1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret
POPULARITY
5 episodes with Unchained Melody
3 episodes with Unchained Melody
2 episodes with Unchained Melody
3 episodes with Unchained Melody
2 episodes with Unchained Melody
2 episodes with Unchained Melody
2 episodes with Unchained Melody
3 episodes with Unchained Melody
2 episodes with Unchained Melody
Analizamos Eurovisión y 'Esa diva' de Melody con los expertos en el certamen Sergio Crespo y Elián Vayá, compañeros de la SER. Además, les acompañan nuestros oyentes Bosco de Zaragoza, Modelo con Ciática y El hijo de Juan. Fernando Navarro, periodista musical, nos cuenta la historia que hay detrás de 'Unchained Melody', la canción que se convirtió en insignia de Elvis Presley tras cantarla en su último concierto pocas semanas antes de morir en su mansión de Graceland. Como cada martes, Alejandro Pelayo se asoma al piano de la ser.
CYNDI LAUPER MISTY BLUE 2016 UNCHAINED MELODY 2003 YOU DON'T KNOW 1996 SHE BOP 1984 I DROVE ALL NIGHT 1989 ROCKING CHAIR 2008 I'M GONNA BE STRONG Blue Angel 1980... LEARN MORE The post TTBA Replay 4APR2025 Pt. 3 appeared first on Turn the Beat Around.
Fáilte ar ais chuig eagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo ar an 24ú lá de mí an Mhárta, liomsa Lauren Ní Loingsigh. I 1987 mharaíodh dhá gharda agus póilín nuair a tharla luíochán I nDoire. I 1995 fuair múinteoirí rogha agus an rogha a bhí ann ná chun éirigh as obair ag aois 55 faoi chiste rialtas de 22 milliún. I 2000 tháinig nuacht iontach chuig an ionad oidhreachta I Ros Cré mar ainmníodh é mar an buaiteoir iomlán den Ghradam Forbairt Turasóireacht do chúram custaiméirí. I 2006 chuaigh Mary Robinson chuig an chontae chun an Comhar Creidmheasa a oscail san Aonach Urmhumhan agus bhí a lán daoine áitiúil ann. Sin Cher le Love Can Build A Bridge – an t-amhrán is mó ar an lá seo I 1995. Ag lean ar aghaidh le nuacht cheoil ar an lá seo I 1990 tháinig an nuacht amach gur shroich Sineád O'Connor uimhir a haon sna cairteacha sa Bhreatain lena halbam I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got – agus bhí a amhrán Nothing Compares 2 U ar an albam. I 2002 bhris Gareth Gates curiarracht mar gur shroich sé barr na cairteacha sa Bhreatain lena chéad amhrán Unchained Melody. Bhí sé ach 17 bhliain a d'aois ag an am. Agus ar deireadh breithlá daoine cáiliúla ar an lá seo rugadh aisteoir Allison Hannigan I Meirceá I 1974 agus rugadh aisteoir Jim Parsons I Meirceá ar an lá seo I 1973 agus seo chuid de na rudaí a rinne sé. Beidh mé ar ais libh amárach le heagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo.
Fáilte ar ais chuig eagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo ar an 24ú lá de mí an Mhárta, liomsa Lauren Ní Loingsigh. I 1987 mharaíodh dhá gharda agus póilín nuair a tharla luíochán I nDoire. I 1995 fuair múinteoirí rogha agus an rogha a bhí ann ná chun éirigh as obair ag aois 55 faoi chiste rialtas de 22 milliún. I 2000 bhí géarchéim sa chontae nuair a d'iarr na daoine a raibh ina chónaí sa chontae ar comhairle chontae an Chláir chun a pholasaí cinedheighilt a scrapáil. An pholasaí a bhí ann ná nach raibh daoine nach raibh dúchasach ábalta tí a thógáil sa chontae. I 2017 bhí ach 10 oifig an phoist sa chontae mar dhún a lán acu de bharr nach raibh siad ag déanamh airgid a thuilleadh. Sin Cher le Love Can Build A Bridge – an t-amhrán is mó ar an lá seo I 1995. Ag lean ar aghaidh le nuacht cheoil ar an lá seo I 1990 tháinig an nuacht amach gur shroich Sineád O'Connor uimhir a haon sna cairteacha sa Bhreatain lena halbam I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got – agus bhí a amhrán Nothing Compares 2 U ar an albam. I 2002 bhris Gareth Gates curiarracht mar gur shroich sé barr na cairteacha sa Bhreatain lena chéad amhrán Unchained Melody. Bhí sé ach 17 bhliain a d'aois ag an am. Agus ar deireadh breithlá daoine cáiliúla ar an lá seo rugadh aisteoir Allison Hannigan I Meirceá I 1974 agus rugadh aisteoir Jim Parsons I Meirceá ar an lá seo I 1973 agus seo chuid de na rudaí a rinne sé. Beidh mé ar ais libh amárach le heagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo.
Send us a textRight after one of your co-hosts was at death's door, we're back and talking 1990's Ghost! Is a dead Patrick Swayze better than a live anybody? Is a short-haired Demi Moore better than a long-haired anyone? Is Tony Goldwyn? We answer all these questions and more, and even try to talk about our awful punishment film, the not so gnarly 1990 non-comedic flop, Ghost Dad. It's time for Filmshake, the 90s Movies Podcast!Music Heard this Episode"Unchained Melody" by The Righteous Brothers"Molly" by Maurice Jarre"Unchained Melody (Orchestral) by Maurice JarreIntro music - "If" by Broke For FreeConnect with us!PatreonTwitterFacebookEmailLinktr.eeLetterboxd - Nic & JordanThe Nicsperiment
El amigo secreto y Rafael Panadero se atreven con los primeros acordes de una de las canciones de The Righteous Brothers más recordadas. Al ritmo de "Unchained Melody (Ghost)" empezamos la mañana.
Las versiones musicales del amigo secreto de Javier del Pino y (un poco menos) de Rafa Panadero.
Time Travelin' Top 40 E175 BV with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers on their biggest hits "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin", "Unchained Melody" and Bill's huge hit with Jennifer Warens "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, we're shining a spotlight on Soldier Soldier, the iconic 90s British drama that brought the camaraderie, challenges, and triumphs of military life into living rooms across the nation. From its gripping storylines to its memorable characters, this series gave viewers a rare and emotional glimpse into the lives of soldiers when the uniform comes off. Join us as we delve into what made Soldier Soldier a cultural phenomenon and why it still resonates with fans today. We'll explore how the show struck the perfect balance between action-packed moments and heartfelt drama, offering an authentic portrayal of the sacrifices and struggles faced by service members. From the realism of the military exercises to the personal battles fought off the battlefield, Soldier Soldier proved it wasn't just another TV drama—it was a groundbreaking look at life in the armed forces. Of course, we couldn't discuss Soldier Soldier without diving into its unforgettable cast. We'll take a trip down memory lane with Robson Green and Jerome Flynn, whose on-screen chemistry and stirring rendition of “Unchained Melody” turned them into household names. Their music career may have been unexpected, but it became an integral part of the show's legacy, blending entertainment with chart-topping success. We'll also reflect on how Soldier Soldier paved the way for future military dramas, influencing everything from character development to storytelling techniques. Its impact on the television landscape was undeniable, and its enduring popularity proves that it still holds a special place in the hearts of viewers. So, grab your remote and march with us through the highs and lows of this classic series. Whether you're a die-hard fan or discovering the show for the first time, this episode is your perfect briefing on all things Soldier Soldier. Talk2TheHand is an independent throwback podcast run by husband and wife, Jimmy and Beth. Obsessed with 90s nostalgia and 90s celebrities, we'll rewind the years and take you back to the greatest era of our lives. New episodes bursting with nostalgia of the 90s released on Tuesdays. Please subscribe to our podcast and we'll keep you gooey in 1990s love. Find us on Twitter @talk2thehandpod or email us at jimmy@talk2thehand.co.uk or beth@talk2thehand.co.uk
Fáilte ar ais chuig eagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo ar an 21ú lá de mí na Samhna, liomsa Lauren Ní Loingsigh. I 1990 bhí deasghnáth ar siúl I rith an oscailt den taispeántas den Te Ao Maori I mBaile Átha Cliath agus ghlac Maire Geoghegan Quinn páirt. Bhí an taispeántas ann chun 1,000 bhliain a cheiliúradh de shinsear Maori I Nua-Shéalainn. I 2009 mhaígh taighdeoir gur fuair siad teastas adhlacfar Íosa. Ach d'easaontaigh scoláirí leis ag an am. I 2010 bhí Michael Lowry agus Máire Hoctor ag iarradh éileamh sochar don fhógra maoiniúchán don ionad cúram lae i Buiríos Uí Chéin. I 2023 dheonaigh siad Peter Ryan dá thiomsú airgid. Rith sé ó Chionn Mhálanna go dtí Carn Uí Néid i gcúig lá. Rith sé timpeall trí mharatón i lá amháin. Sin The Righteous Brothers le Unchained Melody – an t-amhrán is mó ar an lá seo I 1990. Ag lean ar aghaidh le nuacht cheoil ar an lá seo I 1981 chuaigh amhrán Olivia Newton John chuig uimhir a haon I Meiriceá. Bhí an t-amhrán Physical a cheathrú shingil a shroich uimhir a haon agus dhíol sí 2 milliún cóipeanna den amhrán. I 1983 tháinig fís amach d'amhrán Thriller ó Michael Jackson. Bhí an fhís nach mór 14 nóiméad ar fad. Agus ar deireadh breithlá daoine cáiliúla ar an lá seo rugadh Michael Strahan – imreoir peil Mheiriceánach I Houston I 1971. Agus rugadh amhránaí Carly Rae Jepson I gCeanada I 1985 agus seo chuid de a amhrán. Beidh mé ar ais libh amárach le heagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo.
Fáilte ar ais chuig eagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo ar an 21ú lá de mí na Samhna, liomsa Lauren Ní Loingsigh. I 1990 bhí deasghnáth ar siúl I rith an oscailt den taispeántas den Te Ao Maori I mBaile Átha Cliath agus ghlac Maire Geoghegan Quinn páirt. Bhí an taispeántas ann chun 1,000 bhliain a cheiliúradh de shinsear Maori I Nua-Shéalainn. I 2009 mhaígh taighdeoir gur fuair siad teastas adhlacfar Íosa. Ach d'easaontaigh scoláirí leis ag an am. I 1988 bhí Sarah Moloney ó An Fhiacail ag ceiliúradh a 100 breithlá san ospidéal I Ráithín. Bhí sí ag damhsa lena chlann agus fuair sí glaoch guthán ó Uachtaráin Patrick Hillery. I 2009 Bhí a lán báisteach tar éis titim in Inis agus de bharr sin bhí a lán tuile sa chontae. Bhí 105 duine á lonnú sa West County Hotel. Sin The Righteous Brothers le Unchained Melody – an t-amhrán is mó ar an lá seo I 1990. Ag lean ar aghaidh le nuacht cheoil ar an lá seo I 1981 chuaigh amhrán Olivia Newton John chuig uimhir a haon I Meiriceá. Bhí an t-amhrán Physical a cheathrú shingil a shroich uimhir a haon agus dhíol sí 2 milliún cóipeanna den amhrán. I 1983 tháinig fís amach d'amhrán Thriller ó Michael Jackson. Bhí an fhís nach mór 14 nóiméad ar fad. Agus ar deireadh breithlá daoine cáiliúla ar an lá seo rugadh Michael Strahan – imreoir peil Mheiriceánach I Houston I 1971. Agus rugadh amhránaí Carly Rae Jepson I gCeanada I 1985 agus seo chuid de a amhrán. Beidh mé ar ais libh amárach le heagrán nua de Ar An Lá Seo.
O Programa Resgatando a Cidadania deste sábado (19/10), realizou a final do Festival Brasileiro de Cantores e Cantoras com Deficiência pelo Rádio. Cinco cantores participaram, sendo dois representantes de Minas Gerais, dois de Pernambuco e uma baiana. A competição, iniciada em primeiro de junho, teve 21 participantes. A grande vencedora foi Vilminha Melo, que é de Água da Prata, Minas Gerais. Ela obteve 56,2%, defendendo a música “Espumas ao Vento”, de Accioly Neto. O segundo lugar ficou com o também mineiro, de Sete Lagoas, Evandro Avelim, com 53,6%, com a música autoral “Poema e Canção”. Já a terceira colocação ficou com Josivaldo José, de Riacho das Almas, em Pernambuco. Ele conquistou 52.3%, com a música “Filho do dono”, de Petrúcio Amorim. O quarto lugar ficou com Cláudia Santana, de Salvador, Bahia, com 50.1%. ela cantou “Bem que se quis”, de Marisa Monte. E, na quinta posição, o Recifense Mano Dantas, com 46.8%, com a música “ Unchained Melody”, do filme Ghost. O Programa Resgatando a Cidadania é apresentado todo sábado, a partir do meio dia, pela Rádio Folha de Pernambuco-FM 96,7, produzido e apresentado por Domingos Sávio.
