This song was on the first album I ever bought by the Beatles. It was a greatest hits package called Hey Jude Again when I was eight. This song I liked right away as I was learning about the band. Ask a Beatle fan what their opinion of Yoko is…and you will get different answers but I would safely say more negative. Don’t count me as a fan. She gets blamed for breaking the Beatles up. I think Allen Klein deserves more of the blame but not all…
It’s John, George, and Ringo who followed Klein and later paid millions for it but not as dearly as The Stones. Klein ended up with rights to all of their 1960s catalog. Paul’s lawsuit against the Beatles and Klein stopped Klein from doing more damage. I do think the Beatles broke up at a perfect time. Closing a career with Abbey Road…is about as good as it gets.
This song…was written obviously by Lennon but it wasn’t a true Beatles recording. Only John and Paul played on the recording. Despite the business BS going on…the music still worked between the two. John played all of the guitars and lead vocals and Paul played drums, bass, and backing vocals. George was out of town and Ringo was filming a movie. The song is a true story about John and Yoko getting married.
It was banned by many stations in America and the UK because of the line “Christ, you know it ain’t easy.” The song was supposedly written, recorded, and mixed on the same day…April 14, 1969. John didn’t like spending a long time in a studio and would do this later on with Instant Karma. He liked minimum production in those days.
John and Yoko were married on March 20, 1969, in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on Spain’s south coast.
The song peaked at #1 in the UK, #8 on the Billboard 100, #7 in Canada, and #2 in New Zealand in 1969. At the time, it was a non-album single with the George Harrison song Old Brown Shoe as the B side. It would later be on Hey Jude Again.
A small side note…as an eight-year-old, I did learn about Holland, France, Paris, Gibraltar, and Spain. I told my mom that I would like her to drive me to France please…hey give me a break…I was 8.
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Standing in the dock at Southampton
Trying to get to Holland or France.
The man in the mac said you’ve got to go back,
You know they didn’t even give us a chance.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Finally made the plane into Paris,
Honeymooning down by the Seine.
Peter Brown called to say,
You can make it OK,
You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton,
Talking in our beds for a week.
The newspapers said, say what’re you doing in bed,
I said we’re only trying to get us some peace.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Saving up your money for a rainy day,
Giving all your clothes to charity.
Last night the wife said,
Oh boy, when you’re dead you
Don’t take nothing with you but your soul think!
Made a lightning trip to Vienna,
Eating chocolate cake in a bag.
The newspapers said,
She’s gone to his head,
They look just like two Gurus in a drag.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Caught the early plane back to London,
Fifty acorns tied in a sack.
The men from the press said we wish you success,
It’s good to have the both of you back.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me
This year was very interesting. I had a hard time with the 5th pick. You have The Who and Led Zeppelin releasing albums and with me…normally I would go with the Who but in this year…Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti won out. I think it would be hard to say that none of these belong. I like all of them of course or they would not be on here.
Born To Run broke Bruce Springsteen through to the masses after two very good to great albums but commercial failures. Columbia Records got behind this album, too much so for Bruce’s tastes, and they hit gold with it. With his face on Newsweek and Time magazine…everyone was introduced to Mr. Springsteen. In simple terms… 1975 was Springsteen’s year.
This was on the great album Blood on the Tracks. In my opinion Bob Dylan‘s best album of the seventies. When I first got this album I couldn’t quit listening to it and I really wore this song out. I could sing this song in my sleep…I know every word because it’s ingrained in my head.
This would make my top 5 Bob Dylan songs. I’ve seen Bob 8 times and the first 6 times I saw him I kept waiting for this song because with Bob you don’t know what you will get. He finally played it on the 7th time and I was surprised the next time because it was the only older song he played.
Talking to Ron Rosenbaum, Bob Dylan once told him that he’d written “Tangled Up in Blue”, after spending a weekend immersed in Joni Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue.
