Podcasts about Spinning wheel

It's my birthday

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/OgYdngFGY08This episode starts at the wool mill carding up Finn sheep wool. Then off to the washer with mohair and a little time at the picker with Border Leicester wool. A check in on my first sourdough bread and some handspinning and makers soapboxing at the end.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:Sourdough help:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmb0wWKITBQ&t=1429shttps://www.bakewithjack.co.uk/blog-1/2018/7/5/sourdough-loaf-for-beginnersAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.Ready to handspin enough yarn to knit a sweater or other big project? In this episode I share my top tips to help get you to the finish line.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/To watch the most recent YouTube episodehttps://youtu.be/OgYdngFGY08Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.

This is an Encore Presentation of my May 2024 SAXOPHONE SUMMIT featuring four of the world's best saxophone players.John Helliwell, former member of Supertramp, one of the greatest bands of the rock era. They dominated the charts in the 1970s with their album “Breakfast In America” which sold over 20 million copies. Fred Lipsius, the saxophonist and an arranger for Blood Sweat & Tears, another one of the greatest bands of the modern era, which introduced the horn section into Rock ‘n Roll. Their self-titled second album won the Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1970. Fred arranged several of their biggest hits including “Spinning Wheel” and “Hi De Ho”. Bob Reynolds, the saxophonist for Snarky Puppy, one of the great bands of this era They are a Jazz Fusion band that's won 5 Grammys. And Ada Rovatti, an Italian born saxophonist who has performed with Aretha Franklin, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock and The Brecker Brothers Reunion Band.My featured song is “Metro Shuffle”, featuring Mindi Abair, from the album The PGS Experience by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here .To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------ROBERT'S RECENT SINGLES:“MOON SHOT” is Robert's latest single, reflecting his Jazz Rock Fusion roots. The track features Special Guest Mark Lettieri, 5x Grammy winning guitarist who plays with Snarky Puppy and The Fearless Flyers. The track has been called “Firey, Passionate and Smokin!”CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL VIDEOCLICK HERE FOR ALL LINKS____________________“ROUGH RIDER” has got a Cool, ‘60s, “Spaghetti Western”, Guitar-driven, Tremolo sounding, Ventures/Link Wray kind of vibe!CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL VIDEOCLICK HERE FOR ALL LINKS—--------------------------------“LOVELY GIRLIE” is a fun, Old School, rock/pop tune with 3-part harmony. It's been called “Supremely excellent!”, “Another Homerun for Robert!”, and “Love that Lovely Girlie!”Click HERE for All Links—----------------------------------“THE RICH ONES ALL STARS” is Robert's single featuring the following 8 World Class musicians: Billy Cobham (Drums), Randy Brecker (Flugelhorn), John Helliwell (Sax), Pat Coil (Piano), Peter Tiehuis (Guitar), Antonio Farao (Keys), Elliott Randall (Guitar) and David Amram (Pennywhistle).Click HERE for the Official VideoClick HERE for All Links—----------------------------------------“SOSTICE” is Robert's single with a rockin' Old School vibe. Called “Stunning!”, “A Gem!”, “Magnificent!” and “5 Stars!”.Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's ballad arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene and turned into a horn-driven Samba. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES”. Robert's Jazz Fusion “Tone Poem”. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera FilmsConnect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com 

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/Wu6aQSa_gj0This episode starts with some updates on what I am knitting! Then we get some handspinning on as I talk handspinning qiviut fiber on a support spindle. And this episode ends with some videos from the May Day march in Salem, Oregon.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:Kravelli support spindleshttps://kravelli.com/Link to Conditioning your wool at homehttp://www.beingewethful.com/blog/making-a-carding-conditioning-oilBreakwater Beach VestDesigner: Irina Anikeevaknitted with Ewetopia YarnAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/DO7my6WrTy4This episode starts in the mill at the picker as we blend up Shetland wool and Suri alpaca. Then more picking with Shetland wool and dyed up tussah silk. Off to the carder we go with these fibers and of course a little handspinning. There is also a quick visit to the farm to see the pigs, alpaca, June the pony and the sheep.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:Breakwater Beach VestDesigner: Irina Anikeevaknitted with Ewetopia YarnNYTimes articles re: pronatalismhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/us/politics/trump-birthrate-proposals.htmlForeign Affairs magazine November/December 2024 editionArticle referenced: The Age of Depopulation: Surviving a World Gone GrayAuthor: Nicholas EberstadtOther sources I followNathan Tankushttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/business/economy/tariffs-apparel-american-made.htmlChad Scotthttps://www.youtube.com/@UCO1ydt_TOAZfwEgJpgOx2jQ Keds Economisthttps://www.youtube.com/@UC-L8bPaJ_aJznCLLtUHxnLA The Weekly Show with Jon Stewarthttps://www.youtube.com/@UCQlJ7XpBtiMLKNSd4RAJmRQ Reuters, Al Jazeera, NYTimes, NPR, Foreign AffairsAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/XTc7rocXgCgThis episode starts out at the wool mill where I am carding up some Shetland wool. Then we head to my studio where we dye up some wool and then take a quick pitstop by the fiber farm to say hi to the sheep. A little sewing talk is in here as I start the Dress #1 from 100 Acts of Sewing and I find myself in sewing heaven. Finally a little handspinning at my Majacraft and yes, a little politics as I review what's happening in the US this week. Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:The online sewing course I am taking is through Sew Liberatedhttps://sewliberated.com/our-coursesPattern: Nocturne Pants by Sew LiberatedSewing I am working onby 100 Acts of Sewing, Dress No 1https://www.100actsofsewing.com/Baby ponchopattern: Baby Doe Ponchodesigner: Appalachian Baby DesignSewing heaven is at Jeff's Sewing Machinehttps://www.sewingeugene.com/NYTimes articles re: textile industryhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/us/south-carolina-manufacturing-tariffs.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/business/economy/tariffs-apparel-american-made.htmlAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

SPINNING WHEEL LETITIA (MORTGAGE FRAUD) Hear comedian Jim Gossett on Rob Carson's National Talk Show 12-3 on WMLB 1690 AM in ATL

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/vo0FzOot8vcThis episode starts out at the wool mill where I am working with a rare breed, Clun Forest. Washing wool and then off to the carder we go. Also a little picking and carding of a Shetland/alpaca blend. Then I head home to do a little handspinning and show off my first completed sewing project, the Nocturne pants!Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:The online sewing course I am taking is through Sew Liberatedhttps://sewliberated.com/our-coursesPattern: Nocturne Pants by Sew LiberatedAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/SfMWKye31AYThis episode is a little different as I take a little break from the wool mill to play some catch-up at home. We start off on a walk with the dogs at one of the grass seed fields. Then it's homeward to show my current wip's. Handspinning, knitting and a bit of my first sewing project. Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentioned in this episode:Breakwater Beach VestDesigner: Irina Anikeevaknitted with Ewetopia YarnLulu SlipoverDesigner: PetiteKnitknitted with handspun Shetland lamb yarnThe online sewing course I am taking is through Sew Liberatedhttps://sewliberated.com/our-coursesPattern: Nocturne Pants by Sew LiberatedAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

Angie Stone – I Wanna Thank Ya (feat. Snoop Dogg) – Radio Edit – 3:47 Boris van der Lek; Jules Deelder – You Don’t Know What Love Is – 4:37 Dr. Lonnie Smith – Spinning Wheel – Remastered 1993 – 7:37 Billy Cobham – Quadrant 4 – 4:29 George Duke – Fuzzion – 6:50 Allard […]

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/Gw-6kOLyS74This episode starts out in the wool mill as we pick several different wools with other fibers to create blends. The fibers are then off to the carder and turned into roving for handspinning. And finally I take the finished fibers to the spinning wheel for sampling and some spinning talk. Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentions in this episode:Knit top I am wearing at the endPattern: Luna de PlataDesigner: Claudia QuintanillaEveryone is welcome here banner purchased on Etsy from TheLittleRainbowsAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/WgDCW-AJNNwThis episode starts at the wool mill as I blend up Romney wool, alpaca and silk. There is also washing wool and carding up the Romney blend wool. Back on the farm I walk through tips for prepping hard to handspin fibers and we do an unboxing of a fleece I received in the mail.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Blogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/Ravelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentions in  episode:Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of "How to Stand up to a Dictator" was on The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. March 6 2025 episodeAffiliate link:Wooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.One thing leads to another right? Over recent weeks I've added embroidery and sewing onto the list of ever growing crafts. Non-makers give me a blank misunderstood stare and say "as if you have time for another craft." Well it turns out I do because I make the time! In this episode I talk about what becoming a multi-crafter looks like, the benefits and how to make it work.To watch the most recent episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/aCYSgfZxNX8https://youtu.be/aCYSgfZxNX8Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentions in  episode:The online sewing course I am taking is through Sew Liberatedhttps://sewliberated.com/our-coursesAudio podcast mentioned: The Weekly Show with Jon StewartAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/aCYSgfZxNX8https://youtu.be/aCYSgfZxNX8This episode starts answering the age old question, does wool freeze? Then onward to the wool mill where we wash and card up different wool types. Plus unboxing wool fleeces I received in the mail and of course a little bit of handspinning wool roving on an Ashford traditional spinning wheel. Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsMentions in  episode:The online sewing course I am taking is through Sew Liberatedhttps://sewliberated.com/our-coursesEmbroidery pattern from Claudia Quintanilla in her book Memory LaneAudio podcast mentioned: The Weekly Show with Jon StewartAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/rLi9zb8OdzUThis episode starts answering the age old question, does wool freeze? Then onward to the wool mill where we wash and card up different wool types. Plus unboxing wool fleeces I received in the mail and of course a little bit of handspinning wool roving on an Ashford traditional spinning wheel. Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkThe retreat was hosted by Andrea and Madeleine of the Fruity Knitting podcast. Watch, subscribe, and support them on Patreon https://www.youtube.com/@FruityKnittingFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