The most rented video of 1991 came out the year previous in cinemas and is this week's pick for Dave. "Ghost" (1990) was a collaborative effort that blended romance, supernatural elements, and drama to create a timeless film. Directed by Jerry Zucker, known primarily for his work in comedy, the film marked a significant shift in his career. The screenplay, written by Bruce Joel Rubin, provided a compelling narrative that combined love and mystery, which attracted a strong cast including Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg. Swayze played Sam Wheat, a banker who is murdered and becomes a ghost, while Moore portrayed his grieving girlfriend, Molly Jensen. Goldberg's role as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic who helps Sam communicate with Molly, brought both comedic relief and emotional depth to the film. Her performance was particularly notable, earning her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Filming took place in various locations around New York City, capturing the vibrant and sometimes eerie backdrop that added to the film's atmospheric tension. The production faced challenges, particularly in creating believable special effects for the ghostly sequences. The use of then-state-of-the-art visual effects, combined with practical effects and creative cinematography by Adam Greenberg, helped bring the supernatural elements to life. The iconic scene featuring the Righteous Brothers' song "Unchained Melody" during a pottery-making session between Swayze and Moore became one of the most memorable moments in cinematic history. "Ghost" was released to critical and commercial success, grossing over $500 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing film of 1990. Its unique blend of genres and strong performances have ensured its lasting legacy. If you enjoy the show we have a Patreon, so become a supporter. www.patreon.com/thevhsstrikesback Plot Summary: After an act of violence claims the life of Sam Wheat, his spirit remains tethered to the mortal realm, driven by an unyielding love for his bereaved partner, Molly Jensen. As Sam grapples with his newfound ethereal existence, he uncovers a nefarious plot behind his untimely demise. With the unlikely assistance of the vivacious and reluctant psychic, Oda Mae Brown, Sam endeavors to protect Molly from impending peril. thevhsstrikesback@gmail.com https://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thevhsstrikesback/support
Welcome back to Born to Watch, where we dive deep into the movies that have shaped our lives and the world of cinema. This week, we continue our Demi Moore Double Shot with a look at the 1990 supernatural romantic thriller, "Ghost." Directed by Jerry Zucker, "Ghost" has left an indelible mark on pop culture and remains a beloved classic. So, let's delve into the elements that make this film so unforgettable.Cinematography and Visuals"Ghost" is a visually stunning film that masterfully blends the ethereal with the everyday. The cinematography by Adam Greenberg captures the stark contrast between the vibrant life of New York City and the eerie, spectral world that Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) finds himself in after his untimely death. The film's lighting is particularly noteworthy; the scenes involving the ghosts are often bathed in a soft, otherworldly glow that enhances the supernatural elements without overwhelming the viewer.One of the most iconic visual sequences is the pottery wheel scene. The intimate, tactile nature of pottery-making, coupled with Sam's ghostly presence, creates a hauntingly beautiful moment that has been parodied and referenced countless times in popular culture. The use of practical effects, especially the translucent, glowing appearances of the ghosts, still holds up remarkably well and adds to the film's charm.Storytelling and Themes"Ghost" is a love story at its core, but it transcends the boundaries of life and death. The screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin perfectly blends romance, suspense, and supernatural elements. The narrative follows Sam Wheat, a banker who is murdered and becomes a ghost, unable to move on because of his deep love for his girlfriend, Molly Jensen (Demi Moore), and his need to protect her from danger.The film expertly weaves together themes of love, loss, and justice. Sam's journey from shock and confusion to acceptance and action is compelling, and his undying love for Molly is the emotional anchor of the story. The subplot involving Carl Bruner (Tony Goldwyn), Sam's treacherous friend, adds a layer of suspense and betrayal that keeps the audience on edge.One of the film's most profound themes is the idea of unfinished business and the quest for closure. Sam's interactions with other spirits, particularly the subway ghost (Vincent Schiavelli), highlight how people handle their unresolved issues. The film's resolution, with Sam finding peace and saying a final goodbye to Molly, is both heart-wrenching and uplifting.Character Development and PerformancesThe performances in "Ghost" are nothing short of stellar. Patrick Swayze delivers one of his best performances as Sam Wheat, capturing the character's desperation, determination, and undying love. Swayze's chemistry with Demi Moore is palpable, making their on-screen relationship believable and deeply moving.Demi Moore shines as Molly Jensen, bringing a perfect blend of vulnerability and strength to the role. Her portrayal of grief is raw and realistic, and her gradual acceptance of Sam's presence is beautifully handled. Moore's performance ensures that Molly is not just a damsel in distress but a fully realised character who finds her strength through her love for Sam.However, Whoopi Goldberg's performance as Oda Mae Brown steals the show. As a fraudulent psychic who suddenly finds herself genuinely communicating with the dead, Goldberg brings much-needed comic relief and heart to the film. Her scenes with Swayze are some of the film's highlights, and her transformation from a con artist to a true medium is humorous and touching. Goldberg's performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a testament to her outstanding work in the film.Historical and Cultural SignificanceUpon its release, "Ghost" was a box office phenomenon, grossing over $505 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing film of 1990. Its success was a testament not only to its compelling story and strong performances but also to its universal themes of love and loss, which resonated with audiences around the world.The film's impact on popular culture is undeniable. The pottery scene set to The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody" has become one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history. The film also brought the supernatural romance genre into the mainstream, paving the way for future films that explore similar themes."Ghost" also significantly influenced the portrayal of psychics and the afterlife in media. Whoopi Goldberg's Oda Mae Brown became a cultural icon, and the film's depiction of the afterlife as a place where spirits linger until they find peace has been echoed in subsequent films and TV shows.Relevance to Pop CultureEven decades after its release, "Ghost" holds a special place in pop culture. The film is often referenced and parodied, from sitcoms like "Friends" to movies like "Scary Movie 2." Its themes of undying love and the afterlife remain relevant, and its influence can be seen in a wide range of romantic and supernatural films that followed.The film's legacy is also evident in its adaptations. "Ghost: The Musical," premiered in 2011, brought the story to the stage with new songs and a fresh take on the beloved classic. The musical has enjoyed success in both the West End and Broadway, further cementing "Ghost's" enduring appeal."Ghost" is a timeless classic that masterfully combines romance, suspense, and supernatural elements into a compelling and emotionally resonant story. The film's strong performances, particularly by Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg, its stunning visuals, and its universal themes of love and loss have ensured its place in the pantheon of great films.As we continue our Demi Moore Double Shot on Born to Watch, "Ghost" is a perfect example of why Moore remains an enduring and beloved figure in Hollywood. Her performance and the film's lasting impact make "Ghost" a must-watch for any cinema fan. So, grab some tissues, sit back, and let yourself be swept away by this hauntingly beautiful tale of love that transcends time.Please follow the Podcast and join our community at https://linktr.ee/borntowatchpodcasthttps://www.borntowatch.com.au/
The Richard Syrett Show, June 26th, 2024 Can Trudeau Survive Loss of Toronto Safe Seat? https://globalnews.ca/video/10588298/can-trudeau-survive-liberals-stunning-toronto-byelection-loss Conservative Candidate DQ'd from Race in Calgary-Signal Hill https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/exclusive-calgary-conservative-nomination-candidates-disqualified-from-race/55104 Wyatt Claypool – Senior Correspondent with The National Telegraph KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR MONEY Carbon tax costs Ontario economy $4.1 billion this year https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/carbon-tax-costs-ontario-economy-4.1-billion-this-year Jay Goldberg, Ontario Director of The Canadian Taxpayers Federation https://www.taxpayer.com Top Climate Scientist Sums Up Second Donald Trump Term With 2 Chilling Words https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-expert-donald-trump-second-term-warning_n_667939fae4b0bd985dc51f69 Fifty Years Ago Scientists Were Predicting Another Ice Age https://realclimatescience.com/2024/06/another-ice-age-2/#gsc.tab=0 Tony Heller, Geologist, Weather Historian, Founder of Real Climate Science dot com Julian Assange Finally a Free Man https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/julian-assange-reached-plea-deal-us-allowing-go-free-rcna158695 Leighton Grey, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Host of The Grey Matter Podcast 'Surreal to watch': With Trump ahead, stolen election seen 'in crystal clarity' https://www.wnd.com/2024/06/surreal-watch-trump-ahead-stolen-election-seen-crystal-clarity/ Joe Kovacs, Executive News Editor, WND.com Author of “Reaching God Speed: Unlocking the Secret Broadcast Revealing the Mystery of Everything.” THIS DAY IN ROCK HISTORY Audio: The Byrds “Mr. Tambourine Man” Keith Richards “Happy” Cher “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves” Elvis Presley “Unchained Melody” 26 Jun 1965 The Byrds went to No.1 on the US singles chart with their version of Bob Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man'. Only Roger McGuinn from the band played on the song, the drummer Hal Blaine who played on the track also played on 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. 26 Jun 1973 Rolling Stone Keith Richards and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg were arrested at their home in Chelsea, London on drugs and gun charges. 26 Jun 1974 Cher divorced Sonny Bono after 10 years of marriage. Four days later, Cher married guitarist Gregg Allman, the couple split 10 days after that, got back together and split again. They stayed married for three years, producing Elijah Blue Allman. June 26th 1977 On this day in music, June 26, 1977, 42-year-old Elvis Presley played his final concert at Indianapolis' Market Square Arena, just seven weeks before his sudden death. Donning his signature white-and-gold suit, The King performed classics like “Can't Help Falling in Love,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “Don't Be Cruel,” plus covers of “Unchained Melody” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” While the subsequent CBS TV special, Elvis in Concert, was often touted as capturing this particular show, it actually featured footage from two earlier dates on the tour (Omaha, NE on June 19 and Rapid City, SD on June 21). Jeremiah Tittle, Co-Host of "The 500 with Josh Adam Myers" podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 1, 2024 was a spectacular weather day for an outdoor ceremony at The Maine Wedding Barn in Minot, Maine. Jacqueline & Nabil are from two very different countries and cultures, Peru and Morrocco. Once inside the barn, first dance song "Unchained Melody". Toast by David Roy, the Best Man. W wedding photographers, David & Elizabeth Donned.
You will believe, as the hosts dances to the Righteous Brothers's Unchained Melody and communicate to the spiritual side while they continue their new season format to review the 1990 blockbuster spooky romance, Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and directed Jerry Zucker. The film that still impacts generations of movie cinema was a phenomenon pop culture back in the 90's and during its time was the third highest-grossing movie of all time. The hosts paired the film with the Drunk Ghost Cocktail. So join the hosts as they explore the supernatural and celebrate this timeless romantic classic. Come listen and follow us on Instagram @the.gentlemenpodcast and our website thegentlemenpodcast.com
NYC born singer/songwriter Roy Hamilton Jr. following the footsteps of his legendary father Roy Hamilton Sr. talks about his father's amazing legacy known for “Don't Let go”, “Unchained Melody”, and “You'll Never Walk Alone” plus Roy Jr's releases “One Thousand Ways”, “Butterfly”, “We Had A Chance”, “Man Up in the Sky”, and more! Roy Jr. began his amazing career at 7 performing with his dad at various events including for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, appeared in “Standing Ovation”, “The Rebirth of the King”, also as Headmaster of the Roy Hamilton School of Voice, and a number of ventures including “The Hamilton Affair for Roy”, “The Golden Boys” and how to vote for Roy Sr. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Check out the amazing Roy Hamilton Jr .with his latest releases on all major platforms (plus his Dad!) at www.royhamiltonjr.com plus don't forget to sign the petition at www.royhamilton.com today! #royhamilton #royhamiltonjr #royhamiltonsr #singersongwriter #dontletgo #unchainedmelody #youllneverwalkalone #onethousandways #butterfly #wehadachance #manupinthesky #therebirthoftheking #rockandrollhalloffame #signthepetition #royhamiltonschoolfovoice #thegoldenboys #spreaker #iheartradio #spotify #applemusic #youtube #anchorfm #bitchute #rumble #mikewagner #themikewagnershow #mikewagnerroyhamiltonjr #themikewagnershowroyhamiltonjr --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/themikewagnershow/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/themikewagnershow/support
NYC born singer/songwriter Roy Hamilton Jr. following the footsteps of his legendary father Roy Hamilton Sr. talks about his father's amazing legacy known for “Don't Let go”, “Unchained Melody”, and “You'll Never Walk Alone” plus Roy Jr's releases “One Thousand Ways”, “Butterfly”, “We Had A Chance”, “Man Up in the Sky”, and more! Roy Jr. began his amazing career at 7 performing with his dad at various events including for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, appeared in “Standing Ovation”, “The Rebirth of the King”, also as Headmaster of the Roy Hamilton School of Voice, and a number of ventures including “The Hamilton Affair for Roy”, “The Golden Boys” and how to vote for Roy Sr. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Check out the amazing Roy Hamilton Jr .with his latest releases on all major platforms (plus his Dad!) at www.royhamiltonjr.com plus don't forget to sign the petition at www.royhamilton.com today! #royhamilton #royhamiltonjr #royhamiltonsr #singersongwriter #dontletgo #unchainedmelody #youllneverwalkalone #onethousandways #butterfly #wehadachance #manupinthesky #therebirthoftheking #rockandrollhalloffame #signthepetition #royhamiltonschoolfovoice #thegoldenboys #spreaker #iheartradio #spotify #applemusic #youtube #anchorfm #bitchute #rumble #mikewagner #themikewagnershow #mikewagnerroyhamiltonjr #themikewagnershowroyhamiltonjr --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/themikewagnershow/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/themikewagnershow/support
NYC born singer/songwriter Roy Hamilton Jr. following the footsteps of his legendary father Roy Hamilton Sr. talks about his father's amazing legacy known for “Don't Let go”, “Unchained Melody”, and “You'll Never Walk Alone” plus Roy Jr's releases “One Thousand Ways”, “Butterfly”, “We Had A Chance”, “Man Up in the Sky”, and more! Roy Jr. began his amazing career at 7 performing with his dad at various events including for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, appeared in “Standing Ovation”, “The Rebirth of the King”, also as Headmaster of the Roy Hamilton School of Voice, and a number of ventures including “The Hamilton Affair for Roy”, “The Golden Boys” and how to vote for Roy Sr. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Check out the amazing Roy Hamilton Jr .with his latest releases on all major platforms (plus his Dad!) at www.royhamiltonjr.com plus don't forget to sign the petition at www.royhamilton.com today! #royhamilton #royhamiltonjr #royhamiltonsr #singersongwriter #dontletgo #unchainedmelody #youllneverwalkalone #onethousandways #butterfly #wehadachance #manupinthesky #therebirthoftheking #rockandrollhalloffame #signthepetition #royhamiltonschoolfovoice #thegoldenboys #spreaker #iheartradio #spotify #applemusic #youtube #anchorfm #bitchute #rumble #mikewagner #themikewagnershow #mikewagnerroyhamiltonjr #themikewagnershowroyhamiltonjrBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-mike-wagner-show--3140147/support.
