Podcasts about Tin Pan Alley

What does it take to keep a city's music soul alive when developers, gentrification, and time threaten to erase it?In this heartfelt and hilariously offbeat episode of The Ben and Skin Show, Ben Rogers, Jeff “Skin” Wade, Kevin “KT” Turner, and Krystina Ray dive deep into the beating heart of the DFW music scene—and it's as wild, weird, and wonderful as you'd expect.From Krystina's Nirvana cover band Oatmeal Pizza (yes, you read that right) to a passionate plea to save Fort Worth's beloved venue The Cicada, the crew blends humor, nostalgia, and genuine love for local music into an unforgettable hour of radio. You'll hear about the upcoming June 8th benefit show, the rise of Fort Worth as a cultural powerhouse, and the bittersweet tug-of-war between community and commercialization.But the real showstopper? Skin's tribute to his high school buddy Rob Dunlap—a 7-foot-tall, bearded legend—whose band The Golden Falcons is reuniting for a 20-year anniversary show at Double Wide. With a vinyl reissue of their cult-classic Honduras album and a stacked lineup including Hawk vs. Dove and Minor Tigers, this episode is a rallying cry for anyone who's ever moshed in a dive bar or discovered their favorite band in a back alley venue.Memorable Moments:“The Eagle was here before radio existed… back in the Tin Pan Alley days.”“Imagine a 7-footer with a beard down to his chest belting out indie rock—how do you not go to that show?”“We should've called it the Wildlife Tour: Golden Falcons, Hawk vs. Dove, Minor Tigers!”

Rabia from "Suddenly: A Frank Sinatra Podcast" and "TCBCast After Dark" joins Justin for a main feed discussion all about the 1977 compilation "Welcome to My World," which brought together an intriguing collection of country recordings spanning from 1958-1973 with some loose thematic threads that we try to tease out. Plus, Rabia dug up a handful of original contemporary reviews that reveal how critics received this album at the time, both positively and negatively! For Song of the Week, as voted on by TCBCast Patreon backers, Justin rolls with the final track featured on the album, Don Gibson's "I Can't Stop Loving You" which was a mainstay of Elvis's setlists for a number of years and also recorded as a jam during his 1969 sessions. Justin reflects on Gibson's original, Ray Charles' iconic cover, and what Elvis might have intended with his frequent inclusion of it in his live shows.  Rabia then takes us home with a dive into the rare one-liner Elvis did (twice!) of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," a Tin Pan Alley song resurrected in 1968 - the same year Elvis was filmed on the set of his NBC TV special singing the song - by the immensely talented pop culture phenomenon that was Tiny Tim.  You can find "SUDDENLY" on most major podcast platforms where TCBCast is also available. If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy.

Send us a textApril Fools Fortnight Tuesday begins with our second "Songwriters You've Never Heard Of" episodes with the tuneful Joe Burke. A Tin Pan Alley veteran, Philadelphia born Joe had a bevy of Billboard hits in the 1930s. And an inaugural class inductee to the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. Tune in to enjoy the bevy!

Send us a textIn this episode, host Ryan Roberts speaks with double bassist and educator Chris Hornung about the history of rock music. Key topics include the genre's roots in Tin Pan Alley, country, and blues, as well as the influence of early pioneers like Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. A rock history instructor offers insights into rock's evolution—from its emergence and impact on 1950s teenage culture to the industry's transformation through platforms like MTV and legislative changes such as the Telecommunications Act of 1996.The conversation explores cultural influences, shifting definitions of rock's eras and movements, and the lasting impact of artists like Bob Dylan and David Bowie. Participants also examine the socio-economic factors that shaped rock's rise, emphasizing its resilience against claims of obsolescence while celebrating its enduring legacy and the contributions of pivotal artists across decades.Zimmerman Publications____________________________________________________________In This EpisodeLemur MusicUse PromoCode THEBASSSHEDJerry Jemmott 15 Timeless BasslinesGet FeaturedSupport the showInstagram / Twitter / Youtube / Website / BSA / View More Episodes

A Funny MondayFirst a look at this day in History.Then The Campbells Playhouse starring Orson Welles, originally broadcast March 24, 1940, 85 years ago, June Moon starring Jack Benny.  The program features the funny story about a song writer from Schenectady who arrives in New York with plans to conquer Tin Pan Alley. Jack manages to get in a remark about Fred Allen. The story is based on a story by Ring Lardner titled, "Some Like Them Cold."Followed by A Day in the Life of Dennis Day, originally broadcast March 24, 1948, 77 years ago,  Weaverville Land Grab.  Dennis buys and runs a taxicab. He that discovers one of his passengers plans to take over the entire town. Then Abbott and Costello, originally broadcast March 24, 1949, 76 years ago, A Sam Shovel Mystery. The boys do a "Sam Shovel" mystery, "The Case Of The Man Who Burned His Sweetheart's Body In The Fireplace," or "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm." Finally Claudia, originally broadcast March 24, 1949, 76 years ago, Roger's Surprise.   Telling Mama the news. But who bought the land?Thanks to Sean for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamFind the Family Fallout Shelter Booklet Here: https://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/the_family_fallout_shelter_1959.pdfhttps://wardomatic.blogspot.com/2006/11/fallout-shelter-handbook-1962.htmlAnd more about the Survive-all Fallout Sheltershttps://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/mad-men-meet-mad-survive-all-shelter.html

Mark-Eugene and David celebrate women in musical theatre, sharing their favorite writers and their impact. Later, David chats with Jennifer Ashley Tepper—acclaimed theatre historian, producer, and author—about her upcoming book, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That The History Books Left Out. Tepper, known for her work at 54 Below and productions like Be More Chill, highlights over 300 women who shaped Broadway, from Tin Pan Alley pioneers to today's trailblazers. She shares stories of icons like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, as well as lesser-known but groundbreaking figures. Plus, Mark-Eugene and David tease an exciting partnership with Manhattan Theatre Club in the next episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The band is back! This Sunday at the "Unchained Melodies" show, the Evensong Quintet is playing a live recording concert of tunes in the public domain. Many of the best songwriters of the “Tin Pan Alley” era wrote some of their most enduring songs during the late 1920s, and many of these songs fall into public domain this year. Jazz musicians have long favored the work of these giants: George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael to name a few. For generations, big corporations have controlled the performance rights to this material, now these national treasures are free to be performed and recorded without restrictions. 

"THE NICHOLAS BROTHERS: CLASSIC CINEMA STARS OF THE MONTH" The Nicholas Brothers, FAYARD and HAROLD, are arguably two of the greatest dancer to ever hit Hollywood. Born to musician parents, they learned their craft working the vaudeville scene and appearing at the famous Cotten Club during the Harlem Renaissance before landing in Hollywood. In Tinseltown, they made movie magic dancing in some of Hollywood's biggest musicals. The brothers mixed tap-dancing with acrobatics to perfect thrilling routines that we're still win awe of today. They also had to endure the limits put upon them by the racism of the day. Join us this week, as we celebrate these icons of dance who are our Stars of the Month.  SHOW NOTES:  Sources: Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers (2002), by Constance Valis Hill; Dorothy Dandridge: An Intimate Biography (1970), by Earl Mills; “The Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold: Tap Dance Legends,” February 17, 2024, Dance Mogul magazine; “The Incredible Nicholas Brothers: A Classic Hollywood Black Dance Duo Everyone Should Be Obsessed With,” October 30, 2022, by Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly; “The Nicholas Brothers: Every Generations Dance Heroes,” February 17, 2020, by Najja Parker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; “Celebrating The Nicholas Brothers,” September 16, 2011, by Daniel Eagan, Smithsonian magazine; www.nicholasbrothers.com TCM.com; IMDBPro.com; IBDB.com; Wikipedia.com; AcademyMuseum.com Movies Mentioned:  Pie Pie Blackbird  (1932) - starring Nina Mae McKinney & The Nicholas Brothers; Stoopnocracy (1933), starring Budd Hulick & Harold Nicholas; The Emperor Jones (1933), starring Paul Robeson & Harold Nicholas; Kid Millions (1934), starring Eddie Cantor, Ann Sothern, & Ethel Merman; Jealousy (1934), starring Nancy Kelly & George Murphy; The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935), starring Jack Oakie, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bing Crosby, & Ethel Merman; Coronado (1935), starring Johnny Downs; My American Wife (1936), starring Francis Lederer & Ann Sothern; Don't Gamble with Love (1936) starring Ann Sothern; Babes in Arms (1937), starring Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland; Down Argentine Way (1940), starring Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, & Charlotte, Greenwood; Tin Pan Alley (1940), starring Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Jack Oakie, & John Payne; The Great American Broadcast (1941), starring Alice Faye & John Payne; Sun Valley Serenade (1941), starring Sonja Henie & John Payne; Orchestra Wives (1942), starring George Montgomery & Ann Rutherford; Stormy Weather (1943), starring Lena Horne; Reckless Age (1944), starring Gloria Jean & Harold Nicholas; Carolina Blues (1944), starring Kay Kyser & Ann Miller; The Pirate (1948), starring Judy Garland & Gene Kelly; Botta e Riposta (1950); El Mensaje le la Muerte (1953); Musik I'm Blut (1955); L'Empire de la Nuit (1964); The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970), starring Lee J. Cobb, Roscoe Lee Brown, & Fayard Nicholas; Uptown Saturday Night (1974), starring Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Flip Wilson, Harry Belafonte, & Harold Nicholas That's Entertainment! (1974); That's Dancing (1985); Tap (1989); --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The song “Life in the West” became popular in the 1840s. The lyrics, written by American poet George Pope Morris, evoke the call of the fertile promised land and celebrates the freedom of living so close to nature.

It's been a tough week all around, not just nationally and internationally, but also personally for me and my family. Because I did not have the time or energy to put out a brand-new episode today, I am presenting to you a former bonus episode first published sometime in the past couple years which features a collection of some of the finest late career recordings of pop standards that Eileen Farrell made between 1988 and 1991 arranged and music directed by Loonis McGlohon or Robert Farnon. The songs all stem from the tradition of the Great American Songbook, whether well-known or more obscure, whether originally written for Broadway shows, for Hollywood, or simply straight from Tin Pan Alley. Backed by either a small combo or an orchestra, Farrell sounds remarkably youthful and always deeply connected to the style and essence of this music, which is no surprise since she had been singing this repertoire from her earliest days and is one of the very finest all-around singers this country has ever produced. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

Jay Bragg, the leader of this great ensemble, has recorded and released hundreds of songs, performed over 3,600 shows across America including tours with Alan Jackson and Chris Stapleton. He's founded a music charity and has become an international Christmas connoisseur with his annual ‘A Songwriter's Christmas' tour and original holiday compositions. Whether it's writing songs, making records, performing live or volunteering for hospice patients - something he still does every week - Jay makes music to serve others, contributing a healthy dose of joy and good vibes into a culture that is increasingly inundated with the opposite. In October 2024, Jay launched his latest obsession - a fictional North Pole alter-ego act called King Kazoo & The Reindeer Band - a whimsical gumbo of jazz, blues, swing, Christmas and Tin Pan Alley music. It was Seeing the affect the kazoo had on listeners young and old, that had Jay began developing King Kazoo & The Reindeer Band.

“He's making a list, checking it twice…”With a nod to the legendary Tin Pan Alley composer Haven Gillespie, who penned the lyrics to the iconic holiday song, senior healthcare consultant Ronald Hirsch, MD has been making his own list of healthcare professionals all year, paying close attention to their deeds in the field of healthcare.Calling them “Hirsch's Heroes,” an annual tradition that began in 2015, Hirsch will reveal those to whom he has bestowed the esteemed honor during the next live edition of Monitor Mondays.Other broadcast segments will include these instantly recognizable features:• The RAC Report: Healthcare attorney Knicole Emanuel will report the latest news about auditors.• Risky Business: Healthcare attorney David Glaser, shareholder in the law offices of Fredrikson & Byron, will join the broadcast with his trademark segment.• Field Report: Phyisican and attorney Dr. John K. Hall is expected to file a field report on the recent Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield proposal relative to its anethesia policy which the giant payer has since abandoned.• Legislative Update: Matthew Albright, chief leglistative affairs analyst for Zelis, will report on the latest legislative actions impacting the healthcare regulatory setting.

