sound system, rather than performing in the utterly sub-par environments most pop bands had to at this point. They came up with a new song written for the event, which became their second single, "See Emily Play". [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] Emily was apparently always a favourite name of Barrett's, and he even talked with one girlfriend about the possibility of naming their first child Emily, but the Emily of the song seems to have had a specific inspiration. One of the youngest attendees at the London Free School was an actual schoolgirl, Emily Young, who would go along to their events with her schoolfriend Anjelica Huston (who later became a well-known film star). Young is now a world-renowned artist, regarded as arguably Britain's greatest living stone sculptor, but at the time she was very like the other people at the London Free School -- she was from a very privileged background, her father was Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, a Labour Peer and minister who later joined the SDP. But being younger than the rest of the attendees, and still a little naive, she was still trying to find her own personality, and would take on attributes and attitudes of other people without fully understanding them,  hence the song's opening lines, "Emily tries, but misunderstands/She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dream til tomorrow". The song gets a little darker towards the end though, and the image in the last verse, where she puts on a gown and floats down a river forever *could* be a gentle, pastoral, image of someone going on a boat ride, but it also could be a reference to two rather darker sources. Barrett was known to pick up imagery both from classic literature and from Arthurian legend, and so the lines inevitably conjure up both the idea of Ophelia drowning herself and of the Lady of Shallot in Tennyson's Arthurian poem, who is trapped in a tower but finds a boat, and floats down the river to Camelot but dies before the boat reaches the castle: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] The song also evokes very specific memories of Barrett's childhood -- according to Roger Waters, the woods mentioned in the lyrics are meant to be woods in which they had played as children, on the road out of Cambridge towards the Gog and Magog Hills. The song was apparently seven minutes long in its earliest versions, and required a great deal of editing to get down to single length, but it was worth it, as the track made the top ten. And that was where the problems started. There are two different stories told about what happened to Roger Barrett over the next forty years, and both stories are told by people with particular agendas, who want particular versions of him to become the accepted truth. Both stories are, in the extreme versions that have been popularised, utterly incompatible with each other, but both are fairly compatible with the scanty evidence we have. Possibly the truth lies somewhere between them. In one version of the story, around this time Barrett had a total mental breakdown, brought on or exacerbated by his overuse of LSD and Mandrax (a prescription drug consisting of a mixture of the antihistamine diphenhydramine and the sedative methaqualone, which was marketed in the US under the brand-name Quaalude), and that from late summer 1967 on he was unable to lead a normal life, and spent the rest of his life as a burned-out shell. The other version of the story is that Barrett was a little fragile, and did have periods of mental illness, but for the most part was able to function fairly well. In this version of the story, he was neurodivergent, and found celebrity distressing, but more than that he found the whole process of working within commercial restrictions upsetting -- having to appear on TV pop shows and go on package tours was just not something he found himself able to do, but he was responsible for a whole apparatus of people who relied on him and his group for their living. In this telling, he was surrounded by parasites who looked on him as their combination meal-ticket-cum-guru, and was simply not suited for the role and wanted to sabotage it so he could have a private life instead. Either way, *something* seems to have changed in Barrett in a profound way in the early summer of 1967. Joe Boyd talks about meeting him after not having seen him for a few weeks, and all the light being gone from his eyes. The group appeared on Top of the Pops, Britain's top pop TV show, three times to promote "See Emily Play", but by the third time Barrett didn't even pretend to mime along with the single. Towards the end of July, they were meant to record a session for the BBC's Saturday Club radio show, but Barrett walked out of the studio before completing the first song. It's notable that Barrett's non-cooperation or inability to function was very much dependent on circumstance. He was not able to perform for Saturday Club, a mainstream pop show aimed at a mass audience, but gave perfectly good performances on several sessions for John Peel's radio