1980s – Page 46 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

The “Compleat” Beatles 1982

This is what Beatle fans had until the Anthology came out in 1995 and turned a new generation onto the Beatles. I wore out the recorded VHS copy my cousin gave me. It is a two hour documentary of the Beatles. It was narrated by actor Malcolm McDowell (Clockwork Orange) and was well done. I remember watching this and “The Kids Are Alright” in the 80s. It was nice seeing the footage that was not as available as today.

I do remember some small frustrating parts of it. I think it was “Hey Jude” about to begin (David Frost Show) and whoever cut the film placed a George Martin voice over during some of the performance. Remember this was a time when you couldn’t just go on youtube and see performances. Overall it was very well made. I still have a copy of it somewhere. Paul McCartney bought out the negative rights to the film in the 1990s to clear the way for Anthology and below is that story from Wikipedia.

The Compleat Beatles was initially released as a PBS documentary in the United States, and then on VHS, Betamax, CED and Laserdisc that same year on the MGM/UA Home Video label. The 1982 Laserdisc was released in both Analogue and Stereo versions, as well as being released in Japan and England (in PAL format) in 1983.^[3]

The film did very well, and in 1984 Delilah Films and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer arranged for it to be released theatrically in the U.S. by a small distributor named Teleculture. This contributed to its continuing to be a best seller on VHS. Some years later, when Paul McCartney was preparing The Beatles Anthology, he bought the negative and all the rights to the film from Delilah to get it off of the market and clear the way for his production. That, according to the film’s director Patrick Montgomery, is why it is not available on DVD or any newer formats and “probably never will be.”

If you find a copy somewhere buy it…it is worth it. Even if you already have Anthology. The Beatles Anthology is far superior but it does make a good companion piece.

This is from Rolling Stone magazine. It went over the other documentaries of the band. They make a good case for The Compleat Beatles. The link to the page is:

Again nothing has compared to the Anthology but The Compleat Beatles was very well done.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/the-compleat-beatles-10-takeaways-from-great-overlooked-fab-four-doc-121193/

But one Beatles doc you might not know – and its cause has not been helped by not having an authorized DVD release yet – is 1982’s The Compleat Beatles, written by David Silver, directed by Patrick Montgomery, and narrated by Malcolm McDowell, chief droog from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Clocking in at two hours – and titled in the spirit of The Compleat Angler, England’s definitive book on fishing, from 1653 – The Compleat Beatles tells the band’s entire story, from pre-fame days, with checkpoints at each album, right up through the breakup. It’s brimming with keen musical analysis, and a coterie of voices you normally don’t get with a Beatles documentary.

For a long time, in the VHS era, it was a staple of high-school music teachers, starting 35 years ago in the summer and fall of ’82. If you were lucky enough to have had the TV set wheeled in by a Beatles-mad instructor, you know this is a special film.

Here are 10 reasons to check out this overlooked masterwork of the Beatles’ cinematic canon.

1. Writer David Silver had a pitch-perfect understanding of the Beatles’ career arc – and importance in their time and beyond.
“Poets of a generation, heroes of an era,” The Compleat Beatles begins, with Malcolm McDowell reciting Silver’s lines with Shakespearean gravity. This is to be a proper assessment of a band that was so much more than a rock & roll collective, something we’re made to feel immediately. “Like all poets and heroes, they reflected the spirt of their times.” The early sequences in the film present footage of a bygone Liverpool, which looks pretty grim, as if nothing mercurial could emerge from this seaport. When the opening chords of the Beatles’ cover of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” kick in, the film itself seems to pop with possibility, as if infused with Beatle-esque spirit. There was nothing the band couldn’t do, and now there will be nothing this movie can’t do.

2. Gerry Marsden was an ace witness to what the Beatles were doing.
The leader of Gerry and the Pacemakers, perpetual Liverpudlian also-rans, Gerry Marsden was always broad-spirited when it came to talking about the band that so outpaced his own, but you don’t get to hear him very much on film. Here he explains how the Liverpool acts were able to transform skiffle into something far grittier from what he terms the “ackky dacky” sounds of Lonnie Donegan. First he whips out a guitar to show how Donegan would play “Jambalaya,” before remarking “we’d get the record and we’d rock it up a little bit,” entering forth into a cool little demonstration. It’s a great primer for how the Northern bands were able to develop their own sound from what was a reductive, chipper genre in skiffle.

3. Early manager Allan Williams was quite the character.
Williams liked his tall tales, and the Beatles basically screwed the guy over after he hooked them up with Hamburg and they jumped ship for Brian Epstein, but Williams clearly loved reminiscing about his relationship with the band, which would continue on for a while still. (And resurface later when the legality of the Hamburg Star Club tapes was in dispute.) He describes a letter from Howie Casey of Derry and the Seniors begging him not to send “that bum group the Beatles” over to Hamburg, for fear that this would mess up everyone else’s good thing. Williams then goes on to (accurately) describe the style of then-drummer Pete Best as not very clever. Hardly a feeling-sparer, which is probably why the likes of John Lennon liked him – at least for a while.

4. George Harrison’s mom deserves serious props. The Compleat Beatles does an excellent job of synthesizing how the Beatles came together in their pre-fame years (complete with an image of John Lennon’s report card decrying his “insolence”), with a clear, concise chronology, and valuable insight directed towards the subject of George Harrison and his mother. Most Beatles studies focus, in terms of maternal subjects, on Lennon and his mother, Julia, and Paul McCartney and his late mother, Mary, but Mrs. Harrison knew a thing or two about rocking out. “To his classmates, George Harrison was the boy whose father drove the bus they all rode to school,” McDowell states. “His mother sat up with him night after night as he taught himself how to play Buddy Holly songs,” with his inclusion in the Quarrymen assured because “his mother could tolerate their noisy rehearsals.” Way to go, Mrs. H.

5. Reeperbahn mainstay Horst Fascher was one badass MF.
The Compleat Beatlesmakes commendable use of the underrated Star Club material to soundtrack several scenes, and it’s a delight when self-professed Beatles protector Horst Fascher turns up on camera. He made sure that they didn’t get in too much distress on their first Reeperbahn forays, or, as he puts it in the film, “If you are in trouble with some girls who are prostitutes, and you don’t know the girls are prostitutes, and the pimps find out, you can get in a lot of trouble,” which made Horst the guy to seek out to cure your ills and keep your ass intact, given that he was a former boxer who had been booted from competition for killing a sailor in a street fight. Ah, Hamburg.

6. The Litherland Town Hall show from December 27th, 1960, was the watershed gig of the Beatles’ career.The film also features a number of segments with Bill Harry, a friend of the band who was instrumental in spreading the good word about them in Liverpool – even before they deserved it – with his Mersey Beatmagazine, which documented the comings and goings of life on the local beat scene. Harry gives the backstory for the gig that would change the Beatles’ career. “They came back from Hamburg still as an unknown band,” Harry remembers, but he promoted they hell out of them, “because they were close friends of mine.” This got a promoter to book them at Litherland Town Hall, shortly following Christmas in 1960. Allan Williams was there, too. “The moment the Beatles struck up and did their stomping, every kid froze, and then they ran to the stage and started screaming.” That would be the gist of a lot of what was to follow.

