Podcasts about songs

While Ryan & Tim are still enjoying some PTO, the rest of the crew begins the month of July by coming to the show with a topic that's a mystery to the others...- Ryan's sound drops- Songs we didn't know were covers- Blind ranking: Patriotic themed movie speeches- ChatGPT presents: July entertainment trivia- Add / Subtract / Refurbish: Disney World (& Hersheypark)All of this & more... We hope you have a great week!*Stay connected with all things 3CT related at https://linktr.ee/3countthursday *Leave us a message anytime on our voicemail at (717) 473-7833*Subscribe to the show on ALL podcast platforms & YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@3CountThursday)*You can get your 3CT merch on TeePublic at https://www.teepublic.com/user/3countthursday*Follow 3CT on our social channels:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/3CountThursday/IG: https://www.instagram.com/3countthursday/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@3countthursdayBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/3countthursday.bsky.socialTwitter: https://twitter.com/3CountThursdayTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/3countthursdayCreative Commons Music used in this show created by Jason Shaw on https://audionautix.com/

Show Date: 6/30/25Dan and Andy talk sports updates. The death of Dave Parker, MLB, WNBA, and Andy's "Soap Box" segment.Sports and Songs Podcast Links:https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/

Winter auf der schottischen Insel Skye. Die Blicke von Kira (Aylin Tezel) und Ian (Chris Fulton) treffen sich. Sie lächeln. Sie wissen nichts voneinander, nur dass sie beide auf der Flucht sind. Nicht unbedingt vor etwas Konkretem, sondern vor allem vor sich selbst. Diese flüchtige Begegnung auf Skye wird sie tief verbinden, bevor sie ebenso plötzlich wieder auseinandergerissen werden und, ohne es zu wissen, in London parallel zueinander weiterleben. Heute geht es bei “Credit to the Edit Podcast” um “Falling into Place”, einen Liebesfilm, der die Regeln des Genres neu setzt. Das Langfilmdebüt von Aylin Tezel, die nicht nur Regie führte und das Drehbuch schrieb, sondern auch eine der beiden Hauptrollen spielt, besticht durch seine poetische Erzählweise und eine Montage, die nicht nur Szenen verbindet, sondern vor allem die inneren Welten der Protagonisten erfahrbar macht.   Aylin Tezel Aylin Tezel ist einem breiten Publikum vor allem als Schauspielerin bekannt, unter anderem aus Produktionen wie “Am Himmel der Tag”, “7500” oder “Unbroken”. Mit “Falling into Place” gibt sie ihr Langfilm-Regiedebüt. Aylin wurde bereits vielfach ausgezeichnet und ist Mitglied der European Film Academy. Sie lebt in Berlin und pendelt häufig nach London.   David J. Achilles David J. Achilles zählt zu den profiliertesten Editoren des Landes. Seit 2003 arbeitet er als freiberuflicher Filmeditor in Berlin, seine Montage wurde u. a. in Hof, bei der Berlinale und mit Nominierungen für den Deutschen Fernsehpreis und den Deutschen Filmpreis ausgezeichnet. Zu seinen Arbeiten zählen Kino- und Fernsehproduktionen wie „CLEO“, „Am Himmel der Tag“ (ja, genau, der Film mit Aylin Tezel) und „Falling into Place“. 2022 erschien sein Buch „Die Kunst der Auslassung – Montage im szenischen Film“.   In dieser Folge wird klar: Filmschnitt ist mehr als das Aneinanderfügen von Szenen. Er ist emotionales Feintuning, rhythmische Komposition, ein Spiel mit Nähe und Distanz. “Falling into Place” ist der Beweis, dass Montage ein tragendes Erzählmittel sein kann, das sowohl Herz als auch Verstand berührt. Noch bis zum 12. Juli könnt ihr den Film in der arte-Mediathek sehen. (Und danach in diese Folge hören.)   Timeline-Shortcuts 00:06  Anmoderation  01:33  Gesprächsstart – Wie die Idee zu Falling into Place entstand  16:00  Vom Skript zum Schnitt: Team­findung & First Assembly  30:00  Rhythmus & Musik: Poetische Montage und 18 Songs 63:00  Kategorien 72:50  Abmoderation     Links Film Falling into Place – IMDb Falling into Place @ Arte Mediathek (bis 12.07.) Gäste & Buch Aylin Tezel – IMDb David J. Achilles – Crew United Die Kunst der Auslassung (Buch) – Halem Verlag Aylin Tezel: Was tut sich im deutschen Film? Lola-Nominierung David J. Achilles Referenzfilme Before Sunrise (1995) – Wikipedia Blue Valentine (2010) – Artikel zur 16 mm-Ästhetik The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) Musik Jon Hopkins – Offizielle Website Ben Lukas Boysen – Original Score Cutting Crew – „(I Just) Died in Your Arms“