An unforgettable song with origins we never would have expected, and a wild ride of popularity nobody could have predicted. Unchained Melody, originally by Todd Duncan, covered by The Righteous Brothers. Outro music is Christmas in Prison by John Prine.
Today on Too Opinionated, we sit down with stunning LA based genre crossing, blues, country, swing and pop artist Juliet Hawkins! Weaving her own heartfelt experiences of pain, pleasure and radical self-acceptance into originally penned songs, Juliet Hawkins is a distinctive storyteller quickly making her mark in Los Angeles, California. Having cut her teeth as a solo performer in Nashville, Juliet has developed a signature sound that crosses genres and incorporates blues, country, swing, and pop. More at home with the culture of the sunshine state, Juliet's music is both provocative and poetic while challenging her audiences to think freely. With an impassioned promise to never fit the mold, Juliet's recordings are equally at home beside your favorite Marvin Gaye and Amy Winehouse records. A natural performer, Juliet's live shows are not to be missed and guarantee a great time for all. With a focus on original music, she's also been known to reimagine classics like Ozzy Osbournes' Crazy Train, recorded on her new live album with keys and cello, as well as The Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody, on her last EP, allowing her own tone and approach to transform the way always heard them. Juliet recently released “My Father's Men”- telling the story of every artist struggle to remain true to their art, their work, their message. The challenges artists face especially as female writers and artists to be seen as equals or even to have our own voice heard in an industry riddled with misogyny, entitlement, and sexism; The artist verses the machine, the awareness of self, the power we hold as women, and the necessary breaking point to find that power and honor it fearlessly. The music video for “My Father's Men” released on Feb 2nd. Juliet Hawkins Website: https://juliethawkins.com/ Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)
In the 9th episode of season 2 , the guys discuss a wide range of topics. Topics ranging from Joe's pet peeves, 1950's song lyrics, Joe's latest cheat meal, NFL championship game predictions, interesting news stories, Taylor Swift's influence on the Chiefs, Sean's movie reviews, etc. Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanmatthew13TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@seanreviewsstuffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmatthew13/
Chaque jour, deux chroniqueurs présentent les infos indispensables à connaître en matière de culture : les dernières actus musique, les sorties littéraires ou cinéma, les nouvelles pièces de théâtre et les séries à ne pas manquer… C'est ici !
Episode 288, Sam Cooke, presents the life, the music, and the legacy of one of the most highly regarded singer-songwriters of the late 50s and early 60s. Recordings include Unchained Melody, Cupid, Everybody Loves to... Read More The post Episode 288, Sam Cooke appeared first on Sam Waldron.
The Righteous Brothers classic "Unchained Melody" draws the ire of your humble hosts in this Us vs. the World Rivalry Week episode! Favorite guest Joey Abbott joins us to roast a classic, and we also learn about: - Why it's called "Unchained Melody" to begin with - Whoopi Goldberg's non-eyebrows - The UK absolutely CANNOT get enough of this song ------- Visit greatsongpodcast.com for archives, merch, and more! Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @greatsongpod, and join the Facebook group at Facebook.com/groups/greatsongpod. Patreon Producers: Andrea Konarzewski, Brad Callahan, Ari Marucci, Michael Conley, Peter Mark Campbell, David Steinberg, Randy Hodge, Chaz Bacus, Juan Lopez, Jason Arrowood, Howard Passey, Micah Murphy, Tim Jahr, Christopher Cudnoski, Pete Kim, and Jason Rak --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/greatsongpod/message
I first heard of the movie Blackboard Jungle while reading Derek Thompson's Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. The film is most remembered today for opening with the song Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, which set off the rock and roll revolution and everything that came after it. Blackboard Jungle is a story mostly told through the perspective of an inner-city teacher named Richard Dadier, and serves as a way to showcase what at the time was considered urban dysfunction among teenage boys. Here's how Thompson describes the significance of the film and its opening track.“The breakout success of ‘Rock Around the Clock' had everything to do with its placement at the beginning of the film Blackboard Jungle,” said Jim Dawson, author of Rock Around the Clock: The Record That Started the Rock Revolution. The reaction to Blackboard Jungle was something like hysteria — not just among teenagers, but also among their parents and politicians. Kids danced in the aisles of movie theaters and blasted the song from their cars. On May 17 1955, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Princeton University dorms held a competition to play the song as loudly as possible from their rooms. Around midnight, the students emptied into the quads, set fires to trashcans, and chanted up and down the streets. Meanwhile, several major American cities censored the film. The mayor of Memphis forbade teenagers to see it, while Atlanta tried to ban the movie after an alderman's wife said it threatened the “peace, health, morals, and good order of this city.”Just as l'affaire Caillebotte consecrated impressionism through scandal in the 1890s, Blackboard Jungle's notoriety promoted its opening track, unleashing the rock-and-roll genre. On July 2, 1955, three months after Blackboard Jungle debuted, “Rock Around the Clock” became the top-selling single in the country and the first song called “rock 'n' roll” to reach number one on the Billboard charts, ultimately selling more physical copies than any song by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Madonna, or Michael Jackson.One of the laws of chaos is that a microscopic change in the present trajectory can lead to wildly different future outcomes; the Brazilian butterfly shakes her wings, and a Pacific typhoon forms off the coast of Indonesia. The most popular melodies of 1954 and 1955 were dulcet waltzes next to the high-tempo hits of the later 1950s. Billboard's number one songs before and after “Rock Around the Clock” were the schmaltzy “Unchained Melody” and the minstrel ballad “Yellow Rose of Texas,” which sounds like it could have been written in the 1850s.Could what's implied here possibly be true? That one song placed at the start of one film changed everything about music and ultimately led to a seismic shift in American culture, with implications for everything from education and crime to family formation? The possibility boggles the mind, but I can't totally dismiss the idea. One thing I knew for sure after reading the passage above was that I needed to see this movie.After tackling some deep questions about the causes of historical events and how contingent they might be, Rob and I focus on how race and gender issues are portrayed in the movie. On race, the film seems practically modern. Some themes and tropes that wouldn't have been out of place in the 1990s or 2000s include: the middle-class professional being horrified at being accused of racism; the black kid having a good heart while only the white kid can be portrayed as pure evil; and the way that racial differences are downplayed in a social context. This last point is particularly striking, as a group of lower-class white boys has no racial consciousness at all, and for all practical purposes the young men treat their black and Hispanic classmates like they do anyone else. When it comes to relations between the sexes, however, one sees the 1950s as a completely different universe. It is considered completely normal for the main female character to care primarily about her looks and keeping her husband happy. Overall, we see a great deal of stagnation in American culture on race, alongside radical changes in how men and women relate to one another. While the movie's portrayal of male-female relations lines up with popular propaganda about the 1950s, I found myself shocked at the difference between how that decade is commonly described and what was shown in this film. Surely, movies don't perfectly reflect reality, but the fact that this particular representation of race relations was plausible to an audience of that time is surely worth noting. This experience has made both of us to want to watch other old films in order to have a more direct understanding of the cultures of past eras. Very little can be simply taken for granted.Listen here or watch on YouTube. Get full access to Richard Hanania's Newsletter at www.richardhanania.com/subscribe
This week on #VoicesRadio Eric speaks with Akunna about her trajectory into becoming a conscious organizer through her upbringings and through her training at the Strategy Center. Eric gives commentary on the Colonialism that created the unnatural disaster in Maui. Eric also gives commentary on the Youth who recently won their suit against the State of Montana for promoting fossil fuels. Lastly, tune in for a sing along with Eric signing Unchained Melody by the Drifters.
#453 Unchained Melody - Richard has got very angry with a cold caller - was he in there right? His guest is brilliant stand up and creator of new TV comedy “The Change”, Bridget Christie. In an explosive opening they discuss why Richard isn't presenting the Masked Singer (amongst much else) and why he is evil for eating chocolate buttons, but then things calm down a bit as they discuss Bridget's major TV debut, whether men do an equal share of household duties and the app that might help, why there are so few comedy shows about middle aged women, how getting older can be liberating and how amazing it is to have a channel and production team that let you get on with your vision. Plus working with Jerome Flynn and what it was like for Richard to introduce him on Top of the Pops. Also the primeval dance with Greg Davies and the extraordinary power of Taskmaster and getting to appear on Ghosts.See Bridget in Edinburgh https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/bridget-christie-who-am-iAnd on tour https://www.bridgetchristie.co.uk/gigs/And watch The Change here https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-changeCome and see RHLSTP live - all dates and confirmed guests here http://richardherring.com/rhlstpSUPPORT THE SHOW!Watch our TWITCH CHANNELSee extra content at our WEBSITE Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/rhlstp. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Cantar es jugar, es sentir, expresarse, dejar salir a través de la voz todo lo que uno lleva dentro. Cantar es terapia o vocal halterofilia pero ¿cuales los requisitos?. Magdalena Llamas. mezzosoprano del primer nivel nos imparte unas clases de primeros auxilios para empezar. Los Rightheous Brothers y su “Unchained Melody" o la propia Magdalena y su “Cafe de Chiinitas” en la más “cantabile" Sinfonola que puede incluir a Sinatra o Elvis belcantisticos, Beatles accapella o gnawas tranceáticos pero tambien el flamenco pop de Las Grecas. Inspira, respira, transpira.Canta conmigo. ------------------------------------ Puedes hacerte socio del Club Babel y apoyar este podcast: mundobabel.com/club Si te gusta Mundo Babel puedes colaborar a que llegue a más oyentes compartiendo en tus redes sociales y dejar una valoración de 5 estrellas en Apple Podcast o un comentario en Ivoox. Para anunciarte en este podcast, ponte en contacto con: mundobabelpodcast@gmail.com.
Your hosts Barry and Julia spin that pottery wheel and celebrate the summer movie blockbuster classic, “Ghost” from 1990. They discuss the dangers of shirtless construction work and Julia gives a play by play of her adolescent exposure to this movie during a sleepover. Don't worry, Julia doesn't allow Barry to sing more than two notes of Unchained Melody. Follow us on Instagram @soimarriedafilmcritic_podcast.
It's Episode 48 of the Friday Night Karaoke Podcast, and the theme of the week was #FNKElvis! January 8th was Elvis Presley's birthday (and consequently FNK Moderator / Behind the Filter's host Mars Cross and FNK Founder Joe Rubin share the same), so that week the FNK community sang songs from the 50s to tip their hats to the King's big day. It's Now Or Never, so how about A Little Less Conversation and a lot more Jailhouse Rock while we build a musical Bridge Over Troubled Water to ignite our Burning Love for karaoke. If I Can Dream, it'll be about Blue Suede Shoes and That's All Right because FNK is Always On My Mind. Don't Be Cruel, and when we post our best Hound Dog, don't Return To Sender since I'm All Shook Up over The Wonder Of You. So pull up to the Heartbreak Hotel in your Long Black Limousine and get ready for our Unchained Melody to ease your Suspicious Minds - this is Elvis week and we just Can't Help Falling In Love with your songs! Featured in this episode alongside hosts Mike Wiston and Joe Rubin: Sarah Keen and Mizter Mark with Hound Dog by Elvis Paul Bright with My Ring Around Your Neck by Elvis AsthmaBully Jones with Burning Love by Elvlis Brett Arellano and Simone Tellier with You Dont Have To Say You Love Me by Elvis (originally Dusty Springfield) Joe Rubin with Let's Play House by Elvis Isabel Aguilar with It's Now Or Never by Elvis James R. Isaac III with The Wonder of You by Elvis (originally by Ray Peterson) Eric Dubrofsky with Love Me Tender by Elvis Shannon Larson with Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis You Don't Know Me with Ron R. Green by Elvis Love what you hear? Join the official Friday Night Karaoke FB group, a completely negativity free karaoke destination, and be part of the action! www.facebook.com/groups/fridaynightkaraoke. Hope to see you there!