Queen used so many overdubs that the tape was virtually transparent on Bohemian Rhapsody. All the oxide had been rubbed off. They hurriedly made a copy so they could preserve what they had already. They were working with a 24-track machine but they still had to bounce tracks. They used `180 overdubs… The song took 3 weeks to record. The song was on A Night At The Opera album.
This made a huge comeback courtesy of Waynes World in 1991. The song was written by Freddie Mercury.
Elton John owned the early to mid-seventies Billboard Charts. Even Elton said he was tired of hearing himself in America on AM radio. Philadelphia Freedom was just another #1 for Elton.
Elton had an interesting B-side on this single. The B-side was a live duet of The Beatles hit “I Saw Her Standing There” that Elton recorded with his friend John Lennon. Elton had previously sung on Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through The Night” and also released a version of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” which was written by Lennon. This song was written by Elton John and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.
Led Zeppelin‘s Kasmir is one of their best if not their best song. It was on the Physical Graffiti Album released in 1975. The song did not chart but is hugely popular on the radio.
The song is hypnotic to listen to. The drums are the key to this song… Jimmy Page has said this about John Bonham on Kashmir… It was what he didn’t do that made it work.
The song was written by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Bonham.
I love watching this from time to time. Yes, it’s bad…really bad but it’s so bad it’s good. All the celebrities who are in different phases of their careers, cross paths in this epic of a show. First, let’s go through all of the stars. It’s probably remembered most for KISS’s first television appearance.
Paul Lynde of course,
Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf)
Margaret Hamilton (The witch from Wizard of Oz)
Tim Conway (No seventies variety show was right without Tim Conway)
Florence Henderson (Brady Bunch mom)
KISS (their first TV show appearance)
Billy Barty (was in many films)
Betty White (Everyone knew Betty White)
Roz Kelly (Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days)
Donny and Marie Osmond! (just to top it off)
The plot… which really doesn’t matter.
I always thought Paul Lynde was wickedly funny. In this, he was watered-down and could not be his Hollywood Squares best. He had a quick campy wit at times and the writers probably toned it down for prime time. I first noticed Lynde on Bewitched as Uncle Arthur and he was great in that role. It was his delivery that made everything work in his comedy.
This special has comedy bits and music…oh yes the music. You have KISS, you have the disco and you have Florence Henderson singing “That Old Black Magic…” Most of the comedy bits fail but the real comedy is how bad it is… The only thing missing from this extravaganza was a guest appearance from Harvey Korman and/or Don Knotts.
The main reason many people have watched it since it aired is it was KISS’s first TV show appearance…not including concert material.
It is a train wreck but one I like watching over and over again. At no other time could a show like this have been aired. It only aired once…for good reason.
What other show does Paul Lynde play a trucker who wants to marry Pinky Tuscadero?
I’ve covered a lot of Springsteen’s songs and I was going to look at my post of this one. I never covered it so I’m correcting that mistake today. This is one of those epic songs like A Day In The Life, Stairway To Heaven, Layla, and Free Bird.
1975 was the year of Bruce Springsteen. He was featured in Newsweek and Time magazine to his horror. The magazines were each granted interviews with Springsteen. Although they both featured similar details about his background and newfound stardom after his first two albums failed, the two articles were strikingly different in tone.
Time magazine wrote an article called “Rock’s New Sensation” in which he heaped praise on the new star. The writer knew music and realized how great Bruce was at the time. Newsweek was a different story. They wrote a story called “The Making of a Rock Star,” and looked at Columbia Records’ marketing campaign for ‘Born to Run’ and concluded it was pretty much hype. The ironic thing was that Bruce hated hype. Before he played the Hammersmith Odeon in London he ripped down a Springsteen promotional poster inside the Theatre before going upstairs and joining his party, after talking to a couple of the Record Company Executives he told his manager to instruct CBS to stop the hype and let the music sell itself.