7. According to George Martin, “Yesterday” was the crucial pivot point for the band’s sonic development.
Martin is eloquent throughout The Compleat Beatles: erudite, dapper, utterly sure of himself, being interviewed in a recording studio by his console, with no Beatles intruding with misremembered bits of info, something that dogged the Anthology. It’s just Martin, holding a master class in what it was like from his end to work with these guys. “They always wanted to have new ideas and sounds coming through. I found that they were almost more inquisitive than I was. In fact, in the end, it kind of exhausted me. Sometimes they knew what they wanted to do, but more often than not, they didn’t,” coming across like Yoda both frustrated and blown away by the gifts of Luke Skywalker. Regarding “Yesterday”: “It isn’t really a Beatles song,” Martin remembers saying to McCartney, then goes through how he made his pitch for the Beatles to forsake their standard drum-bass-guitar attack, which would become, through various methods, the mode of the future.

8. The doc features the coolest, trippiest, most cost-effective visual evocation of “Tomorrow Never Knows” ever filmed.
McDowell’s narration intones that “Two of John’s songs ‘She Said She Said’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ were the results of his recent experiments with drugs” – fair enough – as a quick tour of Revolver begins, but what follows is brilliant: Using only the cover of the album, director Montgomery, through a series of sweeps, pans and fast dissolves, gives us something of a visual acid trip, as “Tomorrow Never Knows” blasts from the soundtrack. Once you see the effect, it’s hard to disgorge it from your mind each time going forward that you hear that mindblower of a track.

9. The band’s final world tour was pure terror, and no film better evokes it.With a collage of on-the-street interviews, footage from Beatles record burnings and people getting hurt at shows as frantic MCs plead for calm, The Compleat Beatlesprovides a strong sense of why touring had to stop for the band. As the footage unfurls, there’s a low droning figure in the soundtrack, sort of like the protracted hum of the final chord on the Sgt. Pepperalbum stretched out for several minutes. We also get a self-righteous cop in Minneapolis who goes on at some length about how much he hates the Beatles: “As far as Beatle music, I could care about it not one bit personally … one of their group, with the British accent, told us they would never come back to Minneapolis, and I told him that would be too soon for me.”

10. In Martin’s view, the Beatles were fated to become huge. George Martin has a lot of key lines regarding his four upstarts and their career. At one point he states, “Without Brian Epstein, the Beatles wouldn’t have existed,” by which he means that success would not have come to them and they would not be the galvanic entity we all know. But Martin is in downright Socratic mode, though, when he ventures towards a larger explanation for that success. “I think that the great thing about the Beatles was that they were of their time, their timing was right. They didn’t choose it – someone chose it for them. But the timing was right, and they left their mark in history because of it.”

Ronnie Lane: The Passing Show

I didn’t know much about Ronnie Lane when I watched this documentary. It covers his childhood through his tragic death and the period after he left the Faces. He was loved by his peers and a talented musician and songwriter.

Ronnie’s mom had Multiple Sclerosis and Ronnie was in denial about himself until he was diagnosed with it. I didn’t know about the documentary until I ran across it on youtube.

I would recommend this to any music fan.

Ronnie Lane was a Britsh songwriter and bass player. He started with the Small Faces as the bass player and he and Steve Marriott wrote most of bands songs. The Small Faces never toured America so they never really broke out big. They did have 11 top twenty hits in the UK but only one in America with Itchycoo Park charting at #16.

Steve Mariott left the Small Faces in 1968 and Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood joined Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Ian McLagan to start The Faces. The Faces released four albums between 1970-1973… First Step, Long Player, A Nod is as Good as a Wink…to a Blind Horse and Ooh La La. They were one of the top grossing touring bands.

After Rod Stewart’s solo career took off his interest in the band began to wane and in 1973 Ronnie Lane quit. After Ronnie left the Faces, they made no more studio albums.

Ronnie started his own folk-country band named “Slim Chance” and released a surprise hit single “Come On” in 1973 and it went to #11 in the UK. Ronnie had a unique idea of touring. His tour was called “The Passing Show” which toured the countryside with a circus tent and included a ringmaster and clowns.

In 1976 he owed a record company an album and he was in financial trouble. He asked Pete Townshend to help him record an album. The album was called “Rough Mix” and it was a very strong album with great reviews but the record company didn’t promote it and the sales were not great.

During the recording of “Rough Mix” Lane diagnosed with was Multiple Sclerosis. He still toured with Eric Clapton and others afterward and released an album in 1979 called “See Me.”

In 1983 Ronnie called some of his musician friends to do some charity concerts for the Research for Multiple Sclerosis. They were known as the ARMS (Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis) Charity Concerts. Musicians such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and more came out to support Ronnie.

Ronnie Lane died of Pneumonia while in the final stages of Multiple Sclerosis in 1997

How Come

Webb Wilder

In the late eighties, a song came on the radio that I liked…It was called Poolside by Webb Wilder. It was a quirky song by a quirky singer. He looks like he dropped out of a 50’s black and white detective show. By 1991 I was walking through a street fair in Nashville and there he was playing with his band. He had just put out an album called Doodad that got some local and national airplay. His music is a mixture of rock/country/rockabilly/punk and anything else he can throw in.

I’ve seen him a couple of times and he delivers. He did get some MTV and VHI play nationally in 1991-92. He had a top 20 hit with “Tough It Out” in 1992. His other known songs are “Meet Your New Landlord,” Poolside, and “Human Cannonball”. He has a great band called the Beatnecks.

Webb’s quote when asked what kind of music he plays.

“I came to Nashville as kind of a hunch, an educated guess that it would be a good place for me. Rock ‘n’ roll and country have more in common than not. We don’t have the typical Nashville country sound, but we thought we could use that to our advantage. It’s sorta like we’re a roots band for rock ‘n’ roll fans and a rock band for roots fans” he also adds these phrases…“Swampadelic”, “Service-station attendant music”, “Uneasy listening”, “Psychobilly”

Meet Your New Landlord by Webb.

Tough It Out

Glyn Johns: Sound Man

I read this book not knowing what to expect but I did know of Glyn Johns… so many of my albums had his name on it…A name that is known throughout the music industry as a great recording engineer, producer, and mixer. Glyn has worked with huge rock groups such as The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Who, Small Faces, Led Zeppelin, The Band and more.

Glyn is a no-nonsense guy and unlike most of the autobiographies of musicians in that era, he never did drugs and always did his job well. Glyn wanted to be a singer and did make a few records, he covered Rolling Stones Lady Jane, but he stuck with engineering and gradually became a producer.

Back when Glyn started in the early sixties engineers did not graduate to producing. It was very much a British class system in the music industry. He became the first freelance engineer in the industry because of the clients he attracted. He was one of the first to record the Stones and he began a relationship with them that lasted for years. He knew the Stones because he was really good friends with Ian Stewart and even shared a flat with him.