Here are some of the topics Ron had the opportunity to discuss with Darrin Medley;Growing up as the child of Bill Medley, the famous singer known for many famous songs including Unchained Melody.The Hi Solutions Differentiator - The HIWAY - An autonomous Home Process CultureHow HI Solutions is scaling culture through public acquisitions.To get transcripts, resources of what was mentioned in the show, and more visit: onefirefly.com/au235SHOW NOTESDarrin joined HI Solutions as its Chief Operating Officer in 2021 after the acquisition of Unify Smart Home, a California home automation company he co-founded in 2017. Unify, a division of Medley Communications, has developed and commercialized an innovative home automation platform that has shifted the paradigm for smart home automation and has become recognized as an industry leader. Darrin launched his career in the telecommunications industry in 1987 with responsibility for developing a broadband installation department. Darrin ultimately grew Medley Communications, into a national installation partner in the Cable TV Industry with offices spanning the United States with more than 250 employees. As Chief Operating Officer at HI Solutions, Darrin is focused on developing and implementing repeatable business and operating processes to enable HI Solutions to efficiently integrate and profitably scale its business as it executes an aggressive acquisition rollup program across the United States.Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly become the leading marketing firm specializing in integrated technology and security. The One Firefly team works hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution Mercury Pro.About One FireflyOne Firefly, LLC is an award-winning marketing agency that caters to technology professionals in the custom integration, security and solar energy markets. One Firefly is headquartered in Davie, Florida with staff located throughout North America and has been operating since 2007.
My sermon from this morning...
The weekly trivia podcast from Quiz Coconut... a pub quiz in your pocket!1980s movies!Unchained Melody!& trees from around the world!The trivia podcast you can't live without. Just ten minutes each week: learn some useful facts, useless information and play along wherever you are in the world!Email quizpod@quizcoconut.com to socialise with us, or send us your scores!UK: www.quizcoconut.co.ukCanada: www.quizcoconut.caWorldwide: www.quizcoconut.com---Presented by Elaine at Quiz Coconut.Created by James at Quiz Coconut.Music and Editing by Jules at Abstract Source.Design by Ben at Ich Bin Ben. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
For VIdeo Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/1IJ4haOjRdo Dubbed "America's new romantic singing sensation," tenor Anthony Nunziata is the Brooklyn-born, Nashville-based singer and songwriter who brings his soulful voice to classic jazz, pop standards, classical-crossover and his timeless original music. The way Nunziata feels, "I'm in the business of making people feel good, making people happy, moving people in some way. We all are on this life's journey in search of that feeling of being moved, to feel alive. If I can have a small part in moving you in some way during my live concerts or through my music, this is the greatest gift I can give. To make people laugh, cry, feel something -- there's nothing like it." His songs have recently been featured on MTV, Comedy Central, CBS News, NBC News and Good Day NY. His original pop song "The Gift Is You" - which he wrote honoring his mother's battle with breast cancer (she is now cancer-free) - is currently being used as an anthem for The Susan G. Komen Foundation. Anthony recently released his debut jazz/pop release "THE LOVE ALBUM," now available on all streaming services and autographed CD's available for purchase at www.anthonynunziata.com. He and his Grammy-winning team of musicians re-imagine “Unchained Melody,” “Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You,” “Can't Help Falling In Love With You,” “When I Fall In Love,” “Somewhere,” originals including “Will You Be My Everyday?” and many more.
"Believe," pleads the poster for GHOST, and you'll believe, too, as Phoenix Clouden of the Film Code Podcast joins Jonny and Darin at the pottery wheel to discuss the supernatural romantic thriller that broke box office records the world over. But does this Jerry Zucker-directed, Patrick Swayze/ Demi Moore/ Whoopi Goldberg-starring mega-hit still shine its celestial light 32 years after the fact? Or does it get dragged to hell by weird paper mache demon creatures, never to be spoken of again? Find out for yourself in the latest episode of NostalgiaCast '90s Palooza!
If you are listening to this show on the day it goes out - Wednesday 5th October 2022 - then it is exactly 60 years since the Beatles' first single, Love Me Do, was released*. It's also exactly 50 years to the day since The Last Goon Show Of All was broadcast! We've previously dedicated a show to the connections between the Beatles & The Goons and an argument could be made that were it not for the Goons the Beatles (as we know them today) may not have existed. Had an EMI producer named George Martin not made a children's record called Jakka and the Flying Saucers in 1953 with an up-and-coming radio comedian then he may not have gone on to oversee Peter Sellers' (for it was he) subsequent hit comedy LPs at the end of the decade. He also may not have met and worked with Sellers' colleague Spike Milligan, and were it not for Martin's involvement with those two Goons on records which had entertained the teenage Beatles then he may have failed to have impressed them much when he met them in 1962. Things could have been so different... ... Ok, maybe that's a stretch but the importance of George Martin in British - in world - popular culture is undeniable. And without his experience creating those comedy & novelty records in the fifties and early sixties it is possible that much of the Beatles' later work may have lacked the levels of inventiveness and technical complexity that they achieved. This week Tyler is joined by Andrew Hickey - from the hugely popular podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs - to talk about George Martin and specifically his work with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, as well as some of the other records he had a hand in, pre-Beatles. We talk about The Best of Sellers, Songs For Swinging Sellers, Unchained Melody, You Gotta Go Oww, the Sellers Beatles covers, Milligan Preserved, Bridge On The River Wye, Peter & Sophia and much more! * We're now as far away from that day as the Beatles were from the funeral of Émile Zola. A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs: 500songs.com/
Helen and Gavin chat about Spin Me Round, Echo and the Bunnymen Live in Detroit, and Barbarian and it's Week 47 from the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Best Songs Ever, numbers 270 to 266; Closer by Nine Inch Nails, Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers, Shout (Parts One and Two) by The Isley Brothers, Take Care by Drake feat Rhianna, and King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo.
WTOP Entertainment Reporter Jason Fraley chats with Bill Medley to mark the 35th anniversary of "Dirty Dancing" on Aug. 21, 1987, featuring the Oscar-winning song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. Jason spoke to Medley when his Righteous Brothers played The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia in 2017, reflecting on hits like "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and "Unchained Melody," which a new generation discovered in "Top Gun" and "Ghost." (Theme Music: Scott Buckley's "Clarion")
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Matthew Dickman. Dickman is the author of three full length collections, All American Poem, Mayakovsky's Revolver (W.W. Norton & Co, 2012), and Wonderland (W.W. Norton & Co, 2017); and co-author, with Michael Dickman, of 50 American Plays (Copper Canyon, 2012), and Brother (Faber & Faber, 2016). He is also the author of four chapbooks: 24 Hours (Poor Claudia, Portland & onestar press, Paris, 2014), Wish You Were Here (Spork Press, 2013), Amigos (Q Ave. Press, 2007), and Something About a Black Scarf (Azul Press, 2008). SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Slow Dance.""Slow Dance"More than putting another man on the moon,more than a New Year's resolution of yogurt and yoga,we need the opportunity to dancewith really exquisite strangers. A slow dancebetween the couch and dinning room table, at the endof the party, while the person we love has goneto bring the car aroundbecause it's begun to rain and would break their heartif any part of us got wet. A slow danceto bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two peoplerocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.It's a little like cheating. Your head restingon his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.Your hands along her spine. Her hipsunfolding like a cotton napkinand you begin to think about how all the stars in the skyare dead. The my bodyis talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,Stairway to Heaven, power-cord slow dance. All my lifeI've made mistakes. Smalland cruel. I made my plans.I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.The slow dance doesn't care. It's all kindness like childrenbefore they turn four. Like being held in the armsof my brother. The slow dance of siblings.Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,and when he turns to dip meor I step on his foot because we are both leading,I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.The slow dance of what's to comeand the slow dance of insomniapouring across the floor like bath water.When the woman I'm sleeping withstands naked in the bathroom,brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spitinto the sink. There is no one to save usbecause there is no need to be saved.I've hurt you. I've loved you. I've mowedthe front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dresscovered in a million beadscomes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,I take her hand in mine. I spin her outand bring her in. This is the almond grovein the dark slow dance.It is what we should be doing right now. Scrappingfor joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutang slow dance.Support the show
The extraterrestrial, or today, paranormal comedy podcast where we finish off probing the worlds most famous pirate, Blackbeard (who isn't an alien, but may be a ghost). Was Blackbeards life sufficient that his spirit, his ghost, was left behind? Or was it his passing that would both make Blackbeard a legend and leave behind unfinished business? Before we get there, we cover what happened to Blackbeard and Gentleman Pirate Steve Bonnet's pirate partnership. Would it end in plunder or peril? As we get towards the end of this pirates tale, we discover whether Blackbeard would ever give up his pirates life and accept the Kings Pardon. Could a man like Blackbeard really settle down, marry and live the family life? Never trust a pirate! What would the governors do if Blackbeard didn't settle down? Or even if he did. The governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, was desperate for his man and breaking a little law here and there was just a price that would have to be paid. There's a battle coming. When the time finally did come, what were Blackbeards real last words? This one has been a deep, deep investigation. All that and more on this week's file. OH CROW'S COCK! May we just add, Sea of Thieves is available for FREE on Game Pass (though Kev brought the game day one). With a group of friends this game can give you as much fun as anything made in years, it is truly a joy. There are rumours that Greybeard can be found sailing the seas after one too many rums and will tuck, unbeknownst to other crews, before breaking out in to song during the tensest moments. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/butitwasaliens Store: https://butitwasaliens.co.uk/shop/ Probe us: Email: butitwasaliens@gmail.com Instagram @ ButItWasAliensPodcast Twitter @ ButItWasAliens Facebook: @ ButItWasAliens - join Extraterrestrial Towers Music: Music created via Garageband. Additional music via: https://freepd.com - thank you most kindly good people. Again, we utilised some Sea of Thieves music in this one, composed by Robin Beanland with the game courtesy of Rare and Microsoft. Themes included ‘Becalmed' (which has to be played when you sink your ship - them's the rules), 'Summon the Megalodon' and ‘Maiden Voyage.' As stated in this episode, this truly is Kev's favourite current game and probably in his top 3 of all time (jumbled alongside Super Metroid and Zelda's Breath of the Wild and A Link to the Past - Kev pleads with you not to make him pick only 3). Kev adores Rare and sincerely hopes that they don't mind the little snippets. There was also a tiny midi snippet from the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody. This was a midi as we say, just as we discussed the movie but the original song deserves a shout out for helping many a pottery session turn sexual. Finally, there was a midi snippet of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme called He's a Pirate, which as we said in the first Blackbeard episode was composed in 2003 by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer (though this was just a midi). Thank you to all for entertaining us and for our audience, please check all these franchises out if you haven't. Savvy? Main source (though there are thousands of articles and books on Blackbeard): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/last-days-blackbeard-180949440/
It's Episode 36 of the Friday Night Karaoke Podcast, and the theme was #FNKWorld! This week, we (collectively) took a vacation to travel the world and sing songs from the far reaches of the planet. #FNKWorld is all about songs / bands / artists outside the US. So bring that Gangnam Style when you're Rolling in the Deep singing the Macarena, and Don't Look Back in Anger because We Don't Talk About Bruno. We just wanna Make You Smile and we've got our Finger's Crossed to hear some Unchained Melody, but don't worry, My Heart Will Go On one way or another. Just remember that we are Never Gonna Give You Up, so sing your heart out for #FNKWorld this week! Featured in this episode alongside hosts Mike Wiston and Joe Rubin: Eric Dubrofsky with Voices by Tusse Sandy Cruz with Love Shack by B-52s Dana LaValle with No Roots by Alice Merton Brad Harris with If I Ever Lose My Faith in You by Sting Levy Alturas & AsthmaBully Jones with Fat Lip by Sum 41 Johathan Barnes with Is it a Crime by Sade Mike Wiston with Untold Stories by Buju Banton Kristoff Crafton with Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot Dennis Deveaux with Dance With Me by Johnny Reid Love what you hear? Join the official Friday Night Karaoke FB group, a completely negativity free karaoke destination, and be part of the action! www.facebook.com/groups/fridaynightkaraoke. Hope to see you there!
#75-71Intro/Outro: Don't Worry Baby by The Beach Boys75. Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers *74. Heroin by The Velvet Underground *73. Leader of the Pack by The Shangri-Las72. Piece of My Heart by Big Brother & the Holding Company71. Everyday People by Sly & the Family StoneVote on your favorite song from today's episodeVote on your favorite song from Week 1Vote on your favorite of "The Greatest Song of the 50's" finalists* - Previously played on the podcast
The Best Radio You Have Never Heard Podcast - Music For People Who Are Serious About Music
NEW FOR APRIL 1, 2022 A line in the sand . . . Border War - The Best Radio You Have Never Heard Vol. 432 1. War Child - Jethro Tull 2. The End Of The World - Small Sins 3. Machine Gun (alt live) - Band Of Gypsys 4. Third Stone From The Sun (live) - Mick Taylor 5. Between The Tick and The Tock / Working In Line / After Hours - Mike Rutherford 6. Lady Of The Lake - Starcastle 7. Peaches en Regalia / Tears Begin To Fall / Shove It Right In (live) - Frank Zappa & The Mothers 8. Icarus II - Kansas 9. Heart Of Glass / Sprawl II (live) - Arcade Fire w/ Debbie Harry 10. Unchained Melody (live) - Heart 11. The Range War - Todd Rundgren 12. Dead Flowers (live) - The Rolling Stones 13. If I Needed Someone (live) - James Taylor 14. I Am The Walrus (live) - Al DiMeola 15. Ain't No Sunshine (live) - Jeff Beck 16. I Will Possess Your Heart (live) - Death Cab For Cutie 17. Plush (unplugged) - Stone Temple Pilots The Best Radio You Have Never Heard. Cross at your own peril. Accept No Substitute. Click to join the conversation on the Facebook page.