Springsteen did try to use the Time and Newsweek covers to his advantage the next year. While touring Memphis he went to Graceland and jumped the fence but Elvis’s people were not amused. They escorted him out and told him that Elvis was in Lake Tahoe…which he was at the time. Bruce wanted to give him a song that he later gave the Pointer Sisters…Fire.
Now the song Born to Run. I think it’s fair to say that Born to Run is the song and album that broke him into stardom. On this album he had rock critic Jon Landau help him with the recording. That set off problems between Bruce and his manager Mike Appel…Appel wanted to stop Landau from working with Bruce after the album was made. That started a long saga of Bruce suing Appel which he didn’t want to do but he had to.
We all know Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” Well Bruce did his own Wall of Sound in this one. Springsteen has said that he counted 24 guitar overdubs in this track…that is why it sounds so huge. This was the only song on the album that Ernest “Boom” Carter played on. The original drummer Vini “Maddog” Lopez was fired in 1974 and Carter came in and helped out. He played this one song and then Max Weinberg took over the drums and still holds that spot. Carter left for a career in jazz. The keyboard player David Sancious only played on this song also and left for a very successful career in jazz. He would work on Springsteen’s solo albums later on.
Springsteen had other names for the album until deciding on this song as the title song. Other names he had were War And Roses, The Hungry, The Hunted, American Summer, and Sometimes At Night.
The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 and #53 in Canada in 1975. It didn’t chart in the UK until 1987 when a live version peaked at #16. There was talk of making this the official state song of New Jersey.
Bruce Springsteen: “One day I was playing my guitar on the edge of the bed, working on some song ideas, and the words ‘born to run’ came to me,” he recalled. “At first I thought it was the name of a movie or something I’d seen on a car spinning around the circuit. I liked the phrase because it suggested a cinematic drama that I thought would work with the music that I’d been hearing in my head.”
Bruce Springsteen: “This is a song that has changed a lot over the years. As I’ve sung it, it seems to have been able to open up and let the time in. When I wrote it, I was 24 years old, sitting in my bedroom in Long Branch, New Jersey. When I think back, it surprises me how much I knew about what I wanted, because the questions I ask myself in this song, it seems I’ve been trying to find the answers to them ever since. When I wrote this song, I was writing about a guy and a girl that wanted to run and keep on running, never come back. That was a nice, romantic idea, but I realized after I put all those people in all those cars, I was going to have to figure out someplace for them to go, and I realized in the end that individual freedom, when it’s not connected to some sort of community, can be pretty meaningless. So, I guess that guy and that girl out there were looking for connection, and I guess that’s what I’m doing here. So, this is a song about two people trying to find their way home. It’s kept me good company on my search, and I hope it keeps you good company on yours.”
Before playing this song on December 9, 1980, Springsteen said before starting this song: “If it wasn’t for John Lennon, a lot of us would be someplace much different tonight. It’s a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do.”
Steven Van Zandt: “Bruce and I were just friends at this point. He said I wanna play you my new record. And he played ‘Born to Run’ for me, with me lying on the floor of the studio. He’d been working on it for months – I mean, literally months on one song, which is incredible now. But he played it from me, and I said, Oh, that’s great. I particularly love that minor riff, very Roy Orbison, something The Beatles would do. And he said, ‘What minor riff? What do you mean?’
What was happening was he was doing a Duane Eddy style riff, with a bunch of echo on it, and he was bending up to the last note. But you never heard him bending up to the notes, it didn’t register in your ear. He said, ‘Oh my f—ing God,’ and then played it how I heard it for the other guys, and I guess they all started to hear it the way I was, which was the way the whole world was gonna hear it! So they had to redo the guitar part and then the whole f–‘ing mix. The mix alone took them a couple of weeks, because in those days there was no automation and there was a lot going on in the song.”
Born To Run
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway nine,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
And strap your hands ‘cross my engines
Together we could break this trap
We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back
Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire
Girl I’m just a scared and lonely rider
I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
I want to know if love is real
Oh can you show me?
Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rear view mirrors
Boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight
In an everlasting kiss
One, two, three
Highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there’s no place left to hide
Together wendy we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday girl I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go
We’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
Tramps like us baby we were born to run
Tramps like us baby we were born to run
Tony Sheridan was an excellent guitarist and had a good rock voice. The Beat Brothers were The Beatles and they punch this old standard up of My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean. This record is probably the most important record they made …even as just a backing group.
They were thrilled to be on a record. “I didn’t stop playing it for days,” George told the NME two years later. Teenager Jimmy Campbell would remember Paul running up the stairs at Aintree Institute shouting “This is our record!” He made the DJ Bob Wooler put it on and he was bouncing all over the place just listening to himself coming out of the speakers. He was really made up. “Listen to that!”
Brian Epstein ran NEMS record store and one of his policies was to get any song that he might not have in stock. Around mid-afternoon on Saturday, October 28, 1962, a young man from Knotty Ash, Raymond Jones, walked into the NEMS shop on Whitechapel and tried to buy the record.
What happened next is the subject of conflicting accounts, though they end the same way. Jones remembers that Brian Epstein, unable to find “My Bonnie” in any release lists, asked him questions about it, which concluded with Jones saying the Beatles were locals and “the most fantastic group you will ever hear.” Brian himself, in his autobiography, suggested this additional information only came to him over the following days, and in the raw interview transcript for that book, he said one of his shop-girls noted Jones’ order.
That led Brian Epstein to the Cavern Club where the Beatles played. That is somewhere that he would probably have never gone. Raymond Jones’s simple request would go down in history. Soon after, Brian was managing the Beatles and within a year they got George Martin’s attention and the rest is history.
While the Beatles were in Hamburg they were signed to a record contract by Bert Kaempfert. He recorded many cuts with The Beatles backing Sheridan and also a few by themselves. One original was the Lennon-Harrison instrumental Cry For A Shadow. The rest were standards like Ain’t She Sweet and When the Saints Come Marching In. The Beatles were fortunate with Bert Kaempfert. He wasn’t a shark…he signed them and when they had a chance to sign with EMI…he only asked that they record a couple of more songs and he let them go.
My Bonnie was released in October of 1961 in Germany and peaked at #32 in the German charts. It didn’t do much in the UK but fans knew about it and wanted it. The Beatles were very popular in Liverpool at the time and it sold well there after Brian got it in his store. Later on when they released Love Me Do it sold over 10,000 copies in Liverpool alone.
Record executives thought Epstein bought that many to put it in the charts but no….they really sold. Most people outside of Liverpool couldn’t understand how a “new” band would sell that many but they had been popular there since coming back from Hamburg in 1961. The Beatles started their own fan club in 1962 before Brian met them.
Their old bass player, Stuart Sutcliffe was there, but Paul played bass during the sessions.
My Bonnie
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
Well my Bonnie lies over the ocean
Yeah bring back my Bonnie to me
Yeah bring back, ah bring back
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me to me
Oh bring back, oh bring back
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me
Well my Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
Yeah my Bonnie lies over the ocean
Oh I said bring back my Bonnie to me
Yeah bring back, ah bring back
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me to me
Oh bring back, ah bring back
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me
I had just graduated high school in 1985 and I was on CoCo Beach with some of my friends and this song takes me back there. Four guys in a Toyota Celica driving 15 hours to a place called Coco Beach. We picked it because of the name…not for the easy driving. We could have picked Pensacola and it would have been a 6 1/2 hour drive plus a better beach with the gulf…but live and learn.
This is one upbeat and positive song! I was about to graduate when I heard this song and I felt like the world was open and anything could happen. I wasn’t jaded yet but it felt good while it lasted.
The song peaked at #9 on the Billboard 100, #8 on the UK Charts, and #3 in Canada in 1985… hard to believe this song is 38 years old. This song has been a staple on pop stations and any supermarket near you.