The Beatles called him to engineer Let It Be and he also helped engineer some of Abbey Road. He worked on Led Zeppelin’s first album. He produced Steve Miller’s first albums and also the first couple of Eagles albums.

This book will be very interesting to classic rock fans. Many anecdotes about the Stones, Beatles, Who and others. Glyn minces no words and has a reputation for saying what is on his mind. He isn’t too technical about recording in the book, he keeps it at a fast enjoyable pace.

He worked on some of the most classic albums ever. The Stones 60’s albums and the classic stretch of albums the Stones released until Black and Blue. He worked on Who’s Next, Quadrophenia, Led Zeppelin, A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse, Who Are You, Slowhand, just to name a few.

One interesting thing that happened in 1969. Glyn met Bob Dylan and Dylan told Johns that he would like to make an album with the Beatles and Stones. Glyn went back to England very excited and told Keith Richards and George Harrison and they were all for it. Ringo, Charlie, and Bill said they would do it. John didn’t say no but Mick and Paul said absolutely not…leaves you to wonder what it would have sounded like…

At the bottom of the page, I copied his discography from Wikipedia…it is incredible.

Excerpt from Sound Man about the Stones.

While Keith, Charlie, and Bill drove the band rhythmically, Mick’s energy and intellect drove everything else. I was constantly amazed by his skill as a songwriter and by the extraordinary energy he managed to summon for his vocal performances in the studio.
Both Mick and Keith would take an active part in the mixing process and drove me nuts making me mix a track for hours when I felt I had got it in the first couple of passes. We certainly did not always agree. I guess it would have been even more boring if we had. There were a couple of occasions when finally putting the album together I would play back earlier mixes that I had done on my own, to compare with the one they had chosen after hours of farting around, and in the cold light of day they would agree that mine were better. Equally, there were many occasions when they insisted on me changing a mix quite drastically from the way I heard it, with great effect.
Working with the Stones for all those years certainly had some amazing moments and I am proud to have been associated with them during a period of time when their music was so influential. However, Charlie summed it up perfectly when asked in a recent interview his experience of being in the band for fifty years. He replied, “Ten years of working and forty years of hanging around.”

Excerpt about The Beatles Let It Be

I had been retained originally as an engineer and was quite happy with that, even when I realized that George Martin was not producing. He did come to Twickenham a couple of times to check us out. He had arranged for the gear to be loaned for the recording at Savile Row and turned up on the day we did the filming on the roof, but had nothing to do with the production of the music. At the outset I was quite embarrassed when I realized he was not going to be involved. A couple of days into the project I asked Paul where George Martin was, only to be told that they had decided not to use him. By the time we moved to Savile Row, George, realizing I was in an awkward position, was kind enough to take me to lunch in order to put my mind at rest, saying I was doing a great job, everything was fine, and I was not stepping on his toes in any way. What a gentleman he is.
Having delivered the mixed master of my version of Let It Be, I approached each member of the band separately, asking if I could have a production credit on the album when it was released. I made it quite clear that I was only asking for that and not a royalty. Paul, George, and Ringo had no objection to my request but John was suspicious and could not understand why I was not asking for a royalty. I explained that I felt, because of their stature, the sales of the album would not be affected by my involvement one way or another, so a credit would be a fair settlement for what I had done, as by association it could only be positive for my career in the future. I never got an answer from John.
As it turned out, none of this mattered, as in the end, after the group broke up, John gave the tapes to Phil Spector, who puked all over them, turning the album into the most syrupy load of bullshit I have ever heard. My master tape, perhaps quite rightly, ended up on a shelf in the tape store at EMI. At least my version of the single of “Get Back”/“Don’t Let Me Down” had been released in April 1969.

Below is Glyn’s discography…what a body of work.