show The Perfumed Garden, a show firmly aimed at Pink Floyd's own underground niche. On the thirty-first of July, three days after the Saturday Club walkout, all the group's performances for the next month were cancelled, due to "nervous exhaustion". But on the eighth of August, they went back into the studio, to record "Scream Thy Last Scream", a song Barrett wrote and which Nick Mason sang: [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Scream Thy Last Scream"] That was scheduled as the group's next single, but the record company vetoed it, and it wouldn't see an official release for forty-nine years. Instead they recorded another single, "Apples and Oranges": [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Apples and Oranges"] That was the last thing the group released while Barrett was a member. In November 1967 they went on a tour of the US, making appearances on American Bandstand and the Pat Boone Show, as well as playing several gigs. According to legend, Barrett was almost catatonic on the Pat Boone show, though no footage of that appears to be available anywhere -- and the same things were said about their performance on Bandstand, and when that turned up, it turned out Barrett seemed no more uncomfortable miming to their new single than any of the rest of the band, and was no less polite when Dick Clark asked them questions about hamburgers. But on shows on the US tour, Barrett would do things like detune his guitar so it just made clanging sounds, or just play a single note throughout the show. These are, again, things that could be taken in two different ways, and I have no way to judge which is the more correct. On one level, they could be a sign of a chaotic, disordered, mind, someone dealing with severe mental health difficulties. On the other, they're the kind of thing that Barrett was applauded and praised for in the confines of the kind of avant-garde underground audience that would pay to hear AMM or Yoko Ono, the kind of people they'd been performing for less than a year earlier, but which were absolutely not appropriate for a pop group trying to promote their latest hit single. It could be that Barrett was severely unwell, or it could just be that he wanted to be an experimental artist and his bandmates wanted to be pop stars -- and one thing absolutely everyone agrees is that the rest of the group were more ambitious than Barrett was. Whichever was the case, though, something had to give. They cut the US tour short, but immediately started another British package tour, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Move, Amen Corner and the Nice. After that tour they started work on their next album, A Saucerful of Secrets. Where Barrett was the lead singer and principal songwriter on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he only sings and writes one song on A Saucerful of Secrets, which is otherwise written by Waters and Wright, and only appears at all on two more of the tracks -- by the time it was released he was out of the group. The last song he tried to get the group to record was called "Have You Got it Yet?" and it was only after spending some time rehearsing it that the rest of the band realised that the song was a practical joke on them -- every time they played it, he would change the song around so they would mess up, and pretend they just hadn't learned the song yet. They brought in Barrett's old friend Dave Gilmour, initially to be a fifth member on stage to give the band some stability in their performances, but after five shows with the five-man lineup they decided just not to bother picking Barrett up, but didn't mention he was out of the group, to avoid awkwardness. At the time, Barrett and Rick Wright were flatmates, and Wright would actually lie to Barrett and say he was just going out to buy a packet of cigarettes, and then go and play gigs without him. After a couple of months of this, it was officially announced that Barrett was leaving the group. Jenner and King went with him, convinced that he was the real talent in the group and would have a solo career, and the group carried on with new management. We'll be looking at them more in future episodes. Barrett made a start at recording a solo album in mid-1968, but didn't get very far. Jenner produced those sessions, and later said "It seemed a good idea to go into the studio because I knew he had the songs. And he would sometimes play bits and pieces and you would think 'Oh that's great.' It was a 'he's got a bit of a cold today and it might get better' approach. It wasn't a cold -- and you knew it wasn't a cold -- but I kept thinking if he did the right things he'd come back to join us. He'd gone out and maybe he'd come back. That was always the analogy in my head. I wanted to make it feel friendly for him, and that where we were was a comfortable place and that he could come back and find himself again. I obviously didn't succeed." A handful of tracks from those sessions have since been released, including a version of “Golden Hair”, a setting by Barrett of a poem by James Joyce that he would later