What is the life-altering power music can have on our lives and why should we pay more attention to it? Our dear friend Yvonne, also known as Peacock, graces us with her presence in this episode to share some of her life's most cherished and compelling stories. With a heart full of laughter and a spirit that never backs down, Yvonne takes us through the alleys of how music has been instrumental in shaping her journey and her family's life. She gives us a fascinating glimpse into how going through old records sparked memories and how piano and voice lessons became a central part of her children's upbringing. Imagine being able to see the good in the bad; the strengths in the weaknesses. This episode gives you an opportunity to do just that as Yvonne opens up about her marriage, the death of her husband, and the wisdom she gathered from this experience. In her raw and honest discussion, she emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting your partner's past. The conversation takes a therapeutic turn as Yvonne talks about her late husband's family, the solace she found in them, and the healing power of marriage counseling. And just when you think you've heard it all, she shares an intriguing backstory about 'Unchained Melody'. Ever wondered how to navigate the school system, online dating, and finding hobbies while raising children? Yvonne's got you covered. She enlightens us on her encounters with the educational system, her son's school transfer, and the importance of standing up for your children. She then opens up about her trials with online dating, her love for sports, and her passion for Elvis Presley. Yvonne's story is a testament to perseverance and finding joy in life's challenges. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that's sure to make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, learn.Listen to the playlist on SpotifyWatch the episode on YouTubeFollow Music Junkies everywhere Make sure to HIT that LIKE BUTTON and SUBSCRIBE to our Channel to be notified of new episodes! If you love Music Junkies share it !!New EP is out every MONDAY at 12 pm Rock on! Music JunkiesSupport the show
Episode one hundred and thirty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs is a special long episode, running almost ninety minutes, looking at "My Generation" by the Who. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode available, on "The Name Game" by Shirley Ellis. 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 mispronounce the Herman's Hermits track "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" as "Can You Hear My Heartbeat". I say "Rebel Without a Cause" when I mean "The Wild One". Brando was not in "Rebel Without a Cause". Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud playlist of the music excerpted here. This mix does not include the Dixon of Dock Green theme, as I was unable to find a full version of that theme anywhere (though a version with Jack Warner singing, titled "An Ordinary Copper" is often labelled as it) and what you hear in this episode is the only fragment I could get a clean copy of. The best compilation of the Who's music is Maximum A's & B's, a three-disc set containing the A and B sides of every single they released. The super-deluxe five-CD version of the My Generation album appears to be out of print as a CD, but can be purchased digitally. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, including: Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which I don't necessarily recommend reading, but which is certainly an influential book. Revolt Into Style: The Pop Arts by George Melly which I *do* recommend reading if you have any interest at all in British pop culture of the fifties and sixties. Jim Marshall: The Father of Loud by Rich Maloof gave me all the biographical details about Marshall. The Who Before the Who by Doug Sandom, a rather thin book of reminiscences by the group's first drummer. The Ox by Paul Rees, an authorised biography of John Entwistle based on notes for his never-completed autobiography. Who I Am, the autobiography of Pete Townshend, is one of the better rock autobiographies. A Band With Built-In Hate by Peter Stanfield is an examination of the group in the context of pop-art and Mod. And Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere by Andy Neill and Matt Kent is a day-by-day listing of the group's activities up to 1978. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript In 1991, William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. That book was predicated on a simple idea -- that there are patterns in American history, and that those patterns can be predicted in their rough outline. Not in the fine details, but broadly -- those of you currently watching the TV series Foundation, or familiar with Isaac Asimov's original novels, will have the idea already, because Strauss and Howe claimed to have invented a formula which worked as well as Asimov's fictional Psychohistory. Their claim was that, broadly speaking, generations can be thought to have a dominant personality type, influenced by the events that took place while they were growing up, which in turn are influenced by the personality types of the older generations. Because of this, Strauss and Howe claimed, American society had settled into a semi-stable pattern, where events repeat on a roughly eighty-eight-year cycle, driven by the behaviours of different personality types at different stages of their lives. You have four types of generation, which cycle -- the Adaptive, Idealist, Reactive, and Civic types. At any given time, one of these will be the elder statespeople, one will be the middle-aged people in positions of power, one will be the young rising people doing most of the work, and one will be the kids still growing up. You can predict what will happen, in broad outline, by how each of those generation types will react to challenges, and what position they will be in when those challenges arise. The idea is that major events change your personality, and also how you react to future events, and that how, say, Pearl Harbor affected someone will have been different for a kid hearing about the attack on the radio, an adult at the age to be drafted, and an adult who was too old to fight. The thesis of this book has, rather oddly, entered mainstream thought so completely that its ideas are taken as basic assumptions now by much of the popular discourse, even though on reading it the authors are so vague that pretty much anything can be taken as confirmation of their hypotheses, in much the same way that newspaper horoscopes always seem like they could apply to almost everyone's life. And sometimes, of course, they're just way off. For example they make the prediction that in 2020 there would be a massive crisis that would last several years, which would lead to a massive sense of community, in which "America will be implacably resolved to do what needs doing and fix what needs fixing", and in which the main task of those aged forty to sixty at that point would be to restrain those in leadership positions in the sixty-to-eighty age group from making irrational, impetuous, decisions which might lead to apocalypse. The crisis would likely end in triumph, but there was also a chance it might end in "moral fatigue, vast human tragedy, and a weak and vengeful sense of victory". I'm sure that none of my listeners can think of any events in 2020 that match this particular pattern. Despite its lack of rigour, Strauss and Howe's basic idea is now part of most people's intellectual toolkit, even if we don't necessarily think of them as the source for it. Indeed, even though they only talk about America in their book, their generational concept gets applied willy-nilly to much of the Western world. And likewise, for the most part we tend to think of the generations, whether American or otherwise, using the names they used. For the generations who were alive at the time they were writing, they used five main names, three of which we still use. Those born between 1901 and 1924 they term the "GI Generation", though those are now usually termed the "Greatest Generation". Those born between 1924 and 1942 were the "Silent Generation", those born 1943 through 1960 were the Boomers, and those born between 1982 and 2003 they labelled Millennials. Those born between 1961 and 1981 they labelled "thirteeners", because they were the unlucky thirteenth generation to be born in America since the declaration of independence. But that name didn't catch on. Instead, the name that people use to describe that generation is "Generation X", named after a late-seventies punk band led by Billy Idol: [Excerpt: Generation X, "Your Generation"] That band were short-lived, but they were in constant dialogue with the pop culture of ten to fifteen years earlier, Idol's own childhood. As well as that song, "Your Generation", which is obviously referring to the song this week's episode is about, they also recorded versions of John Lennon's "Gimme Some Truth", of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over", and an original song called "Ready Steady Go", about being in love with Cathy McGowan, the presenter of that show. And even their name was a reference, because Generation X were named after a book published in 1964, about not the generation we call Generation X, but about the Baby Boomers, and specifically about a series of fights on beaches across the South Coast of England between what at that point amounted to two gangs. These were fights between the old guard, the Rockers -- people who represented the recent past who wouldn't go away, what Americans would call "greasers", people who modelled themselves on Marlon Brando in Rebel Without A Cause, and who thought music had peaked with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran -- and a newer, younger, hipper, group of people, who represented the new, the modern -- the Mods: [Excerpt: The Who, "My Generation"] Jim Marshall, if he'd been American, would have been considered one of the Greatest Generation, but his upbringing was not typical of that, or of any, generation. When he was five, he was diagnosed as having skeletal tuberculosis, which had made his bones weak and easily broken. To protect them, he spent the next seven years of his life, from age five until twelve, in hospital in a full-body cast. The only opportunity he got to move during those years was for a few minutes every three months, when the cast would be cut off and reapplied to account for his growth during that time. Unsurprisingly, once he was finally out of the cast, he discovered he loved moving -- a lot. He dropped out of school aged thirteen -- most people at the time left school at aged fourteen anyway, and since he'd missed all his schooling to that point it didn't seem worth his while carrying on -- and took on multiple jobs, working sixty hours a week or more. But the job he made most money at was as an entertainer. He started out as a tap-dancer, taking advantage of his new mobility, but then his song-and-dance man routine became steadily more song and less dance, as people started to notice his vocal resemblance to Bing Crosby. He was working six nights a week as a singer, but when World War II broke out, the drummer in the seven-piece band he was working with was drafted -- Marshall wouldn't ever be drafted because of his history of illness. The other members of the band knew that as a dancer he had a good sense of rhythm, and so they made a suggestion -- if Jim took over the drums, they could split the money six ways rather than seven. Marshall agreed, but he discovered there was a problem. The drum kit was always positioned at the back of the stage, behind the PA, and he couldn't hear the other musicians clearly. This is actually OK for a drummer -- you're keeping time, and the rest of the band are following you, so as long as you can *sort of* hear them everyone can stay together. But a singer needs to be able to hear everything clearly, in order to stay on key. And this was in the days before monitor speakers, so the only option available was to just have a louder PA system. And since one wasn't available, Marshall just had to build one himself. And that's how Jim Marshall started building amplifiers. Marshall eventually gave up playing the drums, and retired to run a music shop. There's a story about Marshall's last gig as a drummer, which isn't in the biography of Marshall I read for this episode, but is told in other places by the son of the bandleader at that gig. Apparently Marshall had a very fraught relationship with his father, who was among other things a semi-professional boxer, and at that gig Marshall senior turned up and started heckling his son from the audience. Eventually the younger Marshall jumped off the stage and started hitting his dad, winning the fight, but he decided he wasn't going to perform in public any more. The band leader for that show was Clifford Townshend, a clarinet player and saxophonist whose main gig was as part of the Squadronaires, a band that had originally been formed during World War II by RAF servicemen to entertain other troops. Townshend, who had been a member of Oswald Moseley's fascist Blackshirts in the thirties but later had a change of heart, was a second-generation woodwind player -- his father had been a semi-professional flute player. As well as working with the Squadronaires, Townshend also put out one record under his own name in 1956, a version of "Unchained Melody" credited to "Cliff Townsend and his singing saxophone": [Excerpt: Cliff Townshend and his Singing Saxophone, "Unchained Melody"] Cliff's wife often performed with him -- she was a professional singer who had actually lied about her age in order to join up with the Air Force and sing with the group -- but they had a tempestuous marriage, and split up multiple times. As a result of this, and the travelling lifestyle of musicians, there were periods where their son Peter was sent to live with his grandmother, who was seriously abusive, traumatising the young boy in ways that would affect him for the rest of his life. When Pete Townshend was growing up, he wasn't particularly influenced by music, in part because it was his dad's job rather than a hobby, and his parents had very few records in the house. He did, though, take up the harmonica and learn to play the theme tune to Dixon of Dock Green: [Excerpt: Tommy Reilly, "Dixon of Dock Green Theme"] His first exposure to rock and roll wasn't through Elvis or Little Richard, but rather through Ray Ellington. Ellington was a British jazz singer and drummer, heavily influenced by Louis Jordan, who provided regular musical performances on the Goon Show throughout the fifties, and on one episode had performed "That Rock 'n' Rollin' Man": [Excerpt: Ray Ellington, "That Rock 'N' Rollin' Man"] Young Pete's assessment of that, as he remembered it later, was "I thought it some kind of hybrid jazz: swing music with stupid lyrics. But it felt youthful and rebellious, like The Goon Show itself." But he got hooked on rock and roll when his father took him and a friend to see a film: [Excerpt: Bill Haley and the Comets, "Rock Around the Clock"] According to Townshend's autobiography, "I asked Dad what he thought of the music. He said he thought it had some swing, and anything that had swing was OK. For me it was more than just OK. After seeing Rock Around the Clock with Bill Haley, nothing would ever be quite the same." Young Pete would soon go and see Bill Haley live – his first rock and roll gig. But the older Townshend would soon revise his opinion of rock and roll, because it soon marked the end of the kind of music that had allowed him to earn his living -- though he still managed to get regular work, playing a clarinet was suddenly far less lucrative than it had been. Pete decided that he wanted to play the saxophone, like his dad, but soon he switched first to guitar and then to banjo. His first guitar was bought for him by his abusive grandmother, and three of the strings snapped almost immediately, so he carried on playing with just three strings for a while. He got very little encouragement from his parents, and didn't really improve for a couple of years. But then the trad jazz boom happened, and Townshend teamed up with a friend of his who played the trumpet and French horn. He had initially bonded with John Entwistle over their shared sense of humour -- both kids loved Mad magazine and would make tape recordings together of themselves doing comedy routines inspired by the Goon show and Hancock's Half Hour -- but Entwistle was also a very accomplished musician, who could play multiple instruments. Entwistle had formed a trad band called the Confederates, and Townshend joined them on banjo and guitar, but they didn't stay together for long. Both