If you haven't heard Robert's new soundtrack for UNION - listen to it today! I've been digging into it a lot the last few weeks, so I wanted to revisit his excellent episodeFor this episode of Songs of Our Lives, I invite Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on the show. After learning about how he first got into soundtracking and scoring work and I tell a story about the time we actually met in person, Robert brings the heat. We wade well beyond the deep end, getting into the enigmatic wonder of Yoko Ono, the lyrical brilliance of Damon Locks, Sade always bringing the mood, the beauty behind “Chemirocha,” and why you just can't do it anymore with one of the greatest pop songs ever.Listen to all of Robert's picks HERE“Grasshopper Republic” Score“Grasshopper Republic” Film“Telemarketers” ScoreRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe's BandcampRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on InstagramSongs of Our Lives is a podcast series hosted by Brad Rose of Foxy Digitalis that explores the music that's made us and left a certain mark. Whether it's a song we associate with our most important moments, something that makes us cry, the things we love that nobody else does, or our favorite lyrics, we all have our own personal soundtrack. Join Foxy Digitalis on Patreon for extra questions and conversation in each episode (+ a whole lot more!)Follow Foxy Digitalis:WebsitePatreonInstagramTwitterBlueskyThe Jewel GardenSong ListHolst “The Planets: Mars”Dead Can Dance “Mesmerisim”Chemutoi Ketienya “Chemirocha”Japan “Ghosts”R. Kelly “Ignition (Remix)”Yoko Ono “Mindtrain”Sade “The Sweetest Taboo”Talk Talk “New Grass”The Eternals “Eternally Yours”Kelan Phil Cochran “African Skies”Revolutionaries “Kunta Kinte Dub”Alice Coltrane “Journey in Satchidananda”Albert Ayler “Love Cry”

REPLAY (Original Air Date March 11, 2024)   Today we are joined by Agent Brad Beeler. Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge Brad Beeler has been with the United States Secret Service for the past 25 years. He currently serves as instructor and Secret Service liaison at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Over the past 8 years in this role, he has trained agents throughout the federal law enforcement and intelligence community in credibility assessment and elicitation techniques.   Prior to arriving at NCCA, he was a polygraph examiner in the Chicago and St. Louis Field Offices and served on the permanent protection detail of former President George HW Bush and numerous foreign heads of state. Over the past 17 years as a federal polygraph examiner Special Agent Beeler has secured hundreds of confessions on high-profile investigations, often leading to the identification of previously unknown victims of serial offenders of both child exploitation and homicide investigations. Agent Beeler holds a master's degree in criminology and was previously selected as the U.S. Secret Service - Special Agent of the Year for his involvement in combating crimes against children.   Widely considered a communications expert in the U.S. federal law enforcement community, Agent Beeler has provided countless domestic and international presentations to law enforcement and intelligence agencies seeking to enhance their interviewing programs. [March 11, 2024]   00:00 - Intro 00:21 - Intro Links -          Social-Engineer.com - http://www.social-engineer.com/ -          Managed Voice Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/vishing-service/ -          Managed Email Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/se-phishing-service/ -          Adversarial Simulations - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/social-engineering-penetration-test/ -          Social-Engineer channel on SLACK - https://social-engineering-hq.slack.com/ssb -          CLUTCH - http://www.pro-rock.com/ -          innocentlivesfoundation.org - http://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/ 03:05 - Agent Brad Beeler Intro 05:05 - Part of a Team 07:58 - One of Lincoln's Final Acts 08:52 - Dual Mission 11:45 - The Broadband Effect 14:38 - Team Effort 17:35 - Worst of the Worst 21:13 - Common Ground 23:36 - Letting Them Be Heard 25:51 - Lyrics, Songs and Dance 28:49 - Mental Health Mandates 35:11 - Mentors -          Mrs. Bertran - Teacher -          Brian Leary - DHS Program Manager 37:21 - Book Recommendations -          The Interrogator - Hanns Scharff -          Spy the Lie - Philip Houston -          Captivate & Cues - Vanessa Van Edwards 39:24 - Find Agent Brad Beeler online -          Website: www.usajobs.gov -          Website: www.secretservice.gov -          LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bradbeeler1865/ 40:47 - Guest Wrap Up & Outro -          www.social-engineer.com -          www.innocentlivesfoundation.org

Music is an incredibly powerful and enjoyable artform. Not only does it make us want to sing along and dance, but it can move us to tears, open our hearts and inspire our souls.   Yet, as amazing as many songs are, the message they contain can be magnificent or their message can be complete madness. This 4-part series explores around a dozen amazing and famous songs—half with messages that are complete madness, and therefore, should be ignored, and half with messages that are magnificent and should be adopted.   In part two of the series, Roy, our host, explores three amazing songs that contain messages that are unhealthy, dysfunctional and dangerous, and therefore, they are songs you can love but shouldn't listen to.   In this episode, you'll hear songs that promote… ·      Violence and revenge as coping mechanisms; ·      Blame and self-righteousness; ·      Dishonesty and manipulation as relationship strategies; ·      Entitlement & Narcissism as positive traits; ·      And much, much more.   Don't miss the playful but poignant episode.   Additional Resources Roy may have mentioned on the show:   Roy's Website: https://coachingwithroy.com   Roy's Relationship Fitness Self-Assessment Test: https://coachingwithroy.com/the-relationship-fitness-self-test/   Roy's 4 Books: ·      Quantum Questions: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4RFZBS3/ ·      Relationship Bootcamp: https://amzn.to/360UsMR ·      Attracting Lasting Love: http://amzn.to/1UnYeYh ·      A Drink with Legs: https://amzn.to/31UBl3K     Roy's Group Coaching Program: https://coachingwithroy.com/group-coaching/   Roy's Complimentary 45-min. Coaching Session: To set up an appointment, email him at roy@coachingwithroy.com or call his cell 407-687-3387.   The Attracting Lasting Love podcast explores the dynamics of mature and adult dating, delving into the issues of emotional intelligence, the law of attraction, and the quest for a life partner or soulmate, while offering conscious insights and mindful advice on navigating modern relationships.