The journalist Guy Hedgecoe, who covers Spain for the BBC, visits Felipe Conde's shop and workshop in Centro, Madrid. Conde is the fourth generation of his family to make classical and flamenco guitars. Many of the great flamenco musicians - Moraito, Paco de Lucia, Tomatito - have played Conde guitars, as have artists from other traditions - Leonard Cohen, Lenny Kravitz, Cat Stevens. And Paco de Lucia gave one to Michael Jackson. Guy meet Antonio Gonzalez, one of Conde's customers, who tell him what qualities he is looking for - and plays. And he watches while Felipe Conde works on a new instrument. Guy explores the state of the craft of making, the art of playing and the place of the classical guitar and flamenco music in Spain, and around the world, today. Presenter: Guy Hedgecoe Producer: Julian May

Galip Dede Street in Istanbul used to be famous for its antique, philatelic and book shops. But over the past 30 years more and more music shops have opened and now the street has more than 30. Esra Yalcinalp talks to the shopkeepers who sell instruments of all kinds, all the orchestral instruments. Here, too, she finds musicians who might buy a bağlama or saz, like a mandolin with a very long neck, and a kemençe or lyra, a bowed instrument, used in Ottoman classical and Turkish folk music. She gets a demonstration of the different rhythms a master can play on the darbuka, the goblet shaped drum used in Turkish classical music. She meets, too, a French musician seeking strings for her Syrian oud. Can she find these in Galip Dede? Of course. No problem.There is a problem, though - tourism. It's driving up rents and driving out specialist music shops, which are replaced by hotels and T shirt shops. Presenter: Esra Yalcinalp Producer: Julian May

Ochanomizu means 'tea water' because of its proximity to the Kanda River, which in the Edo period provided water for the Shogun's tea. Now it is a university area - Meiji University, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and Juntendo University all have campuses in Ochanomizu. Phoebe Amoroso reports on the way teahouses have given way to musical instrument shops. There are more than 70 in Ochanomizu's 'Guitar Street' . But you can buy harmonicas and accordions, too. In such a competitive space shops survive by specialising. Almost all the instruments sold are western, but made with Japanese materials, craftsmanship and attention to detail.Presenter: Phoebe Amoroso Producer: Julian May

'Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears...'There is an idea that what Caliban is describing is gamelan music, and that Shakespeare had heard accounts of it as he wrote The Tempest from sailors who had recently returned from a voyage to the Spice Islands - Indonesia.The village of Tihingan in Bali is full of noises because the chief occupation there is making gongs for gamelans, the wonderful gong orchestras of Bali and Java. Ade Mardiyati, a journalist who reports for the BBC's Indonesian service, visits Tihingan - Indonesia's Tin Pan Alley - the learn about the craft. Two crucial skills are involved; that of the smith who forges the gongs, and that , the tuner who works them to ensure they give the right note. In a sonically rich essay, recorded while these masters work, Ade explores the past, present and future of gamelan making, and music.Presenter: Ade Mardiyati Producer: Julian May

The original Tin Pan Alley was in Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, New York, where music publishers set up shop in the late 19th century, attracting songwriters and coming to dominate American popular music. Since then Tin Pan Alley has come to mean a quarter where there are music shops and where musicians gather. Cities all over the globe have Tin Pan Alleys of their own. For instance, if you wanted to buy a bass guitar in London, you'd head to the UK's Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street. In this week's series of the Essay BBC correspondents from Madrid to Tokyo explore the Tin Pan Alleys of their towns, talking to musicians trying out the instruments before they buy, and to the shopkeepers selling them. They explore the state of the musical culture, and culture more generally, of the countries they are reporting from.The series begins in Beijing where Stephen McDonell visits Xinjiekou Street, where the shops sell Chinese traditional instruments: the erhu, a two string fiddle; the pipa, a pear shaped lute; the guzheng, a zither...and several others. He discovers that there is renewed enthusiasm for them and their music, and meets some musicians playing in a tunnel, not for the acoustic but because, in an odd reversal of the norm, if they play in the street young people object to the noise and shop them to the cops. Presenter: Stephen McDonell Producer: Julian May

Pro Audio Design Engineer Andy Bereza summarises his impressive career in a chat with Paul Gilby. Andy founded Allen & Heath Mixers before working for TEAC/Tascam, where he conceived the TEAC Portastudio the portable multitrack cassette tape recorder that revolutionised the home recording market in the 1980s. He then co-founded Bandive-Turnkey where he developed a range of budget signal processors and the famous Great British Spring reverb to sell to the rapidly expanding Home Studio Recording market. At the same time, he was a consultant for the Fostex X15 multitrack cassette as well as helping to steer further product designs. Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:34 - Getting Into Electronics01:45 - Building Custom Desks04:09 - Allen & Heath Mixers06:07 - The Minimixer08:54 - The Pink Floyd Desks12:24 - Allen & Heath Mod II Mixer13:20 - Expanding The Company15:23 - Moving To Tascam 16:58 - Constructing The Portastudio 21:57 - Setting Up Bandive / Turnkey24:55 - Creating Products For The Home Studio 29:03 - Fostex Releases in the 80s30:48 - Bandive Seck Mixers32:08 - Expanding Turnkey35:14 - Selling To Harman38:38 - Launching Digital Postcards41:07 - A Brief Career Summary42:13 - Proudest Career MomentAndy Bereza BiogAndy Bereza started his career as a Audio Design Engineer after moving to London in 1967 to study Electronics at Chelsea University. A chance encounter with Siggy Jackson in Tin Pan Alley gave him his first custom commission and many more soon followed, with Andy building mixers for Bill Shepherd (producer of the Bee Gees), Alan Price, Maurice Gibb and also a location recording mixer for the Clockwork Orange movie.In 1970 Andy became the Founder of Allen & Heath, where he initially developed the black range of mixers, then their first mass market product the Minimix. At the same time he creating custom quadraphonic live desks for The Who along with Pink Floyd's Pompeii and Dark Side Of The Moon touring desks.In 1975, Andy joined TEAC America and was employed to introduce Tascam into Europe. Then in 1976 he was contracted directly with TEAC Japan where he developed the iconic Portastudio that changed the face of the home recording industry. In 1977 he became one of the founders of Bandive Ltd and helped to develop further products for the home recording market and created the popular Turnkey By Mail catalogue during the late 1970s to mid 80s. Bandive then opened the Turnkey retail store in central London.Following the sale of Bandive / Turnkey to Harman UK in 1987, he briefly became their Marketing Director, before signing up to become Managing Director of Fostex in 1991. Later in the 90s Andy left the Pro Audio industry and turned his attention to multimedia where he developed interactive product catalogues on CD-ROM.Paul Gilby BiogPaul Gilby is the co-founder, along with his brother Ian, of Sound On Sound magazine in 1985. Having written many product reviews and interviews over the years he now heads up the Digital Media side of the business managing the team that looks after the SOS website as well as the video and podcast productions.Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

In which a flirty but forgotten Tin Pan Alley song leads to the first great moral panic in pop music history, and John sneakily borrows someone else's shanty town. Certificate #12960.

Check the calendar, maniacs! The gang is all here this week as we start a new theme, A Comedy Of Horrors, with the 1981 lampoon Saturday The 14th. While we break down this goofy flick, we also discuss other topics such as watching movies on half speed, Tin Pan Alley, and our opinions of the combination of chicken and peanut butter. Drop that Caramello and check out our Patreon! This month we play a little game Gregg cooked up called Pit Or Pass? Six songs have been selected, all cover songs by late 90s and early 00s nu-metal bands, and we decide whether we hit the pit if it's good or we check out the merch booth if it's bad. For as little as $2 a month you can get in on the action as well with bonus episodes, Discord privileges, livestreams, exclusive merchandise and more! Want more discussions on haunted houses? Check out our previous episodes on Cellar Dweller (episode 11), Bloody New Year (episode 16), Night Of The Demons (episode 58), Demons (episode 135), Ghosthouse (episode 138), Slime City (episode 233), House (episode 236), and Blood Theatre (episode 245).

En esta ocasión vamos a escuchar el álbum "Trouble in Mind" de Mance Lipscomb, grabado en Houston, Texas, en 1961, es un testimonio esencial del blues rural y la música tradicional estadounidense. Fue producido por Chris Strachwitz y Mack McCormick y lanzado por el sello Reprise. Las grabaciones se realizaron en la casa de Lipscomb en Navasota, Texas, después de que Strachwitz y McCormick, originalmente interesados en grabar a Lightnin' Hopkins, encontraran a Lipscomb. Todas las notas del programa son gentileza de Mack McCormick y esas notas en las distintas ediciones del disco destacan la diversidad del repertorio de Lipscomb, que incluye desde blues hasta baladas y canciones de Tin Pan Alley. McCormick resalta la influencia de Lipscomb en otros artistas, como Bob Dylan y Eric Clapton, y subraya la importancia cultural de estas grabaciones, no solo como precursoras de otros géneros, sino por su valor intrínseco

I guess this could be a Canada Day Long Weekend Special? The song this week is "The Cat Came Back," a song written in the 1890s by a Tin Pan Alley songwriter but made famous by a Canuck. The first version is by Sonny James, a country dude who picks n grins his way through this Goofy Great. The man, the myth Fred Penner didn't pen the song, but people think he did. So let's call it Canadian! His version is wild ... and it's for the kids, so there's extra meows. Does it fade out into "Break on Through" by The Doors? It's a chlling tale of psychopathy, either way. The third in the litter is by Sweden's Stomachmouths, who combine the song with "Hit The Road Jack" and add some proper piano and clothespin-on-nose vocals. Stefan Kery really hits those 3's! This is the one to turn the wee ones onto garage rock. We were going to do a surf version by The Phantom Surfers but technical problems scuppered that - That Darn Cat!!!

Was Elvis the real phantom of the Opry? Bill talked about songwriting with artists over Zoom, writing for Mojo, the Brill Building in 1961, confederate ghosts, Crowded House, Jill Sobule, Tin Pan Alley, and finding inspiration in artwork & cartoons. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: https://MixMasterBundle.com My guest today is Bill DeMain, a successful author, songwriter, journalist, tour guide, and musical historian who has been on the podcast previously for episode RSR200. As one half of the pop duo Swan Dive, he has released ten acclaimed albums with his singing partner Molly Felder, enjoying several Top 5 singles and tours of Japan, Thailand and Korea. He's also written songs for and with many other artists, including Curtis Stigers, Marshall Crenshaw, Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones,  David Mead, Bleu, Kim Richey, Jill Sobule and Boo Hewerdine. His songs have appeared on TV shows like Sons of Anarchy, Private Practice, Felicity and The L Word, and in commercials for Laneige Cosmetics, Unicef and Sky Mobile. Bill is also a much-published music journalist, who's written for MOJO, Uncut, Entertainment Weekly and Classic Rock. He has written five books, including 2017's Amazon best-seller Sgt. Pepper At 50, and two of collections of interviews with noted songwriters such as David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Barry Gibb, Kate Bush and Smokey Robinson.  In addition, he is the owner of the music history walking tour Walkin' Nashville, a radio correspondent for BBC Glasgow and a cartoonist whose work has been published by Reader's Digest and Funny Times. THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! http://UltimateMixingMasterclass.com https://www.adam-audio.com https://www.native-instruments.com Use code ROCK10 to get 10% off! https://www.izotope.com/en/deals.html iZotope RX 11 is here! https://www.lewitt-audio.com/ray https://gracedesign.com/ https://RecordingStudioRockstars.com/Academy  https://www.thetoyboxstudio.com/ Listen to this guest's discography on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7bB32vult4uY4TTaLa6X08?si=6fafbae7c9834d61 If you love the podcast, then please leave a review: https://RSRockstars.com/Review CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AT: https://RSRockstars.com/456

Much has been discussed of Paul McCartney's love of what John Lennon called "granny music." The music of his parents' generation, British Music Hall, Vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley...you know the genre...the stuff Lennon loved to complain about when it came from Paul, but seemingly had no problem with his favorite group, Nilsson, whos stock and trade was the song tradition rooted in that era. Paul, however, loved, and still loves, music and art from that time. It gives him a chance to embody the character pieces he so easily writes, putting himself in the shoes of Fred Astaire and getting to pretend he's someone other than Paul McCartney. Honey Pie also has roots in trad jazz, and Lennon obviously knew a thing or two because he pulls off a spot-on Django Reinhardt impression on his guitar solo. Personally, I love this side of Paul, "Honey Pie," "You Gave Me The Answer," "Martha My Dear," I'll take it all! Returning to the show this week is the always wonderful Dr. Christine Feldman-Barrett, author of the brilliant book A Women's History of the Beatles and the newly released "The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Record Store." She joins us from all the way across the world in Brisbane where we chat about appreciating legacy artists in all their eras, what record stores mean to her, the cyclical nature of culture, and an exciting round of Beatles trivia! Be sure to pick up a copy of her book at the links above or anywhere you get good books! What do you think about "Honey Pie" at #93? Too high? Too low? Or just right? Let us know in the comments on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Be sure to check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rankingthebeatles.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and grab a Rank Your Own Beatles poster, a shirt, a jumper, whatever you like! And if you're digging what we do, don't forget to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Us A Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rankingthebeatles/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rankingthebeatles/support