Sechs Mal war Gary Lux beim Eurovision Song Contest. Seinen größten Erfolg feierte er 1985 mit "Kinder dieser Welt". Das erste Mal trat er mit der Gruppe Westend beim Song Contest auf. Bei uns erzählt, was Falco mit dieser Gruppe zu tun hat.Gary Lux (tatsächlich mit X) erzählt Marco Geschichten von seinen Anfängen in Kananda bis hin zur gegenwärtigen Musik. Aktuell ist seine Single "Das Herz kann nicht denken", aber natürlich blicken beide auch auf die Geschichte von Gary Lux beim Eurovision Song Contest zurück. Aber der Weg zum Song Contest führte über (heute) bekannte Namen. Bereits als 15-Jährier war er Sänger bei Partybands, hat Hans Hölzl (aka Falco) als Sänger bei Spinning Wheel abgelöst, hat die Background-Vocals für Falcos "Der Kommissar" eingesungen - gemeinsam mit seinen Kollegen Peter Vieweger und Bernhard Rabitsch. Die drei haben dann mit Hans Christian Wagner und der Tänzerin Patricia Tandien die Gruppe "Westend" gegründet. Falco-Produzent Markus Spiegel beauftragte dann einen Song. "Hurricane". In München 1983 erreichten Westend den 9. Platz.Ein Jahr später war er Backing Vocals für Anita und ihrem Lied "Einfach weg" - nachdem er im Vorentscheid gegen sie verloren hatte und Zweitplatzierter wurde.  1985 durfte er endlich solo ran. "Kinder dieser Welt" ist heute noch ein Evergreen und becherte ihm einen soliden 8. Platz in Göteborg. Mit "Nur noch Gefühl" wurde er 1987 in Brüssel allerdings nur 20. - was Gary Lux heute auch auf die Waldheim-Affaire zurück führte. Diese Schlappe knackste an seinem Ego, er zog sich für ein paar Jahre in die USA zurück und arbeitete dort mit verschiedenen Musikerinnen und Musikern.1993 ist er wieder beim Song Contest: Tony Wegas singt "Maria Magdalena" und Lux unterstützt ihn dabei. Wer wissen will, wie es damals war: In der Episode 03.29 erzählt Komponist Thomas Spitzer von der EAV ausführlich über die Begebenheiten in Millstreet in Irland. Und auch 1995 ist seine Expertise im Chrorgesang wieder gefragt. Bei "Die Welt dreht sich verkehrt" von Stella Jones spielt er Keyboards und singt.Gary Lux muss natürlich auch die bekannten Fragen am Schluss beantworten: Vom Eurovision Song Contest 2024 hat er noch "We Will Rave" von Kaleen auf der Playlist. Und sein Lieblingssong ist Johnny Logans Geniestreich "What's Antother Year" aus dem Jahr 1980.Sonja, Alkis und Marco müssen aber mal reden. Über die Chefsache und über Sanremo. Wenn diese Episode erscheint, wissen wir noch nicht, ob Sanremo-Sieger Olly seinen Siegersong "Balorda nostalgia" auch in Basel singen wird. Insgesamt war das Finale insgesamt ungewöhnlich männlich und sehr überraschend. Dafür aber pünktlich.Die ersten beiden Episoden der Chefsache, des deutschen Vorentscheids, haben teilweise überzeugt. Sonja und Alkis finden, die Fixierung auf Stefan Raab ist nicht immer einfach zu ignorieren, aber zumindest sind keine falschen Acts ins Halbfinale weiter gewandert.In der Kleinen Song Contest Geschichte hat Sonja ein Bild mitgebracht von einem Maskottchen. Und vor seinem Namen. Creators: Marco Schreuder & Alkis Vlassakakis & Sonja RiegelMerci Chérie Online:www.MerciCherie.atFacebook: MerciCheriePodcastInstagram: mercicherie.atTikTok: @merci_cherie_podcastbluesky: @mercicherie.atBitte bewertet uns und schreibt Reviews, wo immer ihr uns hört.

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/uXQwdJt2JM0This episode is a little different as I share the experiences from my first knitting retreat in lovely Costa Rica. The retreat was hosted by Andrea and Madeleine of the YouTube channel Fruity Knitting and Claudia Quintanilla - knitwear designer and yarn shop owner of EweKnit in Canada. https://www.youtube.com/ @FruityKnitting  Please go watch, subscribe and support Fruity Knitting on Patreon. They are amazing!!!The patterns I refer to in this episode areHandspun cotton tank, The Classic Camisole by Darling Jadore Mohair/silk short sleeve top, Luna de Plata, by Claudia QuintanillaVest, Breakwater Beach Vest by Irina AnikeevaJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkThe retreat was hosted by Andrea and Madeleine of the Fruity Knitting podcast. Watch, subscribe, and support them on Patreon https://www.youtube.com/@FruityKnittingFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

To watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/GV4h5jXvmgsAll the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.This episode is all wool mill all day as we process wool that I dyed in lock formation. Picking and blending plus plenty of wool carding. And I end with a little handspinning of some of the roving processed in the mill.Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo join the Ravelry discussion for the spin to knit alonghttps://www.ravelry.com/discuss/ewethful-fiber-farm--mill/topics/4342433To ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

Handspun: a podcast all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.Link to the YouTube episode I referancehttps://youtu.be/HpXygSOPpx8Join Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillTo join the Ravelry discussion for the spin to knit alonghttps://www.ravelry.com/discuss/ewethful-fiber-farm--mill/topics/4342433To ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAssociation sites I reference in this episodePygora Breeders AssociationCashmere Goat AssociationAmerican Breeders AssociationAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

The Tifo team get to grips with the Manchester Derby, what next for Southampton, and let a spinning wheel dictate a few topic choices in this last episode of 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Tifo team get to grips with the Manchester Derby, what next for Southampton, and let a spinning wheel dictate a few topic choices in this last episode of 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Handspun: a podcast all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/cxZ5eX1n26QTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

This week, Ira spoke with David Garfield, performing (with the David Garfield Quintet) at Maxan Jazz December 13-14. In this episode of “Talk About Las Vegas With Ira,” talks about starting early with music (with a Steinway grand piano in the house); how he got bitten by the rock and roll bug; why a trumpet solo in “Spinning Wheel” converted him to jazz; how jazz endures (improvisation makes it timeless); what keeps him laughing and smiling with his music; working with Smokey Robinson; how he looks at jazz today as opposed to 30 years ago; the difference in vibes between jazz and rock musicians; celebrating 50 years of playing music; his six “Outside The Box” CDs; and his future projects. (Also Watch Full Podcast Video)

Handspun: a podcast all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

Handspun: a podcast all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTubehttps://youtu.be/UXscA3vkp1kTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

Handspun: a podcast all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.To watch this episode on YouTube:https://youtu.be/RdIPKvohUAQTo ask me a questionhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkoshX7grvAiOcNxwAlUqFskm-opVlE1h_L6jmdO-CvGX8kg/viewform?usp=sf_linkFree hand spinning resources - " Ewethful's Wool School"https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/wool-educationJoin Ewethful's Patreon Communityhttps://www.patreon.com/EwethfulFiberMillFor details and to purchase the online course to  learn to handspin on wheelhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/pages/lets-make-yarn-landing-pageFor details and to purchase the online course to learn to spin longdrawhttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/products/2256545Shop for Ewethful handspinning fibershttps://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/collectionsAffiliate link if would like to support me while buying from these companiesWooleryhttps://woolery.com/?aff=352Mission at Ewethful:My mission at Ewethful Fiber Mill is to fill making hands with small batch American grown yarns and fibers. I strive to produce lightly processed products that maintain their character, have low environmental impact and tell the stories of the animals and shepherds from whence they came.Find me at:https://www.ewethfulfiberfarm.com/Instagram@ewethfulfiberfarm https://www.instagram.com/ewethfulfibermill/FacebookEwethfulFiberFarmandMill https://www.facebook.com/ewethfulfiberfarmandmillRavelry group: Ewethful Fiber Farm & MillBlogging at http://www.beingewethful.com/

THIS IS SUMMIT WEEK! Three Summits featuring some of the world's best Saxophonists, Bassists and Drummers. Today is SAXOPHONE SUMMIT with:John Helliwell, former member of Supertramp, one of the greatest bands of the rock era. They dominated the charts in the 1970s with their album “Breakfast In America” which sold over 20 million copies. Fred Lipsius, the saxophonist and an arranger for Blood Sweat & Tears, another one of the greatest bands of the modern era, which introduced the horn section into Rock ‘n Roll. Their self-titled second album won the Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1970. Fred arranged several of their biggest hits including “Spinning Wheel” and “Hi De Ho”. Bob Reynolds, the saxophonist for Snarky Puppy, one of the great bands of this era. They are a Jazz Fusion band that's won 5 Grammys. And Ada Rovatti, an Italian born saxophonist who has performed with Aretha Franklin, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock and The Brecker Brothers Reunion Band.My featured song is “Metro Shuffle”, featuring Mindi Abair, from the album The PGS Experience by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here .To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------ROBERT'S SINGLES:“SOSTICE” is Robert's newest single, with a rockin' Old School vibe. Called “Stunning!”, “A Gem!”, “Magnificent!” and “5 Stars!”.Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's ballad arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene and turned into a horn-driven Samba. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES”. Robert's Jazz Fusion “Tone Poem”. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's sublime, atmospheric Jazz Fusion tune. Featuring guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

I recorded this using my Deering Goodtime Special banjo. For $1,099 it was one of the best deals I've ever purchased. I love that banjo! It doesn't have a truss rod and doesn't need one, because the Goodtime Special is solid maple. It does have a tone ring. It is 9.5 pounds, which is easier for me to play longer when writing tabs or working on a song. For the price, you can't beat the feel and sound. The intonation is very accurate. I really enjoy playing it. I'm using Dave Hum's backing track, which you can purchase on his website. Enjoy!

I recorded this using a Deering Golden Era. It has a maple neck. The banjo had a buzzing issue on string one when doing pull offs. I bought it from Fuller's Guitar in Houston. So I sent it back for a refund, but it has a beautiful song. I really like Deering's 06 tone ring. I ordered the Deering Golden Wreath instead (which has a mahogany neck), which I like better. The Golden Wreath is Deering's replica of Gibson's RB 250 banjo. I'm using Dave Hum's backing track, which you can purchase on his website. Enjoy!