We lost one of our legendary screen stars earlier this year, so now we're passing through the gates of VAL-halla to celebrate some of his most notable films. That's right, this is the first in an occasional series of double features focused on the work of none other than the elusive, enigmatic Val Kilmer. To kick things off, Paul, Arlo, and Eric are going back to the very beginning. Kilmer got his big screen start in a Zucker-Abraham-Zucker laff riot, 1984's Top Secret!; with the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that Val wasn't a good fit for the ZAZ machine, and the gang tells us why. Faring much better is Martha Coolidge's 1985 cult college classic Real Genius, which avoids the pitfalls of the era's other slobs v. snobs comedies with real heart and–of course–a terrific lead performance from Kilmer. Where are he (and we) going next? Stay tuned! Plus, Eric sings the praises of synthpop artist Lights' new album A6.   NEXT: Four-Color Flashback gets mice-eval on your heinie with David Petersen's rodent epic Mouse Guard.     BREAKDOWN 00:00:27  -  Intro / Banter 00:21:06  -  Top Secret! 00:55:36  -  Real Genius 01:55:42  -  Outro / Next   LINKS Eric's review of A6 by Lights Top Secret!'s ridiculous bookstore scene backwards AND forwards The Behind-the-Scenes Story of Real Genius by Ashley Burns and Chloe Schildhause, Uproxx The Real Real Genius by Phyllis Rostykus, Slate Astrophysicist Michael Siegel discusses The Real Genius of Real Genius   MUSIC “Val Kilmer” by Bowling For Soup, The Great Burrito Extortion Case (2006) “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair (1984)  

The Music of America Podcast gets Season 3 underway this week with a visit with Alley Free from Huntsville. Songs include Demons Of My Past, Fine Wine, Maybe Possibly, Slow Down and Who's Gonna Fight For Me.

Statement of Joel and Kat reviewing The Magnus Archives, a horror/mystery podcast from the Rusty Quill, recorded direct from subjects Statement begins Well friends, we completed the first season of The Magnus Archives and we have a lot to discuss! From attacks by bugs, a werewolf man, creepy clown dolls and more! We also get new mysteries to ponder as we head deeper into the labyrinth of mysteries. Supplemental: We have decided to record more episodes detailing our continuing listen-through of this podcast. We'll report back once we know more 4:03    Succinct Summaries 8:55    Overall Plot Synopsis 30:27    Scariest episodes 35:52    Favorite Episodes 41:10    Free Fall 44:01    Lost and Found 50:01    Werewolf 55:21    The Killing Floor 59:21    Cheating Death 1:04:52    Strange Music 1:08:56    A Sturdy Lock 1:10:11    Properties of the Horrors 1:11:51    Random Thoughts 1:32:38    Miscellaneous Questions 1:40:18    NotSasha 1:46:19    The Traitor 1:50:16    Conspiracy Theories 1:51:31    Predictions for Season 2 1:54:11    Joel writes Poetry and song 1:55:52    Ode to the Horrors (Joel writes Songs) 1:57:55    Man versus Horrors (Joel writes Poetry) 1:59:27    Season 1 Q&A 2:02:37    Gertrude Robinson's Death 2:07:06    Research Notes from fans

The Songs of Jesus: An Introduction to the Psalms (Psalm 47) | 062925 by One Ancient Hope Presbyterian Church

The Healing Power of Songwriting: "I don't know how to write a song that doesn't have something to do with healing." - Eric GnezdaWe sit down with the multi-talented Eric Gnezda—an award-winning singer-songwriter, storyteller, and the creative force behind PBS's Songs At The Center. Broadcasting from Columbus, Ohio, and airing on over 400 PBS stations nationwide, Songs at the Center celebrates the power of music and the often unsung art of songwriting.Eric opens up about his journey from radio and newspaper columns to producing and hosting a nationally syndicated TV series. He shares how humor and heartfelt honesty shape his songwriting, the pivotal lessons he's learned from both the music industry and personal challenges, and why he believes music is a profound healing art.We explore the evolution of musical storytelling, the unexpected road to launching a beloved television show, and the importance of authenticity in art and life. Plus, Eric offers a backstage look into the show's origins, memorable guest moments, upcoming highlights, and his thoughts on guiding the next generation of songwriters.Tune in for an inspiring conversation about creativity, community, and the magic that happens when music brings people together.If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!Moments00:00 "Self-Discovery at 30"10:17 "Nashville's Geographic Influence"13:58 Music as Healing Art16:22 Healing Through Songwriting24:51 Amusing Financial Adviser Visit28:31 Songwriters' Unique Renditions35:15 Annex Memories and Song Lyrics41:50 Internet's Impact on Music Industry45:28 Music Creation Democratized50:57 "Encore Careers and New Opportunities"57:48 The Power of Songwriting Stories01:01:15 Listen and Learn for SongwritingOur top 3 takeaways:Say Yes to Opportunities—Even Unpaid Ones: Eric's early career was defined by seizing every chance, paid or not, which opened doors in radio, TV, and print. Experience and learning often outweigh immediate income in the long run.Authenticity Creates Impact: Eric shared how blending humor and vulnerability in his songwriting didn't just shape his music—it created space for healing and authentic connection, both for himself and his audience.Build Your Own Stage: Instead of waiting for permission or the “right place,” Eric launched "Songs at the Center" right in Columbus, Ohio. By owning his platform, he brought national exposure to local creativity, proving it's not where you build. It's what you build.We would love to hear from you.Give us your feedback, or suggest a topic, by leaving us a voice message.Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.Find us on Bluesky and Facebook.Please review our podcast on Google!And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.Recorded in...