On this week's show we preview the upcoming WiFi 7 specification and we review the Technics SU-GX70 Network Audio Amplifier Review. We also read your emails and take a look at the week's news. News: Roku just announced a free NBA channel ESPN's Stand-Alone Streaming Service Will Be Available Through Disney+ Apple TV+ share grows in the US, but still lags behind its competitors LG TV owners should update their firmware, webOS vulnerability found in a few models Other: Ridiculous 150" AWOL Vision Theater Setup Roku patent invents a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV | Ars Technica A Giga-Sunset For Gigaset IoT Devices | Hackaday WiFi 7 May be What We Have All Been Waiting For Why WiFi 7 is the future of wireless technology As of now, the finalized specifications for WiFi 7 (also known as 802.11be) have not been officially released, as the standard is still in development. However, based on industry discussions and proposals, some expected features of the proposed WiFi 7 specification include: Increased Speeds: WiFi 7 is anticipated to offer even higher data rates than its predecessors, potentially reaching multi-gigabit speeds  Enhanced Efficiency: Improved spectrum efficiency will allowi for better performance in crowded environments and increased capacity for simultaneous connections. Low Latency: WiFi 7 is likely to target reduced latency to support real-time applications such as online gaming, video streaming, and video conferencing with minimal delay. Advanced Security:  Multi-User MIMO: More advanced Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) technology  Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA): The use of OFDMA will enhance spectral efficiency and enable better resource allocation for various types of traffic. Improved Beamforming: Enhanced beamforming techniques will optimize signal transmission and reception, improving network coverage and reliability. Wider Spectrum Utilization: WiFi 7 may explore the use of new frequency bands or spectrum sharing techniques to accommodate more devices and applications and deliver better performance. IoT Optimization: Features tailored for Internet of Things (IoT) devices to support the increasing number of connected devices and diverse IoT applications. Power Efficiency Enhancements: Efforts to improve power efficiency to extend battery life in wireless devices and reduce energy consumption overall. It's important to note that these features are based on expectations and early proposals for WiFi 7. The final specifications may vary as the standard progresses through the development and approval process. Technics SU-GX70  Network Audio Amplifier Review Listening to music takes three elements, the music itself, the speakers, and the amplification. If one of these elements is not up to the task, your entire experience will be less than desired. Great speakers take high quality audio to even higher levels. The converse is also true, poor quality audio files will sound even worse.  There is a middle layer that we don't talk about as much, and that's the amplification. Back in the 70's all we cared about were watts! The more, the better! As a teenager I did not appreciate that not all power is created equal. Smart amplifier design can make your music sound even better and that's what the engineers at Technics have done with the SU-GX70 Network Audio Amplifier (MSRP $1999.95). The GX70 is a box that has something for everyone. First and foremost it's a digital amplifier that outputs a total of 80 Watts into 8 ohms and supports a ton of physical connections including: Line level x2, phono, HDMI ARC, optical x2, coaxial, USB Type A, USB Type B. Supporting HDMI ARC allows you to connect your own speakers as a soundbar alternative.   As far as wireless connection goes, you have Wi-fi, ethernet, Bluetooth, Google Chromecast and Apple AirPlay 2. DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast) and  FM. You can also get access to Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz through the app.  Hi Res is supported via the USB port with a DAC that can decode 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD512 files and it can handle MQA streams from Tidal. This is one versatile integrated amp!! Setup To connect the GX70 to the network you use the Apple Home (or Google Home) app. Which seemed odd to us since there is a remote control and display screen. But once you are connected to your network you can use the Technics Audio Center App to control the system. Actually, the only reason you would need the app is if you want to send MQA streams to the amp. All the radio stations that are available through the app are available on your phone or tablet via apps source apps like iHeart Radio. You can tweak the amp to dial it in for your speakers through a calibration on the amp. But it sounded really good right out of the box.  We'll give it an 8 out of 10 for setup, knocking off two points because you have to use Apple/Google Home to get it connected to your network. The aforementioned remote is a better way to use and interact with the amp. You pretty much just need to connect your speakers and you are good to go. Sound To test the audio we turned to the HT Guys Listener Playlist (Playlist available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify)  and listened via Airplay2, Bluetooth, and USB. All the music was played in the highest fidelity available on the platform. Both Airplay and Bluetooth lowered quality to fit within the limits of the protocol. It should be noted that the GX70 does not support AptX.  We'll discuss Airplay and Bluetooth together and sum it up by saying the quality was good. The only thing we'll say is that these formats work well for convenience without sacrificing too much quality. When listening to music while doing something else, this is a nice feature. But for really listening to music we used the USB connection. Once connected to Listened to Steely Dan, Deacon Blues (24 bit 192kHz) across three different speakers and found that the GX70 helped capture nuances in the music that we had never heard before. The sound was clean and precise. In Stevie Ray Vaughan's Tin Pan Alley his voice was so smooth and raspy but in a good way! It's like the amp gave it more power and weight! But can it make your walls rattle? You would think at 80W total that this was not a possibility and depending on your speakers it's not. If you have power hungry speakers they will push the amp to its limits. However, if you have efficient  speakers, it will fill the room with sound. More than we were expecting. For that we turned to UFO Strangers in the Night Live, which is an excellent album from the 1970's, but the recording wasn't the best. We'll say this, the GX70 attached to Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1s, which are not extremely efficient speakers, got loud enough to where family members asked to turn down the music! Conclusion What we liked A plethora of input sources (both wired and wireless)  Build Quality is first rate LCD and Remote make it easy to use and setup Outstanding detailed sound quality Needs Improvement Two app setup Would like to see Aptx for high quality audio from mobile devices. Needs a tad more power The GX70 offers an elevated listening experience that brings music to life with clarity, depth, and immersive soundstaging making it a top choice for those who are serious about their music.

Aujourd'hui gros dossier :  "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" de James Brown, et sur la façon dont Brown est passé du statut d'artiste doo-wop mineur à celui de pionnier du funk. INTRO APPOLO James Brown, "Night Train" (version Live at the Apollo). The Ravens, "Rock Me All Night Long" The Fabulous Flames, "Do You Remember ?" Nat Kendrick and the Swans, "(Do the)" Mashed Potatoes". James Brown, "Hold It" James Brown and the Famous Flames, "Think !" Les "5" Royales, "Think" James Brown and the Famous Flames, "Think" Sugar Pie DeSanto, "Soulful Dress" James Brown et Bea Ford, "You Got the Power" Joe Tex, "You Keep Her" Yvonne Fair, "I Found You" James Brown, "Night Flying" The Valentinos, "Lookin' For a Love" Yvonne Fair, "You Can Make it if You Try" Freddie King, "I'm on My Way to Atlanta" Solomon Burke, "Cry to Me" James Brown and the Famous Flames, "Night Train" (version Live at the Apollo) James Brown & his orchestra, "Out of Sight" James Brown et son orchestre, "Caldonia" James Brown, "Out of Sight (TAMI show live)" The Barbarians, "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl ?" Jan & Dean, "Here They Come From All Over The World" Chuck Berry & Gerry and the Pacemakers : "Maybellene" James Brown, "Out of Sight" (TAMI Show) The Rolling Stones, "Around and Around" Jimmy Wilson, "Tin Pan Alley" Monte Easter, "Blues in the Evening" Jimmy Nolen, "After Hours" Jimmy Nolen, "Jimmy's Jive" Johnny Otis, "Casting My Spell" Johnny Otis, "Willie and the Hand Jive" Bobby Gentry, "Ode to Billie Joe" James Brown, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" James Brown "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag (parts 1, 2, and 3)" James Brown, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag"

The great Harlem stride pianist Johnson recorded many piano rolls for various companies including QRS, Universal and Perfection, creating an early prototype of the stride style. Here he is featured playing his own compositions as well as interpretations of other tunes from Tin Pan Alley and the black theatre, including one duet with his erstwhile student Fats Waller --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Out of the Nowhere. Into the Here is the sublime second album by singer, songwriter, and performer Stephen Bluhm. It'll be available as both a vocal version and a companion all- instrumental set. Recorded, mixed, and produced by Bluhm and featuring a host of gifted guest musicians, the orchestral opus is an elaborate aural feast of strings, horns, flutes, piano, reed instruments, and other timelessly evocative musical sounds — ambitious, but intimate and confiding as well. Out of the Nowhere. Into the Here is being released on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download, streaming platforms and 2xCD set including both vocal and instrumental versions on April 19. The instrumental version is being released separately on the same date on digital download and streaming platforms. While Bluhm has been “making songs ever since I can remember,” in his teenage years it was his older siblings' Lou Reed and David Bowie records that ignited his adolescent musical obsession. While attending Temple University, he took the plunge into live music via campus open-mic nights and from there burst upon the bustling Philadelphia scene, prompting the Philadelphia City Paper to dub him “an old soul, writing Tin Pan Alley-ish fare and singing croon-y folk jazz  in a voice that'd make Morrisey swoon.” Relocating to New York's Hudson Valley, he further honed his expressive performing style: Belying the serious slants of some of his songs, Bluhm's shows often find him dancing madly among delighted audience members. “The music (and Stephen) is utterly charming,” raves famed musical theater actor and composer Tom Judson, one of Bluhm's avowed fans, about Out of the Nowhere. Into the Here. “The halting, clipped vocals, with a sudden appearance of sumptuous string writing, are unexpected and elegant. The music, at first blush, appears naïve. But on a close listen, it's very assured, and complex writing. And the arrangements are really just wonderful. Sufjan Stevens meets Kurt Weill meets Stephen Foster.” “As I put these songs and arrangements together for the album, I became more and more confident in them,” says Bluhm. “I just hope people sense the beauty in them, the genuineness that I put into them.” With one listen to Out of the Nowhere. Into the Here, no doubt people will sense exactly that. Stephen's Info https://linktr.ee/stephenbluhm Bandcamp: https://stephenbluhm.bandcamp.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephenbluhm/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066550085802 stephenbluhm.fun  

Welcome to Glenn Robison's Rapidly Rotating Records, bringing you vintage music to which you can't not tap your toes, from rapidly rotating 78 RPM records of the 1920s and '30s. So why is there a bottle of Green River Bourbon on this post instead of a Tin Pan Alley composer or a vaudeville artist or […] The post Happy St. Patrick's Day from RRR #1,235 March 17, 2024 appeared first on Glenn Robison's Rapidly Rotating 78 RPM Records.

Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein. These, along with many others, are the sorts of songwriters we associate with the Great American Songbook, the amorphous canon of important 20th-century pop songs, jazz standards, and show tunes from Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, and movie musicals. But there's another important detail here. The songs we think of as the Songbook are from, more specifically, the 1920s through the 1950s. With some simple arithmetic, you can see that they're, uh, getting on in years — which might (must?) mean that their devotees are, too. The Nose is off this week. In its place this hour, a look at and a listen to — and some concern for the future of — the Great American Songbook. GUESTS: Joelle Lurie: Vocalist, songwriter, voiceover artist, and bandleader Steve Metcalf: Founder and director of the Garmany concert series at the University of Hartford's Hartt School The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show, which originally aired September 1, 2023.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, the Bad Piano Player does his second foray into the incredible career of songwriter Sam Coslow. From New York, Tin Pan Alley, to Hollywood, and finally, Wall Street. As always, with songs! Tune in, kids.

Paul Logothetis visits a tiny stretch of one street in New York, which is celebrated for its place in American music history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All this week, as part of the launch of the 2024 Public Song Project, we're debuting contributions from professional musicians and friends of WNYC. To wrap up the launch, we hear a song from Brooklyn supergroup Coco and speak to bandmember Maia Friedman. Afterwards, we're joined again by musicology professor Anna Celenza to talk about Tin Pan Alley and Broadway of the 1920s.

Britain's own Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street was once alive with the sound of hammered pianos, and sung melodies and choruses. Its songwriters knocked out tunes on the fly and rushed to the street to sell them to pay for the next round of drinks. In the '60s, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks came here, so did Donovan and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. A popular rendezvous was La Gioconda, an Italian cafe which most visited at some point or other – David Bowie was said to practically live there. Later when Malcolm McLaren was looking for a rehearsal space for The Sex Pistols, he was delighted to find room in Denmark Street, installing his upstarts in the heart of the traditional music industry - like Greek soldiers inside the Trojan Horse.    Journalist Pete Watts returns to The Bureau to tell us tales of this lost street of dreams  - and at least of one nightmare.   Pete's wonderful book on Denmark Street is HERE     #hipgnosis #pink floyd #london #pop music #london #musichistory #counterculture #soho #musicpublishing #music  #1960s #jimihendrix #thesexpistols #davidbowie #the kinks #the beatles #DenmarkStreet #tinpanalley

This episode of The American Tapestry Project begins a two-part series on the life and times of Irving Berlin – The American Songbook and the invention of American popular music culture. In Part One we'll meet Berlin, discover his immigrant heritage, his experiences on Tin Pan Alley, on Broadway, and in Hollywood musicals as his music sings of America. Meet Irving Berlin and hear the sounds of “American pop” being born on The American Tapestry Project

Denmark Street, Britain's Tin Pan Alley, played a pivotal role in the music industry. Peter Watts takes us The post Denmark Street appeared first on The Strange Brew .