The members were Katrina Leskanich, Kimberley Rew, Vince de la Cruz, and Alex Cooper. This song has been in almost 70 movies and television series.
Guitarist Kimberley Rew wrote the song and he also wrote “Going Down To Liverpool” which was covered by the Bangles. When that song was covered in 1984 it brought attention to Katrina and the Waves because Going Down To Liverpool was on their debut album Walking On Sunshine in 1983. One of the songs on there was of course...Walking on Sunshine but it was reworked with horns for their 1985 album Katrina And The Waves. That is the version we all know.
The band went on to release eight more albums, concluding with 1997’s Walk on Water. The album featured the lead single “Love Shine a Light,” which hit No. 3 in the UK and won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest. The band later disbanded in 1999 after struggling to replace Leskanich, who left the year prior. But they will always be remembered because of this song that will never go away.
Katrina and the Waves were dropped by Capitol Records one year later. Katrina Leskanich: “They thought we were the new Monkees, The Beach Boys,” but we weren’t even that kind of band. We were cooler. I thought I was Nico from The Velvet Underground. Black turtlenecks, eyeliner, no smiling in photographs …”
Original Version
Walking On Sunshine
Ow
Mm, yeah
I used to think maybe you loved me, now, baby, I’m sure
And I just can’t wait till the day when you knock on my door
Now every time I go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down
‘Cause I just can’t wait till you write me you’re coming around
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
And don’t it feel good
Hey, all right now
And don’t it feel good
Hey, yeah
I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it’s true
And I don’t want to spend my whole life just a-waiting for you
Now, I don’t want you back for the weekend, not back for a day, no, no, no
I said, baby, I just want you back, and I want you to stay
Oh, yeah, now I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
And don’t it feel good
Hey, all right now
And don’t it feel good
Yeah, oh, yeah, now
And don’t it feel good
Walking on sunshine
Walking on sunshine
I feel alive, I feel the love, I feel the love that’s really real
I feel alive, I feel the love, I feel the love that’s really real
I’m on sunshine, baby, oh
Oh, yeah, I’m on sunshine, baby
Oh, I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa
And don’t it feel good
Hey, all right now
And don’t it feel good
I’ll say it, I’ll say it, I’ll say it again now
And don’t it feel good
Hey, yeah now
And don’t it feel good
Now don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it
And don’t it feel good
I’ll say it, I’ll say it, I’ll say it again now
And don’t it feel good
Now don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it, don’t it
And don’t it feel good
Now tell me, tell me, tell me again now
And don’t it feel good
Oh, yeah, now
And don’t it feel good
Oh, don’t it feel good, don’t it feel good
Now don’t it feel good
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah
And don’t it feel good
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah
And don’t it feel good
After appearing on the covers of Time and Newsweek in October 1975, Springsteen sometimes changed the words to “Tell your papa I ain’t no freak, ’cause I got my picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek” when he performed it live. This wasn’t a “hit” at the time but it still lives on in classic radio and is a key song in Bruce’s catalog.
I’ve seen Bruce do this song live and it is special. It’s one of the best live songs I’ve ever heard along with The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again. The song is exciting as he pleads with Rosie and calls out the nicknames of their friends.
I was around 7 years old when this was released. I remember being in a tire swing in my Aunt’s front yard when I heard this Hollies on a radio that was playing from a car that someone was working on. I still remember smelling the grass and the green surroundings of that day.
This song would be way up in my favorite songs ever. Graham Nash had left by this time and the band turned a corner when he had gone. They went from a pop sixties band to more of a rock/pop band with hits like Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress, He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Brother), and finally this song which was their last top ten hit in the US and Canada. It was written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood.
Great song great music great voice. This song was performed by Rufus with Chaka Khan and written by Stevie Wonder. The Talk-Box which Frampton later used sounds great in this song.