Gather 'round, campers… the fire's lit, the s'mores are possessed, and the ghosts are vibin' to a killer playlist. In this toe-tapping, throat-slashing edition of Campfire Sit Down, the Music Man is back—Mista Glorious Gore becomes Mista Malave once again—and he's joined by The Movie Guy Bay Bay, Tommy James, for a blood-soaked mixtape mashup of mayhem. From “I Will Survive” as the anthem of a Final Girl massacre, to the eerie elegance of Amy Winehouse haunting a stylish sequel to Talk To Me, we're giving iconic hits a homicidal remix. Expect spooky renditions of classics by The Animals, Styx, ABBA, and even a Jordan Peele sacrifice with Alicia Keys. We're not just talking music—we're crafting full-blown horror scenes, cinematic trailers, and imaginary soundtracks that would make John Carpenter rise from his synth throne. Think horror movie vibes meets karaoke night at an abandoned camp with one cursed acoustic.   Enroll now and drop us a 5-star rating—we'll save you a seat at the campfire. Just be ready to belt out Amy Winehouse like your life depends on it.

Lassen euch die letzten Semesterwochen (und das Wetter ☀️) auch so schwitzen?

June 29 this day in music history

Songs of the Redeemed | PSALM 19 | Week 5This Psalm of meditative praise points to two of God's great gifts given to mankind that communicate God's goodness and greatness. One is creation. The other is the Law of God.

The ‘blessed one': their path and prospect   The ‘wicked': their path and prospect   Who is the ‘blessed one'?

This week Tom & Zeus discuss the article written by friend of show Greg Prato in Ultimate Guitar, "Top 10 Songs That Show KISS' Sensitive Side." KISS songs are many things, but sensitive? Well, author Greg Prato names 10 songs that he feels shows KISS' sensitive side. The guys discuss the list and break it down SIOL style. They also discuss KISS news as always and give an honest update on the KISS Storms Vegas event without the propaganda. To Read The Ultimate Guitar Article Please Click Below:   ⁠Ultimate Guitar "Top 10 Songs That Show KISS' Sensitive Side"⁠   To Purchase Shout It Out Loudcast's KISS Book “Raise Your Glasses: A Celebration Of 50 Years of KISS Songs By Celebrities, Musicians & Fans Please Click Below:   ⁠Raise Your Glasses Book⁠   For all things Shout It Out Loudcast check out our amazing website by clicking below:   ⁠www.ShoutItOutLoudcast.com⁠   Interested in more Shout It Out Loudcast content?  Care to help us out?  Come join us on Patreon by clicking below:   ⁠SIOL Patreon⁠   Get all your Shout It Out Loudcast Merchandise by clicking below:   ⁠Shout It Out Loudcast Merchandise at AMAZON⁠   Shop At Our Amazon Store by clicking below: ⁠Shout It Out Loudcast Amazon Store⁠   Please Email us comments or suggestions by clicking below: ⁠ShoutItOutLoudcast@Gmail.com⁠   Please subscribe to us and give us a 5 Star (Child) review on the following places below: ⁠iTunes⁠ ⁠Podchaser⁠ ⁠Stitcher⁠ ⁠iHeart Radio⁠ ⁠Spotify ⁠   Please follow us and like our social media pages clicking below: ⁠Twitter⁠ ⁠Facebook Page⁠ ⁠Facebook Group Page Shout It Out Loudcasters⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠   Proud Member of the Pantheon Podcast click below to see the website: ⁠Pantheon Podcast Network⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Musician Knox Chandler (The Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees) has made a career of using his guitar to create unique, otherworldly sound-scapes, working with a diverse array of acts including REM, Depeche Mode, Grace Jones, Marianne Faithful, Cyndi Lauper and many others. It's no surprise then, that the record that 'got him high' as a young man - and continues to astound and inspire him - is The Jimi Hendrix Experience's third and final studio album, the epic 'Electric Ladyland'. "Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland? The magic carpet waits for you, So don't you be late..." Songs discussed in this episode: Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Earth, Wind & Fire; Love Me Do - The Beatles; Fire, ...And the Gods Made Love, Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland), Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix; Until She Comes - The Psychedelic Furs; Loving Arms - Darden Smith; Voodoo Chile - Jimi Hendrix; Whiskey Wimmen - John Lee Hooker; Baby Please Don't Leave Me - Buddy Guy; Little Miss Strange, Long Hot Summer Night, Come On (Let The Good Times Roll), Gypsy Eyes, Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, Rainy Day, Dream Away - Jimi Hendrix; Sivad (Live) - Miles Davis; 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be), Still Raining, Still Dreaming, House Burning Down, All Along The Watchtower, Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix; Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Stevie Ray Vaughan; Tea Stained Edge, Lapis - Knox Chandler

After an unplanned hiatus, the boys come back STRONG with a real Season 2 Hall-of-Fame guest as the GREAT Leo London of The Domestics joins the show! One of Portland's most well-rounded and prolific songwriters, Leo plays some stripped down tunes live, and is an overall super fun, thoughtful thinker on all things music. We get back to our roots with deep dives into the concept of authenticity, fedora self-consciousness, developing a musical taste, and the howling loneliness of the American songbook. Songs this week include:"Tunnels and Trains" by The Domestics (11:53)"I Fed Animals" by Volk (26:30)"Love You Always" by The Domestics (39:50)"The Fix is In" by Will Stenberg as performed by Leo London (60:30)"5ft Rising High" by Twistur (70:00)

Withhold that instant gratification and life will always be an adventure. -------- Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible.     Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org   Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