Studio band led by the New Orleans trumpeter Wingy Manone for Vocalion, OKeh and Banner in 1934 and 1935. Using members of the Ben Pollack Orchestra (Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller, Gil Bowers, Nappy Lamare, Harry Goodman, Ray Bauduc) Manone recorded a mix of original jazz tunes and Tin Pan Alley pops with a driving rhythm and outstanding solos. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Crystal grew up in Detroit, MI singing choral, traditional Jewish, Tin Pan Alley, musical theatre and liturgical music in her synagogue under the apprenticeship of well known Cantor, Harold Orbach; at which time she also started performing around Metro Detroit. She then began studying classical voice at Interlochen Fine Arts Camp where she first considered a career as a classical artist and Cantorial Soloist. She has a degree in classical voice from Oakland University in Detroit and has since performed with The Collegiate Chorale in NYC, Nashville Opera, & as a Cantorial soloist from San Francisco to NYC, as well as London, Israel & South Africa, and has directed and performed on national and international tours. She most recently led worship for the Jews for Jesus 50th anniversary convocation on Cyprus & is the advocate for multiple musicians in Israel on behalf of the Nashville based ministry, Artists in Christian Testimony. She is currently recording an album of virtuosic Cantorial music in Nashville.

“He's making a list, checking it twice…”With a nod to the legendary Tin Pan Alley composer Haven Gillespie, who penned the lyrics to the iconic holiday song, senior healthcare consultant Ronald Hirsch, MD has been making his own list of healthcare professionals all year, paying close attention to their deeds in the field of healthcare.Calling them “Hirsch's Heroes,” an annual tradition that began in 2015, Hirsch will reveal those to whom he has bestowed the esteemed honor during the next live edition of Monitor Mondays. So far, 15 distinguished individuals have been named “Hirsch's Heroes.” This year, the loquatious Hirsch will only say for now that the 2023 heroes will be a physician, an attorney, and two revenue cycle professionals.Other broadcast segments will include these instantly recognizable features:· The RAC Report: Healthcare attorney Knicole Emanuel will report the latest news about auditors.· Risky Business: Healthcare attorney David Glaser, shareholder in the law offices of Fredrikson & Byron, will join the broadcast with his trademark segment.· Legislative Update: Cate Brantley, state leglistative analyst for Zelis, will report on the latest legislative actions impacting the healthcare regulatory setting.& so much moreA bi-monthly podcast where we share the stories of our Caregivers, patients and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Episode 7 is a ghost tale! The mystery of a name that was only known to paper… and a woman who wrote hundreds of Tin Pan Alley tunes in the shadow of a pseudonym. Host Katie Harman unfolds the story of composer Irene Higginbotham, and how she - along with three other legendary women of Tin Pan Alley - helped shape American popular music in the 1930s-1950s. The episode also features a portion of Katie's interview with Broadway and cabaret star Natalie Douglas, as she shares her thoughts on the influence of Irene Higginbotham. Catch their full conversation in Virtuosa Society Podcast's companion series “Between the Bio” which dives deeper into Natalie's fascinating life and career, including the challenges, triumphs and lessons learned between the highlights in her bio. Research referenced throughout the episode: The Jazz Standards, by Ted Gioia Lady Sings the Blues, by Billie Holiday with William Dufty “Good Morning Heartache,” by David "Chet" Williamson Sneade https://worcestersongs.blogspot.com/2012/12/good-morning-heartache.html “Recording Studios: A History Of The Most Legendary Studios In Music,” by Martin Chilton https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/history-of-recording-studios/ “The History of Tin Pan Alley” by Nate Wooley https://soundamerican.org/issues/big-band/history-tin-pan-alley “The Harlem Renaissance: What Was It, and Why Does It Matter?" by Cary D. Wintz https://www.humanitiestexas.org/news/articles/harlem-renaissance-what-was-it-and-why-does-it-matter “Glenn Gibson Biography” by Eugene Chadbourne https://www.allmusic.com/artist/glenn-gibson-mn0001331660#biography Producer: Katie Harman @katieharmanebner Audio Engineer: Will Cowser @williamcowser Title Song: “Reflection of the Sun” by Anna Landström www.virtuosasociety.com Follow @virtuossociety on Instagram, Facebook and Threads

In this episode of Virtuosa Society Podcast's companion “Between the Bio” series, Katie Harman sits down with Broadway and cabaret performer Natalie Douglas for a candid conversation about representation, artistic expression, the incredible story of her secret adoption, connecting with her birth father, vibrational energy, collaboration, and so so so much more! Episode 7 of the Virtuosa Society Podcast featured the story of four women instrumental to Tin Pan Alley and the American popular music landscape, and their struggles to be recognized beyond male pseudonyms and partnerships. Natalie and Katie specifically talk about composer Irene Higginbotham and how it must have felt to be a young gifted Black woman writing under a pen name on Tin Pan Alley, as well as the lasting impact of Irene's musical legacy. “Between the Bio” interviews are meant to dig a little deeper between the highlight's in a creative's bio, into the spaces and pockets of their experience where the nuances, challenges, truths and growth happen. Because we don't talk about them nearly enough. And because conversations like this are vital for understanding the uniqueness and sameness of life as a female creative. Follow Natalie Douglas at https://www.nataliedouglas.com/ and download her latest single “Trust in Me” with Club44 Records: https://www.club44records.com/home/blog/7272846/natalie-douglas-partners-with-club44-records Learn more about Virtuosa Society at www.virtuosasociety.com Producer: Katie Harman @katieharmanebner Audio Engineer: Will Cowser @williamcowser Title Song: “Against The Odds” by Carmen Justice

The 1930's was a decade of great songs by great American composers. For the next five weeks we'll be listening to those great standards performed by different bands. This is part 2 in the series as we examine those catchy songs from 1932 and 1933. The Great Depression was gathering momentum and it affected the song writers of Tin Pan Alley. The number of hit songs started to decrease as we'll see in the next few parts in the series. There were some great songs composed during 1932 and 1933 and I hope you enjoy the selections. Please visit this podcast at http://bigbandbashfm.blogspot.com

As it emerges from the upheaval of Cross Rail, music historian Peter Watts looks at this densely-packed thoroughfare between Charing Cross Road and Covent Garden, which started off selling sheet music, grew into the place where many writers sold their tunes for a few quid while a wise minority hung on and made fortunes, a street that continues to provide a home for music businesses to this day. Includes.......the Victorian "rookeries" of St Giles...how a coal mining accident made the street's first big hit...the true meaning of the Old Grey Whistle Test...when every office boy played the piano...how the Beatles changed music publishing ...how the Rolling Stones made their first (and best ?) album...how the Sex Pistols and the Stones made their first music yards from each other...what exactly are they doing with Denmark Street today?Buy Denmark Street - London's Street Of Sound here: https://www.paradiseroad.co.uk/denmark-street-londons-street-of-soundTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on Oct 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content here: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Singer Nellie McKay's songs  hearken to pre-Elvis pop and maybe even Tin Pan Alley, and are offered with charm and intimacy. She has also released a whole album of Doris Day songs and a record of 60s covers, in addition to her 2004 splash debut, Get Away From Me and appearances in Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. And while she still sounds like a singer from another time, she's back with an album of originals called Hey Guys, Watch This. Nellie McKay plays new songs on both piano and ukulele, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik Watch The Drinking Song: Watch Driftin':  Watch Did I Catch You Dreaming:

Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein. These, along with many others, are the sorts of songwriters we associate with the Great American Songbook, the amorphous canon of important 20th century pop songs, jazz standards, and show tunes from Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, and movie musicals. But there's another important detail here. The songs we think of as the Songbook are from, more specifically, the 1920s through the 1950s. With some simple arithmetic, you can see that they're, uh, getting on in years — which might (must?) mean that their devotees are, too. The Nose is off. In its place this hour, a look at and a listen to — and some concern for the future of — the Great American Songbook. GUESTS: Joelle Lurie: Vocalist, songwriter, voiceover artist, and bandleader Steve Metcalf: Founder and director of the Garmany concert series at the University of Hartford's Hartt School The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two weeks ago, a trailer was released for the new Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Immediately, controversy surfaced about Bradley Cooper—the director of the film who also stars as Bernstein—wearing a prosthetic nose, intended to resemble Bernstein's own formidable schnoz. Because Cooper is not Jewish, this also revived a conversation about so-called Jewface, a term that has, over the last several years, become a buzzword in conversations about non-Jews being cast as Jews in dramatic roles. In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel talks to contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, author and theater critic Alisa Solomon, and writer and collector of “Jewface” artifacts Jody Rosen about the controversy—exploring the long history of “Jewface” performances and what's really underneath these repeated dust-ups over Jewish representation.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles, podcasts, and further reading:Trailer for Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper“The Politics of ‘Jewface,'” Rebecca Pierce, Jewish CurrentsJewface: ‘Yiddish' Dialect Songs of Tin Pan Alley, YIVO exhibitionJody Rosen discusses “Jewface” on PBS“A ‘Merchant of Venice' That Doubles Down on Pain,” Alexis Soloski, The New York Times“Fables and Lies,” On the Nose podcast about Armageddon Time and The Fabelmans“On the Nose,” inaugural On the Nose podcast, discussing our Spring 2021 Nose cover

Wes Wheat returns to the podcast to chat about ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and vaudeville revivalist Leon Redone. A unique artist who seemingly appeared out of nowhere with this debut, we discuss Leon's ability to breathe new life into old songs and how he managed to carve out his own special place in popular culture.   If you like us, please support us at patreon.com/idbuythatpodcast to get exclusive content (episodes on 45s!), or tell a friend about us. Broke and have no friends? Leave us a review, it helps more people find us. Thanks!

SUMMARY:Lake Street Dive's Rachael Price and composer/guitarist Vilray discuss their dynamic duo that preserves the spirit of the Great American Songbook with original music.  PART ONE:Scott tells a story about a bad demo that helped him learn an important lesson. Then Paul introduces a pop quiz to identify songs solely based on their drum intros. Scott does OK. PART TWO:Scott's in-depth interview with Rachael & Vilray ABOUT RACHAEL & VILRAY:Rachael and Vilray first met when they were both students at the New England Conservatory of Music. Rachael Price went on to form the band Lake Street Dive with their fellow students Michael Calabrese, Bridget Kearney, and Mike “McDuck” Olson, while Vilray developed his own path as a solo performer. Inspired by a shared love of classic Tin Pan Alley pop standards, the duo came together in 2015, eventually signing with Nonesuch Records. They released their self-titled debut in 2019, and the more elaborately produced I Love a Love Song album earlier this year. While Rachael contributes as a songwriter in other contexts, vocalist and guitarist Vilray is the sole writer of the duo's original songs. Heavily steeped in classic songwriting traditions with a contemporary flourish, the music of Rachael & Vilray is simultaneously fresh and timeless. The pair joined Scott for a conversation about songwriting and song interpretation earlier this year when I Love a Long Song was first released.   