Rufus evolved from a group called The American Breed, who had a hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me.” They took their name from a column in Popular Mechanics magazine called “Ask Rufus,” later shortened to Rufus when Chaka Khan joined the band in 1972.
Paul McCartney‘s Band on the Run was one of his best songs since the Beatles. This song fell in a grey area. The album was released in December of 1973 but the single was released in April of 1974 so it could have gone in either year.
The song was recorded in two parts, in different sessions. The first two were taped in Lagos while the third section was recorded in October 1973 at AIR Studios in London. Paul was robbed at knifepoint in Lagos, Nigeria and they took the tapes that he had at the time. They were never recovered and Paul figured they recorded over them.
The song was off the album Band On The Run which was I think Paul’s best solo album. It was written by Paul and Linda McCartney.
Trying to figure out Elton’s lyrics has always been interesting…not what they mean…I won’t even try that. No, it’s… what is he singing? “He’s got electric boots a mohair suit You know I read it in a magazine, oh” I wasn’t even close. I thought “masseuse” was in there. I don’t think I can even spell what I’ve been singing along with for years. Mick Jagger does this well also.
Regardless of the hard-to-decipher words…I love the song.
Elton wrote the music to this song as an homage to glam rock, a style that was popular in the early ’70s, especially in the UK…and of course, Bernie Taupin co-wrote it with Elton.
You don’t get more rockabilly than Carl Perkins. This concert was a show built around the man. The guests that showed their support were Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Roassane Cash. Plus you had Stray Cats Slim Jim Phantom on drums and Lee Rocker on bass.
It’s pretty cool to see these other legends openly admiring Carl Perkins. Most grew up with his songs and they show their appreciation.
Dave from A Sound Day featured the Roy Orbison concert in the eighties which was a little later on than this one. I remember both of them and this one I watched at a friend’s house at the time on VHS.
Everyone takes a turn singing Carl Perkin’s classic songs in this one. It was filmed at London’s Limehouse Studios in front of a live audience on October 21, 1985. It’s a great show and Carl Perkins hadn’t lost a thing on guitar. Perkins was around 53 at the time.
They had Johnny Cash, Rob Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis do a quick intro for Perkins at the beginning. It’s the bottom video on this post. They also played at The Capitol Theater in New Jersey on September 9, 1985. You can find that one on YouTube also.
Carl Perkins: “Nothing in the music business has even come close to this for me. At times I felt I was going to break down crying.”
Here are the guest Musicians:
Carl Perkins (guitar, vocals)
George Harrison (guitar, vocals)
Ringo Starr (drums, tambourine, vocals)
Eric Clapton (guitar, vocals)
Dave Edmunds (guitar, vocals, musical director)
Rosanne Cash (vocals, maracas)
Phantom, Rocker & Slick {Slim Jim Phantom (drums), Lee Rocker (double bass), Earl Slick (guitar)}
Pick up you belongings boys and scatter about We’ve got an off-schedule train comin’ two miles out
Great title for Mr. Chuck Berry. My only complaint about this song is it’s way too short. He borrowed liberally from Johnny B. Good but that is alright…hell it’s his song to borrow from. Just think how many artists have taken this riff, especially the rhythm track, and used it over and over again. The Rolling Stones, Animals, and Beatles owe a large part of their success to this man.
Speaking of the Rolling Stones…they recorded this song live as a B-side in the UK for the single Brown Sugar. It was recorded live in March 1971 at the University of Leeds in England. Right around the time when The Who recorded possibly the best rock live album ever…Live At Leeds. The Stones do a good job on this song…it’s in their wheelhouse completely.
This song is not about teenagers. Chuck wrote this from the perspective of a railroad worker in Alabama. The phrase “Let It Rock” won’t be found in the lyrics. Supposedly the train that is coming is Rock and Roll.
The musicians on this album are Johnnie Johnson on piano, Willie Dixon on double bass, and Fred Below on drums. Johnnie Johnson was one of the best boogie-woogie piano players around at the time.