Song of Songs 2:16, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His!" What a sweet and wondrous relationship exists between the believer and the Lord Jesus! What a privilege to call Him my Beloved! He is not only my Savior, but my daily Bread, my hourly Companion, my constant Joy. The more I know Him, the more I love Him. This short verse is a wellspring of soul-satisfying truth. It is the language of holy intimacy, breathed from the heart of a redeemed sinner who has been saved from eternal perdition by Jesus. Here the sincere Christian speaks with the warmth of experiential knowledge: "My Beloved is mine, and I am His!" "My Beloved is mine!" Who is this Beloved? He is the altogether lovely One, the fairest of ten thousand, the eternal Son of God. The believer dares to say that this glorious Person--this Prince of Heaven--is his! The One who reigns over angels, who upholds all creation by the word of His power--has freely given Himself to His redeemed people. All that He is, and all that He has, becomes theirs. His righteousness covers them. His intercession sustains them. His Spirit indwells them. His love surrounds them. His promises anchor them. Oh what infinite condescension, that such a Savior would belong to such unworthy and Hell-deserving sinners. "And I am His!" The believer belongs to Jesus--not merely by profession, but by redemption. He is bought with a price, sealed with His Spirit, and set apart for His glory. The Christian is not his own. His heart, his will, his time, his affections, his very life--are bound up in the One who gave Himself for him. What a glorious blessing it is to wholly belong to the tender, faithful, wise, and holy One, who loves us perfectly.

Hello, Hello, Hello,In this episode, "Past Lives" skeptics Cris (taking Dhruv's place) and Aryan invite "Past Lives" lover-for-life Tuhin Das (@tuhin221b on Twitter) to discuss and check the math(s), as it were, on director Celine Song's latest theatrical release, "Materialists."Listen to the full episode to hear where they agree—and largely disagree—on the effectiveness of Songs's writing and filmmaking choices as she navigates the complexities of modern love and marriage and the (Hollywood) economics behind it all. Spoilers, of course, for "Materialists" (and some for "Past Lives").TIMECODESIntro - [00:00:00 - 00:05:48]Initial Thoughts + Discourse - [00:05:48 - 00:24:20]Debating the Value of "Materialists" - [00:24:20 - 00:53:30]The (Hollywood) Economy - [00:53:30 - 01:25:50]"Past Lives" + Song vs Kuritzkes - [01:25:40 - 01:38:31]Do hit 'Follow' on Spotify if you haven't already to help the podcast reach more people!Follow our Instagram page:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/queenisdead.filmpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Instagram at:Aryan: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aryantalksfilm/⁠⁠Cris: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/prdscris/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Letterboxd at:Aryan: ⁠⁠⁠https://letterboxd.com/aryantalksfilms/⁠⁠Cris: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://letterboxd.com/crislim/⁠⁠

In this episode, we ponder what it means for a Tori Amos song to be “underrated.” Is “underrated” in this context even something definable? Or is it ultimately subjective and personal to the individual listener? Is a song underrated because Tori rarely or never performs it? Or is it a song that's been played so many times that we've taken it for granted and can no longer hear the genius and the grit that went into its creation? Or perhaps it lives on a latter-day Tori record that's less celebrated, less heard by the general public? In the spirit of our wildly successful – and a touch controversial – Best of Tori Amos episode, we bring to you The 20 Most Underrated Tori Songs. We repeated our very scientific method of each crafting individual lists of what we believe to be Tori's most underrated tracks – from proper albums only; no bsides, no soundtracks, no covers, no seasonal music - tallying each song's respective points and then ranking the ranking them in ascending order. The result is a playlist that spans many - but not all - of Tori's records, chock full of gags, goops, gogs, and go-figures. Given how underrated we likely all agree Tori is in the broader history of contemporary music, this very episode may be the definition of a fool's errand. Regardless, in the spirit of the woman we call Tori once calling herself an “ant fucker,” we are Introverted but willing to discuss Tori Amos' most underrated songs.Playlists:20 Most Underrated Songs JVKKMM

 As we've been examining over the course of Country Week, country music has found a larger audience, in part by widening its sonic palette. For the final episode of this series, we take a look at a genre on the outskirts of country – Americana music – and how it's being used to connect to the scene's musical roots.   Historically, Americana has embraced an acoustic sound, traditional repertoire, and an appetite for virtuosic technique. In bluegrass artists like Billy Strings and roots musicians like Sierra Ferrell, Nate and Charlie see if there's an antidote to be found for the issues that plague modern, mainstream country music. Songs discussed: The Punch Brothers – Rye Whiskey Sierra Ferrell – In Dreams Dolly Parton – Jolene Sierra Ferrell – I Could Drive You Crazy Sierra Ferrell, Zach Bryan – Holy Roller Billy Strings – Dust in a Baggie Billy Strings, Willie Nelson – California Sober Tyler Childers – In Your Love Tyler Childers – Phone Calls and Emails Tyler Childers – Rustin' In The Rain Don Gibson – Oh, Lonesome Me Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson – Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys The Chicks – Long Time Gone The Steeldrivers – Higher Than the Wall Beyoncé – Texas Hold'em I'm With Her – Espresso Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine,” my grandmother used to say. Then my mom repeated the same thing. And now I say it to my own children. But what does it mean to beware of “the little foxes”? After planting grapevines, it can take several years before they bear fruit. The vines require a lot of patience, care, watering, pruning, and protection. Foxes—even though small—can cause major damage by destroying the roots, eating the grapes, or chewing the stalk. In the poetic love story of the Song of Songs, Solomon warns, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards” (2:15). Some scholars believe this refers to seemingly small problems or behaviors that could threaten the young man and woman’s relationship if left unchecked. This warning also holds instruction for our spiritual journey. Little things like bitterness (Hebrews 12:15), “unwholesome talk” (Ephesians 4:29), or even harmful influence from others (1 Corinthians 15:33) can slip into our lives and hardly be noticed. My grandmother understood that little things can cause great harm, and her wisdom spoke volumes to her grandchildren. As we spend time in prayer and reading the Scriptures, the Spirit will help us avoid the “little foxes”—the temptations or habits that might spoil our relationship with others and our walk with Christ.