Artist	Year	Album	Producer	Engineer	Mixing
Georgie Fame	1964	Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo
The Rolling Stones	1965	December’s Children		co-eng.	co-mix.
The Pretty Things	1965	Get the Picture?	co-prod.
The Rolling Stones	1965	Out of Our Heads		co-eng.	co-mix.
The Rolling Stones	1966	Aftermath		co-eng.	co-mix.
The Rolling Stones	1966	Got Live if You Want It!
Chris Farlowe	1966	The Art of Chris Farlowe
The Small Faces	1966	Small Faces (Decca)
Chris Farlowe	1966	14 Things to Think About
Twice as Much	1966	Own Up
The Small Faces	1967	From the Beginning
Rolling Stones	1967	Between the Buttons
The Small Faces	1967	Small Faces (Immediate)
The Rolling Stones	1967	Flowers		co-eng.	co-mix.
The Rolling Stones	1967	Their Satanic Majesties Request
Johnny Hallyday	1967	San Francisco (EP)
The Rolling Stones	1968	Beggars Banquet
The Steve Miller Band	1968	Children of the Future
Twice as Much	1968	That’s All
The Pentangle	1968	The Pentangle
The Move	1968	Something Else from the Move
Spooky Tooth	1968	It’s All About
The Small Faces	1968	Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
The Steve Miller Band	1968	Sailor
Gerry Temple	1968	Burn Up!
Procol Harum	1968	Shine on Brightly
The Move	1968	The Move
Easybeats	1968	Vigil
Traffic	1968	Traffic
Billy Nichols	1968	Would You Believe
The Steve Miller Band	1969	Brave New World
Family	1969	Family Entertainment
The End	1969	Introspection
The Beatles	1969	Abbey Road
Joe Cocker	1969	Joe Cocker!
Johnny Hallyday	1969	Johnny Hallyday
Led Zeppelin	1969	Led Zeppelin
The Rolling Stones	1969	Let it Bleed
The Steve Miller Band	1969	Your Saving Grace
Lambert and Nuttycombe	1970	At Home
Bob Dylan	1970	Self Portrait		co-eng.
The Rolling Stones	1970	Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!
Humble Pie	1970	Humble Pie
Philamore Lincoln	1970	The North Wind Blew South
Billy Preston	1970	That’s the Way God Planned It
Leon Russell	1970	Leon Russell
The Beatles	1970	Let it Be
Joe Cocker	1970	Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Delaney & Bonnie & Friends	1970	On Tour with Eric Clapton
The Move	1970	Shazam
The Band	1970	Stage Fright		co-eng.
Spooky Tooth	1970	The Last Puff
McGuinness Flint	1970	McGuinness Flint
The Faces	1971	A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse
Boz Scaggs	1971	Boz Scaggs & Band
Ben Sidran	1971	Feel Your Groove
McGuinness Flint	1971	Happy Birthday, Ruthie Baby
Jesse Ed Davis	1971	¡Jesse Davis!
Leon Russell	1971	Leon Russell and the Shelter People
Boz Scaggs	1971	Moments
Rita Coolidge	1971	Nice Feelin’
Howlin’ Wolf	1971	The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions
Humble Pie	1971	Rock On
Graham Nash	1971	Songs for Beginners
The Rolling Stones	1971	Sticky Fingers		co-eng.	co-mix.
Spooky Tooth	1971	Tobacco Road
The Who	1971	Who’s Next	co-prod.
Eagles	1972	Eagles
The Rolling Stones	1972	Exile on Main St.		co-eng.	co-mix.
Rita Coolidge	1972	The Lady’s Not for Sale
Neil Young	1972	Harvest		co-eng.
Nicky Hopkins, Ry Cooder, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts	1972	Jamming with Edward
Chris Jagger	1973	Chris Jagger
Eagles	1973	Desperado
Eric Clapton	1973	Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert
The Faces	1973	Ooh La La
The Who	1973	Quadrophenia	co-prod.	co-eng.
Ric Grech	1973	The Last Five Years
Paul McCartney and Wings	1973	Red Rose Speedway		co-eng.
Gallagher & Lyle	1973	Seeds
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils	1973	The Ozark Mountain Daredevils	co-prod.
Gallagher & Lyle	1973	Willie and the Lapdog
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils	1974	It’ll Shine When It Shines	co-prod.
The Rolling Stones	1974	It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll
Eagles	1974	On the Border	co-prod.	co-eng.
Gallagher & Lyle	1974	The Last Cowboy
Georgie Fame	1974	Georgie Fame
Fairport Convention	1975	Rising for the Moon
The Who	1975	The Who by Numbers
Andy Fairweather Low	1976	Be Bop ‘n’ Holla
Fools Gold	1976	Fools Gold
Joan Armatrading	1976	Joan Armatrading
Ron Wood & Ronnie Lane	1976	Mahoney’s Last Stand
The Rolling Stones	1976	Black and Blue		co-eng.
Buckacre	1976	Moring Comes
The Bernie Leadon—Michael Georgiades Band	1977	Natural Progressions
Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane	1977	Rough Mix
Joan Armatrading	1977	Show Some Emotion
Eric Clapton	1977	Slowhand
Eric Clapton	1977	Backless
Craig Nuttycombe	1977	It’s Just a Lifetime
Joan Armatrading	1978	To the Limit
Paul Kennerly and various Artists	1978	White Mansions
The Who	1978	Who Are You	co-prod	co-eng.
Mark Benno	1979	Lost in Austin
Joan Armatrading	1979	Steppin’ Out
Live Wire (band)	1979	Pick it UP
Lazy Racer	1980	Formula II
Tim Renwick	1980	Tim Renwick
Paul Kennerly	1980	Legend of Jessie James
Danny Joe Brown	1981	Danny Joe Brown and the Danny Joe Brown Band
Jools Holland	1981	Jools Holland and His Millionaires
Midnight Oil	1981	Place Without a Postcard
Nine Below Zero	1981	Don’t Point Your Finger
Chris de Burgh	1981	Best Moves
The Clash	1982	Combat Rock
The Who	1982	It’s Hard
Local Boys	1983	Moments of Madness
Various artists	1984	ARMS Concert
Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Albert Lee,	1984	No Introduction Necessary
Téléphone	1984	Un Autre Monde
Bob Dylan	1984	Real Live
Immaculate Fools	1985	Hearts of Fortune
Téléphone	1986	Le Live
Roaring Boys	1986	Roaring Boys
The Big Dish	1986	Swimmer
New Model Army	1986	The Ghost of Cain
Joolz	1987	Hex
Spooky Tooth	1987	Spooky Tooth
Helen Watson	1987	Blue Slipper
Labi Siffre	1987	(Something Inside) So Strong
John Hiatt	1988	Slow Turning
Nancy Griffith	1989	Storms
Green on Red	1989	This Time Around (Green on Red album)
John Hiatt	1990	Stolen Moments
Summerhill	1990	West of Here
Del Shannon	1991	The Liberty Years
Energy Orchard	1992	Stop the Machine
Ethan Johns	1992	Independent Years
David Crosby	1993	Thousand Roads
Crosby, Stills, & Nash	1994	After the Storm
The Subdudes	1994	Annunciation
Jackopierce	1995	Bringing on the Weather
Bruce Cockburn	1994	Dart to the Heart
Joe Satriani	1995	Joe Satriani
The Beatles	1996	Anthology 3		co-eng.
Eric Clapton	1996	Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies
The Rolling Stones and various artists	1996	The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus
Warm Jets	1997	Future Signs
Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings	1998	Struttin’ Our Stuff
Linda Ronstadt	1998	We Ran
Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings	1999	Anyway the Wind Blows
Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt	1999	Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions
Various artists	1999	Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons
John Hiatt and various artists	20o2	Disney’s The Country Bears	musical dir.
Bruce Cockburn	2005	Speechless
Andy Fairweather Low	2006	Sweet Soulful Music
The Clash	2008	Live at Shea Stadium
Ian McLagan & the Bump Band	2008	Never Say Never			+ mastering
Ryan Adams	2011	Ashes & Fire
Ben Waters	2011	Boogie 4 Stu: A Tribute to Ian Stewart
The Rolling Stones	2012	Charlie is My Darling: Ireland 1965
The Staves	2012	Dead & Born & Grown Up & Live	co-prod.
The Rolling Stones	2012	GRRR!
Band of Horses	2012	Mirage Rock
Ethan Johns	2012	If Not Now Then When?
Aaron Neville	2013	My True Story
Patty Griffin	2013	Silver Bell
Stephen Stills	2013	Carry On	co-prod.	co-eng.	co-mix
Bob Dylan	2013	Another Self Portrait (1969-1971: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10)		co-eng.
Benmont Tench	2014	You Should Be So Lucky
Ian McLagan & the Bump Band	2014	United States
Joe Satriani	2014	The Complete Studio Recordings
Bruce Cockburn	2014	Rumours of Glory (True North)
David Bowie	2014	Nothing Has Changed		co-eng.
The Small Faces	2014	Here Come the Nice: The Immediate Years 1967-1969
The Small Faces	20..	Greatest Hits: The Immediate Years 1967-1969
The Faces	2015	You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything: 1970-1975
Various artists	2015	Truckers, Kickers, Cowboys Angels: The Blissed-Out Birth of Country-Rock , Vol. 7: 1974
Various artists	2015	Songs: The Very Best of Acoustic – The Collection	co-prod.
The Rolling Stones	2015	From the Vault: The Marquee Club Live in 1971
Paul McCartney	2016	Pure McCartney
Eric Clapton	2016	I Still Do
Eagles	2017	Their Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2
Jesse Ed Davis	2017	Red Dirt Boogie: The Atco Recordings 1970-1972

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles

One of the most self-deprecating books I’ve ever read. Howard Kaylan goes through his career with the Turtles who never really took themselves too seriously. They wanted to be the American Beatles…just like every other band at the time but did it with a sense of humor. They were a singles band that had quite a number of top 40 hits. According to Howard, they lucked into most of it. They only wrote a couple of their hits.

Their hits included “Happy Together” #1, “It Aint Me Babe” # 8, “She’d Rather Be With Me” #3, Eleanor #6, “You Showed Me” #6 and many more.

After the Turtles broke up, he and Mark Volman went by the name “Flo and Eddie,” for legal reasons and made a career of unusual rock-comedy albums and developed a following. They immediately began playing with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and was there when Frank was pushed off the stage at the Rainbow. They were also in the Zappa movie 200 Motels.