revisit: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, “Golden Hair (first version)”] Eleven months later, he went back into the studio again, this time with producer Malcolm Jones, to record an album that later became The Madcap Laughs, his first solo album. The recording process for the album has been the source of some controversy, as initially Jones was producing the whole album, and they were working in a way that Barrett never worked before. Where previously he had cut backing tracks first and only later overdubbed his vocals, this time he started by recording acoustic guitar and vocals, and then overdubbed on top of that. But after several sessions, Jones was pulled off the album, and Gilmour and Waters were asked to produce the rest of the sessions. This may seem a bit of a callous decision, since Gilmour was the person who had replaced Barrett in his group, but apparently the two of them had remained friends, and indeed Gilmour thought that Barrett had only got better as a songwriter since leaving the band. Where Malcolm Jones had been trying, by his account, to put out something that sounded like a serious, professional, record, Gilmour and Waters seemed to regard what they were doing more as producing a piece of audio verite documentary, including false starts and studio chatter. Jones believed that this put Barrett in a bad light, saying the outtakes "show Syd, at best as out of tune, which he rarely was, and at worst as out of control (which, again, he never was)." Gilmour and Waters, on the other hand, thought that material was necessary to provide some context for why the album wasn't as slick and professional as some might have hoped. The eventual record was a hodge-podge of different styles from different sessions, with bits from the Jenner sessions, the Jones sessions, and the Waters and Gilmour sessions all mixed together, with some tracks just Barrett badly double-tracking himself with an acoustic guitar, while other tracks feature full backing by Soft Machine. However, despite Jones' accusations that the album was more-or-less sabotaged by Gilmour and Waters, the fact remains that the best tracks on the album are the ones Barrett's former bandmates produced, and there are some magnificent moments on there. But it's a disturbing album to listen to, in the same way other albums by people with clear talent but clear mental illness are, like Skip Spence's Oar, Roky Erickson's later work, or the Beach Boys Love You. In each case, the pleasure one gets is a real pleasure from real aesthetic appreciation of the work, but entangled with an awareness that the work would not exist in that form were the creator not suffering. The pleasure doesn't come from the suffering -- these are real artists creating real art, not the kind of outsider art that is really just a modern-day freak-show -- but it's still inextricable from it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Dark Globe"] The Madcap Laughs did well enough that Barrett got to record a follow-up, titled simply Barrett. This one was recorded over a period of only a handful of months, with Gilmour and Rick Wright producing, and a band consisting of Gilmour, Wright, and drummer Jerry Shirley. The album is generally considered both more consistent and less interesting than The Madcap Laughs, with less really interesting material, though there are some enjoyable moments on it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Effervescing Elephant"] But the album is a little aimless, and people who knew him at the time seem agreed that that was a reflection of his life. He had nothing he *needed* to be doing -- no  tour dates, no deadlines, no pressure at all, and he had a bit of money from record royalties -- so he just did nothing at all. The one solo gig he ever played, with the band who backed him on Barrett, lasted four songs, and he walked off half-way through the fourth. He moved back to Cambridge for a while in the early seventies, and he tried putting together a new band with Twink, the drummer of the Pink Fairies and Pretty Things, Fred Frith, and Jack Monck, but Frith left after one gig. The other three performed a handful of shows either as "Stars" or as "Barrett, Adler, and Monck", just in the Cambridge area, but soon Barrett got bored again. He moved back to London, and in 1974 he made one final attempt to make a record, going into the studio with Peter Jenner, where he recorded a handful of tracks that were never released. But given that the titles of those tracks were things like "Boogie #1", "Boogie #2", "Slow Boogie", "Fast Boogie", "Chooka-Chooka Chug Chug" and "John Lee Hooker", I suspect we're not missing out on a lost masterpiece. Around this time there was a general resurgence in interest in Barrett, prompted by David Bowie having recorded a version of "See Emily Play" on his covers album Pin-Ups, which came out in late 1973: [Excerpt: David Bowie, "See Emily Play"] At the same time, the journalist Nick Kent wrote a long profile of Barrett, The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett, which like Kent's piece on