Beat Migs! And we have a simple question that involves getting kicked out!

So Chris this week, we're doing a musical!----Join Simtheory: https://simtheory.ai/----Songs in the musical:"So Chris This Week""What Will My Daily Driver Be""How Do You Choose a Model for Patricia?""It's Hard Being Me""I Dreamed a Dream of AGI""Driving Home To You"----All music produced using Simtheory with Suno 4.5. Thanks for listening!

We hope you enjoy today's Scripture reading and devotional aimed at equipping you for moral and spiritual transformation. Today's Bible reading is Jeremiah 30. To read along with the podcast, grab a print copy of the devotional. ESV Bible narration read by Paul R. House. Follow us on social media to stay up to date: Instagram Facebook Twitter

The boys are tired of all of this drama with our neighbors in the Great White North! So, they decided to fix it the only way they know how… With tariff busting riffage that will have everyone screaming: Oh, Canada!!! To present this cornucopia of uniquely Canadian bands we needed an expert. Welcome the voice of Winnipeg to your earholes; from the SeanGeek & FastFret Podcast: Mr. Sean McGinity! While many of these bands are not super-obscure to Canadians, they are in the States; which is a complete travesty! Join us as we take our rock n' roll pick-axes to the frozen tundra!Our hope is that we turn you on to something new, and what better way than highlighting all of the genres we cover from a specific area of the globe. Hope ya dig in and appreciate the amazing sound of Canada!Songs this week include:The Tragically Hip - “Grace, Too” from Day For Night(1994)The New Meanies - “7620 36th Avenue” from The Blue Meanies (1995) The Tea Party - “Fire In The Head” from The Edges Of Twilight (1995)Trooper - “The Boys In The Bright White Sportscar” from Two For The Show (1976)The Watchmen - “Stereo” from Silent Radar (1998)Propagandhi - “At Peace” from At Peace (2025)Moon Tan - “The Faceless Knight” from The Faceless Night (2016)If anyone wants to do a deep dive introduction to The Hip: four-part documentary series, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, on Prime VideoPlease subscribe everywhere that you listen to podcasts!Visit us: https://inobscuria.com/https://www.facebook.com/InObscuriahttps://x.com/inobscuriahttps://www.instagram.com/inobscuria/Buy cool stuff with our logo on it: InObscuria Store

Well, a movie finally broke us. Horror and mortal terror have a face.   In the absolutely dreadful “family film” Tooth Fairy (2010)—quite possibly the worst movie our podcast has ever covered—Dwayne Johnson plays Derek Thompson, a hockey player who specializes in knocking out opponents' teeth. He has a lot on his plate: He's dating Ashley Judd, who has two kids: An adorable little girl who loves him and a punk teenage boy who thinks he's full of crap (Because he is.). At the same time, Derek has some hotshot new competition in the form of Mick “The Stick” Donnelly, a hot-shot new prospect who is described in the span of 25 seconds by the team's coach as both “the future face of this (minor league) franchise” and “only here for a cup of coffee before he makes the NHL.”   Then he becomes the Tooth Fairy. Hilarity ensues.   Next week: We're off! We return on July 11 for an episode about Fast Five (2011).   The Summer of Rock is our summer 2025 miniseries covering the movie career of Dwayne Johnson through nine movies, presented in chronological order. Starting with his attempt at crossing over from the world of wrestling, The Rock's career got off to a bumpy start before finally taking off in the 2010s. But it wasn't long before the bumps returned, and we'll be telling the story for you all summer long!   Bonus video: Matt explains how director Paul Verhoeven could predict how the future would feel, through examining three of his movies: RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers. Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pzK6CiMUMxM    Subscribe to our Patreon, Load Bearing Beams: Collector's Edition for $5 a month to get two extra episodes! patreon.com/loadbearingbeams    Time stamps: 00:09:30 — History segment: The Rock's wrestling career winds down in 2003 and 2004 as he turns heel and embraces his “Hollywood Rock” persona; his acting career sputters as he tries a number of lead roles that don't work out; he pivots to family films, where he becomes much more successful; genesis of Tooth Fairy under writer Jim Piddock and director Michael Lemdeck  00:36:15 — In-depth movie discussion 01:59:45 — Final thoughts and star ratings   Source: “Interview with THE TOOTH FAIRY's Jim Piddock” by Clint Morris | Geek Week (2010) - https://bit.ly/4kVx6hL    Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine. Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify (https://bit.ly/48WBtUa), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3Q6kOVC), or YouTube (https://bit.ly/3MbU6tC).   Songs by Rural Route Nine in this episode: “Summer of Rock” - https://youtu.be/dvRY72jNIEE  “Winston-Salem” - https://youtu.be/-acMutUf8IM “Snake Drama” - https://youtu.be/xrzz8_2Mqkg “The Bible Towers of Bluebonnet” - https://youtu.be/k7wlxTGGEIQ "Summer of Rock" theme song credits: Words and music by Matt Stokes Engineered, mixed, and mastered by TJ Barends | Bare Sounds   Personnel: TJ Barends - backing vocals Wade Hymel - drums/guitar/backing vocals Laci Roth - vocals Matt Stokes - vocals/guitar/bass   Follow Wade on Instagram: @wadealready Follow TJ on Instagram: @baresoundstwitaj     Follow the show! Twitter: @LoadBearingPod | @MattStokes9 | @LRothConcepts Instagram: @loadbearingbeams TikTok: @load.bearing.beams | @mattstokes9 Letterboxd: @loadbearinglaci | @mattstokes9 Bluesky: @loadbearingbeams.bsky.social