boys, though, would join a variety of other bands, both together and separately. As the trad boom faded and rock and roll regained its dominance among British youth, there was little place for Entwistle's trumpet in the music that was popular among teenagers, and at first Entwistle decided to try making his trumpet sound more like a saxophone, using a helmet as a mute to try to get it to sound like the sax on "Ramrod" by Duane Eddy: [Excerpt: Duane Eddy, "Ramrod"] Eddy soon became Entwistle's hero. We've talked about him before a couple of times, briefly, but not in depth, but Duane Eddy had a style that was totally different from most guitar heroes. Instead of playing mostly on the treble strings of the guitar, playing high twiddly parts, Eddy played low notes on the bass strings of his guitar, giving him the style that he summed up in album titles like "The Twang's the Thang" and "Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel". After a couple of years of having hits with this sound, produced by Lee Hazelwood and Lester Sill, Eddy also started playing another instrument, the instrument variously known as the six-string bass, the baritone guitar, or the Danelectro bass (after the company that manufactured the most popular model). The baritone guitar has six strings, like a normal guitar, but it's tuned lower than a standard guitar -- usually a fourth lower, though different players have different preferences. The Danelectro became very popular in recording studios in the early sixties, because it helped solve a big problem in recording bass tones. You can hear more about this in the episodes of Cocaine and Rhinestones I recommended last week, but basically double basses were very, very difficult to record in the 1950s, and you'd often end up just getting a thudding, muddy, sound from them, which is one reason why when you listen to a lot of early rockabilly the bass is doing nothing very interesting, just playing root notes -- you couldn't easily get much clarity on the instrument at all. Conversely, with electric basses, with the primitive amps of the time, you didn't get anything like the full sound that you'd get from a double bass, but you *did* get a clear sound that would cut through on a cheap radio in a way that the sound of a double bass wouldn't. So the solution was obvious -- you have an electric instrument *and* a double bass play the same part. Use the double bass for the big dull throbbing sound, but use the electric one to give the sound some shape and cut-through. If you're doing that, you mostly want the trebly part of the electric instrument's tone, so you play it with a pick rather than fingers, and it makes sense to use a Danelectro rather than a standard bass guitar, as the Danelectro is more trebly than a normal bass. This combination, of Danelectro and double bass, appears to have been invented by Owen Bradley, and you can hear it for example on this record by Patsy Cline, with Bob Moore on double bass and Harold Bradley on baritone guitar: [Excerpt: Patsy Cline, "Crazy"] This sound, known as "tic-tac bass", was soon picked up by a lot of producers, and it became the standard way of getting a bass sound in both Nashville and LA. It's all over the Beach Boys' best records, and many of Jack Nitzsche's arrangements, and many of the other records the Wrecking Crew played on, and it's on most of the stuff the Nashville A-Team played on from the late fifties through mid-sixties, records by people like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Arthur Alexander, and the Everly Brothers. Lee Hazelwood was one of the first producers to pick up on this sound -- indeed, Duane Eddy has said several times that Hazelwood invented the sound before Owen Bradley did, though I think Bradley did it first -- and many of Eddy's records featured that bass sound, and eventually Eddy started playing a baritone guitar himself, as a lead instrument, playing it on records like "Because They're Young": [Excerpt: Duane Eddy, "Because They're Young"] Duane Eddy was John Entwistle's idol, and Entwistle learned Eddy's whole repertoire on trumpet, playing the saxophone parts. But then, realising that the guitar was always louder than the trumpet in the bands he was in, he realised that if he wanted to be heard, he should probably switch to guitar himself. And it made sense that a bass would be easier to play than a regular guitar -- if you only have four strings, there's more space between them, so playing is easier. So he started playing the bass, trying to sound as much like Eddy as he could. He had no problem picking up the instrument -- he was already a multi-instrumentalist -- but he did have a problem actually getting hold of one, as all the electric bass guitars available in the UK at the time were prohibitively expensive. Eventually he made one himself, with the help of someone in a local music shop, and that served for a time, though he would soon trade up to more professional instruments, eventually amassing the biggest collection of basses in the world. One day, Entwistle was approached on the street by an acquaintance, Roger Daltrey, who said to him "I hear you play bass" -- Entwistle was, at the time, carrying his bass. Daltrey was at this time a guitarist -- like Entwistle, he'd built his own instrument -- and he was the leader of a band called Del Angelo and his Detours. Daltrey wasn't Del Angelo, the lead singer -- that was a man called Colin Dawson who by all accounts sounded a little like Cliff Richard -- but he was the bandleader, hired and fired the members, and was in charge of their setlists. Daltrey lured Entwistle away from the band he was in with Townshend by telling him that the Detours were getting proper paid gigs, though they weren't getting many at the time. Unfortunately, one of the group's other guitarists, the member who owned the best amp, died in an accident not long after Entwistle joined the band. However, the amp was left in the group's possession, and Entwistle used it to lure Pete Townshend into the group by telling him he could use it -- and not telling him that he'd be sharing the amp with Daltrey. Townshend would later talk about his audition for the Detours -- as he was walking up the street towards Daltrey's house, he saw a stunningly beautiful woman walking away from the house crying. She saw his guitar case and said "Are you going to Roger's?" "Yes." "Well you can tell him, it's that bloody guitar or me". Townshend relayed the message, and Daltrey responded "Sod her. Come in." The audition was a formality, with the main questions being whether Townshend could play two parts of the regular repertoire for a working band at that time -- "Hava Nagila", and the Shadows' "Man of Mystery": [Excerpt: The Shadows, "Man of Mystery"] Townshend could play both of those, and so he was in. The group would mostly play chart hits by groups like the Shadows, but as trad jazz hadn't completely died out yet they would also do breakout sessions playing trad jazz, with Townshend on banjo, Entwistle on trumpet and Daltrey on trombone. From the start, there was a temperamental mismatch between the group's two guitarists. Daltrey was thoroughly working-class, culturally conservative, had dropped out of school to go to work at a sheet metal factory, and saw himself as a no-nonsense plain-speaking man. Townshend was from a relatively well-off upper-middle-class family, was for a brief time a member of the Communist Party, and was by this point studying at art school, where he was hugely impressed by a lecture from Gustav Metzger titled “Auto-Destructive Art, Auto-Creative Art: The Struggle For The Machine Arts Of The Future”, about Metzger's creation of artworks which destroyed themselves. Townshend was at art school during a period when the whole idea of what an art school was for was in flux, something that's typified by a story Townshend tells about two of his early lectures. At the first, the lecturer came in and told the class to all draw a straight line. They all did, and then the lecturer told off anyone who had drawn anything that was anything other than six inches long, perfectly straight, without a ruler, going north-south, with a 3B pencil, saying that anything else at all was self-indulgence of the kind that needed to be drummed out of them if they wanted to get work as commercial artists. Then in another lecture, a different lecturer came in and asked them all to draw a straight line. They all drew perfectly straight, six-inch, north-south lines in 3B pencil, as the first lecturer had taught them. The new lecturer started yelling at them, then brought in someone else to yell at them as well, and then cut his hand open with a knife and dragged it across a piece of paper, smearing a rough line with his own blood, and screamed "THAT'S a line!" Townshend's sympathies lay very much with the second lecturer. Another big influence on Townshend at this point was a jazz double-bass player, Malcolm Cecil. Cecil would later go on to become a pioneer in electronic music as half of TONTO's Expanding Head Band, and we'll be looking at his work in more detail in a future episode, but at this point he was a fixture on the UK jazz scene. He'd been a member of Blues Incorporated, and had also played with modern jazz players like Dick Morrissey: [Excerpt: Dick Morrissey, "Jellyroll"] But Townshend was particularly impressed with a performance in which Cecil demonstrated unorthodox ways to play the double-bass, including playing so hard he broke the strings, and using a saw as a bow, sawing through the strings and damaging the body of the instrument. But these influences, for the moment, didn't affect the Detours, who were still doing the Cliff and the Shadows routine. Eventually Colin Dawson quit the group, and Daltrey took over the lead vocal role for the Detours, who settled into a lineup of Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and drummer Doug Sandom, who was much older than the rest of the group -- he was born in 1930, while Daltrey and Entwistle were born in 1944 and Townshend in 1945. For a while, Daltrey continued playing guitar as well as singing, but his hands were often damaged by his work at the sheet-metal factory, making guitar painful for him. Then the group got a support slot with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, who at this point were a four-piece band, with Kidd singing backed by bass, drums, and Mick Green playing one guitar on which he played both rhythm and lead parts: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "Doctor Feel Good"] Green was at the time considered possibly the best guitarist in Britain, and the sound the Pirates were able to get with only one guitar convinced the Detours that they would be OK if Daltrey switched to just singing, so the group changed to what is now known as a "power trio" format. Townshend was a huge admirer of Steve Cropper, another guitarist who played both rhythm and lead, and started trying to adopt parts of Cropper's style, playing mostly chords, while Entwistle went for a much more fluid bass style than most, essentially turning the bass into another lead instrument, patterning his playing after Duane Eddy's work. By this time, Townshend was starting to push against Daltrey's leadership a little, especially when it came to repertoire. Townshend had a couple of American friends at art school who had been deported after being caught smoking dope, and had left their records with Townshend for safe-keeping. As a result, Townshend had become a devotee of blues and R&B music, especially the jazzier stuff like Ray Charles, Mose Allison, and Booker T and the MGs. He also admired guitar-based blues records like those by Howlin' Wolf or Jimmy Reed. Townshend kept pushing for this music to be incorporated into the group's sets, but Daltrey would push back, insisting as the leader that they should play the chart hits that everyone else played, rather than what he saw as Townshend's art-school nonsense. Townshend insisted, and eventually won -- within a short while the group had become a pure R&B group, and Daltrey was soon a convert, and became the biggest advocate of that style in the band. But there was a problem with only having one guitar, and that was volume. In particular, Townshend didn't want to be able to hear hecklers. There were gangsters in some of the audiences who would shout requests for particular songs, and you had to play them or else, even if they were completely unsuitable for the rest of the audience's tastes. But if you were playing so loud you couldn't hear the shouting, you had an excuse. Both Entwistle and Townshend had started buying amplifiers from Jim Marshall, who had opened up a music shop after quitting drums -- Townshend actually bought his first one from a shop assistant in Marshall's shop, John McLaughlin, who would later himself become a well-known guitarist. Entwistle, wanting to be heard over Townshend, had bought a cabinet with four twelve-inch speakers in it. Townshend, wanting to be heard over Entwistle, had bought *two* of these cabinets, and stacked them, one on top of the other, against Marshall's protestations -- Marshall said that they would vibrate so much that the top one might fall over and injure someone. Townshend didn't listen, and the Marshall stack was born. This ultra-amplification also led Townshend to change his guitar style further. He was increasingly reliant on distortion and feedback, rather than on traditional instrumental skills. Now, there are basically two kinds of chords that are used in most Western music. There are major chords, which consist of the first, third, and fifth note of the scale, and these are the basic chords that everyone starts with. So you can strum between G major and F major: [demonstrates G and F chords] There's also minor chords, where you flatten the third note, which sound a little sadder than major chords, so playing G minor and F minor: [demonstrates Gm and Fm chords] There are of course other kinds of chord -- basically any collection of notes counts as a chord, and can work musically in some context. But major and minor chords are the basic harmonic building blocks of most pop music. But when you're using a lot of distortion and feedback, you create a lot of extra harmonics -- extra notes that your instrument makes along with the ones you're playing. And for mathematical reasons I won't go into here because this is already a very long episode, the harmonics generated by playing the first and fifth notes sound fine together, but the harmonics from a third or minor third don't go along with them at all. The solution to this problem is to play what are known as "power chords", which are just the root and fifth notes, with no third at all, and which sound ambiguous as to whether they're major or minor. Townshend started to build his technique around these chords, playing for the most part on the bottom three strings of his guitar, which sounds like this: [demonstrates G5 and F5 chords] Townshend wasn't the first person to use power chords -- they're used on a lot of the Howlin' Wolf records he liked, and before Townshend would become famous the Kinks had used them on "You Really Got Me" -- but he was one of the first British guitarists to make them a major part of his personal style. Around this time, the Detours were starting to become seriously popular, and Townshend was starting to get exhausted by the constant demands on his time from being in the band and going to art school. He talked about this with one of his lecturers, who asked how much Townshend was earning from the band. When Townshend told him he was making thirty pounds a week, the lecturer was shocked, and said that was more than *he* was earning. Townshend should probably just quit art school, because it wasn't like he was going to make more money from anything he could learn there. Around this time, two things changed the group's image. The first was that they played a support slot for the Rolling Stones in December 1963. Townshend saw Keith Richards swinging his arm over his head and then bringing it down on the guitar, to loosen up his muscles, and he thought that looked fantastic, and started copying it -- from very early on, Townshend wanted to have a physical presence on stage that would be all about his body, to distract from his face, as he was embarrassed about the size of his nose. They played a second support slot for the Stones a few weeks later, and not wanting to look like he was copying Richards, Townshend didn't do that move, but then he noticed that Richards didn't do it either. He asked about it after the gig, and Richards didn't know what he was talking about -- "Swing me what?" -- so Townshend took that as a green light to make that move, which became known as the windmill, his own. The second thing was when in February 1964 a group appeared on