Welcome to the first Saxophone Summit! Featuring the following four extraordinary world class saxophone players: John Helliwell of Supertramp, one of the greatest bands of the rock era. They dominated the charts in the 1970s with their album “Breakfast In America” which sold over 20 million copies. Fred Lipsius, the saxophonist and an arranger for Blood Sweat & Tears, another one of the greatest bands of the modern era, which introduced the horn section into Rock ‘n Roll. Their self-titled second album won the Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1970. Fred arranged several of their biggest hits including “Spinning Wheel” and “Hi De Ho”. Bob Reynolds, the saxophonist for Snarky Puppy, one of the great bands of this era. They are a Jazz Fusion band that's won 5 Grammys. And Ada Rovatti, an Italian born saxophonist who has performed with Aretha Franklin, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock and The Brecker Brothers Reunion Band.My featured song is “Metro Shuffle”, featuring Saxophone Star Mindi Abair, from the album The PGS Experience by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here .To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES” is Robert's new single. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's recent single. With guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's debut album, recorded in 1994, was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with:John at www.johnhelliwell.comFred at www.fredlipsius.comBob at www.bobreynoldsmusic.comAda at www.facebook.com/adarovattiofficialpage Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

About Laura Inserra:LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/laurainserraWebsites:laurainserra.com (Company)chambersofawe.com (Company)metamusic.teachable.com (Company)Email:info@laurainserra.comLaura Inserra Laura's Bio:Laura Inserra is a world-renowned leader in sound healing - a sound alchemist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and multimedia producer. She lives and creates at the confluence of global music, ancient wisdom traditions, and cutting-edge technology.She grew up on the volcanic island of Sicily and has been exploring the power of sound since her youth. Her work is rooted in 30+ years of global cross-cultural studies and initiations in ancient traditions and modern schools of wisdom, as well as the direct observation of nature.A world-renowned Hang musician, Laura plays hundreds of ancient and modern instruments from around the world, including many made by her. She utilizes cutting-edge technology to augment the natural sources of her instruments, creating Chambers of AWE - multimedia productions featuring ceremonial instruments and field-recordings, enhanced with 360o visuals andAI-generated content rooted in ancient wisdom.In these settings music becomes experiential - the body and the mind merge with the sound, traveling beyond the fields of cognitive perceptions, to enhance profound shifts of consciousness, deepen our relationship with nature, and facilitate inner transformation and healing.SHOW INTROWelcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.These dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and human's influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine. VMSD is the publisher of VMSD magazine and brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience placemakers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience. SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.orgIn this episode, I talk with “Sound Alchemist” Laura Inserra about the deep effect that music has on our sense of well-being, sound journeys and energy we share with each other and ancient musical instruments and shamanic practices. And, make sure you listen right through for a special treat… But first a few thoughts.****************I am increasingly convinced that I am moving away from the idea that ‘there are no accidents' as simply a quaint phrase to it being a foundational principle in the nature of things. In previous episodes I've probably described that most of the major life changes that have reshaped my career and life path on the planet have emerged through what I used to simply think was serendipity. A career change that led me halfway around the world to live in Singapore, to a meeting at a conference that took me from 20 years designing retail stores to working in the hospitality industry and many other occurrences that seem to be unexplainable but nevertheless happen, it seems, purposefully. And so, it also was with meeting my guest in this episode Laura Inserra whose path I crossed at the Intentional Spaces Summit in Washington DC in the fall of 2023.  I'll get to talking about Laura in a moment.But first I just gotta say, I love music.I remember as a youngster being enthralled with musicians and watching variety shows on television where I imagined myself being one of the band. I have a clear memory of rewriting lyrics for a song to the 1968 tune of “Spinning Wheel” by the bandBlood, Sweat & Tears, written by Canadian lead vocalist David Clayton. I think my parents humored me at the time with ‘that's nice sweetheart.'In high school my best friend Jeff and I bought guitars, strummed our way through James Taylor and Eagles tunes. I bought a harmonica and thought I might be a Blues harp player. But Jeff became the better musician playing piano and performing at a piano bar in a local Italian restaurant.In my early days of college when I met my now wife of 35 years, we were both interested in sports and being in the great outdoors, but it was music that brought us closer together. She was a Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music graduate and piano teacher in her late teens and early 20s and when she sang she sounded like Karen Carpenter.When we played Neil Sedaka's “Laughter in The Rain” I fell hopelessly in love and I waited for the lyric “…after a while we run under a tree, I turned to her and she kisses me…” Because ya know, if the lyric says it, well…Music was everywhere in our relationship. She introduced me to jazz a genre where she really found her tempo (yes pun intended) as a musician in the high school jazz band. Where she incidentally always won awards for being a stand out pianist. Through her, I learned about Chic Corea, Coltrane, and the Canadian flutist Moe Kaufman's “Jungle Woman” became signature tune of our relationship. My wife wrote the music for our wedding ceremony that was sung by the FACE Highschool choir and “How do You keep the music playing” by James ingram and Patti Austin was our first dance as husband and wife. Oh and when James and Patti modulate about three quarters the way in…still today my chest fills with pleasure, pain, longing, hope, inspiration, love and the mysterious power of music taking me to another plain all together.When our first son was born we listened to Debussey in the delivery room and then through his first few years turned to big band and danced around the column in the basement of our condo. When son number two was born his older brother came into the hospital room and exclaimed “hi baby brother! I'm going to teach you how to dance to jazz music!”Our first son grew up to play with the inaugural National Youth Jazz orchestra as the drummer, opening a European tour by playing first at Carnegie Hall. Our second son was indeed taught by his big brother to love music and he has evolved into an exceptional jazz pianist, composer and he actually wrote, performed and engineered the theme music for this podcast.They are both deeply connected to the music, composing, and playing every day. I hear music at home until 11pm most nights.When I think back to it, almost every significant life event has been connected to music. During the pandemic when uncertainty was all around us and I hadn't picked up my guitar in years, I instead picked up paintbrushes and began to do portraits of jazz musicians and other musical icons. Listening to hours of music while painting has become a profound influence on my sense of well-being and managing the unknown but more than that, it simply gives me a deep sense of peace. There is a palpable joy that comes to me while painting and listening to hours of the music of the musician I am working on.Music energizes, soothes, and transports us back to significant moments of our lives. Music releases energy locked in our bodies and unearths emotions - joy, sadness, fear, longing, anticipation…Music has healing power in our own bodies and joins us together in sympathetic resonance between our collective bodies. Rudolph Steiner was quoted as saying “the science of the future will be based on sympathetic vibrations” and since all things vibrate, it seems like music is both art and science.To prove the point about music being both art and science, there is a somewhat niche field within physics and acoustics call “cymatics.” Cymatics explores the visualization of sound through the patterns and shapes created by vibrations in different mediums like salt or sand. But it also works on heart cells. Certain sound frequencies played through these mediums cause them to arrange into complex geometric patterns which as far as I am concerned are equally beautiful pieces of art.Study of cymatics suggests that these patterns exist in us when we pay or listen to music. As Einstein once said, “everything in life is vibration” or as the more recent physicist Michio Kaku put it “everything is music.”Our bodies are resonance chambers that oscillate to frequencies right down to our very cells. It is not surprising to me that we are so deeply connected to music since “all things are part of real and rhythmic whole…” as Tesla suggested in 1926 when describing wireless technology.We are almost 100 years from time that Tesla was quoted in Harpers Bazar magazine. The wireless technology he was referring to in telecommunication is now also deeply influencing the music we create. But digital music is different than the tones played on ancient instruments. Digital music filters out tones that may not be perceptible by the human ear but nevertheless may be felt by the body. And so, we have a different connection to the sounds of an ancient Mayan flute or ancestral aboriginal drum than we do to the top 40 hits we play through our wireless Apple Airpods that we insert into our ears. The music goes in our bodies differently. And this is where my guest Laura Inserra comes into our story about music and its weaving into the history of us.Laura Inserra is a world-renowned leader in sound healing. She describes herself as a sound alchemist and a multi-instrumentalist, educator, and multimedia producer. She lives and creates at the confluence of global music, ancient wisdom traditions, and cutting-edge technology.Laura grew up on the volcanic island of Sicily and has been exploring the power of sound since her youth. Her work is rooted in 30+ years of global cross-cultural studies and initiations in ancient traditions and modern schools of wisdom, as well as the direct observation of nature.A world-renowned Hang musician, Laura plays hundreds of ancient and modern instruments from around the world, including many made by her. She utilizes cutting-edge technology to augment the natural sources of her instruments, creating Chambers of AWE which are multimedia productions featuring ceremonial instruments and field-recordings, enhanced with  visuals and AI-generated content rooted in ancient wisdom.In these settings her music becomes experiential - the body and the mind merge with the sound, traveling beyond the fields of cognitive perceptions, to enhance profound shifts of consciousness, deepen our relationship with nature, and facilitate inner transformation and healing.So… now going back to my lead-in to this episode about serendipity…I attended the Intentional Spaces Summit in Washington DC last fall in 2023. To start this two-day journey into the power of our built environment to influence human health and well being, a woman comes on the stage, places herself among a number of musical instruments and within minutes the audience is transported to another plain of being. We collectively experienced a Laura Inserra Sound Journey.I leave the auditorium after her performance, call home and describe what I just experienced to my wife, who exclaims that about 4 years earlier she had come across Chambers of Awe by Laura Inserra and had sent me the link to her website saying that this was something I had to listen to. The universe had its own timing in mind when placing Laura and I in the same conference. We connected at a reception, and there was a sympathetic resonance leading to my invitation to be a guest. I am grateful that she said yes.Laura Inserra refers to her work as “sound alchemy”… things coming together to make other things more precious than the original constituents and she describes her compositions as “structured improvisations.”This conversation felt very much like that – we followed a structured baseline that allowed for the musical and mystical to create magical improvisational moments.  ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582bWebsites:  https://www.davidkepron.com    (personal website)vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645  (Blog)Email: david.kepron@NXTLVLexperiencedesign.comTwitter: DavidKepronPersonal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/Bio:David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand ‘why', ‘what's now' and ‘what's next'. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe. David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriott's “Premium Distinctive” segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels. In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies. As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace. David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazine's Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundation's Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.He has held teaching positions at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.  In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World” and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called “Brain Food” which is published monthly on vmsd.com.  The next level experience design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production by Kano Sound. The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL “Dialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Arts” wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