Episode 166 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Crossroads", Cream, the myth of Robert Johnson, and whether white men can sing the blues. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-eight-minute bonus episode available, on “Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips" by Tiny Tim. 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/ Errata I talk about an interview with Clapton from 1967, I meant 1968. I mention a Graham Bond live recording from 1953, and of course meant 1963. I say Paul Jones was on vocals in the Powerhouse sessions. Steve Winwood was on vocals, and Jones was on harmonica. Resources As I say at the end, the main resource you need to get if you enjoyed this episode is Brother Robert by Annye Anderson, Robert Johnson's stepsister. There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Cream, Robert Johnson, John Mayall, and Graham Bond 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, three. This article on Mack McCormick gives a fuller explanation of the problems with his research and behaviour. The other books I used for the Robert Johnson sections were McCormick's Biography of a Phantom; Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson, by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow; Searching for Robert Johnson by Peter Guralnick; and Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald. I can recommend all of these subject to the caveats at the end of the episode. The information on the history and prehistory of the Delta blues mostly comes from Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum, with some coming from Charley Patton by John Fahey. The information on Cream comes mostly from Cream: How Eric Clapton Took the World by Storm by Dave Thompson. I also used Ginger Baker: Hellraiser by Ginger Baker and Ginette Baker, Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins, Motherless Child by Paul Scott, and  Alexis Korner: The Biography by Harry Shapiro. The best collection of Cream's work is the four-CD set Those Were the Days, which contains every track the group ever released while they were together (though only the stereo mixes of the albums, and a couple of tracks are in slightly different edits from the originals). You can get Johnson's music on many budget compilation records, as it's in the public domain in the EU, but the double CD collection produced by Steve LaVere for Sony in 2011 is, despite the problems that come from it being associated with LaVere, far and away the best option -- the remasters have a clarity that's worlds ahead of even the 1990s CD version it replaced. And for a good single-CD introduction to the Delta blues musicians and songsters who were Johnson's peers and inspirations, Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, compiled by Elijah Wald as a companion to his book on Johnson, can't be beaten, and contains many of the tracks excerpted in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick note that this episode contains discussion of racism, drug addiction, and early death. There's also a brief mention of death in childbirth and infant mortality. It's been a while since we looked at the British blues movement, and at the blues in general, so some of you may find some of what follows familiar, as we're going to look at some things we've talked about previously, but from a different angle. In 1968, the Bonzo Dog Band, a comedy musical band that have been described as the missing link between the Beatles and the Monty Python team, released a track called "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?": [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"] That track was mocking a discussion that was very prominent in Britain's music magazines around that time. 1968 saw the rise of a *lot* of British bands who started out as blues bands, though many of them went on to different styles of music -- Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Chicken Shack and others were all becoming popular among the kind of people who read the music magazines, and so the question was being asked -- can white men sing the blues? Of course, the answer to that question was obvious. After all, white men *invented* the blues. Before we get any further at all, I have to make clear that I do *not* mean that white people created blues music. But "the blues" as a category, and particularly the idea of it as a music made largely by solo male performers playing guitar... that was created and shaped by the actions of white male record executives. There is no consensus as to when or how the blues as a genre started -- as we often say in this podcast "there is no first anything", but like every genre it seems to have come from multiple sources. In the case of the blues, there's probably some influence from African music by way of field chants sung by enslaved people, possibly some influence from Arabic music as well, definitely some influence from the Irish and British folk songs that by the late nineteenth century were developing into what we now call country music, a lot from ragtime, and a lot of influence from vaudeville and minstrel songs -- which in turn themselves were all very influenced by all those other things. Probably the first published composition to show any real influence of the blues is from 1904, a ragtime piano piece by James Chapman and Leroy Smith, "One O' Them Things": [Excerpt: "One O' Them Things"] That's not very recognisable as a blues piece yet, but it is more-or-less a twelve-bar blues. But the blues developed, and it developed as a result of a series of commercial waves. The first of these came in 1914, with the success of W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", which when it was recorded by the Victor Military Band for a phonograph cylinder became what is generally considered the first blues record proper: [Excerpt: The Victor Military Band, "Memphis Blues"] The famous dancers Vernon and Irene Castle came up with a dance, the foxtrot -- which Vernon Castle later admitted was largely inspired by Black dancers -- to be danced to the "Memphis Blues", and the foxtrot soon overtook the tango, which the Castles had introduced to the US the previous year, to become the most popular dance in America for the best part of three decades. And with that came an explosion in blues in the Handy style, cranked out by every music publisher. While the blues was a style largely created by Black performers and writers, the segregated nature of the American music industry at the time meant that most vocal performances of these early blues that were captured on record were by white performers, Black vocalists at this time only rarely getting the chance to record. The first blues record with a Black vocalist is also technically the first British blues record. A group of Black musicians, apparently mostly American but led by a Jamaican pianist, played at Ciro's Club in London, and recorded many tracks in Britain, under a name which I'm not going to say in full -- it started with Ciro's Club, and continued alliteratively with another word starting with C, a slur for Black people. In 1917 they recorded a vocal version of "St. Louis Blues", another W.C. Handy composition: [Excerpt: Ciro's Club C**n Orchestra, "St. Louis Blues"] The first American Black blues vocal didn't come until two years later, when Bert Williams, a Black minstrel-show performer who like many Black performers of his era performed in blackface even though he was Black, recorded “I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,” [Excerpt: Bert Williams, "I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,”] But it wasn't until 1920 that the second, bigger, wave of popularity started for the blues, and this time it started with the first record of a Black *woman* singing the blues -- Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] You can hear the difference between that and anything we've heard up to that point -- that's the first record that anyone from our perspective, a hundred and three years later, would listen to and say that it bore any resemblance to what we think of as the blues -- so much so that many places still credit it as the first ever blues record. And there's a reason for that. "Crazy Blues" was one of those records that separates the music industry into before and after, like "Rock Around the Clock", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", Sgt Pepper, or "Rapper's Delight". It sold seventy-five thousand copies in its first month -- a massive number by the standards of 1920 -- and purportedly went on to sell over a million copies. Sales figures and market analysis weren't really a thing in the same way in 1920, but even so it became very obvious that "Crazy Blues" was a big hit, and that unlike pretty much any other previous records, it was a big hit among Black listeners, which meant that there was a market for music aimed at Black people that was going untapped. Soon all the major record labels were setting up subsidiaries devoted to what they called "race music", music made by and for Black people. And this sees the birth of what is now known as "classic blues", but at the time (and for decades after) was just what people thought of when they thought of "the blues" as a genre. This was music primarily sung by female vaudeville artists backed by jazz bands, people like Ma Rainey (whose earliest recordings featured Louis Armstrong in her backing band): [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider Blues"] And Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues", who had a massive career in the 1920s before the Great Depression caused many of these "race record" labels to fold, but who carried on performing well into the 1930s -- her last recording was in 1933, produced by John Hammond, with a backing band including Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer"] It wouldn't be until several years after the boom started by Mamie Smith that any record companies turned to recording Black men singing the blues accompanied by guitar or banjo. The first record of this type is probably "Norfolk Blues" by Reese DuPree from 1924: [Excerpt: Reese DuPree, "Norfolk Blues"] And there were occasional other records of this type, like "Airy Man Blues" by Papa Charlie Jackson, who was advertised as the “only man living who sings, self-accompanied, for Blues records.” [Excerpt: Papa Charlie Jackson, "Airy Man Blues"] But contrary to the way these are seen today, at the time they weren't seen as being in some way "authentic", or "folk music". Indeed, there are many quotes from folk-music collectors of the time (sadly all of them using so many slurs that it's impossible for me to accurately quote them) saying that when people sang the blues, that wasn't authentic Black folk music at all but an adulteration from commercial music -- they'd clearly, according to these folk-music scholars, learned the blues style from records and sheet music rather than as part of an oral tradition. Most of these performers were people who recorded blues as part of a wider range of material, like Blind Blake, who recorded some blues music but whose best work was his ragtime guitar instrumentals: [Excerpt: Blind Blake, "Southern Rag"] But it was when Blind Lemon Jefferson started recording for Paramount records in 1926 that the image of the blues as we now think of it took shape. His first record, "Got the Blues", was a massive success: [Excerpt: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Got the Blues"] And this resulted in many labels, especially Paramount, signing up pretty much every Black man with a guitar they could find in the hopes of finding another Blind Lemon Jefferson. But the thing is, this generation of people making blues records, and the generation that followed them, didn't think of themselves as "blues singers" or "bluesmen". They were songsters. Songsters were entertainers, and their job was to sing and play whatever the audiences would want to hear. That included the blues, of course, but it also included... well, every song anyone would want to hear.  They'd perform old folk songs, vaudeville songs, songs that they'd heard on the radio or the jukebox -- whatever the audience wanted. Robert Johnson, for example, was known to particularly love playing polka music, and also adored the records of Jimmie Rodgers, the first country music superstar. In 1941, when Alan Lomax first recorded Muddy Waters, he asked Waters what kind of songs he normally played in performances, and he was given a list that included "Home on the Range", Gene Autry's "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle", and Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". We have few recordings of these people performing this kind of song though. One of the few we have is Big Bill Broonzy, who was just about the only artist of this type not to get pigeonholed as just a blues singer, even though blues is what made him famous, and who later in his career managed to record songs like the Tin Pan Alley standard "The Glory of Love": [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "The Glory of Love"] But for the most part, the image we have of the blues comes down to one man, Arthur Laibley, a sales manager for the Wisconsin Chair Company. The Wisconsin Chair Company was, as the name would suggest, a company that started out making wooden chairs, but it had branched out into other forms of wooden furniture -- including, for a brief time, large wooden phonographs. And, like several other manufacturers, like the Radio Corporation of America -- RCA -- and the Gramophone Company, which became EMI, they realised that if they were going to sell the hardware it made sense to sell the software as well, and had started up Paramount Records, which bought up a small label, Black Swan, and soon became the biggest manufacturer of records for the Black market, putting out roughly a quarter of all "race records" released between 1922 and 1932. At first, most of these were produced by a Black talent scout, J. Mayo Williams, who had been the first person to record Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, but in 1927 Williams left Paramount, and the job of supervising sessions went to Arthur Laibley, though according to some sources a lot of the actual production work was done by Aletha Dickerson, Williams' former assistant, who was almost certainly the first Black woman to be what we would now think of as a record producer. Williams had been interested in recording all kinds of music by Black performers, but when Laibley got a solo Black man into the studio, what he wanted more than anything was for him to record the blues, ideally in a style as close as possible to that of Blind Lemon Jefferson. Laibley didn't have a very hands-on approach to recording -- indeed Paramount had very little concern about the quality of their product anyway, and Paramount's records are notorious for having been put out on poor-quality shellac and recorded badly -- and he only occasionally made actual suggestions as to what kind of songs his performers should write -- for example he asked Son House to write something that sounded like Blind Lemon Jefferson, which led to House writing and recording "Mississippi County Farm Blues", which steals the tune of Jefferson's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean": [Excerpt: Son House, "Mississippi County Farm Blues"] When Skip James wanted to record a cover of James Wiggins' "Forty-Four Blues", Laibley suggested that instead he should do a song about a different gun, and so James recorded "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues"] And Laibley also suggested that James write a song about the Depression, which led to one of the greatest blues records ever, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues"] These musicians knew that they were getting paid only for issued sides, and that Laibley wanted only blues from them, and so that's what they gave him. Even when it was a performer like Charlie Patton. (Incidentally, for those reading this as a transcript rather than listening to it, Patton's name is more usually spelled ending in ey, but as far as I can tell ie was his preferred spelling and that's what I'm using). Charlie Patton was best known as an entertainer, first and foremost -- someone who would do song-and-dance routines, joke around, play guitar behind his head. He was a clown on stage, so much so that when Son House finally heard some of Patton's records, in the mid-sixties, decades after the fact, he was astonished that Patton could actually play well. Even though House had been in the room when some of the records were made, his memory of Patton was of someone who acted the fool on stage. That's definitely not the impression you get from the Charlie Patton on record: [Excerpt: Charlie Patton, "Poor Me"] Patton is, as far as can be discerned, the person who was most influential in creating the music that became called the "Delta blues". Not a lot is known about Patton's life, but he was almost certainly the half-brother of the Chatmon brothers, who made hundreds of records, most notably as members of the Mississippi Sheiks: [Excerpt: The Mississippi Sheiks, "Sitting on Top of the World"] In the 1890s, Patton's family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, and he lived in and around that county until his death in 1934. Patton learned to play guitar from a musician called Henry Sloan, and then Patton became a mentor figure to a *lot* of other musicians in and around the plantation on which his family lived. Some of the musicians who grew up in the immediate area around Patton included Tommy Johnson: [Excerpt: Tommy Johnson, "Big Road Blues"] Pops Staples: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken"] Robert Johnson: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Crossroads"] Willie Brown, a musician who didn't record much, but who played a lot with Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson and who we just heard Johnson sing about: [Excerpt: Willie Brown, "M&O Blues"] And Chester Burnett, who went on to become known as Howlin' Wolf, and whose vocal style was equally inspired by Patton and by the country star Jimmie Rodgers: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] Once Patton started his own recording career for Paramount, he also started working as a talent scout for them, and it was him who brought Son House to Paramount. Soon after the Depression hit, Paramount stopped recording, and so from 1930 through 1934 Patton didn't make any records. He was tracked down by an A&R man in January 1934 and recorded one final session: [Excerpt, Charlie Patton, "34 Blues"] But he died of heart failure two months later. But his influence spread through his proteges, and they themselves influenced other musicians from the area who came along a little after, like Robert Lockwood and Muddy Waters. This music -- or that portion of it that was considered worth recording by white record producers, only a tiny, unrepresentative, portion of their vast performing repertoires -- became known as the Delta Blues, and when some of these musicians moved to Chicago and started performing with electric instruments, it became Chicago Blues. And as far as people like John Mayall in Britain were concerned, Delta and Chicago Blues *were* the blues: [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "It Ain't Right"] John Mayall was one of the first of the British blues obsessives, and for a long time thought of himself as the only one. While we've looked before at the growth of the London blues scene, Mayall wasn't from London -- he was born in Macclesfield and grew up in Cheadle Hulme, both relatively well-off suburbs of Manchester, and after being conscripted and doing two years in the Army, he had become an art student at Manchester College of Art, what is now Manchester Metropolitan University. Mayall had been a blues fan from the late 1940s, writing off to the US to order records that hadn't been released in the UK, and by most accounts by the late fifties he'd put together the biggest blues collection in Britain by quite some way. Not only that, but he had one of the earliest home tape recorders, and every night he would record radio stations from Continental Europe which were broadcasting for American service personnel, so he'd amassed mountains of recordings, often unlabelled, of obscure blues records that nobody else in the UK knew about. He was also an accomplished pianist and guitar player, and in 1956 he and his drummer friend Peter Ward had put together a band called the Powerhouse Four (the other two members rotated on a regular basis) mostly to play lunchtime jazz sessions at the art college. Mayall also started putting on jam sessions at a youth club in Wythenshawe, where he met another drummer named Hughie Flint. Over the late fifties and into the early sixties, Mayall more or less by himself built up a small blues scene in Manchester. The Manchester blues scene was so enthusiastic, in fact, that when the American Folk Blues Festival, an annual European tour which initially featured Willie Dixon, Memhis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and John Lee Hooker, first toured Europe, the only UK date it played was at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, and people like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Jimmy Page had to travel up from London to see it. But still, the number of blues fans in Manchester, while proportionally large, was objectively small enough that Mayall was captivated by an article in Melody Maker which talked about Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies' new band Blues Incorporated and how it was playing electric blues, the same music he was making in Manchester. He later talked about how the article had made him think that maybe