After Zappa, they worked as a duo and released a lot of albums for many different labels. They were more known for their live performances and they were a good opening act. Howard and Mark were columnists, radio hosts, session backup singers, talk show hosts, actors, composers, and anything else to make ends meet. They did the background vocals on Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen.

Howard and Mark wrote the Strawberry Shortcake theme and they wrote music for the Care Bears.

Another rock autobiography…big surprise! But unlike some of the others…Howard wasn’t rich and could not live off of royalties or constant touring like many of the other rock stars that have spilled it all recently. After the breakup, The Turtles could not even tour as the Turtles until later on because of their label. They were broke many times but opportunities would pop up like being radio hosts and would help them make it to the next big thing.

Now they tour on the Happy Together tour with other artists and have been doing it since the eighties off and on.

They ended up owning their name and the master recordings from the 1960s because the label went broke and they were smart enough to get the rights… Howard and Mark were the first to sue rap artists for sampling their material without paying for it. They won and now everyone has to pay to sample anything from another artist. The Turtles were the first big artists with a catalog to sign with Rhino Record and helped the label to take off.

It may be the funniest of all the recent biographies. He ran into a lot of famous people and even made a movie out of meeting the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix in 1967 at the Speakeasy in London called “My Dinner With Jimi.”

It is a funny book with a lot of laughs but you have to scratch your head while reading about Howard making the same mistakes over and over. For Howard, it was drugs, women, marriage, drugs, a girlfriend, divorce, marriage and more drugs…maybe it’s not that much different from the richer stars after all.

I was never a big Turtle fan. I have an account with Audible and this was recommended. Overall I did enjoy it.

Below is an excerpt from the book about meeting The Beatles in 1967 and John Lennon being vicious toward Turtle rhythm guitar player Jim Tucker… Today Jim Tucker denies this ever happened. He said that John didn’t even say a word to any of them so who knows?

Paul said, “I really enjoyed your record.” And then, to me, “Great voice, man. Nice set of pipes.” I was bursting.
Then Lennon. “Yeah, that’s a lovely bit of Flower Power in the middle there with those ba-ba-bas.” And then all three of them sang the ba-ba-bas. And we were all beside ourselves with swollen pride.
“So, where did you learn to sing?” Paul asked me.
“High school choir, I guess. Then we formed the band and started playing local clubs, you know, a little bit of R&B stuff—”
“What kind of R&B stuff.”
“Oh, you know, ‘Money,’ ‘What’d I Say,’ ‘Justine’…”
“‘Justine’ by Don and Dewey? I love that song.”
And then Paul began to sing the Crossfires’ trademark soul song. I joined in on the answers and the chorus. Ringo played spoons on the tabletop while the customers watched and Lennon looked on as if bored to death. When we were done, there was a smattering of applause and Paul said, “That was great. I’d love to do that with my band some day. You sing great.”
“Oh my God, thank you,” I gushed.
“Still, it is a bit sappy on your record there when you sing ‘invest a dime’ with that cry in your voice. A bit light in the loafers, if you ask me.”

“What?” Yeah, I became defensive all right. “We’re just trying to be the American version of you!”
“Touché” said McCartney.
“Well, that’s not bloody likely, is it?” Lennon piped in. His eyes skipped from Turtle to Turtle, checking us out for the first time. “And what do you call that guy over there?” John pointed at Tucko, who was cowering in his wrinkled brown suit, thrilled just to be noticed.
“That’s Jim Tucker, our rhythm guitar player “
“Bad suit, son. And an even worse haircut. Did you tell your barber to give you a Beatle cut? It’s awful, man. You give rhythm players a bad name.”
Tucko, oblivious, stumbled for words. “You’re like a god to me, man. You guys changed my life.”
Much to his credit, Pons tried, in vain, to turn the conversation around. “We just heard Sergeant Pepper and I’ve got to thank you on behalf of the entire world for the greatest album of all time!”
Paul graciously nodded thanks and toasted us with his beverage. But John was not to be denied.
“Tucko, is it? I could have a lot of fun with that name. Let’s see… Tucko Tucko, bo bucko, banana fanna fo fucko…”
Tucker winced and Lennon saw the weakness and went in for the kill.
“There was a boy named Tucko, a very stupid fellow—”
Finally, Jim realized that he was the butt of Lennon’s abuse and could hold back no longer.
“What is your problem, man? You’re supposed to be the Beatles! I fuckin’ loved you guys and you turn out to be assholes.”
Lennon feigned shock and recoiled at the words.
“Tsk, tsk … such language. What would your mum say?”
“She’d say you were a dick, that’s what! Man, was I wrong. You’re a total shit! I’m sorry I ever met you!”
Lennon shook his head slowly, savoring every syllable. “You never did, son. You never did.”
And with that, Jim Tucker walked away from the table, up the stairs, and into a cab. And, following the few British shows we had lined up, Jim flew home and never played music again. The Turtles would continue on as a five-piece band from that time forward. The other guys followed Jim upstairs, and our goodbyes were a lot sadder than our hellos had been.

Roger McGuinn

Those glasses and Rickenbacker equals the sixties rock band. One of my favorite guitar players ever. I loved the jangling 12 string Rickenbacker that McGuinn is famous for… Roger heard George Harrison use one and then McGuinn took it to a new level in songs like Eight Miles High.

I was lucky to see him solo in 1987. He will not rip into a Hendrix solo but the sound he gets out of his 12 string Rickenbacker is great. On the songs, he did only on his 12-string acoustic he makes them sound full without a band.

His sound is the sound of the mid-sixties. He was a founder of the Byrds and was with them through all of their incarnations. The jangly pop, country rock, and the more rock music jamming faze in the early seventies.

The Byrds started in 1964 and lasted until 1973. McGuinn was the only member to remain with the band the entire run. Personally, I like all of the phases of the band. The last phase is probably the least well known but with Clarence White playing guitar with his B-Bender was fantastic. Songs like “Lover of the Bayou,”” Ballad of Easy Rider,” and “Chestnut Mare” are memorable.

McGuinn also collaborated with Bob Dylan on the soundtrack “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” and joined Bob in the mid-seventies on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

The Byrds influenced many artists like Elvis Costello, The La’s, Wilco, REM, and The Jayhawks but the one I think of the most is Tom Petty. Tom helped revive the jangly sound in the seventies with American Girl which sounded very close to McGuinn. This is Roger talking in 2014:

“When I heard ‘American Girl’ for the first time I said, ‘when did I record that?’ I was kidding but the vocal style sounded just like me and then there was the Rickenbacker guitar, which I used. The vocal inflections were just like mine. I was told that a guy from Florida named Tom Petty wrote and sings the song, and I said that I had to meet him.

Roger invited Tom to open up for him in 1976 and they were friends after that. Roger released an album in 1991 titled “Back To Rio” with help from Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, and others.