Fred Lipsius was the extraordinary saxophonist and arranger for Blood Sweat & Tears. He's a 3x Grammy winner with 9 Gold records. He arranged “Spinning Wheel”, “Hi-De-Ho” and “You Made Me So Very Happy”, three of BS&T's biggest hits. And he's performed with artists like Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin, Thelonious Monk and many more. And he's got a new album out called Facets Of Love.My featured song is “Miles Behind” from my “lost” 1994 debut album of the same name. Spotify link. ---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's first album, was recorded in 1994 but was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------‘THE SINGLES PROJECT” is Robert's new EP, featuring five of his new songs. The songs speak to the ups and downs of life. From the blissful, joyous “Saturday Morning” to the darker commentary of “Like Never Before” and “The Ship”. “This is Robert at his most vulnerable” (Pop Icon Magazine)Reviews: “Amazing!” (Top Buzz Magazine)“Magical…A Sonic Tour De Force!” (IndiePulse Music)“Fabulously Enticing!” (Pop Icon Magazine)“A Home Run!” (Hollywood Digest)Listener Reviews:Saturday Morning:”A neat and simply happy song!””It's so cute and fun. It's describing a world I wish I lived in every day!”Like Never Before:”Great message!””Great song, very perceptive lyrics!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with Fred:www.fredlipsius.com Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comPGS Store - www.thePGSstore.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

Poetry has long served as a point of inspiration for classical composers. Just think of Beethoven's magnificent setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy," Schubert's cinematic take on Goethe's "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel," or Ned Rorem's soulful songs based on the words of Frank O'Hara. And now there's a new work to add to this storied tradition from composer Brian Raphael Nabors. In Upon Daybreak, premiered by the Berkeley Symphony in late 2022, Nabors turns to a poignant poem by the late Maya Angelou, "A Brave, Startling Truth." Rather than set the poem's text to music, however, Nabors distills Angelou's visionary call for a great "day of peacemaking" into a powerful orchestral work that imagines a utopian world without hatred or malice. "In the poem, [Angelou] talks about all the chaos, war, and dystopia that come about from us being humans and destructive," Nabors says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "But also all the beauty that comes from humanity and what we're able to offer. It talks about this day when all this war mongering ends finally and we realize that the true wonders of the world are ourselves and life itself." Commissioned by New Music USA as part of its Amplifying Voices program, Upon Daybreak has been performed by the Detroit Symphony, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra since its Berkeley premiere, and the work will make its way to the Seattle Symphony in 2024.  In this episode, Nabors and I talk more about composing Upon Daybreak and what it was like working with the Berkeley Symphony's music director, Joseph Young, on a host of community engagement projects leading up to the premiere. Plus, he shares the important part his spiritual life plays in maintaining the energy to compose, how video games help him overcome creative blocks, and why skin care is always a top priority in his wellness routine. — ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Classical Post® is created and produced by Gold Sound Media® LLC, a New York-based marketing agency for the performing arts industry. Explore how we can grow your audience to make a lasting impact in your community.

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!") --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!") --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!") --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. Originally created to be a mysterious radio-show narrator, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible. The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!," spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!") --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

The Shadow is a fictional character published in the United States of America by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", Street & Smith launched a magazine based on the character, and hired Gibson to create a concept to fit the name and voice and to write a story featuring him. The first issue of the pulp series The Shadow Magazine went on sale April 1, 1931. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow, a new radio drama based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue", in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him". In the magazine stories, The Shadow did not become literally invisible. The introductory line from the radio adaptation of The Shadow – "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" – spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel," composed in 1872). The Shadow, at the end of each episode, reminded listeners, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!" Some early episodes used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!" --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dwight-allen0/support