now people would know what he was talking about. He started travelling down to London to play gigs for the London blues scene, and inviting Korner up to Manchester to play shows there. Soon Mayall had moved down to London. Korner introduced Mayall to Davey Graham, the great folk guitarist, with whom Korner had recently recorded as a duo: [Excerpt: Alexis Korner and Davey Graham, "3/4 AD"] Mayall and Graham performed together as a duo for a while, but Graham was a natural solo artist if ever there was one. Slowly Mayall put a band together in London. On drums was his old friend Peter Ward, who'd moved down from Manchester with him. On bass was John McVie, who at the time knew nothing about blues -- he'd been playing in a Shadows-style instrumental group -- but Mayall gave him a stack of blues records to listen to to get the feeling. And on guitar was Bernie Watson, who had previously played with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. In late 1963, Mike Vernon, a blues fan who had previously published a Yardbirds fanzine, got a job working for Decca records, and immediately started signing his favourite acts from the London blues circuit. The first act he signed was John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and they recorded a single, "Crawling up a Hill": [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "Crawling up a Hill (45 version)"] Mayall later called that a "clumsy, half-witted attempt at autobiographical comment", and it sold only five hundred copies. It would be the only record the Bluesbreakers would make with Watson, who soon left the band to be replaced by Roger Dean (not the same Roger Dean who later went on to design prog rock album covers). The second group to be signed by Mike Vernon to Decca was the Graham Bond Organisation. We've talked about the Graham Bond Organisation in passing several times, but not for a while and not in any great detail, so it's worth pulling everything we've said about them so far together and going through it in a little more detail. The Graham Bond Organisation, like the Rolling Stones, grew out of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. As we heard in the episode on "I Wanna Be Your Man" a couple of years ago, Blues Incorporated had been started by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, and at the time we're joining them in 1962 featured a drummer called Charlie Watts, a pianist called Dave Stevens, and saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith, as well as frequent guest performers like a singer who called himself Mike Jagger, and another one, Roderick Stewart. That group finally found themselves the perfect bass player when Dick Heckstall-Smith put together a one-off group of jazz players to play an event at Cambridge University. At the gig, a little Scottish man came up to the group and told them he played bass and asked if he could sit in. They told him to bring along his instrument to their second set, that night, and he did actually bring along a double bass. Their bluff having been called, they decided to play the most complicated, difficult, piece they knew in order to throw the kid off -- the drummer, a trad jazz player named Ginger Baker, didn't like performing with random sit-in guests -- but astonishingly he turned out to be really good. Heckstall-Smith took down the bass player's name and phone number and invited him to a jam session with Blues Incorporated. After that jam session, Jack Bruce quickly became the group's full-time bass player. Bruce had started out as a classical cellist, but had switched to the double bass inspired by Bach, who he referred to as "the guv'nor of all bass players". His playing up to this point had mostly been in trad jazz bands, and he knew nothing of the blues, but he quickly got the hang of the genre. Bruce's first show with Blues Incorporated was a BBC recording: [Excerpt: Blues Incorporated, "Hoochie Coochie Man (BBC session)"] According to at least one source it was not being asked to take part in that session that made young Mike Jagger decide there was no future for him with Blues Incorporated and to spend more time with his other group, the Rollin' Stones. Soon after, Charlie Watts would join him, for almost the opposite reason -- Watts didn't want to be in a band that was getting as big as Blues Incorporated were. They were starting to do more BBC sessions and get more gigs, and having to join the Musicians' Union. That seemed like a lot of work. Far better to join a band like the Rollin' Stones that wasn't going anywhere. Because of Watts' decision to give up on potential stardom to become a Rollin' Stone, they needed a new drummer, and luckily the best drummer on the scene was available. But then the best drummer on the scene was *always* available. Ginger Baker had first played with Dick Heckstall-Smith several years earlier, in a trad group called the Storyville Jazzmen. There Baker had become obsessed with the New Orleans jazz drummer Baby Dodds, who had played with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. Sadly because of 1920s recording technology, he hadn't been able to play a full kit on the recordings with Armstrong, being limited to percussion on just a woodblock, but you can hear his drumming style much better in this version of "At the Jazz Band Ball" from 1947, with Mugsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, Cyrus St. Clair and Hank Duncan: [Excerpt: "At the Jazz Band Ball"] Baker had taken Dobbs' style and run with it, and had quickly become known as the single best player, bar none, on the London jazz scene -- he'd become an accomplished player in multiple styles, and was also fluent in reading music and arranging. He'd also, though, become known as the single person on the entire scene who was most difficult to get along with. He resigned from his first band onstage, shouting "You can stick your band up your arse", after the band's leader had had enough of him incorporating bebop influences into their trad style. Another time, when touring with Diz Disley's band, he was dumped in Germany with no money and no way to get home, because the band were so sick of him. Sometimes this was because of his temper and his unwillingness to suffer fools -- and he saw everyone else he ever met as a fool -- and sometimes it was because of his own rigorous musical ideas. He wanted to play music *his* way, and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him different. Both of these things got worse after he fell under the influence of a man named Phil Seaman, one of the only drummers that Baker respected at all. Seaman introduced Baker to African drumming, and Baker started incorporating complex polyrhythms into his playing as a result. Seaman also though introduced Baker to heroin, and while being a heroin addict in the UK in the 1960s was not as difficult as it later became -- both heroin and cocaine were available on prescription to registered addicts, and Baker got both, which meant that many of the problems that come from criminalisation of these drugs didn't affect addicts in the same way -- but it still did not, by all accounts, make him an easier person to get along with. But he *was* a fantastic drummer. As Dick Heckstall-Smith said "With the advent of Ginger, the classic Blues Incorporated line-up, one which I think could not be bettered, was set" But Alexis Korner decided that the group could be bettered, and he had some backers within the band. One of the other bands on the scene was the Don Rendell Quintet, a group that played soul jazz -- that style of jazz that bridged modern jazz and R&B, the kind of music that Ray Charles and Herbie Hancock played: [Excerpt: The Don Rendell Quintet, "Manumission"] The Don Rendell Quintet included a fantastic multi-instrumentalist, Graham Bond, who doubled on keyboards and saxophone, and Bond had been playing occasional experimental gigs with the Johnny Burch Octet -- a group led by another member of the Rendell Quartet featuring Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, Baker, and a few other musicians, doing wholly-improvised music. Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, and Baker all enjoyed playing with Bond, and when Korner decided to bring him into the band, they were all very keen. But Cyril Davies, the co-leader of the band with Korner, was furious at the idea. Davies wanted to play strict Chicago and Delta blues, and had no truck with other forms of music like R&B and jazz. To his mind it was bad enough that they had a sax player. But the idea that they would bring in Bond, who played sax and... *Hammond* organ? Well, that was practically blasphemy. Davies quit the group at the mere suggestion. Bond was soon in the band, and he, Bruce, and Baker were playing together a *lot*. As well as performing with Blues Incorporated, they continued playing in the Johnny Burch Octet, and they also started performing as the Graham Bond Trio. Sometimes the Graham Bond Trio would be Blues Incorporated's opening act, and on more than one occasion the Graham Bond Trio, Blues Incorporated, and the Johnny Burch Octet all had gigs in different parts of London on the same night and they'd have to frantically get from one to the other. The Graham Bond Trio also had fans in Manchester, thanks to the local blues scene there and their connection with Blues Incorporated, and one night in February 1963 the trio played a gig there. They realised afterwards that by playing as a trio they'd made £70, when they were lucky to make £20 from a gig with Blues Incorporated or the Octet, because there were so many members in those bands. Bond wanted to make real money, and at the next rehearsal of Blues Incorporated he announced to Korner that he, Bruce, and Baker were quitting the band -- which was news to Bruce and Baker, who he hadn't bothered consulting. Baker, indeed, was in the toilet when the announcement was made and came out to find it a done deal. He was going to kick up a fuss and say he hadn't been consulted, but Korner's reaction sealed the deal. As Baker later said "‘he said “it's really good you're doing this thing with Graham, and I wish you the best of luck” and all that. And it was a bit difficult to turn round and say, “Well, I don't really want to leave the band, you know.”'" The Graham Bond Trio struggled at first to get the gigs they were expecting, but that started to change when in April 1963 they became the Graham Bond Quartet, with the addition of virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin. The Quartet soon became one of the hottest bands on the London R&B scene, and when Duffy Power, a Larry Parnes teen idol who wanted to move into R&B, asked his record label to get him a good R&B band to back him on a Beatles cover, it was the Graham Bond Quartet who obliged: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "I Saw Her Standing There"] The Quartet also backed Power on a package tour with other Parnes acts, but they were also still performing their own blend of hard jazz and blues, as can be heard in this recording of the group live in June 1953: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Quartet, "Ho Ho Country Kicking Blues (Live at Klooks Kleek)"] But that lineup of the group didn't last very long. According to the way Baker told the story, he fired McLaughlin from the group, after being irritated by McLaughlin complaining about something on a day when Baker was out of cocaine and in no mood to hear anyone else's complaints. As Baker said "We lost a great guitar player and I lost a good friend." But the Trio soon became a Quartet again, as Dick Heckstall-Smith, who Baker had wanted in the band from the start, joined on saxophone to replace McLaughlin's guitar. But they were no longer called the Graham Bond Quartet. Partly because Heckstall-Smith joining allowed Bond to concentrate just on his keyboard playing, but one suspects partly to protect against any future lineup changes, the group were now The Graham Bond ORGANisation -- emphasis on the organ. The new lineup of the group got signed to Decca by Vernon, and were soon recording their first single, "Long Tall Shorty": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Long Tall Shorty"] They recorded a few other songs which made their way onto an EP and an R&B compilation, and toured intensively in early 1964, as well as backing up Power on his follow-up to "I Saw Her Standing There", his version of "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "Parchman Farm"] They also appeared in a film, just like the Beatles, though it was possibly not quite as artistically successful as "A Hard Day's Night": [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat trailer] Gonks Go Beat is one of the most bizarre films of the sixties. It's a far-future remake of Romeo and Juliet. where the two star-crossed lovers are from opposing countries -- Beatland and Ballad Isle -- who only communicate once a year in an annual song contest which acts as their version of a war, and is overseen by "Mr. A&R", played by Frank Thornton, who would later star in Are You Being Served? Carry On star Kenneth Connor is sent by aliens to try to bring peace to the two warring countries, on pain of exile to Planet Gonk, a planet inhabited solely by Gonks (a kind of novelty toy for which there was a short-lived craze then). Along the way Connor encounters such luminaries of British light entertainment as Terry Scott and Arthur Mullard, as well as musical performances by Lulu, the Nashville Teens, and of course the Graham Bond Organisation, whose performance gets them a telling-off from a teacher: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat!] The group as a group only performed one song in this cinematic masterpiece, but Baker also made an appearance in a "drum battle" sequence where eight drummers played together: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat drum battle] The other drummers in that scene included, as well as some lesser-known players, Andy White who had played on the single version of "Love Me Do", Bobby Graham, who played on hits by the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five, and Ronnie Verrell, who did the drumming for Animal in the Muppet Show. Also in summer 1964, the group performed at the Fourth National Jazz & Blues Festival in Richmond -- the festival co-founded by Chris Barber that would evolve into the Reading Festival. The Yardbirds were on the bill, and at the end of their set they invited Bond, Baker, Bruce, Georgie Fame, and Mike Vernon onto the stage with them, making that the first time that Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce were all on stage together. Soon after that, the Graham Bond Organisation got a new manager, Robert Stigwood. Things hadn't been working out for them at Decca, and Stigwood soon got the group signed to EMI, and became their producer as well. Their first single under Stigwood's management was a cover version of the theme tune to the Debbie Reynolds film "Tammy". While that film had given Tamla records its name, the song was hardly an R&B classic: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Tammy"] That record didn't chart, but Stigwood put the group out on the road as part of the disastrous Chuck Berry tour we heard about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", which led to the bankruptcy of  Robert Stigwood Associates. The Organisation moved over to Stigwood's new company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation, and Stigwood continued to be the credited producer of their records, though after the "Tammy" disaster they decided they were going to take charge themselves of the actual music. Their first album, The Sound of 65, was recorded in a single three-hour session, and they mostly ran through their standard set -- a mixture of the same songs everyone else on the circuit was playing, like "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Got My Mojo Working", and "Wade in the Water", and originals like Bruce's "Train Time": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Train Time"] Through 1965 they kept working. They released a non-album single, "Lease on Love", which is generally considered to be the first pop record to feature a Mellotron: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Lease on Love"] and Bond and Baker also backed another Stigwood act, Winston G, on his debut single: [Excerpt: Winston G, "Please Don't Say"] But the group were developing severe tensions. Bruce and Baker had started out friendly, but by this time they hated each other. Bruce said he couldn't hear his own playing over Baker's loud drumming, Baker thought that Bruce was far too fussy a player and should try to play simpler lines. They'd both try to throw each other during performances, altering arrangements on the fly and playing things that would trip the other player up. And *neither* of them were particularly keen on Bond's new love of the Mellotron, which was all over their second album, giving it a distinctly proto-prog feel at times: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Baby Can it Be True?"] Eventually at a gig in Golders Green, Baker started throwing drumsticks at Bruce's head while Bruce was trying to play a bass solo. Bruce retaliated by throwing his bass at Baker, and then jumping on him and starting a fistfight which had to be broken up by the venue security. Baker fired Bruce from the band, but Bruce kept turning up to gigs anyway, arguing that Baker had no right to sack him as it was a democracy. Baker always claimed that in fact Bond had wanted to sack Bruce but hadn't wanted to get his hands dirty, and insisted that Baker do it, but neither Bond nor Heckstall-Smith objected when Bruce turned up for the next couple of gigs. So Baker took matters into his own hands, He pulled out a knife and told Bruce "If you show up at one more gig, this is going in you." Within days, Bruce was playing with John Mayall, whose Bluesbreakers had gone through some lineup changes by this point. Roger Dean had only played with the Bluesbreakers for a short time before Mayall had replaced him. Mayall had not been impressed with Eric Clapton's playing with the Yardbirds at first -- even though graffiti saying "Clapton is God" was already starting to appear around London -- but he had been *very* impressed with Clapton's playing on "Got to Hurry", the B-side to "For Your Love": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Got to Hurry"] When he discovered that Clapton had quit the band, he sprang into action and quickly recruited him to replace Dean. Clapton knew he had made the right choice when a month after he'd joined, the group got the word that Bob Dylan had been so impressed with Mayall's single "Crawling up a Hill" -- the one that nobody liked, not even Mayall himself -- that he wanted to jam with Mayall and his band in the studio. Clapton of course went along: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Bluesbreakers, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] That was, of course, the session we've talked about in the Velvet Underground episode and elsewhere of which little other than that survives, and which Nico attended. At this point, Mayall didn't have a record contract, his experience recording with Mike Vernon having been no more successful than the Bond group's had been. But soon he got a one-off deal -- as a solo artist, not with the Bluesbreakers -- with Immediate Records. Clapton was the only member of the group to play on the single, which was produced by Immediate's house producer Jimmy Page: [Excerpt: John Mayall, "I'm Your Witchdoctor"] Page was impressed enough with Clapton's playing that he invited him round to Page's house to jam together. But what Clapton didn't know was that Page was taping their jam sessions, and that he handed those tapes over to Immediate Records -- whether he was forced to by his contract with the label or whether that had been his plan all along depends on whose story you believe, but Clapton never truly forgave him. Page and Clapton's guitar-only jams had overdubs by Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart, and drummer Chris Winter, and have been endlessly repackaged on blues compilations ever since: [Excerpt: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, "Draggin' My Tail"] But Mayall was having problems with John McVie, who had started to drink too much, and as soon as he found out that Jack Bruce was sacked by the Graham Bond Organisation, Mayall got in touch with Bruce and got him to join the band in McVie's place. Everyone was agreed that this lineup of the band -- Mayall, Clapton, Bruce, and Hughie Flint -- was going places: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Jack Bruce, "Hoochie Coochie Man"] Unfortunately, it wasn't going to last long. Clapton, while he thought that Bruce was the greatest bass player he'd ever worked with, had other plans. He was going to leave the country and travel the world as a peripatetic busker. He was off on his travels, never to return. Luckily, Mayall had someone even better waiting in the wings. A young man had, according to Mayall, "kept coming down to all the gigs and saying, “Hey, what are you doing with him?” – referring to whichever guitarist was onstage that night – “I'm much better than he is. Why don't you let me play guitar for you?” He got really quite nasty about it, so finally, I let him sit in. And he was brilliant." Peter Green was probably the best blues guitarist in London at that time, but this lineup of the Bluesbreakers only lasted a handful of gigs -- Clapton discovered that busking in Greece wasn't as much fun as being called God in London, and came back very soon after he'd left. Mayall had told him that he could have his old job back when he got back, and so Green was out and Clapton was back in. And soon the