His solo career was never too successful until 1989 with a country hit “You Aint Going Nowhere” that made it to number 6 in the Country Charts. That was ironic after being told by Nashville disc Jockey Ralph Emery in 1968 that the song wasn’t country when the Byrds covered it. In 1991 he had his most commercial album “Back To Rio” that made it to #44 on the Billboard Charts and two singles “King of the Hill”#2 and “Someone To Love”#12.

Roger, Chris Hillman, Marty Stuart are currently doing a small tour for the 50th anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo…I see the Ryman on there and I see me there.

The Byrds’ Co-Founders Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman Announce ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’ 50th Anniversary Tour

Loyal Roadies

Roadies have always been an important part of a band. Occasionally some will be rise above and become well known and some will end up as an executive in the band’s organization. Some will burn out like their bosses and below are a few famous roadies.

Neil Aspinall – Beatles

The first roadie the Beatles employed. He started to help the Beatles out by driving their van from gig to gig. He was soon their road manager and personal assistant. He ended up being the Chief Executive of The Beatles company Apple Corps until 2007. He passed away in 2008.

He was a trained accountant and knew George and Paul when they were kids. He was well trusted by all members. He stayed neutral in all of the arguments while he continued to run a prosperous Apple Corps to the end.

Mal Evans – Beatles

He was hired to help out Neil Aspinall as a roadie. Mal became their personal assistant after they stopped touring. After the Beatles broke up he did some producing…he produced the Badfinger’s single “No Matter What”. He also produced Keith Moon’s first album “Two Sides of the Moon” but was replaced midway through.

In the seventies, he still did work for some of the Beatles accompanying them on trips and odds and ends. He then separated from his wife Lil and after that, he started to have bad depression. While depressed and reportedly using downers, he was shot by LAPD while holding an air rifle and refusing to put it down. He was thought highly of by all the Beatles…See George’s quote below.

George Harrison on Mal Evans

, “Mal loved his job, he was brilliant, and I often regret that he got killed. Right to this day, I keep thinking, ‘Mal, where are you?’ If only he was out there now. He was such good fun, but he was also very helpful: he could do everything…He was one of those people who loved what he was doing and didn’t have any problem about service. Everybody serves somebody in one way or another, but some people don’t like the idea. Mal had no problem with it. He was very humble, but not without dignity; it was not belittling for him to do what we wanted, so he was perfect for us because that was what we needed.”

Red Dog – Allman Brothers

Duane Allman befriended Joe Campbell (Red Dog) a Vietnam vet and Red Dog stayed with the Allman Brothers for three decades. He gave the band his disability checks to help them stay afloat at the beginning. He soon became a trusted member of the team. His picture with all the roadies is on the back cover of the At Fillmore East album.

Here is a quote from Cameron Crowe on Red Dog when he published his book.

“I’ll admit it right now. I am a big fan of Red Dog, and have been even before he allowed me to interview him back in 1973 for a story in Rolling Stone. Hell, he was already legendary back then. But now I just have to say that I am extremely jealous of the Great Dog, because I’ve just finished reading A Book of Tails. True rock, the kind that lasts forever, is about honesty and humor and love and chasing the elusive buzz of greatness.

Ramrod – Grateful Dead

Lawrence Shurtliff (Ramrod) joined on the Grateful Dead in 1967 and in the seventies became the President of the Grateful Dead board of directors until Garcia’s death in 1995.

Bob Weir on Ramrod

“When he did join up, it was like he had always been there. I won’t say he was the missing piece, because I don’t think he was missing. He just wasn’t there. But then he was there. And he always will be. He was a huge part of what the Grateful Dead was about.”

Deal by Bill Kreutzmann

The book is called Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead.

This book is what you would imagine from the drummer (one of them) of the Grateful Dead. Music, drugs, women, drugs, travels, guns, drugs, death, drink and more drugs. Actually, I really enjoyed the book. He is very open and very honest about his actions good and bad.

He is not a shy guy whatsoever. He shares his feelings about any subject that comes up. He does go into the music and how he feels about his bandmates. Most are positive but he does not hold back.

He covers the complete career of the band. He openly said he was very happy being the only drummer of the band when Mickey Hart quit and didn’t like it one bit when Mickey rejoined the band…at first anyway.

He goes into his relationship with Jerry Garcia. He also admits the guilt the band share in not trying to help Garcia more…but Jerry was his own man. He writes about the so-called keyboard player curse the band had in their career.

He tells us about the 72 European tour, shows they played near the pyramids and the Festival Express. I will say this…this band had fun. They were like a family and treated their employees well for the most part.

The only thing that I wish he would have shared more about was Pigpen. The band was apparently in the dark about how bad Pigpen was doing before he died. Maybe he didn’t share it with them.

I learned a lot about the Dead that I didn’t know about.

The book keeps going at a good pace. With the Dead’s long career he never lacks for stories. A lot of rock autobiographies are coming out and again this one takes the template that Keith Richards made with his book “Life” and fills it in.

Bill Kreutzmann from Deal about Garcia and heroin:

I’m pretty sure Jerry wasn’t into heroin during the making of Garcia; as far I know, he hadn’t even discovered it yet. But when he did, during subsequent Grateful Dead albums, it could become difficult just to get him to show up, unfortunately. That got to be really old, really fast, for all of us. We wanted to play music with him so badly that we’d put up with it, which—in hindsight—was crazy. Nobody else in the band would’ve been able to get away with it; at least, not to the extent that he did. But Jerry Garcia was the exception.
It also opens up a moral question that we can talk about now, but we can never truly answer, since he’s not with us. There was a certain feeling, toward the end, that Jerry was using the Grateful Dead to finance his drug habit. That’s a sad thought. I don’t think he ever intended it to be that way or for it to get to that point or to hurt anyone. He was as pure of a musician as they come. But heroin addiction will change a person in ways that are tragic and discouraging.

Are You Being Served?

A fun British sitcom that aired from 1972-1985. This comedy is not subtle…it’s obvious and in the open.

The show is about a department store called Grace Bros. owned by the elderly Grace brothers. It is operated with the British class system. The show highlighted the Menswear and Womenswear departments and also the Floor Walker the pretentious Captain Peacock. It also featured the incompetent floor manager…Mr. Rumbold.

The Women’s department was run by Miss Slocombe. A lady that is known for her hair color changing every day and the love of her pussy cat…they get a lot of mileage out of that. She tries to elevate herself over the working class but that is just what she is…Her assistant is the young very pretty Miss Brahms who talks with a cockney accent and is proud of being thought of as working class.

The head of the Men’s department is Mr. Granger who is older and near retirement and seems to be in a sour mood most of the time. Two more men work in the department… The junior in the department is Mr. Lucas who is always late and flirting with Miss Brahms, never has money and always has to wait his turn before he can serve anyone and make money because the other two men have seniority, The other man is Mr. Humphries…probably the most popular character of the show. He hints at being gay every episode but never comes out and says it…this is really played up…remember it is the 70s. The writers go for the obvious jokes many times but it’s still funny.

The Grace brothers owned the store and “Young” Mr. Grace was in fact not young at all. He was stingy and he always had a very young attractive girl by his side.