Episode 169 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Piece of My Heart" and the short, tragic life of Janis Joplin. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There are two Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two . For information on Janis Joplin I used three biographies -- Scars of Sweet Paradise by Alice Echols, Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren, and Buried Alive by Myra Friedman. I also referred to the chapter '“Being Good Isn't Always Easy": Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, and the Color of Soul' in Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton. Some information on Bessie Smith came from Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay, a book I can't really recommend given the lack of fact-checking, and Bessie by Chris Albertson. I also referred to Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis And the best place to start with Joplin's music is this five-CD box, which contains both Big Brother and the Holding Company albums she was involved in, plus her two studio albums and bonus tracks. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains discussion of drug addiction and overdose, alcoholism, mental illness, domestic abuse, child abandonment, and racism. If those subjects are likely to cause you upset, you may want to check the transcript or skip this one rather than listen. Also, a subject I should probably say a little more about in this intro because I know I have inadvertently caused upset to at least one listener with this in the past. When it comes to Janis Joplin, it is *impossible* to talk about her without discussing her issues with her weight and self-image. The way I write often involves me paraphrasing the opinions of the people I'm writing about, in a mode known as close third person, and sometimes that means it can look like I am stating those opinions as my own, and sometimes things I say in that mode which *I* think are obviously meant in context to be critiques of those attitudes can appear to others to be replicating them. At least once, I have seriously upset a fat listener when talking about issues related to weight in this manner. I'm going to try to be more careful here, but just in case, I'm going to say before I begin that I think fatphobia is a pernicious form of bigotry, as bad as any other form of bigotry. I'm fat myself and well aware of how systemic discrimination affects fat people. I also think more generally that the pressure put on women to look a particular way is pernicious and disgusting in ways I can't even begin to verbalise, and causes untold harm. If *ANYTHING* I say in this episode comes across as sounding otherwise, that's because I haven't expressed myself clearly enough. Like all people, Janis Joplin had negative characteristics, and at times I'm going to say things that are critical of those. But when it comes to anything to do with her weight or her appearance, if *anything* I say sounds critical of her, rather than of a society that makes women feel awful for their appearance, it isn't meant to. Anyway, on with the show. On January the nineteenth, 1943, Seth Joplin typed up a letter to his wife Dorothy, which read “I wish to tender my congratulations on the anniversary of your successful completion of your production quota for the nine months ending January 19, 1943. I realize that you passed through a period of inflation such as you had never before known—yet, in spite of this, you met your goal by your supreme effort during the early hours of January 19, a good three weeks ahead of schedule.” As you can probably tell from that message, the Joplin family were a strange mixture of ultraconformism and eccentricity, and those two opposing forces would dominate the personality of their firstborn daughter for the whole of her life.  Seth Joplin was a respected engineer at Texaco, where he worked for forty years, but he had actually dropped out of engineering school before completing his degree. His favourite pastime when he wasn't at work was to read -- he was a voracious reader -- and to listen to classical music, which would often move him to tears, but he had also taught himself to make bathtub gin during prohibition, and smoked cannabis. Dorothy, meanwhile, had had the possibility of a singing career before deciding to settle down and become a housewife, and was known for having a particularly beautiful soprano voice. Both were, by all accounts, fiercely intelligent people, but they were also as committed as anyone to the ideals of the middle-class family even as they chafed against its restrictions. Like her mother, young Janis had a beautiful soprano voice, and she became a soloist in her church choir, but after the age of six, she was not encouraged to sing much. Dorothy had had a thyroid operation which destroyed her singing voice, and the family got rid of their piano soon after (different sources say that this was either because Dorothy found her daughter's singing painful now that she couldn't sing herself, or because Seth was upset that his wife could no longer sing. Either seems plausible.) Janis was pushed to be a high-achiever -- she was given a library card as soon as she could write her name, and encouraged to use it, and she was soon advanced in school, skipping a couple of grades. She was also by all accounts a fiercely talented painter, and her parents paid for art lessons. From everything one reads about her pre-teen years, she was a child prodigy who was loved by everyone and who was clearly going to be a success of some kind. Things started to change when she reached her teenage years. Partly, this was just her getting into rock and roll music, which her father thought a fad -- though even there, she differed from her peers. She loved Elvis, but when she heard "Hound Dog", she loved it so much that she tracked down a copy of Big Mama Thornton's original, and told her friends she preferred that: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog"] Despite this, she was still also an exemplary student and overachiever. But by the time she turned fourteen, things started to go very wrong for her. Partly this was just down to her relationship with her father changing -- she adored him, but he became more distant from his daughters as they grew into women. But also, puberty had an almost wholly negative effect on her, at least by the standards of that time and place. She put on weight (which, again, I do not think is a negative thing, but she did, and so did everyone around her), she got a bad case of acne which didn't ever really go away, and she also didn't develop breasts particularly quickly -- which, given that she was a couple of years younger than the other people in the same classes at school, meant she stood out even more. In the mid-sixties, a doctor apparently diagnosed her as having a "hormone imbalance" -- something that got to her as a possible explanation for why she was, to quote from a letter she wrote then, "not really a woman or enough of one or something." She wondered if "maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call ME and has been so messed up.” I'm not a doctor and even if I were, diagnosing historical figures is an unethical thing to do, but certainly the acne, weight gain, and mental health problems she had are all consistent with PCOS, the most common endocrine disorder among women, and it seems likely given what the doctor told her that this was the cause. But at the time all she knew was that she was different, and that in the eyes of her fellow students she had gone from being pretty to being ugly. She seems to have been a very trusting, naive, person who was often the brunt of jokes but who desperately needed to be accepted, and it became clear that her appearance wasn't going to let her fit into the conformist society she was being brought up in, while her high intelligence, low impulse control, and curiosity meant she couldn't even fade into the background. This left her one other option, and she decided that she would deliberately try to look and act as different from everyone else as possible. That way, it would be a conscious choice on her part to reject the standards of her fellow pupils, rather than her being rejected by them. She started to admire rebels. She became a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, whose music combined the country music she'd grown up hearing in Texas, the R&B she liked now, and the rebellious nature she was trying to cultivate: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"] When Lewis' career was derailed by his marriage to his teenage cousin, Joplin wrote an angry letter to Time magazine complaining that they had mistreated him in their coverage. But as with so many people of her generation, her love of rock and roll music led her first to the blues and then to folk, and she soon found herself listening to Odetta: [Excerpt: Odetta, "Muleskinner Blues"] One of her first experiences of realising she could gain acceptance from her peers by singing was when she was hanging out with the small group of Bohemian teenagers she was friendly with, and sang an Odetta song, mimicking her voice exactly. But young Janis Joplin was listening to an eclectic range of folk music, and could mimic more than just Odetta. For all that her later vocal style was hugely influenced by Odetta and by other Black singers like Big Mama Thornton and Etta James, her friends in her late teens and early twenties remember her as a vocal chameleon with an achingly pure soprano, who would more often than Odetta be imitating the great Appalachian traditional folk singer Jean Ritchie: [Excerpt: Jean Ritchie, "Lord Randall"] She was, in short, trying her best to become a Beatnik, despite not having any experience of that subculture other than what she read in books -- though she *did* read about them in books, devouring things like Kerouac's On The Road. She came into conflict with her mother, who didn't understand what was happening to her daughter, and who tried to get family counselling to understand what was going on. Her father, who seemed to relate more to Janis, but who was more quietly eccentric, put an end to that, but Janis would still for the rest of her life talk about how her mother had taken her to doctors who thought she was going to end up "either in jail or an insane asylum" to use her words. From this point on, and for the rest of her life, she was torn between a need for approval from her family and her peers, and a knowledge that no matter what she did she couldn't fit in with normal societal expectations. In high school she was a member of the Future Nurses of America, the Future Teachers of America, the Art Club, and Slide Rule Club, but she also had a reputation as a wild girl, and as sexually active (even though by all accounts at this point she was far less so than most of the so-called "good girls" – but her later activity was in part because she felt that if she was going to have that reputation anyway she might as well earn it). She also was known to express radical opinions, like that segregation was wrong, an opinion that the other students in her segregated Texan school didn't even think was wrong, but possibly some sort of sign of mental illness. Her final High School yearbook didn't contain a single other student's signature. And her initial choice of university, Lamar State College of Technology, was not much better. In the next town over, and attended by many of the same students, it had much the same attitudes as the school she'd left. Almost the only long-term effect her initial attendance at university had on her was a negative one -- she found there was another student at the college who was better at painting. Deciding that if she wasn't going to be the best at something she didn't want to do it at all, she more or less gave up on painting at that point. But there was one positive. One of the lecturers at Lamar was Francis Edward "Ab" Abernethy, who would in the early seventies go on to become the Secretary and Editor of the Texas Folklore Society, and was also a passionate folk musician, playing double bass in string bands. Abernethy had a great collection of blues 78s. and it was through this collection that Janis first discovered classic blues, and in particular Bessie Smith: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Black Mountain Blues"] A couple of episodes ago, we had a long look at the history of the music that now gets called "the blues" -- the music that's based around guitars, and generally involves a solo male vocalist, usually Black during its classic period. At the time that music was being made though it wouldn't have been thought of as "the blues" with no modifiers by most people who were aware of it. At the start, even the songs they were playing weren't thought of as blues by the male vocalist/guitarists who played them -- they called the songs they played "reels". The music released by people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold and so on was thought of as blues music, and people would understand and agree with a phrase like "Lonnie Johnson is a blues singer", but it wasn't the first thing people thought of when they talked about "the blues". Until relatively late -- probably some time in the 1960s -- if you wanted to talk about blues music made by Black men with guitars and only that music, you talked about "country blues". If you thought about "the blues", with no qualifiers, you thought about a rather different style of music, one that white record collectors started later to refer to as "classic blues" to differentiate it from what they were now calling "the blues". Nowadays of course if you say "classic blues", most people will think you mean Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker, people who were contemporary at the time those white record collectors were coming up with their labels, and so that style of music gets referred to as "vaudeville blues", or as "classic female blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] What we just heard was the first big blues hit performed by a Black person, from 1920, and as we discussed in the episode on "Crossroads" that revolutionised the whole record industry when it came out. The song was performed by Mamie Smith, a vaudeville performer, and was originally titled "Harlem Blues" by its writer, Perry Bradford, before he changed the title to "Crazy Blues" to get it to a wider audience. Bradford was an important figure in the vaudeville scene, though other than being the credited writer of "Keep A-Knockin'" he's little known these days. He was a Black musician and grew up playing in minstrel shows (the history of minstrelsy is a topic for another day, but it's more complicated than the simple image of blackface that we are aware of today -- though as with many "more complicated than that" things it is, also the simple image of blackface we're aware of). He was the person who persuaded OKeh records that there would be a market for music made by Black people that sounded Black (though as we're going to see in this episode, what "sounding Black" means is a rather loaded question). "Crazy Blues" was the result, and it was a massive hit, even though it was marketed specifically towards Black listeners: [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] The big stars of the early years of recorded blues were all making records in the shadow of "Crazy Blues", and in the case of its very biggest stars, they were working very much in the same mould. The two most important blues stars of the twenties both got their start in vaudeville, and were both women. Ma Rainey, like Mamie Smith, first performed in minstrel shows, but where Mamie Smith's early records had her largely backed by white musicians, Rainey was largely backed by Black musicians, including on several tracks Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider"] Rainey's band was initially led by Thomas Dorsey, one of the most important men in American music, who we've talked about before in several episodes, including the last one. He was possibly the single most important figure in two different genres -- hokum music, when he, under the name "Georgia Tom" recorded "It's Tight Like That" with Tampa Red: [Excerpt: Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, "It's Tight Like That"] And of course gospel music, which to all intents and purposes he invented, and much of whose repertoire he wrote: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"] When Dorsey left Rainey's band, as we discussed right back in episode five, he was replaced by a female pianist, Lil Henderson. The blues was a woman's genre. And Ma Rainey was, by preference, a woman's woman, though she was married to a man: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "Prove it on Me"] So was the biggest star of the classic blues era, who was originally mentored by Rainey. Bessie Smith, like Rainey, was a queer woman who had relationships with men but was far more interested in other women.  