Bluesbreakers' revolving door revolved again. Manfred Mann had just had a big hit with "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", the same song we heard Dylan playing earlier: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] But their guitarist, Mike Vickers, had quit. Tom McGuinness, their bass player, had taken the opportunity to switch back to guitar -- the instrument he'd played in his first band with his friend Eric Clapton -- but that left them short a bass player. Manfred Mann were essentially the same kind of band as the Graham Bond Organisation -- a Hammond-led group of virtuoso multi-instrumentalists who played everything from hardcore Delta blues to complex modern jazz -- but unlike the Bond group they also had a string of massive pop hits, and so made a lot more money. The combination was irresistible to Bruce, and he joined the band just before they recorded an EP of jazz instrumental versions of recent hits: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Bruce had also been encouraged by Robert Stigwood to do a solo project, and so at the same time as he joined Manfred Mann, he also put out a solo single, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'" [Excerpt: Jack Bruce, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'"] But of course, the reason Bruce had joined Manfred Mann was that they were having pop hits as well as playing jazz, and soon they did just that, with Bruce playing on their number one hit "Pretty Flamingo": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "Pretty Flamingo"] So John McVie was back in the Bluesbreakers, promising to keep his drinking under control. Mike Vernon still thought that Mayall had potential, but the people at Decca didn't agree, so Vernon got Mayall and Clapton -- but not the other band members -- to record a single for a small indie label he ran as a side project: [Excerpt: John Mayall and Eric Clapton, "Bernard Jenkins"] That label normally only released records in print runs of ninety-nine copies, because once you hit a hundred copies you had to pay tax on them, but there was so much demand for that single that they ended up pressing up five hundred copies, making it the label's biggest seller ever. Vernon eventually convinced the heads at Decca that the Bluesbreakers could be truly big, and so he got the OK to record the album that would generally be considered the greatest British blues album of all time -- Blues Breakers, also known as the Beano album because of Clapton reading a copy of the British kids' comic The Beano in the group photo on the front. [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Ramblin' On My Mind"] The album was a mixture of originals by Mayall and the standard repertoire of every blues or R&B band on the circuit -- songs like "Parchman Farm" and "What'd I Say" -- but what made the album unique was Clapton's guitar tone. Much to the chagrin of Vernon, and of engineer Gus Dudgeon, Clapton insisted on playing at the same volume that he would on stage. Vernon later said of Dudgeon "I can remember seeing his face the very first time Clapton plugged into the Marshall stack and turned it up and started playing at the sort of volume he was going to play. You could almost see Gus's eyes meet over the middle of his nose, and it was almost like he was just going to fall over from the sheer power of it all. But after an enormous amount of fiddling around and moving amps around, we got a sound that worked." [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Hideaway"] But by the time the album cane out. Clapton was no longer with the Bluesbreakers. The Graham Bond Organisation had struggled on for a while after Bruce's departure. They brought in a trumpet player, Mike Falana, and even had a hit record -- or at least, the B-side of a hit record. The Who had just put out a hit single, "Substitute", on Robert Stigwood's record label, Reaction: [Excerpt: The Who, "Substitute"] But, as you'll hear in episode 183, they had moved to Reaction Records after a falling out with their previous label, and with Shel Talmy their previous producer. The problem was, when "Substitute" was released, it had as its B-side a song called "Circles" (also known as "Instant Party -- it's been released under both names). They'd recorded an earlier version of the song for Talmy, and just as "Substitute" was starting to chart, Talmy got an injunction against the record and it had to be pulled. Reaction couldn't afford to lose the big hit record they'd spent money promoting, so they needed to put it out with a new B-side. But the Who hadn't got any unreleased recordings. But the Graham Bond Organisation had, and indeed they had an unreleased *instrumental*. So "Waltz For a Pig" became the B-side to a top-five single, credited to The Who Orchestra: [Excerpt: The Who Orchestra, "Waltz For a Pig"] That record provided the catalyst for the formation of Cream, because Ginger Baker had written the song, and got £1,350 for it, which he used to buy a new car. Baker had, for some time, been wanting to get out of the Graham Bond Organisation. He was trying to get off heroin -- though he would make many efforts to get clean over the decades, with little success -- while Bond was starting to use it far more heavily, and was also using acid and getting heavily into mysticism, which Baker despised. Baker may have had the idea for what he did next from an article in one of the music papers. John Entwistle of the Who would often tell a story about an article in Melody Maker -- though I've not been able to track down the article itself to get the full details -- in which musicians were asked to name which of their peers they'd put into a "super-group". He didn't remember the full details, but he did remember that the consensus choice had had Eric Clapton on lead guitar, himself on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. As he said later "I don't remember who else was voted in, but a few months later, the Cream came along, and I did wonder if somebody was maybe believing too much of their own press". Incidentally, like The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd, Cream, the band we are about to meet, had releases both with and without the definite article, and Eric Clapton at least seems always to talk about them as "the Cream" even decades later, but they're primarily known as just Cream these days. Baker, having had enough of the Bond group, decided to drive up to Oxford to see Clapton playing with the Bluesbreakers. Clapton invited him to sit in for a couple of songs, and by all accounts the band sounded far better than they had previously. Clapton and Baker could obviously play well together, and Baker offered Clapton a lift back to London in his new car, and on the drive back asked Clapton if he wanted to form a new band. Clapton was as impressed by Baker's financial skills as he was by his musicianship. He said later "Musicians didn't have cars. You all got in a van." Clearly a musician who was *actually driving a new car he owned* was going places. He agreed to Baker's plan. But of course they needed a bass player, and Clapton thought he had the perfect solution -- "What about Jack?" Clapton knew that Bruce had been a member of the Graham Bond Organisation, but didn't know why he'd left the band -- he wasn't particularly clued in to what the wider music scene was doing, and all he knew was that Bruce had played with both him and Baker, and that he was the best bass player he'd ever played with. And Bruce *was* arguably the best bass player in London at that point, and he was starting to pick up session work as well as his work with Manfred Mann. For example it's him playing on the theme tune to "After The Fox" with Peter Sellers, the Hollies, and the song's composer Burt Bacharach: [Excerpt: The Hollies with Peter Sellers, "After the Fox"] Clapton was insistent. Baker's idea was that the band should be the best musicians around. That meant they needed the *best* musicians around, not the second best. If Jack Bruce wasn't joining, Eric Clapton wasn't joining either. Baker very reluctantly agreed, and went round to see Bruce the next day -- according to Baker it was in a spirit of generosity and giving Bruce one more chance, while according to Bruce he came round to eat humble pie and beg for forgiveness. Either way, Bruce agreed to join the band. The three met up for a rehearsal at Baker's home, and immediately Bruce and Baker started fighting, but also immediately they realised that they were great at playing together -- so great that they named themselves the Cream, as they were the cream of musicians on the scene. They knew they had something, but they didn't know what. At first they considered making their performances into Dada projects, inspired by the early-twentieth-century art movement. They liked a band that had just started to make waves, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band -- who had originally been called the Bonzo Dog Dada Band -- and they bought some props with the vague idea of using them on stage in the same way the Bonzos did. But as they played together they realised that they needed to do something different from that. At first, they thought they needed a fourth member -- a keyboard player. Graham Bond's name was brought up, but Clapton vetoed him. Clapton wanted Steve Winwood, the keyboard player and vocalist with the Spencer Davis Group. Indeed, Winwood was present at what was originally intended to be the first recording session the trio would play. Joe Boyd had asked Eric Clapton to round up a bunch of players to record some filler tracks for an Elektra blues compilation, and Clapton had asked Bruce and Baker to join him, Paul Jones on vocals, Winwood on Hammond and Clapton's friend Ben Palmer on piano for the session. Indeed, given that none of the original trio were keen on singing, that Paul Jones was just about to leave Manfred Mann, and that we know Clapton wanted Winwood in the band, one has to wonder if Clapton at least half-intended for this to be the eventual lineup of the band. If he did, that plan was foiled by Baker's refusal to take part in the session. Instead, this one-off band, named The Powerhouse, featured Pete York, the drummer from the Spencer Davis Group, on the session, which produced the first recording of Clapton playing on the Robert Johnson song originally titled "Cross Road Blues" but now generally better known just as "Crossroads": [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] We talked about Robert Johnson a little back in episode ninety-seven, but other than Bob Dylan, who was inspired by his lyrics, we had seen very little influence from Johnson up to this point, but he's going to be a major influence on rock guitar for the next few years, so we should talk about him a little here. It's often said that nobody knew anything about Robert Johnson, that he was almost a phantom other than his records which existed outside of any context as artefacts of their own. That's... not really the case. Johnson had died a little less than thirty years earlier, at only twenty-seven years old. Most of his half-siblings and step-siblings were alive, as were his son, his stepson, and dozens of musicians he'd played with over the years, women he'd had affairs with, and other assorted friends and relatives. What people mean is that information about Johnson's life was not yet known by people they consider important -- which is to say white blues scholars and musicians. Indeed, almost everything people like that -- people like *me* -- know of the facts of Johnson's life has only become known to us in the last four years. If, as some people had expected, I'd started this series with an episode on Johnson, I'd have had to redo the whole thing because of the information that's made its way to the public since then. But here's what was known -- or thought -- by white blues scholars in 1966. Johnson was, according to them, a field hand from somewhere in Mississippi, who played the guitar in between working on the cotton fields. He had done two recording sessions, in 1936 and 1937. One song from his first session, "Terraplane Blues", had been a very minor hit by blues standards: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues"] That had sold well -- nobody knows how well, but maybe as many as ten thousand copies, and it was certainly a record people knew in 1937 if they liked the Delta blues, but ten thousand copies total is nowhere near the sales of really successful records, and none of the follow-ups had sold anything like that much -- many of them had sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. As Elijah Wald, one of Johnson's biographers put it "knowing about Johnson and Muddy Waters but not about Leroy Carr or Dinah Washington was like knowing about, say, the Sir Douglas Quintet but not knowing about the Beatles" -- though *I* would add that the Sir Douglas Quintet were much bigger during the sixties than Johnson was during his lifetime. One of the few white people who had noticed Johnson's existence at all was John Hammond, and he'd written a brief review of Johnson's first two singles under a pseudonym in a Communist newspaper. I'm going to quote it here, but the word he used to talk about Black people was considered correct then but isn't now, so I'll substitute Black for that word: "Before closing we cannot help but call your attention to the greatest [Black] blues singer who has cropped up in recent years, Robert Johnson. Recording them in deepest Mississippi, Vocalion has certainly done right by us and by the tunes "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Terraplane Blues", to name only two of the four sides already released, sung to his own guitar accompaniment. Johnson makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur" Hammond had tried to get Johnson to perform at the Spirituals to Swing concerts we talked about in the very first episodes of the podcast, but he'd discovered that he'd died shortly before. He got Big Bill Broonzy instead, and played a couple of Johnson's records from a record player on the stage. Hammond introduced those recordings with a speech: "It is tragic that an American audience could not have been found seven or eight years ago for a concert of this kind. Bessie Smith was still at the height of her career and Joe Smith, probably the greatest trumpet player America ever knew, would still have been around to play obbligatos for her...dozens of other artists could have been there in the flesh. But that audience as well as this one would not have been able to hear Robert Johnson sing and play the blues on his guitar, for at that time Johnson was just an unknown hand on a Robinsonville, Mississippi plantation. Robert Johnson was going to be the big surprise of the evening for this audience at Carnegie Hall. I know him only from his Vocalion blues records and from the tall, exciting tales the recording engineers and supervisors used to bring about him from the improvised studios in Dallas and San Antonio. I don't believe Johnson had ever worked as a professional musician anywhere, and it still knocks me over when I think of how lucky it is that a talent like his ever found its way onto phonograph records. We will have to be content with playing two of his records, the old "Walkin' Blues" and the new, unreleased, "Preachin' Blues", because Robert Johnson died last week at the precise moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall on December 23. He was in his middle twenties and nobody seems to know what caused his death." And that was, for the most part, the end of Robert Johnson's impact on the culture for a generation. The Lomaxes went down to Clarksdale, Mississippi a couple of years later -- reports vary as to whether this was to see if they could find Johnson, who they were unaware was dead, or to find information out about him, and they did end up recording a young singer named Muddy Waters for the Library of Congress, including Waters' rendition of "32-20 Blues", Johnson's reworking of Skip James' "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "32-20 Blues"] But Johnson's records remained unavailable after their initial release until 1959, when the blues scholar Samuel Charters published the book The Country Blues, which was the first book-length treatment ever of Delta blues. Sixteen years later Charters said "I shouldn't have written The Country Blues when I did; since I really didn't know enough, but I felt I couldn't afford to wait. So The Country Blues was two things. It was a romanticization of certain aspects of black life in an effort to force the white society to reconsider some of its racial attitudes, and on the other hand it was a cry for help. I wanted hundreds of people to go out and interview the surviving blues artists. I wanted people to record them and document their lives, their environment, and their music, not only so that their story would be preserved but also so they'd get a little money and a little recognition in their last years." Charters talked about Johnson in the book, as one of the performers who played "minor roles in the story of the blues", and said that almost nothing was known about his life. He talked about how he had been poisoned by his common-law wife, about how his records were recorded in a pool hall, and said "The finest of Robert Johnson's blues have a brooding sense of torment and despair. The blues has become a personified figure of despondency." Along with Charters' book came a compilation album of the same name, and that included the first ever reissue of one of Johnson's tracks, "Preaching Blues": [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues"] Two years later, John Hammond, who had remained an ardent fan of Johnson, had Columbia put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album. At the time no white blues scholars knew what Johnson looked like and they had no photos of him, so a generic painting of a poor-looking Black man with a guitar was used for the cover. The liner note to King of the Delta Blues Singers talked about how Johnson was seventeen or eighteen when he made his recordings, how he was "dead before he reached his twenty-first birthday, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend", how he had "seldom, if ever, been away from the plantation in Robinsville, Mississippi, where he was born and raised", and how he had had such stage fright that when he was asked to play in front of other musicians, he'd turned to face a wall so he couldn't see them. And that would be all that any of the members of the Powerhouse would know about Johnson. Maybe they'd also heard the rumours that were starting to spread that Johnson had got his guitar-playing skills by selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads at midnight, but that would have been all they knew when they recorded their filler track for Elektra: [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] Either way, the Powerhouse lineup only lasted for that one session -- the group eventually decided that a simple trio would be best for the music they wanted to play. Clapton had seen Buddy Guy touring with just a bass player and drummer a year earlier, and had liked the idea of the freedom that gave him as a guitarist. The group soon took on Robert Stigwood as a manager, which caused more arguments between Bruce and Baker. Bruce was convinced that if they were doing an all-for-one one-for-all thing they should also manage themselves, but Baker pointed out that that was a daft idea when they could get one of the biggest managers in the country to look after them. A bigger argument, which almost killed the group before it started, happened when Baker told journalist Chris Welch of the Melody Maker about their plans. In an echo of the way that he and Bruce had been resigned from Blues Incorporated without being consulted, now with no discussion Manfred Mann and John Mayall were reading in the papers that their band members were quitting before those members had bothered to mention it. Mayall was furious, especially since the album Clapton had played on hadn't yet come out. Clapton was supposed to work a month's notice while Mayall found another guitarist, but Mayall spent two weeks begging Peter Green to rejoin the band. Green was less than eager -- after all, he'd been fired pretty much straight away earlier -- but Mayall eventually persuaded him. The second he did, Mayall turned round to Clapton and told him he didn't have to work the rest of his notice -- he'd found another guitar player and Clapton was fired: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, "Dust My Blues"] Manfred Mann meanwhile took on the Beatles' friend Klaus Voorman to replace Bruce. Voorman would remain with the band until the end, and like Green was for Mayall, Voorman was in some ways a better fit for Manfred Mann than Bruce was. In particular he could double on flute, as he did for example on their hit version of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann "The Mighty Quinn"] The new group, The Cream, were of course signed in the UK to Stigwood's Reaction label. Other than the Who, who only stuck around for one album, Reaction was not a very successful label. Its biggest signing was a former keyboard player for Screaming Lord Sutch, who recorded for them under the names Paul Dean and Oscar, but who later became known as Paul Nicholas and had a successful career in musical theatre and sitcom. Nicholas never had any hits for Reaction, but he did release one interesting record, in 1967: [Excerpt: Oscar, "Over the Wall We Go"] That was one of the earliest songwriting attempts by a young man who had recently named himself David Bowie. Now the group were public, they started inviting journalists to their rehearsals, which were mostly spent trying to combine their disparate musical influences --