The maintenance guy Mr. Mash and Mr. Harmon were great. They would make the devices to advertise the merchandise. Sometimes the machine they made would blow up or show some naughty things to the customers. They were union and they thumbed their nose at the everyone.

Mix these personalities and you got a funny show. The purpose of the sitcom basically was to expose the class system and to parody it.

The customers that shopped at Grace Bros department store usually left disappointed. The phrases I remember the most are “Are you free?” and while having a customer try on pants that obviously doesn’t fit…You would hear an employee say don’t worry ”They’ll ride up with wear.”

Some of the cast left and past away during the run of the show. They were replaced with different characters and the show went on. When the show ended in 1985 a spin-off was made called Grace and Favour.

The core cast was strong and the show was very good until the start of the 80’s and like most shows, they were reaching more for stories and repeating themselves. In 1979 when Trevor Bannister who played Mr. Lucas left it started to go down.

The sitcom had 69 episodes and a movie in 1977… well, you can say 70 episodes because in 2016 a new episode was made with different actors playing the same characters.

I wouldn’t compare this to Fawlty Towers because Fawlty Towers was better written… but this is a fun sitcom nonetheless. I remember it when I was young being broadcast on PBS. It is worth a watch if you like British humor.

The cast was

Mollie Sugden – Miss Slocombe

Frank Thornton – Mr. Peacock

John Inman – Mr. Humphries

Wendy Richard – Miss Brahms

Nicholas Smith – Mr. Rumbold

Trevor Bannister – Mr. Lucas

Arthur Brough – Mr. Grainger

Harold Bennett – Young Mr. Grace

Larry Martyn – Mr. Mash

Arthur English – Mr. Harmon

James Hayter – Mr. Tebbs

Alfie Bass – Mr. Goldberg

Mike Berry – Mr. Spooner

Kenneth Waller – Old Mr. Grace

Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life

This is Graham Nash’s autobiography.

Graham narrates the audible version and does a good job weaving through his personal history. He starts with his blue-collar family and how Alan Clarke and he knew each other since school and formed The Hollies. The most interesting part to me was the mid-sixties era living in swinging London.

He wrote about his friendship with the Beatles and him getting an advance tape of Sgt Pepper from Brian Epstein. He had a great hi-fi system at his flat and he would show it off to anyone that came over. When the Turtles came over from America they were blown away by Sgt Peppers at top volume. He went on about how Sgt Peppers changed everything and it would eventually lead him to leave the Hollies.

Graham describes being a pop star in the mid-sixties in London. Shouldn’t we all live that life? Paul McCartney calls him up and invites him over to the All You Need Is Love session for the “Our World” program to be broadcast to millions.

He talks about how his friendship with Mama Cass led to meeting David Crosby and eventually CSN being born. Graham covers the CSNY period and his romantic relationships including Joni Mitchell. He does cover the drama associated with CSNY and the troubled David Crosby. What kind of Rockstar bio would it be without drugs… Graham did his share and Crosby did our share. Graham handled them better than some.

Graham would write simple songs compared to Crosby, Stills, and Young but many times his songs would be the hits that drove some of the later albums…songs like “Just a Song Before I Go” and “Wasted on the Way.”

One thing I can say is he didn’t hold back or pull punches…but he still comes off as a really nice guy but it is his book.

This book helped sever his relationship with Crosby…for now anyway but Nash stressed through the book how much he cared for Crosby.

I would recommend this book to not only Hollies and CSNY fans but fans of 60’s and 70’s music and culture. After reading this I listened to more Hollies songs and I really began to appreciate their psychedelic period with songs like King Midas in Reverse.

The Traveling Wilburys

In the eighties, I made no secret of my dislike for a lot of music during that period. When I heard The Traveling Wilburys in 1988 it was like an oasis in the desert. A band that contained George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty. I went out and bought the album Traveling Wilburys Volume 1 and wore it out. There is not a song on that album that I didn’t like.

George Harrison started the group with Jeff Lynne and eventually, they picked up Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty…not a bad choice of additions. Just hearing Bob Dylan sing lines like “You don’t need no wax job, you’re smooth enough for me If you need your oil changed, I’ll do it for you free” was the worth the price of the album.

Handle with Care was the first single and it went to #2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs charts. I was surprised when I researched the other charting songs of The Wilburys first album… End of the Line went to #2 on Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs, “Last Night” #5, “Heading For The Light” #7 “Inside Out” #16

Tweeter and the Monkey Man is my favorite song off of that album. Bob taking playful jabs at Bruce Springsteen. The song reminded me of some of his earlier work.

Hearing Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan singing together was something I never thought I would ever hear. Roy’s voice was magnificent as always and it is sad that he died two months after the album’s release.

On the second album, Vol 3 of course… the songs as a whole were not as strong but I still like the album. They did miss Roy’s vocals and presence. Again Dylan sang my favorite song on the album with “If You Belonged To Me” with Dylan sounding vulnerable. She’s My Baby went to #2 and The Wilbury Twist got some radio play but nothing like Handle With Care.

They also recorded two other songs Runaway and Nobody’s Child which was recorded for a benefit album. They did an excellent job of Nobody’s Child.

This helped revive the career of Orbison…unfortunately he didn’t get to enjoy the success of his solo album and hit “You Got It.”

Two bright spots in the late eighties for me was The Traveling Wilburys and Keith Richard’s solo album Talk Is Cheap.

I really wish older rockers would try to do this sort of thing now. Let’s say Fogerty, McCartney, Young, Richards, and throw in a younger David Grohl…or fill in your own names…No it wouldn’t be the same but I would like to hear the results.

An American Werewolf In London 1981

I always come back to this movie. This is a horror-comedy movie that works. It’s not a parody. It’s a horror movie that happens to have funny moments.

Two Americans (David and Jack) are traveling through Europe. They go to a pub (The Slaughtered Lamb) and it’s strongly hinted for them to stick to the main roads on their way out by the unfriendly locals…well guess what? They don’t and soon Jack is ripped to shreds and David is badly scratched by a werewolf. David wakes up in a hospital with Nurse Alex Price taking care of him. That is the nurse I would want.

David starts having horrific nightmares. In the hospital, Jack reappears to David as a decomposing corpse. He keeps telling David that he should kill himself because David will turn into a werewolf and kill others. David goes home with Alex and Jack keeps reappearing and eventually, David does turn into a werewolf.

He ends up killing bystanders as the werewolf and now Jack comes back and is decomposed more and this time brings the new kills to meet David.

Jack cares about David and hates the situation but he will be left to wander like this unless the werewolf curse is broken…

When the movie came out on VHS I bought it. It was one of the first movies I bought on DVD. It is very effective as a horror movie with comedy. That can be a hard thing to do without it becoming an outright parody.

John Landis had just finished The Blues Brothers and Animal House when he directed this. In two years he would hit again with Trading Places. Then came the Twilight Zone with the Vic Morrow tragedy. After that Landis’s career was damaged.

Rick Baker did the special effects for this movie. The transformation is great and the wolf is effective. The effects look good today.

The music is great. Bad Moon Rising, Blue Moon, and Moondance are featured.

The cast is David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Augguter, and Rick Baker makeup effects.