There were stories that Bessie Smith actually got her start in the business by being kidnapped by Ma Rainey, and forced into performing on the same bills as her in the vaudeville show she was touring in, and that Rainey taught Smith to sing blues in the process. In truth, Rainey mentored Smith more in stagecraft and the ways of the road than in singing, and neither woman was only a blues singer, though both had huge success with their blues records.  Indeed, since Rainey was already in the show, Smith was initially hired as a dancer rather than a singer, and she also worked as a male impersonator. But Smith soon branched out on her own -- from the beginning she was obviously a star. The great jazz clarinettist Sidney Bechet later said of her "She had this trouble in her, this thing that would not let her rest sometimes, a meanness that came and took her over. But what she had was alive … Bessie, she just wouldn't let herself be; it seemed she couldn't let herself be." Bessie Smith was signed by Columbia Records in 1923, as part of the rush to find and record as many Black women blues singers as possible. Her first recording session produced "Downhearted Blues", which became, depending on which sources you read, either the biggest-selling blues record since "Crazy Blues" or the biggest-selling blues record ever, full stop, selling three quarters of a million copies in the six months after its release: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Downhearted Blues"] Smith didn't make royalties off record sales, only making a flat fee, but she became the most popular Black performer of the 1920s. Columbia signed her to an exclusive contract, and she became so rich that she would literally travel between gigs on her own private train. She lived an extravagant life in every way, giving lavishly to her friends and family, but also drinking extraordinary amounts of liquor, having regular affairs, and also often physically or verbally attacking those around her. By all accounts she was not a comfortable person to be around, and she seemed to be trying to fit an entire lifetime into every moment. From 1923 through 1929 she had a string of massive hits. She recorded material in a variety of styles, including the dirty blues: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Empty Bed Blues] And with accompanists like Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, "Cold in Hand Blues"] But the music for which she became best known, and which sold the best, was when she sang about being mistreated by men, as on one of her biggest hits, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do" -- and a warning here, I'm going to play a clip of the song, which treats domestic violence in a way that may be upsetting: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do"] That kind of material can often seem horrifying to today's listeners -- and quite correctly so, as domestic violence is a horrifying thing -- and it sounds entirely too excusing of the man beating her up for anyone to find it comfortable listening. But the Black feminist scholar Angela Davis has made a convincing case that while these records, and others by Smith's contemporaries, can't reasonably be considered to be feminist, they *are* at the very least more progressive than they now seem, in that they were, even if excusing it, pointing to a real problem which was otherwise left unspoken. And that kind of domestic violence and abuse *was* a real problem, including in Smith's own life. By all accounts she was terrified of her husband, Jack Gee, who would frequently attack her because of her affairs with other people, mostly women. But she was still devastated when he left her for a younger woman, not only because he had left her, but also because he kidnapped their adopted son and had him put into a care home, falsely claiming she had abused him. Not only that, but before Jack left her closest friend had been Jack's niece Ruby and after the split she never saw Ruby again -- though after her death Ruby tried to have a blues career as "Ruby Smith", taking her aunt's surname and recording a few tracks with Sammy Price, the piano player who worked with Sister Rosetta Tharpe: [Excerpt: Ruby Smith with Sammy Price, "Make Me Love You"] The same month, May 1929, that Gee left her, Smith recorded what was to become her last big hit, and most well-known song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out": [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] And that could have been the theme for the rest of her life. A few months after that record came out, the Depression hit, pretty much killing the market for blues records. She carried on recording until 1931, but the records weren't selling any more. And at the same time, the talkies came in in the film industry, which along with the Depression ended up devastating the vaudeville audience. Her earnings were still higher than most, but only a quarter of what they had been a year or two earlier. She had one last recording session in 1933, produced by John Hammond for OKeh Records, where she showed that her style had developed over the years -- it was now incorporating the newer swing style, and featured future swing stars Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden in the backing band: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Gimme a Pigfoot"] Hammond was not hugely impressed with the recordings, preferring her earlier records, and they would be the last she would ever make. She continued as a successful, though no longer record-breaking, live act until 1937, when she and her common-law husband, Lionel Hampton's uncle Richard Morgan, were in a car crash. Morgan escaped, but Smith died of her injuries and was buried on October the fourth 1937. Ten thousand people came to her funeral, but she was buried in an unmarked grave -- she was still legally married to Gee, even though they'd been separated for eight years, and while he supposedly later became rich from songwriting royalties from some of her songs (most of her songs were written by other people, but she wrote a few herself) he refused to pay for a headstone for her. Indeed on more than one occasion he embezzled money that had been raised by other people to provide a headstone. Bessie Smith soon became Joplin's favourite singer of all time, and she started trying to copy her vocals. But other than discovering Smith's music, Joplin seems to have had as terrible a time at university as at school, and soon dropped out and moved back in with her parents. She went to business school for a short while, where she learned some secretarial skills, and then she moved west, going to LA where two of her aunts lived, to see if she could thrive better in a big West Coast city than she did in small-town Texas. Soon she moved from LA to Venice Beach, and from there had a brief sojourn in San Francisco, where she tried to live out her beatnik fantasies at a time when the beatnik culture was starting to fall apart. She did, while she was there, start smoking cannabis, though she never got a taste for that drug, and took Benzedrine and started drinking much more heavily than she had before. She soon lost her job, moved back to Texas, and re-enrolled at the same college she'd been at before. But now she'd had a taste of real Bohemian life -- she'd been singing at coffee houses, and having affairs with both men and women -- and soon she decided to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin. At this point, Austin was very far from the cultural centre it has become in recent decades, and it was still a straitlaced Texan town, but it was far less so than Port Arthur, and she soon found herself in a folk group, the Waller Creek Boys. Janis would play autoharp and sing, sometimes Bessie Smith covers, but also the more commercial country and folk music that was popular at the time, like "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", a song that had originally been recorded by Wanda Jackson but at that time was a big hit for Dusty Springfield's group The Springfields: [Excerpt: The Waller Creek Boys, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"] But even there, Joplin didn't fit in comfortably. The venue where the folk jams were taking place was a segregated venue, as everywhere around Austin was. And she was enough of a misfit that the campus newspaper did an article on her headlined "She Dares to Be Different!", which read in part "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break out into song it will be handy." There was a small group of wannabe-Beatniks, including Chet Helms, who we've mentioned previously in the Grateful Dead episode, Gilbert Shelton, who went on to be a pioneer of alternative comics and create the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Shelton's partner in Rip-Off Press, Dave Moriarty, but for the most part the atmosphere in Austin was only slightly better for Janis than it had been in Port Arthur. The final straw for her came when in an annual charity fundraiser joke competition to find the ugliest man on campus, someone nominated her for the "award". She'd had enough of Texas. She wanted to go back to California. She and Chet Helms, who had dropped out of the university earlier and who, like her, had already spent some time on the West Coast, decided to hitch-hike together to San Francisco. Before leaving, she made a recording for her ex-girlfriend Julie Paul, a country and western musician, of a song she'd written herself. It's recorded in what many say was Janis' natural voice -- a voice she deliberately altered in performance in later years because, she would tell people, she didn't think there was room for her singing like that in an industry that already had Joan Baez and Judy Collins. In her early years she would alternate between singing like this and doing her imitations of Black women, but the character of Janis Joplin who would become famous never sang like this. It may well be the most honest thing that she ever recorded, and the most revealing of who she really was: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, "So Sad to Be Alone"] Joplin and Helms made it to San Francisco, and she started performing at open-mic nights and folk clubs around the Bay Area, singing in her Bessie Smith and Odetta imitation voice, and sometimes making a great deal of money by sounding different from the wispier-voiced women who were the norm at those venues. The two friends parted ways, and she started performing with two other folk musicians, Larry Hanks and Roger Perkins, and she insisted that they would play at least one Bessie Smith song at every performance: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, Larry Hanks, and Roger Perkins, "Black Mountain Blues (live in San Francisco)"] Often the trio would be joined by Billy Roberts, who at that time had just started performing the song that would make his name, "Hey Joe", and Joplin was soon part of the folk scene in the Bay Area, and admired by Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and Jerry Garcia among others. She also sang a lot with Jorma Kaukonnen, and recordings of the two of them together have circulated for years: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonnen, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] Through 1963, 1964, and early 1965 Joplin ping-ponged from coast to coast, spending time in the Bay Area, then Greenwich Village, dropping in on her parents then back to the Bay Area, and she started taking vast quantities of methamphetamine. Even before moving to San Francisco she had been an occasional user of amphetamines – at the time they were regularly prescribed to students as study aids during exam periods, and she had also been taking them to try to lose some of the weight she always hated. But while she was living in San Francisco she became dependent on the drug. At one point her father was worried enough about her health to visit her in San Francisco, where she managed to fool him that she was more or less OK. But she looked to him for reassurance that things would get better for her, and he couldn't give it to her. He told her about a concept that he called the "Saturday night swindle", the idea that you work all week so you can go out and have fun on Saturday in the hope that that will make up for everything else, but that it never does. She had occasional misses with what would have been lucky breaks -- at one point she was in a motorcycle accident just as record labels were interested in signing her, and by the time she got out of the hospital the chance had gone. She became engaged to another speed freak, one who claimed to be an engineer and from a well-off background, but she was becoming severely ill from what was by now a dangerous amphetamine habit, and in May 1965 she decided to move back in with her parents, get clean, and have a normal life. Her new fiance was going to do the same, and they were going to have the conformist life her parents had always wanted, and which she had always wanted to want. Surely with a husband who loved her she could find a way to fit in and just be normal. She kicked the addiction, and wrote her fiance long letters describing everything about her family and the new normal life they were going to have together, and they show her painfully trying to be optimistic about the future, like one where she described her family to him: "My mother—Dorothy—worries so and loves her children dearly. Republican and Methodist, very sincere, speaks in clichés which she really means and is very good to people. (She thinks you have a lovely voice and is terribly prepared to like you.) My father—richer than when I knew him and kind of embarrassed about it—very well read—history his passion—quiet and very excited to have me home because I'm bright and we can talk (about antimatter yet—that impressed him)! I keep telling him how smart you are and how proud I am of you.