Thank Your Lucky Stars: [Excerpt: Johnny Devlin and the Detours, "Sometimes"] Johnny Devlin and the Detours had had national media exposure, which meant that Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and Sandom had to change the name of their group. They eventually settled on "The Who", It was around this time that the group got their first serious management, a man named Helmut Gorden, who owned a doorknob factory. Gorden had no management experience, but he did offer the group a regular salary, and pay for new equipment for them. However, when he tried to sign the group to a proper contract, as most of them were still under twenty-one he needed their parents to countersign for them. Townshend's parents, being experienced in the music industry, refused to sign, and so the group continued under Gorden's management without a contract. Gorden, not having management experience, didn't have any contacts in the music industry. But his barber did. Gorden enthused about his group to Jack Marks, the barber, and Marks in turn told some of his other clients about this group he'd been hearing about. Tony Hatch wasn't interested, as he already had a guitar group with the Searchers, but Chris Parmenter at Fontana Records was, and an audition was arranged. At the audition, among other numbers, they played Bo Diddley's "Here 'Tis": [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "Here 'Tis"] Unfortunately for Doug, he didn't play well on that song, and Townshend started berating him. Doug also knew that Parmenter had reservations about him, because he was so much older than the rest of the band -- he was thirty-four at the time, while the rest of the group were only just turning twenty -- and he was also the least keen of the group on the R&B material they were playing. He'd been warned by Entwistle, his closest friend in the group, that Daltrey and Townshend were thinking of dropping him, and so he decided to jump before he was pushed, walking out of the audition. He agreed to come back for a handful more gigs that were already booked in, but that was the end of his time in the band, and of his time in the music industry -- though oddly not of his friendship with the group. Unlike other famous examples of an early member not fitting in and being forced out before a band becomes big, Sandom remained friends with the other members, and Townshend wrote the foreword to his autobiography, calling him a mentor figure, while Daltrey apparently insisted that Sandom phone him for a chat every Sunday, at the same time every week, until Sandom's death in 2019 at the age of eighty-nine. The group tried a few other drummers, including someone who Jim Marshall had been giving drum lessons to, Mitch Mitchell, before settling on the drummer for another group that played the same circuit, the Beachcombers, who played mostly Shadows material, plus the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean songs that their drummer, Keith Moon, loved. Moon and Entwistle soon became a formidable rhythm section, and despite having been turned down by Fontana, they were clearly going places. But they needed an image -- and one was provided for them by Pete Meaden. Meaden was another person who got his hair cut by Jack Marks, and he had had little bit of music business experience, having worked for Andrew Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager, for a while before going on to manage a group called the Moments, whose career highlight was recording a soundalike cover version of "You Really Got Me" for an American budget label: [Excerpt: The Moments, "You Really Got Me"] The Moments never had any big success, but Meaden's nose for talent was not wrong, as their teenage lead singer, Steve Marriott, later went on to much better things. Pete Meaden was taken on as Helmut Gorden's assistant, but from this point on the group decided to regard him as their de facto manager, and as more than just a manager. To Townshend in particular he was a guru figure, and he shaped the group to appeal to the Mods. Now, we've not talked much about the Mods previously, and what little has been said has been a bit contradictory. That's because the Mods were a tiny subculture at this point -- or to be more precise, they were three subcultures. The original mods had come along in the late 1950s, at a time when there was a division among jazz fans between fans of traditional New Orleans jazz -- "trad" -- and modern jazz. The mods were modernists, hence the name, but for the most part they weren't as interested in music as in clothes. They were a small group of young working-class men, almost all gay, who dressed flamboyantly and dandyishly, and who saw themselves, their clothing, and their bodies as works of art. In the late fifties, Britain was going through something of an economic boom, and this was the first time that working-class men *could* buy nice clothes. These working-class dandies would have to visit tailors to get specially modified clothes made, but they could just about afford to do so. The mod image was at first something that belonged to a very, very, small clique of people. But then John Stephens opened his first shop. This was the first era when short runs of factory-produced clothing became possible, and Stephens, a stylish young man, opened a shop on Carnaby Street, then a relatively cheap place to open a shop. He painted the outside yellow, played loud pop music, and attracted a young crowd. Stephens was selling factory-made clothes that still looked unique -- short runs of odd-coloured jeans, three-button jackets, and other men's fashion. Soon Carnaby Street became the hub for men's fashion in London, thanks largely to Stephens. At one point Stephens owned fifteen different shops, nine of them on Carnaby Street itself, and Stephens' shops appealed to the kind of people that the Kinks would satirise in their early 1966 hit single "Dedicated Follower of Fashion": [Excerpt: The Kinks, "Dedicated Follower of Fashion"] Many of those who visited Stephens' shops were the larger, second, generation of mods. I'm going to quote here from George Melly's Revolt Into Style, the first book to properly analyse British pop culture of the fifties and sixties, by someone who was there: "As the ‘mod' thing spread it lost its purity. For the next generation of Mods, those who picked up the ‘mod' thing around 1963, clothes, while still their central preoccupation, weren't enough. They needed music (Rhythm and Blues), transport (scooters) and drugs (pep pills). What's more they needed fashion ready-made. They hadn't the time or the fanaticism to invent their own styles, and this is where Carnaby Street came in." Melly goes on to talk about how these new Mods were viewed with distaste by the older Mods, who left the scene. The choice of music for these new Mods was as much due to geographic proximity as anything else. Carnaby Street is just round the corner from Wardour Street, and Wardour Street is where the two clubs that between them were the twin poles of the London R&B scenes, the Marquee and the Flamingo, were both located. So it made sense that the young people frequenting John Stephens' boutiques on Carnaby Street were the same people who made up the audiences -- and the bands -- at those clubs. But by 1964, even these second-generation Mods were in a minority compared to a new, third generation, and here I'm going to quote Melly again: "But the Carnaby Street Mods were not the final stage in the history of this particular movement. The word was taken over finally by a new and more violent sector, the urban working class at the gang-forming age, and this became quite sinister. The gang stage rejected the wilder flights of Carnaby Street in favour of extreme sartorial neatness. Everything about them was neat, pretty and creepy: dark glasses, Nero hair-cuts, Chelsea boots, polo-necked sweaters worn under skinny V-necked pullovers, gleaming scooters and transistors. Even their offensive weapons were pretty—tiny hammers and screwdrivers. En masse they looked like a pack of weasels." I would urge anyone who's interested in British social history to read Melly's book in full -- it's well worth it. These third-stage Mods soon made up the bulk of the movement, and they were the ones who, in summer 1964, got into the gang fights that were breathlessly reported in all the tabloid newspapers. Pete Meaden was a Mod, and as far as I can tell he was a leading-edge second-stage Mod, though as with all these things who was in what generation of Mods is a bit blurry. Meaden had a whole idea of Mod-as-lifestyle and Mod-as-philosophy, which worked well with the group's R&B leanings, and with Townshend's art-school-inspired fascination with the aesthetics of Pop Art. Meaden got the group a residency at the Railway Hotel, a favourite Mod hangout, and he also changed their name -- The Who didn't sound Mod enough. In Mod circles at the time there was a hierarchy, with the coolest people, the Faces, at the top, below them a slightly larger group of people known as Numbers, and below them the mass of generic people known as Tickets. Meaden saw himself as the band's Svengali, so he was obviously the Face, so the group had to be Numbers -- so they became The High Numbers. Meaden got the group a one-off single deal, to record two songs he had allegedly written, both of which had lyrics geared specifically for the Mods. The A-side was "Zoot Suit": [Excerpt: The High Numbers, "Zoot Suit"] This had a melody that was stolen wholesale from "Misery" by the Dynamics: [Excerpt: The Dynamics, "Misery"] The B-side, meanwhile, was titled "I'm the Face": [Excerpt: The High Numbers, "I'm the Face"] Which anyone with any interest at all in blues music will recognise immediately as being "Got Love if You Want It" by Slim Harpo: [Excerpt: Slim Harpo, "Got Love if You Want it"] Unfortunately for the High Numbers, that single didn't have much success. Mod was a local phenomenon, which never took off outside London and its suburbs, and so the songs didn't have much appeal in the rest of the country -- while within London, Mod fashions were moving so quickly that by the time the record came out, all its up-to-the-minute references were desperately outdated. But while the record didn't have much success, the group were getting a big live following among the Mods, and their awareness of rapidly shifting trends in that subculture paid off for them in terms of stagecraft. To quote Townshend: "What the Mods taught us was how to lead by following. I mean, you'd look at the dance floor and see some bloke stop during the dance of the week and for some reason feel like doing some silly sort of step. And you'd notice some of the blokes around him looking out of the corners of their eyes and thinking 'is this the latest?' And on their own, without acknowledging the first fellow, a few of 'em would start dancing that way. And we'd be watching. By the time they looked up on the stage again, we'd be doing that dance and they'd think the original guy had been imitating us. And next week they'd come back and look to us for dances". And then Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp came into the Railway Hotel. Kit Lambert was the son of Constant Lambert, the founding music director of the Royal Ballet, who the economist John Maynard Keynes described as the most brilliant man he'd ever met. Constant Lambert was possibly Britain's foremost composer of the pre-war era, and one of the first people from the serious music establishment to recognise the potential of jazz and blues music. His most famous composition, "The Rio Grande", written in 1927 about a fictitious South American river, is often compared with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue: [Excerpt: Constant Lambert, "The Rio Grande"] Kit Lambert was thus brought up in an atmosphere of great privilege, both financially and intellectually, with his godfather being the composer Sir William Walton while his godmother was the prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn, with whom his father was having an affair. As a result of the problems between his parents, Lambert spent much of his childhood living with his grandmother. After studying history at Oxford and doing his national service, Lambert had spent a few months studying film at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris, where he went because Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Renais taught there -- or at least so he would later say, though there's no evidence I can find that Godard actually taught there, so either he went there under a mistaken impression or he lied about it later to make himself sound more interesting. However, he'd got bored with his studies after only a few months, and decided that he knew enough to just make a film himself, and he planned his first documentary. In early 1961, despite having little film experience, he joined two friends from university, Richard Mason and John Hemming, in an attempt to make a documentary film tracing the source of the Iriri, a river in South America that was at that point the longest unnavigated river in the world. Unfortunately, the expedition was as disastrous as it's possible for such an expedition to be. In May 1961 they landed in the Amazon basin and headed off on their expedition to find the source of the Iriri, with the help of five local porters and three people sent along by the Brazillian government to map the new areas they were to discover. Unfortunately, by September, not only had they not found the source of the Iriri, they'd actually not managed to find the Iriri itself, four and a half months apparently not being a long enough time to find an eight-hundred-and-ten-mile-long river. And then Mason made his way into history in the worst possible way, by becoming the last, to date, British person to be murdered by an uncontacted indigenous tribe, the Panará, who shot him with eight poison arrows and then bludgeoned his skull. A little over a decade later the Panará made contact with the wider world after nearly being wiped out by disease. They remembered killing Mason and said that they'd been scared by the swishing noise his jeans had made, as they'd never encountered anyone who wore clothes before. Before they made contact, the Panará were also known as the Kreen-Akrore, a name given them by the Kayapó people, meaning "round-cut head", a reference to the way they styled their hair, brushed forward and trimmed over the forehead in a way that was remarkably similar to some of the Mod styles. Before they made contact, Paul McCartney would in 1970 record an instrumental, "Kreen Akrore", after being inspired by a documentary called The Tribe That Hides From Man. McCartney's instrumental includes sound effects, including McCartney firing a bow and arrow, though apparently the bow-string snapped during the recording: [Excerpt: Paul McCartney, "Kreen Akrore"] For a while, Lambert was under suspicion for the murder, though the Daily Express, which had sponsored the expedition, persuaded Brazillian police to drop the charges. While he was in Rio waiting for the legal case to be sorted, Lambert developed what one book on the Who describes as "a serious anal infection". Astonishingly, this experience did not put Lambert off from the film industry, though he wouldn't try to make another film of his own for a couple of years. Instead, he went to work at Shepperton Studios, where he was an uncredited second AD on many films, including From Russia With Love and The L-Shaped Room. Another second AD working on many of the same films was Chris Stamp, the brother of the actor Terence Stamp, who was just starting out in his own career. Stamp and Lambert became close friends, despite -- or because of -- their differences. Lambert was bisexual, and preferred men to women, Stamp was straight. Lambert was the godson of a knight and a dame, Stamp was a working-class East End Cockney. Lambert was a film-school dropout full of ideas and grand ambitions, but unsure how best to put those ideas into practice, Stamp was a practical, hands-on, man. The two complemented each other perfectly, and became flatmates and collaborators. After seeing A Hard Day's Night, they decided that they were going to make their own pop film -- a documentary, inspired by the French nouvelle vague school of cinema, which would chart a pop band from playing lowly clubs to being massive pop stars. Now all they needed was to find a band that were playing lowly clubs but could become massive stars. And they found that band at the Railway Hotel, when they saw the High Numbers. Stamp and Lambert started making their film, and completed part of it, which can be found on YouTube: [Excerpt: The High Numbers, "Oo Poo Pa Doo"] The surviving part of the film is actually very, very, well done for people who'd never directed a film