Brian Wilson a year later, managed to be a remarkable piece of writing with a sense of sympathy for its subject and understanding of his music, but also a less-than-accurate piece of journalism which led to a lot of myths and disinformation being propagated. Barrett briefly visited his old bandmates in the studio in 1975 while they were recording the album Wish You Were Here -- some say even during the recording of the song "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond", which was written specifically about Barrett, though Nick Mason claims otherwise -- and they didn't recognise him at first, because by this point he had a shaved head and had put on a great deal of weight. He seemed rather sad, and that was the last time any of them saw him, apart from Roger Waters, who saw him in Harrod's a few years later. That time, as soon as Barrett recognised Waters, he dropped his bag and ran out of the shop. For the next thirty-one years, Barrett made no public appearances. The last time he ever voluntarily spoke to a journalist, other than telling them to go away, was in 1982, just after he'd moved back to Cambridge, when someone doorstopped him and he answered a few questions and posed for a photo before saying "OK! That's enough, this is distressing for me, thank you." He had the reputation for the rest of his life of being a shut-in, a recluse, an acid casualty. His family, on the other hand, have always claimed that while he was never particularly mentally or physically healthy, he wasn't a shut-in, and would go to the pub, meet up with his mother a couple of times a week to go shopping, and chat to the women behind the counter at Sainsbury's and at the pharmacy. He was also apparently very good with children who lived in the neighbourhood. Whatever the truth of his final decades, though, however mentally well or unwell he actually was, one thing is very clear, which is that he was an extremely private man, who did not want attention, and who was greatly distressed by the constant stream of people coming and looking through his letterbox, trying to take photos of him, trying to interview him, and so on. Everyone on his street knew that when people came asking which was Syd Barrett's house, they were meant to say that no-one of that name lived there -- and they were telling the truth. By the time he moved back, he had stopped answering to "Syd" altogether, and according to his sister "He came to hate the name latterly, and what it meant." He did, in 2001, go round to his sister's house to watch a documentary about himself on the TV -- he didn't own a TV himself -- but he didn't enjoy it and his only comment was that the music was too noisy. By this point he never listened to rock music, just to jazz and classical music, usually on the radio. He was financially secure -- Dave Gilmour made sure that when compilations came out they always included some music from Barrett's period in the group so he would receive royalties, even though Gilmour had no contact with him after 1975 -- and he spent most of his time painting -- he would take photos of the paintings when they were completed, and then burn the originals. There are many stories about those last few decades, but given how much he valued his privacy, it wouldn't be right to share them. This is a history of rock music, and 1975 was the last time Roger Keith Barrett ever had anything to do with rock music voluntarily. He died of cancer in 2006, and at his funeral there was a reading from The Little Grey Men, which was also quoted in the Order of Service -- "The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things, their colours lights and shades; these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts.” There was no rock music played at Barrett's funeral -- instead there were a selection of pieces by Handel, Haydn, and Bach, ending with Bach's Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major, one of his favourite pieces: [Excerpt: Glenn Gould, "Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major"]  As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before. Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked. “I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight he ran towards the slumbering Portly. But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Ben Vaughn es un conocido músico y productor estadounidense con una trayectoria a sus espaldas de casi cuatro décadas. Es también un gran conocedor musical, un estudioso de los sonidos del pasado con un gusto exquisito y ecléctico como selector de canciones, faceta que muestra de forma semanal en su programa de radio The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn. Playlist; (sintonía) DICK HYMAN “The Liquidator” ALAN VEGA “Juke box baby” NINA SIMONE “See-line woman” SIR DOUGLAS QUINTET “Mendocino” SLIM HARPO “Baby scratch my back” NINO ROTA “Amacord” CHARLIE FEATHERS “Can’t hardly stand it” MICKY LEE LANE “Shaggy dog” TIM HARDIN “Misty roses” THE CRAMPS “Human fly” SERGE GAINSBOURG “Requiem pour un twister” ASTRUD GILBERTO “Agua de beber” DELROY WILSON “Better must come” ALEX CHILTON “Bangkok” CHARLEY PRIDE “Is anybody goin’ to San Antone” PETER SARSTEDT “Where do you go to my lovely” LINK WRAY “Fat back” ARTHUR ALEXANDER “Anna” Escuchar audio