The immeasurably famous Irving Berlin seems like the perfect example of a U.S. immigrant success story. But reality is complicated and imperfect, and so was Berlin's music-filled life. Research: Bergreen, Laurence. “Irving Berlin: This Is the Army.” Prologue. Summer 1996, Vol. 28, No. 2 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/summer/irving-berlin-1 Carlson, Olivia. “What's White Christmas without Minstrelsy?” Music 345: Race, Identity, and Representation in American Music. Student Blogs and Library Exhibit Companion. https://pages.stolaf.edu/americanmusic/2021/10/25/whats-white-christmas-without-minstrelsy/ CBS Sunday Morning. “American songsmith Irving Berlin.” Via YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV9uq8z2k5E Greten, Paula Anne. “Irving Berlin.” American History. August 2006. Hamm, Charles. “Irving Berlin -- Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914.” Oxford University Press. Via New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hamm-berlin.html Hamm, Charles. “Alexander and His Band.” American Music , Spring, 1996, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1996). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052459 Hyland, William G. “The Best Songwriter Of Them All.” Commentary. October 1990. "Irving Berlin." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture Online, Gale, 2013. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K2419200098/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=be3b3028. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022. Jewish Lives. “Irving Berlin.” Podcast. Episode 4. 11/18/2019. Jewish Virtual Library. “Irving Berlin.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/irving-berlin Judaism Unbound. “Bonus Episode: Irving Berlin – Judah Cohen (American Jewish History #5).” Podcast. Episode 248, October 2 2019. Kaplan, James. “Irving Berlin: New York Genius.” Yale University Press. 2019. Kennedy Center. “This Land is Your Land: The story behind the song.” https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/story-behind-the-song/the-story-behind-the-song/this-land-is-your-land/ Magee, Jeffrey. "'Everybody Step': Irving Berlin, jazz, and Broadway in the 1920s." Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 59, no. 3, fall 2006, pp. 697+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A157180372/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=07c374cd. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022. Markel, Howard. “How Irving Berlin's blue skies turned to blue days.” PBS NewsHour. 9/24/2021. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-irving-berlins-blue-skies-turned-to-blue-days Maslon, Laurence. “Overture.” (And following pages) The Irving Berlin Music Company. https://www.irvingberlin.com/overture Schiff, David. “For Everyman, By Everyman.” The Atlantic Monthly. March 1996. Spitzer, Nick. “The Story Of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land'.” NPR. 2/15/2012. https://www.npr.org/2000/07/03/1076186/this-land-is-your-land The Irving Berlin Music Company. “Irving Berlin.” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57d1974abe6594a72075321b/t/5a5f673eec212d2269841cf4/1516201791369/Irving+Berlin+-+official+biography.pdf White, Timothy. “Irving Berlin Knew Pop Music's Power.” Billboard. Vol. 111, Issue 21. 5/22/1999. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. Dieckhaus, 153 F.2d 893, 898 (8th Cir. 1946) https://casetext.com/case/twentieth-century-fox-film-corp-v-dieckhaus Bornstein, George. "Say it with music." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5698, 15 June 2012, p. 9. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A667239228/LitRC?u=mlin_oweb&sid=googleScholar&xid=7d90f5a8. Accessed 2 Dec. 2022. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.