before, and I have no doubt that if they'd completed the film, to be titled High Numbers, it would be regarded as one of the classic depictions of early-sixties London club life, to be classed along with The Small World of Sammy Lee and Expresso Bongo. What's even more astonishing, though, is how *modern* the group look. Most footage of guitar bands of this period looks very dated, not just in the fashions, but in everything -- the attitude of the performers, their body language, the way they hold their instruments. The best performances are still thrilling, but you can tell when they were filmed. On the other hand, the High Numbers look ungainly and awkward, like the lads of no more than twenty that they are -- but in a way that was actually shocking to me when I first saw this footage. Because they look *exactly* like every guitar band I played on the same bill as during my own attempts at being in bands between 2000 and about 2005. If it weren't for the fact that they have such recognisable faces, if you'd told me this was footage of some band I played on the same bill with at the Star and Garter or Night and Day Cafe in 2003, I'd believe it unquestioningly. But while Lambert and Stamp started out making a film, they soon pivoted and decided that they could go into management. Of course, the High Numbers did already have management -- Pete Meaden and Helmut Gorden -- but after consulting with the Beatles' lawyer, David Jacobs, Lambert and Stamp found out that Gorden's contract with the band was invalid, and so when Gorden got back from a holiday, he found himself usurped. Meaden was a bit more difficult to get rid of, even though he had less claim on the group than Gorden -- he was officially their publicist, not their manager, and his only deal was with Gorden, even though the group considered him their manager. While Meaden didn't have a contractual claim though, he did have one argument in his favour, which is that he had a large friend named Phil the Greek, who had a big knife. When this claim was put to Lambert and Stamp, they agreed that this was a very good point indeed, one that they hadn't considered, and agreed to pay Meaden off with two hundred and fifty pounds. This would not be the last big expense that Stamp and Lambert would have as the managers of the Who, as the group were now renamed. Their agreement with the group had the two managers taking forty percent of the group's earnings, while the four band members would split the other sixty percent between themselves -- an arrangement which should theoretically have had the managers coming out ahead. But they also agreed to pay the group's expenses. And that was to prove very costly indeed. Shortly after they started managing the group, at a gig at the Railway Hotel, which had low ceilings, Townshend lifted his guitar up a bit higher than he'd intended, and broke the headstock. Townshend had a spare guitar with him, so this was OK, and he also remembered Gustav Metzger and his ideas of auto-destructive art, and Malcolm Cecil sawing through his bass strings and damaging his bass, and decided that it was better for him to look like he'd meant to do that than to look like an idiot who'd accidentally broken his guitar, so he repeated the motion, smashing his guitar to bits, before carrying on the show with his spare. The next week, the crowd were excited, expecting the same thing again, but Townshend hadn't brought a spare guitar with him. So as not to disappoint them, Keith Moon destroyed his drum kit instead. This destruction was annoying to Entwistle, who saw musical instruments as something close to sacred, and it also annoyed the group's managers at first, because musical instruments are expensive. But they soon saw the value this brought to the band's shows, and reluctantly agreed to keep buying them new instruments. So for the first couple of years, Lambert and Stamp lost money on the group. They funded this partly through Lambert's savings, partly through Stamp continuing to do film work, and partly from investors in their company, one of whom was Russ Conway, the easy-listening piano player who'd had hits like "Side Saddle": [Excerpt: Russ Conway, "Side Saddle"] Conway's connections actually got the group another audition for a record label, Decca (although Conway himself recorded for EMI), but the group were turned down. The managers were told that they would have been signed, but they didn't have any original material. So Pete Townshend was given the task of writing some original material. By this time Townshend's musical world was expanding far beyond the R&B that the group were performing on stage, and he talks in his autobiography about the music he was listening to while he was trying to write his early songs. There was "Green Onions", which he'd been listening to for years in his attempt to emulate Steve Cropper's guitar style, but there was also The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, and two tracks he names in particular, "Devil's Jump" by John Lee Hooker: [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "Devil's Jump"] And "Better Get Hit in Your Soul" by Charles Mingus: [Excerpt: Charles Mingus, "Better Get Hit In Your Soul"] He was also listening to what he described as "a record that changed my life as a composer", a recording of baroque music that included sections of Purcell's Gordian Knot Untied: [Excerpt: Purcell, Chaconne from Gordian Knot Untied] Townshend had a notebook in which he listed the records he wanted to obtain, and he reproduces that list in his autobiography -- "‘Marvin Gaye, 1-2-3, Mingus Revisited, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Smith Organ Grinder's Swing, In Crowd, Nina in Concert [Nina Simone], Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Ella, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk Around Midnight and Brilliant Corners.'" He was also listening to a lot of Stockhausen and Charlie Parker, and to the Everly Brothers -- who by this point were almost the only artist that all four members of the Who agreed were any good, because Daltrey was now fully committed to the R&B music he'd originally dismissed, and disliked what he thought was the pretentiousness of the music Townshend was listening to, while Keith Moon was primarily a fan of the Beach Boys. But everyone could agree that the Everlys, with their sensitive interpretations, exquisite harmonies, and Bo Diddley-inflected guitars, were great, and so the group added several songs from the Everlys' 1965 albums Rock N Soul and Beat N Soul to their set, like "Man With Money": [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Man With Money"] Despite Daltrey's objections to diluting the purity of the group's R&B sound, Townshend brought all these influences into his songwriting. The first song he wrote to see release was not actually recorded by the Who, but a song he co-wrote for a minor beat group called the Naturals, who released it as a B-side: [Excerpt: The Naturals, "It Was You"] But shortly after this, the group got their first big break, thanks to Lambert's personal assistant, Anya Butler. Butler was friends with Shel Talmy's wife, and got Talmy to listen to the group. Townshend in particular was eager to work with Talmy, as he was a big fan of the Kinks, who were just becoming big, and who Talmy produced. Talmy signed the group to a production deal, and then signed a deal to license their records to Decca in America -- which Lambert and Stamp didn't realise wasn't the same label as British Decca. Decca in turn sublicensed the group's recordings to their British subsidiary Brunswick, which meant that the group got a minuscule royalty for sales in Britain, as their recordings were being sold through three corporate layers all taking their cut. This didn't matter to them at first, though, and they went into the studio excited to cut their first record as The Who. As was typical at the time, Talmy brought in a few session players to help out. Clem Cattini turned out not to be needed, and left quickly, but Jimmy Page stuck around -- not to play on the A-side, which Townshend said was "so simple even I could play it", but the B-side, a version of the old blues standard "Bald-Headed Woman", which Talmy had copyrighted in his own name and had already had the Kinks record: [Excerpt: The Who, "Bald-Headed Woman"] Apparently the only reason that Page played on that is that Page wouldn't let Townshend use his fuzzbox. As well as Page and Cattini, Talmy also brought in some backing vocalists. These were the Ivy League, a writing and production collective consisting at this point of John Carter and Ken Lewis, both of whom had previously been in a band with Page, and Perry Ford. The Ivy League were huge hit-makers in the mid-sixties, though most people don't recognise their name. Carter and Lewis had just written "Can You Hear My Heartbeat" for Herman's Hermits: [Excerpt: Herman's Hermits, "Can You Hear My Heartbeat?"] And, along with a couple of other singers who joined the group, the Ivy League would go on to sing backing vocals on hits by Sandie Shaw, Tom Jones and others. Together and separately the members of the Ivy League were also responsible for writing, producing, and singing on "Let's Go to San Francisco" by the Flowerpot Men, "Winchester Cathedral" by the New Vaudeville Band, "Beach Baby" by First Class, and more, as well as their big hit under their own name, "Tossing and Turning": [Excerpt: The Ivy League, "Tossing and Turning"] Though my favourite of their tracks is their baroque pop masterpiece "My World Fell Down": [Excerpt: The Ivy League, "My World Fell Down"] As you can tell, the Ivy League were masters of the Beach Boys sound that Moon, and to a lesser extent Townshend, loved. That backing vocal sound was combined with a hard-driving riff inspired by the Kinks' early hits like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", and with lyrics that explored inarticulacy, a major theme of Townshend's lyrics: [Excerpt: The Who, "I Can't Explain"] "I Can't Explain" made the top ten, thanks in part to a publicity stunt that Lambert came up with. The group had been booked on to Ready, Steady, Go!, and the floor manager of the show mentioned to Lambert that they were having difficulty getting an audience for that week's show -- they were short about a hundred and fifty people, and they needed young, energetic, dancers. Lambert suggested that the best place to find young, energetic, dancers, was at the Marquee on a Tuesday night -- which just happened to be the night of the Who's regular residency at the club. Come the day of filming, the Ready, Steady, Go! audience was full of the Who's most hardcore fans, all of whom had been told by Lambert to throw scarves at the band when they started playing. It was one of the most memorable performances on the show. But even though the record was a big hit, Daltrey was unhappy. The man who'd started out as guitarist in a Shadows cover band and who'd strenuously objected to the group's inclusion of R&B material now had the zeal of a convert. He didn't want to be doing this "soft commercial pop", or Townshend's art-school nonsense. He wanted to be an R&B singer, playing hard music for working-class men like him. Two decisions were taken to mollify the lead singer. The first was that when they went into the studio to record their first album, it was all soul and R&B apart from one original. The album was going to consist of three James Brown covers, three Motown covers, Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man", and a cover of Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Louie Louie" sequel "Louie Come Home", retitled "Lubie". All of this was material that Daltrey was very comfortable with. Also, Daltrey was given some input into the second single, which would be the only song credited to Daltrey and Townshend, and Daltrey's only songwriting contribution to a Who A-side. Townshend had come up with the title "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" while listening to Charlie Parker, and had written the song based on that title, but Daltrey was allowed to rewrite the lyrics and make suggestions as to the arrangement. That record also made the top ten: [Excerpt: The Who, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere"] But Daltrey would soon become even more disillusioned. The album they'd recorded was shelved, though some tracks were later used for what became the My Generation album, and Kit Lambert told the Melody Maker “The Who are having serious doubts about the state of R&B. Now the LP material will consist of hard pop. They've finished with ‘Smokestack Lightning'!” That wasn't the only thing they were finished with -- Townshend and Moon were tired of their band's leader, and also just didn't think he was a particularly good singer -- and weren't shy about saying so, even to the press. Entwistle, a natural peacemaker, didn't feel as strongly, but there was a definite split forming in the band. Things came to a head on a European tour. Daltrey was sick of this pop nonsense, he was sick of the arty ideas of Townshend, and he was also sick of the other members' drug use. Daltrey didn't indulge himself, but the other band members had been using drugs long before they became successful, and they were all using uppers, which offended Daltrey greatly. He flushed Keith Moon's pill stash down the toilet, and screamed at his band mates that they were a bunch of junkies, then physically attacked Moon. All three of the other band members agreed -- Daltrey was out of the band. They were going to continue as a trio. But after a couple of days, Daltrey was back in the group. This was mostly because Daltrey had come crawling back to them, apologising -- he was in a very bad place at the time, having left his wife and kid, and was actually living in the back of the group's tour van. But it was also because Lambert and Stamp persuaded the group they needed Daltrey, at least for the moment, because he'd sung lead on their latest single, and that single was starting to rise up the charts. "My Generation" had had a long and torturous journey from conception to realisation. Musically it originally had been inspired by Mose Allison's "Young Man's Blues": [Excerpt: Mose Allison, "Young Man's Blues"] Townshend had taken that musical mood and tied it to a lyric that was inspired by a trilogy of TV plays, The Generations, by the socialist playwright David Mercer, whose plays were mostly about family disagreements that involved politics and class, as in the case of the first of those plays, where two upwardly-mobile young brothers of very different political views go back to visit their working-class family when their mother is on her deathbed, and are confronted by the differences they have with each other, and with the uneducated father who sacrificed to give them a better life than he had: [Excerpt: Where the Difference Begins] Townshend's original demo for the song was very much in the style of Mose Allison, as the excerpt of it that's been made available on various deluxe reissues of the album shows: [Excerpt: Pete Townshend, "My Generation (demo)"] But Lambert had not been hugely impressed by that demo. Stamp had suggested that Townshend try a heavier guitar riff, which he did, and then Lambert had added the further suggestion that the music would be improved by a few key changes -- Townshend was at first unsure about this, because he already thought he was a bit too influenced by the Kinks, and he regarded Ray Davies as, in his words, "the master of modulation", but eventually he agreed, and decided that the key changes did improve the song. Stamp made one final suggestion after hearing the next demo version of the song. A while earlier, the Who had been one of the many British groups, like the Yardbirds and the Animals, who had backed Sonny Boy Williamson II on his UK tour. Williamson had occasionally done a little bit of a stutter in some of his performances, and Daltrey had picked up on that and started doing it. Townshend had in turn imitated Daltrey's mannerism a couple of times on the demo, and Stamp thought that was something that could be accentuated. Townshend agreed, and reworked the song, inspired by John Lee Hooker's "Stuttering Blues": [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "Stuttering Blues"] The stuttering made all the difference, and it worked on three levels. It reinforced the themes of inarticulacy that run throughout the Who's early work -- their first single, after all, had been called "I Can't Explain", and Townshend talks movingly in his autobiography about talking to teenage fans who felt that "I Can't Explain" had said for them the things they couldn't say th
Sheri is the author of the book “My Birth Dad was a Righteous Brother - My adoption Journey. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