Welcome back to Artbeat Radio!This week's episode features Service Users from EPI and ART Center talking about the piano, its origins, and the many ways piano can be utilized in a jam! Watch as we show you how we like to jam with the keyboard along with other instruments.Follow us on instagram @artbeatradio For more information about our organization, please visit our website www.ableartswork.org

Eddie Perfect has been entertaining us for years. A star of stage and screen, he's a writer of Broadway musicals, played Mick Holland on Offspring, and once composed a musical about Shane Warne. Eddie's currently starring in the titular role for another musical he wrote – Beetlejuice - and he nails it. But for someone with such a varied life in song, I was curious about the inspirations he drew from. Strap in for his source material, and some truly beautiful nerding out on music.The Beach Boys - 'I Get Around'Lauryn Hill - 'Ex-Factor'Rage Against The Machine - 'Killing In The Name'Ella Fitzgerald - 'Fascinating Rhythm'Joni Mitchell - 'Both Sides, Now' 

Join us for our Sunday morning study through Song of Songs.

I wrote this before I knew there were a couple of other songs by the same name, lol. This is what could happen if you're a man going around naked outdoors. Probably best to not freeball outside it during mosquito season! Please Follow and Subscribe at YouTube and IG (@kurplunkmusic) for new funny videos! Most songs from the new album can be heard (and seen!) at our YouTube channel plus behind the scenes content. Video for this song - https://youtu.be/eZVUyMQ7fW8?

This week on Revinyl, Shawn keeps the surprises coming as the duo continues their fun and unpredictable run of music-centric segments and deep dives into the decade that defined their musical roots—the 1980s.

In this segment, Devo discusses Dr. Demento's plans for retirement, some upcoming acting gigs, and finally submitting his latest short film to festivals and it's first acceptance, an interesting audition, an update on music he's working on, shiny object syndrome, Shattered Reflections premiere, and filming another short. Music in this episode: "Don't Get Me Started" by Jimmy O'Donnell, "Muppet Hunter" by Mikey Mason, "My Wife's In A Five-Way" by Steve Goodie, "The Doctor And William (2025 Edition)" by the great Luke Ski

Show Date: 6/26/25Dan and Andy review the 1979 album "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac.Sports and Songs Podcast Links:https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/

We received a couple more great suggestions for a song about the Mariner's Cal Raleigh and Brad got to strumming!

This week in the after party, Jake is thinking about great singer songwriter albums - what is your favorite? Plus, we hear from you on your favorite true crime songs. On Tuesday, we're bringing you part 2 of our Frank Sinatra story. Jake wants to know: Is Frank Sinatra the most gangster musical artist of all time? Share your thoughts at 617-906-6638, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or on socials @disgracelandpod. For more great Disgraceland episodes, dive into our extensive archive, including such episodes as: Episode 178 - Bob Dylan Episode 27 - Snoop Dogg Episode 132 - Jeff Buckley Episode 5 - Van Morrison To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We post SLITS ONLY for our subscribers only, it's an extra little mini Viral Podcast posted every Friday! Be sure to sub to Chelsie's Patreon  https://patreon.com/chelcielynn?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan&utm_content=join_link  And... Paige's OF  https://linktr.ee/Paigeginn?utm_source=linktree_profile_share%3Csid=f8356714-92c6-4d6c-9709-6c54c26aac52

More often than not, country music is seen as an "American" genre – meaning that the music is seen as strictly from the United States. In some ways, that's true; but the genre's iconography, sound, and ethos can actually be traced to the south of the border, in Mexican regional music. The worlds have been more intertwined than you would think, and in musica mexicana, we find the closest comparison to what we traditionally call "country music." In this episode of Switched On Pop, in honor of country week, we take a look at the cumbia-corrido hybrid "Me Jalo" from Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera, two U.S. based acts performing Mexican regional music, to see what ties the cultures together. Songs discussed: George Strait – El Rey Carín León – Necesito Encontrarte Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera – ME JALO Fuerza Regida – TQM Grupo Frontera, Bad Bunny – un x100to Fuerza Regida – SECRETO VICTORIA Grupo Frontera, Grupo Firme – EL AMOR DE SU VIDA Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera – Bebe Dame Shania Twain – Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under Hank Williams – Your Cheatin' Heart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Send us a textIn Wonderland, nothing is ever quite what it seems, including Alice's birthday. The White Rabbit, who promised to celebrate with her, keeps darting off in all directions. Even the Mad Hatter deflates her hopes for a special day when he un-invites her to tea—because it's not her unbirthday. Feeling lost and forgotten, Alice wonders if anything can turn the day around—until the Cheshire Cat appears with a curious new path to follow. In a land where left is right and up is down, a day full of bummers might just bounce back into the best birthday yet.Go to the episode webpage: https://jonincharacter.com/alices-birthday-bummer/DOWNLOAD COLOR PAGE: https://bit.ly/dorktalesEP114colorpage          GRAB YOUR FREE PDF list of conversation questions for this episode: https://dorktalesstorytime.aweb.page/ep114freePDF PARENTS, TEACHERS AND HOMESCHOOLERS: In “Alice's Birthday Bummer,” young listeners journey through the emotional ups and downs of a birthday that doesn't go as planned. As Alice faces disappointment, confusion, and the chaos of Wonderland, she also learns the importance of expressing her feelings, leaning on her friends, and staying open to unexpected joy. The story gently encourages emotional resilience, empathy, and the idea that a “bad day” can still hold a happy ending.IF YOU ENJOYED THIS STORY about Alice in Wonderland, you may like these episodes:Alice in Slumberland https://jonincharacter.com/alice-in-slumberland/ Jabberwock This Way https://jonincharacter.com/jabberwock-this-way/ CREDITS: This episode is a Jonincharacter production. It was written by Monique Hafen Adams, edited and produced by Molly Murphy and performed by Jonathan Cormur and Sabrina Glow. Sound recording and production by Jermaine Hamilton at Pacific Grove Soundworks.Join the Summer Listening Challenge—find out more and get your tracker: https://jonincharacter.com/summer-listening/Support the showREACH OUT! Send us a TEXT: if your young listener has a question. Pls include their first name in the text. Your name/number is hidden so it's a safe way to reach out. Send us an email: dorktalesstorytime@gmail.com DM us on IG @dorktalesstorytime Library of Resources: https://dorktalesstorytime.aweb.page/Dorktales-Library-Card One time donation: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dorktales Our Pod's Songs on Bandcamp: https://dorktalesstorytime.bandcamp.com/music Now, go be the hero of your own story and we'll see you next once-upon-a-time!