…" She went back to Lamar, her mother started sewing her a wedding dress, and for much of the year she believed her fiance was going to be her knight in shining armour. But as it happened, the fiance in question was described by everyone else who knew him as a compulsive liar and con man, who persuaded her father to give him money for supposed medical tests before the wedding, but in reality was apparently married to someone else and having a baby with a third woman. After the engagement was broken off, she started performing again around the coffeehouses in Austin and Houston, and she started to realise the possibilities of rock music for her kind of performance. The missing clue came from a group from Austin who she became very friendly with, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and the way their lead singer Roky Erickson would wail and yell: [Excerpt: The 13th Floor Elevators, "You're Gonna Miss Me (live)"] If, as now seemed inevitable, Janis was going to make a living as a performer, maybe she should start singing rock music, because it seemed like there was money in it. There was even some talk of her singing with the Elevators. But then an old friend came to Austin from San Francisco with word from Chet Helms. A blues band had formed, and were looking for a singer, and they remembered her from the coffee houses. Would she like to go back to San Francisco and sing with them? In the time she'd been away, Helms had become hugely prominent in the San Francisco music scene, which had changed radically. A band from the area called the Charlatans had been playing a fake-Victorian saloon called the Red Dog in nearby Nevada, and had become massive with the people who a few years earlier had been beatniks: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "32-20"] When their residency at the Red Dog had finished, several of the crowd who had been regulars there had become a collective of sorts called the Family Dog, and Helms had become their unofficial leader. And there's actually a lot packed into that choice of name. As we'll see in a few future episodes, a lot of West Coast hippies eventually started calling their collectives and communes families. This started as a way to get round bureaucracy -- if a helpful welfare officer put down that the unrelated people living in a house together were a family, suddenly they could get food stamps. As with many things, of course, the label then affected how people thought about themselves, and one thing that's very notable about the San Francisco scene hippies in particular is that they are some of the first people to make a big deal about what we now  call "found family" or "family of choice". But it's also notable how often the hippie found families took their model from the only families these largely middle-class dropouts had ever known, and structured themselves around men going out and doing the work -- selling dope or panhandling or being rock musicians or shoplifting -- with the women staying at home doing the housework. The Family Dog started promoting shows, with the intention of turning San Francisco into "the American Liverpool", and soon Helms was rivalled only by Bill Graham as the major promoter of rock shows in the Bay Area. And now he wanted Janis to come back and join this new band. But Janis was worried. She was clean now. She drank far too much, but she wasn't doing any other drugs. She couldn't go back to San Francisco and risk getting back on methamphetamine. She needn't worry about that, she was told, nobody in San Francisco did speed any more, they were all on LSD -- a drug she hated and so wasn't in any danger from. Reassured, she made the trip back to San Francisco, to join Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother and the Holding Company were the epitome of San Francisco acid rock at the time. They were the house band at the Avalon Ballroom, which Helms ran, and their first ever gig had been at the Trips Festival, which we talked about briefly in the Grateful Dead episode. They were known for being more imaginative than competent -- lead guitarist James Gurley was often described as playing parts that were influenced by John Cage, but was equally often, and equally accurately, described as not actually being able to keep his guitar in tune because he was too stoned. But they were drawing massive crowds with their instrumental freak-out rock music. Helms thought they needed a singer, and he had remembered Joplin, who a few of the group had seen playing the coffee houses. He decided she would be perfect for them, though Joplin wasn't so sure. She thought it was worth a shot, but as she wrote to her parents before meeting the group "Supposed to rehearse w/ the band this afternoon, after that I guess I'll know whether I want to stay & do that for awhile. Right now my position is ambivalent—I'm glad I came, nice to see the city, a few friends, but I'm not at all sold on the idea of becoming the poor man's Cher.” In that letter she also wrote "I'm awfully sorry to be such a disappointment to you. I understand your fears at my coming here & must admit I share them, but I really do think there's an awfully good chance I won't blow it this time." The band she met up with consisted of lead guitarist James Gurley, bass player Peter Albin, rhythm player Sam Andrew, and drummer David Getz.  To start with, Peter Albin sang lead on most songs, with Joplin adding yelps and screams modelled on those of Roky Erickson, but in her first gig with the band she bowled everyone over with her lead vocal on the traditional spiritual "Down on Me", which would remain a staple of their live act, as in this live recording from 1968: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me (Live 1968)"] After that first gig in June 1966, it was obvious that Joplin was going to be a star, and was going to be the group's main lead vocalist. She had developed a whole new stage persona a million miles away from her folk performances. As Chet Helms said “Suddenly this person who would stand upright with her fists clenched was all over the stage. Roky Erickson had modeled himself after the screaming style of Little Richard, and Janis's initial stage presence came from Roky, and ultimately Little Richard. It was a very different Janis.” Joplin would always claim to journalists that her stage persona was just her being herself and natural, but she worked hard on every aspect of her performance, and far from the untrained emotional outpouring she always suggested, her vocal performances were carefully calculated pastiches of her influences -- mostly Bessie Smith, but also Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, Etta James, Tina Turner, and Otis Redding. That's not to say that those performances weren't an authentic expression of part of herself -- they absolutely were. But the ethos that dominated San Francisco in the mid-sixties prized self-expression over technical craft, and so Joplin had to portray herself as a freak of nature who just had to let all her emotions out, a wild woman, rather than someone who carefully worked out every nuance of her performances. Joplin actually got the chance to meet one of her idols when she discovered that Willie Mae Thornton was now living and regularly performing in the Bay Area. She and some of her bandmates saw Big Mama play a small jazz club, where she performed a song she wouldn't release on a record for another two years: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Ball 'n' Chain"] Janis loved the song and scribbled down the lyrics, then went backstage to ask Big Mama if Big Brother could cover the song. She gave them her blessing, but told them "don't" -- and here she used a word I can't use with a clean rating -- "it up". The group all moved in together, communally, with their partners -- those who had them. Janis was currently single, having dumped her most recent boyfriend after discovering him shooting speed, as she was still determined to stay clean. But she was rapidly discovering that the claim that San Franciscans no longer used much speed had perhaps not been entirely true, as for example Sam Andrew's girlfriend went by the nickname Speedfreak Rita. For now, Janis was still largely clean, but she did start drinking more. Partly this was because of a brief fling with Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis liked Pigpen as someone else on the scene who didn't much like psychedelics or cannabis -- she didn't like drugs that made her think more, but only drugs that made her able to *stop* thinking (her love of amphetamines doesn't seem to fit this pattern, but a small percentage of people have a different reaction to amphetamine-type stimulants, perhaps she was one of those). Pigpen was a big drinker of Southern Comfort -- so much so that it would kill him within a few years -- and Janis started joining him. Her relationship with Pigpen didn't last long, but the two would remain close, and she would often join the Grateful Dead on stage over the years to duet with him on "Turn On Your Lovelight": [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, "Turn on Your Lovelight"] But within two months of joining the band, Janis nearly left. Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records came to see the group live, and was impressed by their singer, but not by the rest of the band. This was something that would happen again and again over the group's career. The group were all imaginative and creative -- they worked together on their arrangements and their long instrumental jams and often brought in very good ideas -- but they were not the most disciplined or technically skilled of musicians, even when you factored in their heavy drug use, and often lacked the skill to pull off their better ideas. They were hugely popular among the crowds at the Avalon Ballroom, who were on the group's chemical wavelength, but Rothchild was not impressed -- as he was, in general, unimpressed with psychedelic freakouts. He was already of the belief in summer 1966 that the fashion for extended experimental freak-outs would soon come to an end and that there would be a pendulum swing back towards more structured and melodic music. As we saw in the episode on The Band, he would be proved right in a little over a year, but being ahead of the curve he wanted to put together a supergroup that would be able to ride that coming wave, a group that would play old-fashioned blues. He'd got together Stefan Grossman, Steve Mann, and Taj Mahal, and he wanted Joplin to be the female vocalist for the group, dueting with Mahal. She attended one rehearsal, and the new group sounded great. Elektra Records offered to sign them, pay their rent while they rehearsed, and have a major promotional campaign for their first release. Joplin was very, very, tempted, and brought the subject up to her bandmates in Big Brother. They were devastated. They were a family! You don't leave your family! She was meant to be with them forever! They eventually got her to agree to put off the decision at least until after a residency they'd been booked for in Chicago, and she decided to give them the chance, writing to her parents "I decided to stay w/the group but still like to think about the other thing. Trying to figure out which is musically more marketable because my being good isn't enough, I've got to be in a good vehicle.” The trip to Chicago was a disaster. They found that the people of Chicago weren't hugely interested in seeing a bunch of white Californians play the blues, and that the Midwest didn't have the same Bohemian crowds that the coastal cities they were used to had, and so their freak-outs didn't go down well either. After two weeks of their four-week residency, the club owner stopped paying them because they were so unpopular, and they had no money to get home. And then they were approached by Bob Shad. (For those who know the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the Bob Shad in that film is named after this one -- Judd Apatow, the film's director, is Shad's grandson) This Shad was a record producer, who had worked with people like Big Bill Broonzy, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Billy Eckstine over an eighteen-year career, and had recently set up a new label, Mainstream Records. He wanted to sign Big Brother and the Holding Company. They needed money and... well, it was a record contract! It was a contract that took half their publishing, paid them a five percent royalty on sales, and gave them no advance, but it was still a contract, and they'd get union scale for the first session. In that first session in Chicago, they recorded four songs, and strangely only one, "Down on Me", had a solo Janis vocal. Of the other three songs, Sam Andrew and Janis dueted on Sam's song "Call on Me", Albin sang lead on the group composition "Blindman", and Gurley and Janis sang a cover of "All Is Loneliness", a song originally by the avant-garde street musician Moondog: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "All is Loneliness"] The group weren't happy with the four songs they recorded -- they had to keep the songs to the length of a single, and the engineers made sure that the needles never went into the red, so their guitars sounded far more polite and less distorted than they were used to. Janis was fascinated by the overdubbing process, though, especially double-tracking, which she'd never tried before but which she turned out to be remarkably good at. And they were now signed to a contract, which meant that Janis wouldn't be leaving the group to go solo any time soon. The family were going to stay together. But on the group's return to San Francisco, Janis started doing speed again, encouraged by the people around the group, particularly Gurley's wife. By the time the group's first single, "Blindman" backed with "All is Loneliness", came out, she was an addict again. That initial single did nothing, but the group were fast becoming one of the most popular in the Bay Area, and almost entirely down to Janis' vocals and on-stage persona. Bob Shad had already decided in the initial session that while various band members had taken lead, Janis was the one who should be focused on as the star, and when they drove to LA for their second recording session it was songs with Janis leads that they focused on. At that second session, in which they recorded ten tracks in two days, the group recorded a mix of material including one of Janis' own songs, the blues track "Women is Losers", and a version of the old folk song "the Cuckoo Bird" rearranged by Albin. Again they had to keep the arrangements to two and a half minutes a track, with no extended soloing and a pop arrangement style, and the results sound a lot more like the other San Francisco bands, notably Jefferson Airplane, than like the version of the band that shows itself in their live performances: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Coo Coo"] After returning to San Francisco after the sessions, Janis went to see Otis Redding at the Fillmore, turning up several hours before the show started on all three nights to make sure she could be right at the front. One of the other audience members later recalled “It was more fascinating for me, almost, to watch Janis watching Otis, because you could tell that she wasn't just listening to him, she was studying something. There was some kind of educational thing going on there. I was jumping around like the little hippie girl I was, thinking This is so great! and it just stopped me in my tracks—because all of a sudden Janis drew you very deeply into what the performance was all about. Watching her watch Otis Redding was an education in itself.” Joplin would, for the rest of her life, always say that Otis Redding was her all-time favourite singer, and would say “I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.” [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "I Can't Turn You Loose (live)"] At the start of 1967, the group moved out of the rural house they'd been sharing and into separate apartments around Haight-Ashbury, and they brought the new year in by playing a free show organised by the Hell's Angels, the violent motorcycle gang who at the time were very close with the proto-hippies in the Bay Area. Janis in particular always got on well with the Angels, whose drugs of choice, like hers, were speed and alcohol more than cannabis and psychedelics. Janis also started what would be the longest on-again off-again relationship she would ever have, with a woman named Peggy Caserta. Caserta had a primary partner, but that if anything added to her appeal for Joplin -- Caserta's partner Kimmie had previously been in a relationship with Joan Baez, and Joplin, who had an intense insecurity that made her jealous of any other female singer who had any success, saw this as in some way a validation both of her sexuality and, transitively, of her talent. If she was dating Baez's ex's lover, that in some way put her on a par with Baez, and when she told friends about Peggy, Janis would always slip that fact in. Joplin and Caserta would see each other off and on for the rest of Joplin's life, but they were never in a monogamous relationship, and Joplin had many other lovers over the years. The next of these was Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, who were just in the process of recording their first album Electric Music for the Mind and Body, when