Johnnie Johnson never got his due for these wonderful riffs that he helped Chuck create. When Keith Richards wanted him to play in Hail Hail Rock and Roll in the mid-80s…he was driving a bus in Saint Louis. Chuck gave his OK and Johnnie was in the band. After he appeared in the movie he worked for the rest of his life as a musician.
This song has been covered by The Connection, The Grateful Dead, Rockpile, The Rolling Stones, Motörhead, Jerry Garcia, Hasil Adkins, Skyhooks, The Yardbirds, Widespread Panic, The MC5, Bob Seger, the Stray Cats, George Thorogood, The Head Cat, Shadows of Knight, John Oates, The Georgia Satellites, and Jeff Lynne to name a few.
The song peaked at #18 on the Billboard R&B Charts and #64 on the Billboard 100 Charts in 1959.
Have a great day and Let It Rock!
Let It Rock
In the heat of the day down in Mobile Alabama
Working on the railroad with the steel driving hammer
I gotta get some money to buy some brand new shoes
Tryin’ to find somebody to take away these blues
“She don’t love me” hear them singing in the sun
Payday’s coming and my work is all done
Well, in the evening when the sun is sinking low
All day I been waiting for the whistle to blow
Sitting in a tee pee built right on the tracks
Rolling them bones until the foreman comes back
Pick up you belongings boys and scatter about
We’ve got an off-schedule train comin’ two miles out
Everybody’s scrambling, running around
Picking up their money, tearing the tee pee down
Foreman wants to panic, ’bout to go insane
Trying to get the workers out the way of the train
Engineer blows the whistle loud and long
Can’t stop the train, have to let it roll on
I don’t do anniversaries very much but some things I try to keep up with and this is one of them. I’ve posted this in the past few years on October 20.
It’s been 46 years since Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi. The band had just released the album “Street Survivors” and it was probably their best well-rounded album. With new guitarist Steve Gaines, they were primed for commercial success but on October 20, 1977, they lost singer-songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and road manager Dean Kilpatrick. The plane crash also claimed the lives of pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray Jr.
I believe that if the crash had not happened they would have moved into the most successful stretch of their career. They were leaving the “southern rock” label behind and into one of the top rock bands in the world.
A year earlier Steve Gaines joined the band and he was pushing them in directions they never had gone. Listening to “Street Survivors” you can hear his influence with the songs I Never Dreamed and I Know A Little. Steve was a super-talented guitarist, songwriter, and singer and I have to wonder where his career would have gone.
On this tour, they were headlining and moving up in status after years of touring as mostly an opening band.
Below is a good Rolling Stone article on the crash. The song below that is “I Never Dreamed,” a song heavily influenced by Gaines.
Pink Floyd released one of the biggest albums of all time…Dark Side of the Moon.
Roger Waters put together the cash register tape loop that plays throughout the song. It also contains the sounds of tearing paper and bags of coins being thrown into an industrial food-mixing bowl. The intro was recorded by capturing the sounds of an old cash register on tape and meticulously splicing and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern to make the “cash register loop” effect. Waters also wrote the song.
Like many of their songs, this was not released as a single in the UK, where singles were perceived as a sellout…but it was released as a single in America in 1973
Another positive song that was written by George Harrison. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” replaced Wings’ “My Love” at number 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart…For the week ending 30 June that year, the Harrison and McCartney songs were ranked numbers 1 and 2 respectively.
This song was based on a true story that happened to the band. Smoke On The Water took inspiration from a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland on December 4, 1971. Deep Purple was going to start recording their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa’s show, which set the place on fire when Deep Purple was watching. It was released in May of 1973.
Music stores would not be the same without this song. It was written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice.
Allman Brothers released this song in August of 1973. It was the band’s biggest hit that almost didn’t get released. The band thought it was too country and almost didn’t release it. This one was written by Dickey Betts.