The Arabic music ensemble Aswat is based in the city and plays classical Arab standards in concerts throughout the Bay Area. But you don't have to know the language to participate.Non-Arabic speaking Americans make up half of the choir members and musicians, and that's part of the mission: to spread a love for Arabic music that transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Cry! Cry! Cry! - Johnny Cash So Doggone Lonesome - Johnny Cash I Dont Want To Talk About It - Crazy Horse Midnight on the Bay - The Still-Young Band  On the Beach - Neil Young Everybody's Talkin' - Fred Neil Love In Vain - The Rolling Stones Ashan - Sputnik HI-FI The Paris Match - The Style Council Blue Cafe - The Style Council Red Guitar - David Sylvian April 5th - Talk Talk Theme From The Gay man's Guide to Safer Sex - Coil שובב עם לב זהב - ששי קשת The Hissing of Summer Lawnes - Joni Mitchel Early Blue - F. J. McMahon Dark End of the Street - Ry Cooder Day In Day Out - XTC Roads Girdle The Globe - XTC Anomaly - Carl Finlow The Same - Foreign Affair The Milky Way - Hila Ruach ילדים - אביתר בנאי Alien Love Call - Turnstile/BADBADNOTGOOD/ Blood Orange Sweet Power of Your Embrace - James Mason Idol Eyes - Common Saints Anger Management - Nathaniel Merriweather AKA Lovage

The book of Job is wisdom literature, like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. What can we add to what has already been written on the Book of Job? Is it the oldest book in the canon as its historical milieu would place it, or was it written (down) much later? Is it merely a literary story meant to illuminate the relation between God and man-in-the-created-order, or is it historical? We are not so foolish as to claim that we know any of these answers, or how God has in fact put His word together, but we have learned not to put the plausible stories of man in the place of what He says in His word. We will never go far wrong if we simply trust what God says, being careful readers of scripture. What we do know is that Job is a masterpiece of literature by any metric, and one of (if not) THE greatest works of wisdom literature ever crafted. I cannot help but end with a quote from another such brilliant work: Ecclesiastes 7:23–29 All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.... Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things — which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found.... See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. (ESV) Ecclesiastes 12:10–13 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. (ESV)

Hour 1: Are the Pirates about to trade some stars before the deadline? Paul Skenes was pulled after only four innings yesterday. And the guys turn the show into an opportunity to listen to their favorite songs.

There's often an unspoken (and deeply misogynistic) rule on country music radio: never play two female artists back to back. In this episode of Switched On Pop's country week, we aim to do just that. Looking at two artists on opposite ends of the country music spectrum – traditionalist Lainey Wilson, and genre-bending Jessie Murph – Nate and Charlie try to understand the state of female country through their respective songs "4x4xU" and "Blue Strips." Songs discussed: Lainey Wilson – 4x4xU Jessie Murph – Blue Strips Lainey Wilson – Country's Cool Again Lainey Wilson – Heart Like A Truck HARDY, Lainey Wilson – wait in the truck Jessie Murph – Gotta Hold Jessie Murph – Gucci Mane Jessie Murph, Sexyy Red – Blue Strips (Remix) Zach Top – I Never Lie Carrie Underwood – Before He Cheats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greta Morgan is a founding member of The Hush Sound, touring with Fallout Boy when she was still a teenager, releasing records via Fueled By Ramen, before moving on to being a touring member of Vampire Weekend and performing with Jenny Lewis. After contracting long Covid she developed spasmodic dysphonia - a neurological voice disorder characterized by involuntary spasms of the muscles in the voice box. I.E. it is nearly impossible to sing. After writing nearly 350,000 words in journals, she turned her work into a book - "The Lost Voice" (out now via Harper Collins). We talk with Greta about this life altering change, and it's effects on her creativity and creative practice, our evolving identity coming from self, not from others or our output, the worthiness shadow, acceptance, longevity, and more.Get more access and support this show by subscribing to our Patreon, right here.Links:Greta Morgan“The Lost Voice”Kahlil Gibran - “The Prophet”Ep 96 - Maggie SmithThe Hush SoundFallout BoyVampire Weekend Spasmodic DysphoniaMichelle Zoner - “Crying in H Mart”Suleika Jaouad - “Between Two Kingdoms”Harper CollinsEp 27 - Mary GauthierClick here to watch this conversation on YouTube.Social Media:The Other 22 Hours InstagramThe Other 22 Hours TikTokMichaela Anne InstagramAaron Shafer-Haiss InstagramAll music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Become a subscribing member on our Patreon to gain more inside access including exclusive content, workshops, the chance to have your questions answered by our upcoming guests, and more.

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski checks her daily horoscope, explores some Mythological concepts, and updates the nation on her self-care routine. 

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