If you like horror movies you should like this. I would not recommend the sequel An American Werewolf in Paris…that one doesn’t stack up against the original.

Supposedly Max Landis, John’s son is planning to remake this movie. Personally, I don’t think it needs it. It’s hard to remake a classic.

Waging Heavy Peace

An Autobiography by Neil Young. Neil is one of my favorite artists. He tells some history about Buffalo Springfield and CSNY and also the Mynah Birds with Rick James. Neil Young and Rick James in a band together…its just hard for me to imagine that.

He gets into how he started his music career with his first band and how he loves Crazy Horse.

Now all of these stories are great but… this is during the period he came up with PONO music… a high-end music player that plays music with much more quality than CDs or mp3s. This venture eventually failed years later but he is very excited about it in the book. That is great but sometimes it seems forced. I honestly don’t think he was plugging PONO…I think he was just that excited about it. His enthusiasm is unquestionable.

Cars…the man loves cars. I admire that in him but again he talks A LOT about electric cars and hybrids. Then he combines the two…PONO music systems being installed into…fuel efficient cars. I will admit it is interesting and you get to see what makes the man tick.

Some of it reads like a diary because that is the way he wrote a lot of it. He will say he is going to Hawaii and then a page or two later…he will tell you he made it there. It’s like being in conversation with someone who will just switch subjects on a whim. Neil tends to ramble.

He is part owner in Lionel Trains and you can feel his love of trains coming through the pages. He also talks about his quadriplegic son and the Lionel Train control he designed for his son to operate the trains. That I found really heart touching. He really tries to connect with his son and that is what the album Trans is all about.

He goes through his drug and drinking problems, medical problems, marriage problems, and every single car or bus he has had in his life…which again he just loves any kind of vehicle.

The disappointment for me was Neil didn’t talk enough about the music. Yes, you will learn more about Neil Young. I did learn many things about him that I didn’t know. The problem is he spreads the music sections out and just when he gets on a roll, you are thinking… cool he is writing about playing with Buffalo Springfield and also where they hung out…here comes the PONO Music bit or more car information.

I guess the best way to sum it up is yes you will get a lot of the musical info you are looking for but you have to wade through a lot of rambling.

Overall if you can find this book 2nd hand, get it. If you are looking for a definitive Neil Young bio this is not the one… He does have great things to say about the members of CSNY, Buffalo Springfield, and Crazy Horse. Maybe I wanted another Testimony or My Cross to Bear…this wasn’t it…but what did I expect? It’s Neil Young and he is going to do what he wants to do… that is the reason we love him.

I will admit this…after he mentions all the vintage cars and busses he has owned his enthusiasm rubs off…I started to look these models up and reading about them… but it wasn’t what I had in mind going into the book.

A Brief Word with Pete Best

One day in 1987 (I cannot pin down the day)… My friend Paul and I heard on the radio that Pete Best was going to show up at a used record shop…The Great Escape near Vanderbilt… for a book signing. I was a bigger fan than Paul. I was nervous when I walked in because there was the guy I’ve read about in all of those books in person. The man that really got left at the altar. After reading as much as I did about the Beatles…I was twenty and they were more like characters out of a book… not real people.

We were flat broke and could not buy the book but I was told by the staff that was ok…he would still sign. What did I do? I walked over to a magazine rack with free newsletters and it just so happened that there was a newsletter (Cavern City Tours) about the Beatles. I didn’t think a thing about it but there on the front was John, Paul, George and……..Ringo. I was too busy thinking about what I was going to say to him. I didn’t want to say what the other people were saying…don’t you hate the Beatles now? That was terrible of them! On and on…

I thought of something quick and I went to the table…laid the newsletter in front of him with Ringo’s smiling face and Pete was gracious enough to sign it with no dirty looks or a comment and I asked him…Have you talked to Astrid Kirchherr lately? He said yes, in fact, he just talked to her in the last month. I also asked him if he talked with Klaus Voorman and he told me no he didn’t keep up with him…Why I asked those questions I don’t know. I just wanted to think of something different than what he was being asked.

He took the time and talked with me for a couple of minutes which was really nice. I can’t remember anything that was said after the questions…probably just pleasantries. Just knowing this guy was in Hamburg in the early 60s at the beginning of the Beatles as we know them was incredible.

After I walked away…did I think wow this poor guy went through hell? Nope…All I could think was I met a Beatle! I still feel bad about that.

Since The Beatles Anthology Pete is not a poor guy at all…money wise… He got millions off of that release because they used some of the tracks he played drums on. I read where Paul McCartney himself called Pete and told him wrongs needed to be righted and some money would be there for Pete and that he could take it or leave it…Of course, Pete took it and that was the right thing to do.

The Beatles made the right choice in Ringo but I’m glad they included Pete on that release so he could share in some of the glory and money… Listening to the tracks Pete played drums on there is no question that Ringo fit the Beatles best…no pun intended.

John, Paul, and George have said they regretted how it was handled… but not the outcome.

My Cross To Bear

I was never a huge Allman Brothers Band fan. I always respected them and I liked their radio songs and heard enough of Duane Allman to know he was a great slide guitar player. I also knew Gregg could make any song his song because of his vocals. I never really wanted to know more about them.

A friend of mine recommended Gregg Allman’s autobiography My Cross To Bear. I have a 72-mile round trip car ride to work every day so I downloaded the audio version. I took a chance on this one a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. I also downloaded the E-book after I finished it.

The Allman Brothers have always been known as the Godfathers of Southern Rock. I never considered them Southern Rock…like Gregg himself said… they were a blues band with some jazz thrown in and they were from the south.

The audiobook is narrated by Will Patton who does a great job of channeling Gregg.

It is like having Gregg over on your back porch telling you these great stories. He is very down to earth and does not try to make his mistakes sound like someone else’s fault. If you want to know about Duane Allman get this book. He is honest about his brother…warts and all. He doesn’t try to whitewash himself either.

He starts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction where he was sick, miserable, and bloated because of his drinking problem…from there he starts going back through his personal history and the many ups and downs of the Allman Brothers. He covers the bands that Duane and he formed…The Escorts, The Allman Joys (which I would have kept that name) and Hourglass.

Hourglass made a couple of albums of original material and covers but the record company made them “pop” everything up. They would not let them play with an edge. The Escorts and Allman Joys were cover bands… very good cover bands.

After reading the book I have started to listen to the Allman Brothers more. He gives you some funny stories and you see how close that band was in the early days before Duane and Berry Oakley died. He mentions his struggles with Dickey Betts, alcohol, drugs and wives. You also read about a “foot shooting” party…

He also talks about being on stage noticing Eric Clapton among the audience. That led to the Layla sessions. Eric was a big fan of Duane’s slide playing.

You learn some history about a cover band’s travels, trials, and tribulations in the mid-1960s…youtube has a few crude recordings of the Allman Joys live in the mid-60s. Below is The Allman Joys version of Help. I would have never thought it was Gregg Allman singing.

If you are a music fan you will probably enjoy this book.

Help by the Allman Joys in 1966 is the opening song.