McDonald and Joplin first got together: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Grace"] McDonald would later reminisce about lying with Joplin, listening to one of the first underground FM radio stations, KMPX, and them playing a Fish track and a Big Brother track back to back. Big Brother's second single, the other two songs recorded in the Chicago session, had been released in early 1967, and the B-side, "Down on Me", was getting a bit of airplay in San Francisco and made the local charts, though it did nothing outside the Bay Area: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me"] Janis was unhappy with the record, though, writing to her parents and saying, “Our new record is out. We seem to be pretty dissatisfied w/it. I think we're going to try & get out of the record contract if we can. We don't feel that they know how to promote or engineer a record & every time we recorded for them, they get all our songs, which means we can't do them for another record company. But then if our new record does something, we'd change our mind. But somehow, I don't think it's going to." The band apparently saw a lawyer to see if they could get out of the contract with Mainstream, but they were told it was airtight. They were tied to Bob Shad no matter what for the next five years. Janis and McDonald didn't stay together for long -- they clashed about his politics and her greater fame -- but after they split, she asked him to write a song for her before they became too distant, and he obliged and recorded it on the Fish's next album: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Janis"] The group were becoming so popular by late spring 1967 that when Richard Lester, the director of the Beatles' films among many other classics, came to San Francisco to film Petulia, his follow-up to How I Won The War, he chose them, along with the Grateful Dead, to appear in performance segments in the film. But it would be another filmmaker that would change the course of the group's career irrevocably: [Excerpt: Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)"] When Big Brother and the Holding Company played the Monterey Pop Festival, nobody had any great expectations. They were second on the bill on the Saturday, the day that had been put aside for the San Francisco acts, and they were playing in the early afternoon, after a largely unimpressive night before. They had a reputation among the San Francisco crowd, of course, but they weren't even as big as the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape or Country Joe and the Fish, let alone Jefferson Airplane. Monterey launched four careers to new heights, but three of the superstars it made -- Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who -- already had successful careers. Hendrix and the Who had had hits in the UK but not yet broken the US market, while Redding was massively popular with Black people but hadn't yet crossed over to a white audience. Big Brother and the Holding Company, on the other hand, were so unimportant that D.A. Pennebaker didn't even film their set -- their manager at the time had not wanted to sign over the rights to film their performance, something that several of the other acts had also refused -- and nobody had been bothered enough to make an issue of it. Pennebaker just took some crowd shots and didn't bother filming the band. The main thing he caught was Cass Elliot's open-mouthed astonishment at Big Brother's performance -- or rather at Janis Joplin's performance. The members of the group would later complain, not entirely inaccurately, that in the reviews of their performance at Monterey, Joplin's left nipple (the outline of which was apparently visible through her shirt, at least to the male reviewers who took an inordinate interest in such things) got more attention than her four bandmates combined. As Pennebaker later said “She came out and sang, and my hair stood on end. We were told we weren't allowed to shoot it, but I knew if we didn't have Janis in the film, the film would be a wash. Afterward, I said to Albert Grossman, ‘Talk to her manager or break his leg or whatever you have to do, because we've got to have her in this film. I can't imagine this film without this woman who I just saw perform.” Grossman had a talk with the organisers of the festival, Lou Adler and John Phillips, and they offered Big Brother a second spot, the next day, if they would allow their performance to be used in the film. The group agreed, after much discussion between Janis and Grossman, and against the wishes of their manager: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Ball and Chain (live at Monterey)"] They were now on Albert Grossman's radar. Or at least, Janis Joplin was. Joplin had always been more of a careerist than the other members of the group. They were in music to have a good time and to avoid working a straight job, and while some of them were more accomplished musicians than their later reputations would suggest -- Sam Andrew, in particular, was a skilled player and serious student of music -- they were fundamentally content with playing the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore and making five hundred dollars or so a week between them. Very good money for 1967, but nothing else. Joplin, on the other hand, was someone who absolutely craved success. She wanted to prove to her family that she wasn't a failure and that her eccentricity shouldn't stop them being proud of her; she was always, even at the depths of her addictions, fiscally prudent and concerned about her finances; and she had a deep craving for love. Everyone who talks about her talks about how she had an aching need at all times for approval, connection, and validation, which she got on stage more than she got anywhere else. The bigger the audience, the more they must love her. She'd made all her decisions thus far based on how to balance making music that she loved with commercial success, and this would continue to be the pattern for her in future. And so when journalists started to want to talk to her, even though up to that point Albin, who did most of the on-stage announcements, and Gurley, the lead guitarist, had considered themselves joint leaders of the band, she was eager. And she was also eager to get rid of their manager, who continued the awkward streak that had prevented their first performance at the Monterey Pop Festival from being filmed. The group had the chance to play the Hollywood Bowl -- Bill Graham was putting on a "San Francisco Sound" showcase there, featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and got their verbal agreement to play, but after Graham had the posters printed up, their manager refused to sign the contracts unless they were given more time on stage. The next day after that, they played Monterey again -- this time the Monterey Jazz Festival. A very different crowd to the Pop Festival still fell for Janis' performance -- and once again, the film being made of the event didn't include Big Brother's set because of their manager. While all this was going on, the group's recordings from the previous year were rushed out by Mainstream Records as an album, to poor reviews which complained it was nothing like the group's set at Monterey: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] They were going to need to get out of that contract and sign with somewhere better -- Clive Davis at Columbia Records was already encouraging them to sign with him -- but to do that, they needed a better manager. They needed Albert Grossman. Grossman was one of the best negotiators in the business at that point, but he was also someone who had a genuine love for the music his clients made.  And he had good taste -- he managed Odetta, who Janis idolised as a singer, and Bob Dylan, who she'd been a fan of since his first album came out. He was going to be the perfect manager for the group. But he had one condition though. His first wife had been a heroin addict, and he'd just been dealing with Mike Bloomfield's heroin habit. He had one absolutely ironclad rule, a dealbreaker that would stop him signing them -- they didn't use heroin, did they? Both Gurley and Joplin had used heroin on occasion -- Joplin had only just started, introduced to the drug by Gurley -- but they were only dabblers. They could give it up any time they wanted, right? Of course they could. They told him, in perfect sincerity, that the band didn't use heroin and it wouldn't be a problem. But other than that, Grossman was extremely flexible. He explained to the group at their first meeting that he took a higher percentage than other managers, but that he would also make them more money than other managers -- if money was what they wanted. He told them that they needed to figure out where they wanted their career to be, and what they were willing to do to get there -- would they be happy just playing the same kind of venues they were now, maybe for a little more money, or did they want to be as big as Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary? He could get them to whatever level they wanted, and he was happy with working with clients at every level, what did they actually want? The group were agreed -- they wanted to be rich. They decided to test him. They were making twenty-five thousand dollars a year between them at that time, so they got ridiculously ambitious. They told him they wanted to make a *lot* of money. Indeed, they wanted a clause in their contract saying the contract would be void if in the first year they didn't make... thinking of a ridiculous amount, they came up with seventy-five thousand dollars. Grossman's response was to shrug and say "Make it a hundred thousand." The group were now famous and mixing with superstars -- Peter Tork of the Monkees had become a close friend of Janis', and when they played a residency in LA they were invited to John and Michelle Phillips' house to see a rough cut of Monterey Pop. But the group, other than Janis, were horrified -- the film barely showed the other band members at all, just Janis. Dave Getz said later "We assumed we'd appear in the movie as a band, but seeing it was a shock. It was all Janis. They saw her as a superstar in the making. I realized that though we were finally going to be making money and go to another level, it also meant our little family was being separated—there was Janis, and there was the band.” [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] If the group were going to make that hundred thousand dollars a year, they couldn't remain on Mainstream Records, but Bob Shad was not about to give up his rights to what could potentially be the biggest group in America without a fight. But luckily for the group, Clive Davis at Columbia had seen their Monterey performance, and he was also trying to pivot the label towards the new rock music. He was basically willing to do anything to get them. Eventually Columbia agreed to pay Shad two hundred thousand dollars for the group's contract -- Davis and Grossman negotiated so half that was an advance on the group's future earnings, but the other half was just an expense for the label. On top of that the group got an advance payment of fifty thousand dollars for their first album for Columbia, making a total investment by Columbia of a quarter of a million dollars -- in return for which they got to sign the band, and got the rights to the material they'd recorded for Mainstream, though Shad would get a two percent royalty on their first two albums for Columbia. Janis was intimidated by signing for Columbia, because that had been Aretha Franklin's label before she signed to Atlantic, and she regarded Franklin as the greatest performer in music at that time.  Which may have had something to do with the choice of a new song the group added to their setlist in early 1968 -- one which was a current hit for Aretha's sister Erma: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] We talked a little in the last episode about the song "Piece of My Heart" itself, though mostly from the perspective of its performer, Erma Franklin. But the song was, as we mentioned, co-written by Bert Berns. He's someone we've talked about a little bit in previous episodes, notably the ones on "Here Comes the Night" and "Twist and Shout", but those were a couple of years ago, and he's about to become a major figure in the next episode, so we might as well take a moment here to remind listeners (or tell those who haven't heard those episodes) of the basics and explain where "Piece of My Heart" comes in Berns' work as a whole. Bert Berns was a latecomer to the music industry, not getting properly started until he was thirty-one, after trying a variety of other occupations. But when he did get started, he wasted no time making his mark -- he knew he had no time to waste. He had a weak heart and knew the likelihood was he was going to die young. He started an association with Wand records as a songwriter and performer, writing songs for some of Phil Spector's pre-fame recordings, and he also started producing records for Atlantic, where for a long while he was almost the equal of Jerry Wexler or Leiber and Stoller in terms of number of massive hits created. His records with Solomon Burke were the records that first got the R&B genre renamed soul (previously the word "soul" mostly referred to a kind of R&Bish jazz, rather than a kind of gospel-ish R&B). He'd also been one of the few American music industry professionals to work with British bands before the Beatles made it big in the USA, after he became alerted to the Beatles' success with his song "Twist and Shout", which he'd co-written with Phil Medley, and which had been a hit in a version Berns produced for the Isley Brothers: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] That song shows the two elements that existed in nearly every single Bert Berns song or production. The first is the Afro-Caribbean rhythm, a feel he picked up during a stint in Cuba in his twenties. Other people in the Atlantic records team were also partial to those rhythms -- Leiber and Stoller loved what they called the baion rhythm -- but Berns more than anyone else made it his signature. He also very specifically loved the song "La Bamba", especially Ritchie Valens' version of it: [Excerpt: Ritchie Valens, "La Bamba"] He basically seemed to think that was the greatest record ever made, and he certainly loved that three-chord trick I-IV-V-IV chord sequence -- almost but not quite the same as the "Louie Louie" one.  He used it in nearly every song he wrote from that point on -- usually using a bassline that went something like this: [plays I-IV-V-IV bassline] He used it in "Twist and Shout" of course: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] He used it in "Hang on Sloopy": [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] He *could* get more harmonically sophisticated on occasion, but the vast majority of Berns' songs show the power of simplicity. They're usually based around three chords, and often they're actually only two chords, like "I Want Candy": [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Or the chorus to "Here Comes the Night" by Them, which is two chords for most of it and only introduces a third right at the end: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And even in that song you can hear the "Twist and Shout"/"La Bamba" feel, even if it's not exactly the same chords. Berns' whole career was essentially a way of wringing *every last possible drop* out of all the implications of Ritchie Valens' record. And so even when he did a more harmonically complex song, like "Piece of My Heart", which actually has some minor chords in the bridge, the "La Bamba" chord sequence is used in both the verse: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] And the chorus: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] Berns co-wrote “Piece of My Heart” with Jerry Ragavoy. Berns and Ragavoy had also written "Cry Baby" for Garnet Mimms, which was another Joplin favourite: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And Ragavoy, with other collaborators