Show 233 - Buddy Guy - My Time After a While and Blues Harp Special - On Bluesology this week, we check out the Harp Players who have made their mark over the years. Top of the list is of course is Little Walter Jacobs. Plus Junior Wells, John Lee Williamson, his namesake Sonny Boy Williamson the second, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield, Jimmy Reed, Slim Harpo and Charlie Musselwhite. Broadcast on Otago Access Radio www.oar.org.nz

Show 231 - Slim Harpo - Baby Scratch My Back and Leading Blues Pianists Broadcast on Otago Access Radio www.oar.org.nz

On this Kenny Neal interview: “Maybe I'M HERE for a REASON…” Using his integrity & incredible work ethic early on, to reach his goals… Most important life lesson he learned… taking time off from music to become a Broadway actor, and the one thing he took back to his music career from this experience… dealing with a horrible family tragedy & loss, and surviving cancer all in the same year… stories about working with Buddy Guy, Lucky Peterson, Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, Big Mama Thornton, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Big Mama Thornton… Best childhood memories, love, passion, being “a man to your word” and more. Positive, pure and good vibes on this one, a must see/listen! Cool Guitar & Music T-Shirts!: http://www.GuitarMerch.com   Kenny Neal is a blues artist who's an outstanding guitarist, singer & songwriter from New Orleans. Kenny's a member of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame and has won more blues awards for songs, performances and albums... than I could even fit on this page. Kenny's dad, Raful was a successful harp player working with artists like Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo. When he was 13, Kenny started playing out on the road with his dad's band and eventually was playing bass with Buddy Guy. Kenny's had a prolific career releasing 22 albums since 1987, including his latest album, Straight From The Heart. Subscribe & Website:  https://www.everyonelovesguitar.com/subscribe Support this show: http://www.everyonelovesguitar.com/support

Broadcast on Otago Access Radio www.oar.org.nz

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Kenny NealIf you want to experience the “Real Deal”, take time out to find Kenny Neal. One of the strongest modern proponents of Baton Rouge swamp blues, Kenny Neal is a second-generation southern Louisiana bluesman who is cognizant of the region's venerable blues tradition and imaginative enough to steer it in fresh directions. Neal was born on October 14, 1957 in New Orleans. His dad, harpist Raful Neal, was a Baton Rouge blues mainstay whose pals included Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo (the latter gave three-year-old Kenny his first harmonica).

Bing Crosby "Try A Little Tenderness"Ruth Brown "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean"Hank Williams "Long Gone Lonesome Blues"Eilen Jewell "Hallelujah Band"John Hammond "Murder In The Red Barn"Langhorne Slim "Alligator Girl"Ted Hawkins "North to Alaska"Martha Carter "I'm Through Crying"THE BLACK CROWES "She Gave Good Sunflower"Steve Earle "Now She's Gone"James McMurtry "Song for a Deck Hand's Daughter"Geeshie Wiley "Last Kind Word Blues"Lucinda Williams "Can't Let Go"The Wandering "Old Joe Clark"Freddy King "Have You Ever Loved A Woman"Hank Penny And His California Cowhands "What She's Got Is Mine"Little Miss Jessie "My Baby Has Gone"Lyle Lovett "If I Had a Boat"Howlin' Wolf "Sugar Mama (Live 1963)"Buddie Emmons "Bluemmons"Joan Shelley "We'd Be Home"Lucero "The Only One"Little Willie John "Fever"George Jones "White Lightning"Benny Goodman & His Orchestra "Your Mother's Son-In-Law"Slim Harpo "Buzz Me Babe"Loretta Lynn "Heartaches Meet Mr. Blues"Neko Case "Deep Red Bells"Bo Diddley "Pretty Thing"Bonnie Raitt "Give It up or Let Me Go"Jimmy & Mama Yancey "Santa Fe Blues"Gillian Welch "I Had a Real Good Mother and Father"Jimmie Rodgers "Long Tall Mama Blues"Arthur Crudup "That's Alright Mama"Satan and Adam "Crawdad Hole""Sweet" Emma Barrett and Her Dixieland Boys "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll"Bob Dylan "Floater (Too Much to Ask)"Trixie Butler "You Got The Right Key"Pearl Reaves "Step It Up And Go"Pearl Reaves "You Can't Stay Here"Pearl Reeves And The Concords "You Can't Stay Here"Milton Brown "Easy Ridin' Papa"Albert King "I'll Play The Blues For You (Album Version - (Parts 1 & 2))"Andrew Bird "Fake Palindromes"Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys "Steel Guitar Rag"Reverend Gary Davis "Motherless Children"Blue Lu Barker "Loan Me Your Husband (03-21-49)"Tom Waits "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)"Bessie Smith "I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama"Beastie Boys "Slow and Low"

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

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