My sister had a Jim Croce greatest hits album and I played it non-stop. This one is easy for kids to remember. This song has been played to death but I still love it. This one remains one of the most remembered songs from the early seventies. Jim Croce wrote this one.
This song was a part of my childhood growing up. I never knew much about them but when I was 7 (1974)…my sister was watching Midnight Special and to see them…you didn’t forget. Then in 2014, the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy came out and the song was part of my son’s childhood. It is a very good pop song from the 1970s. They were the first Native American band to have a top 5 hit.
Native American brothers Patrick and Candido “Lolly” Vasquez-Vegas were born in Coalinga, California. The brothers played with Oscar Peterson at the Monterey Jazz and Pop Festival before relocating to Los Angeles in 1963. They were serious musicians. They started to play around on the Vegas Strip.
They opened for Lenny Bruce, as well as Richard Pryor while writing and playing on records by Tina Turner, Sonny & Cher, James Brown, Little Richard, and Elvis ( on the soundtrack to the film “Kissin’ Cousins”), among other recording artists.
Jimi Hendrix saw them play and was knocked out. Jimi stated that Lolly Vegas was the best guitarist he had ever heard and suggested that they create a band. Knowing they were Native Americans, Jimi suggested a name that reflected their roots. The name that Jimi suggested was “Redbone”, a Cajun term for a mixed-race person.
The Vegas brothers met guitarist Tony Bellamy, and collaborated on the Jim Ford album “Harlan County”. The trio hired drummer Pete DePoe and signed with Epic Records in 1969.
Come and Get Your Love peaked at #5 on the Billboard 100 and #25 in Canada in 1974. The song has recently gained a new following by being on the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack. The band was not a one-hit wonder though. They had one other top 40 hit called The Witch Queen of New Orleans.
Come and Get Your Love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with your head, yeah
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with your mind
And your sign an-a, oh-oh-oh
Hail (hail)
Nothin’ the matter with your head
Baby find it, come on and find it
Hail, with it baby
Cause you’re fine
And you’re mine, and you look so divine
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with you feel right
Don’t you feel right baby
Hail, oh yeah
Get it from the mainline, all right
I said-a find it, find it
Go on and love it if you like it, yeah
Hail (hail)
It’s your business if you want some, take some
Get it together baby
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with you feel right
Don’t you feel right baby
Hail (hail), all right
Get it from the main vine, all right
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. la, la
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. woohoo
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. la, la
Come and get your love
La, na, na, na, na, na, da, boom
Come and get your love
La, da boom, boom, boom, ta, daba, boom, boom
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la
I grew up with this single…I’ll never forget the orange Roulette Label going round and round. It’s a mystical and magical song to me. I fell in love with the tremolo effect that is throughout the entire song.
The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand, in 1968. I still am shocked that it either wasn’t released in the UK or it just failed to chart there. Joan Jett’s version peaked at only #60 in the UK. My friend at the UK Number Ones blog and I talked about it. Their song Mony Mony peaked at #1 in the UK earlier…maybe that was enough for them.
On this song…Tommy James is playing all the instruments except drums and they were played by Pete Lucia. James and Lucia wrote the song.
Bo Gentry was writing most of their hits until this point. He didn’t feel like he was getting paid enough from Roulette Records (which was partly run by the mob) so he quit. Tommy James was told that he better get someone to write songs for him or his career would sink since Bo Gentry refused. The record executives told him that he could not write a hit song and to find someone. Tommy James showed them all… he and his drummer wrote this massive hit song.
Around this time James got involved with politician Hubert Humphrey and they were trying to turn from a singles band to an album band. This song helped them. Below is a very long quote by Tommy James about that time. It does say a lot about the business in the late sixties.
Tommy James: “They were just two of my favorite words that came together. Actually, it was one morning as I was getting up out of bed, and it just came to me, those two words. And it sounded so poetic. I had no idea what it meant, or if it meant anything. They were just two of my favorite words. And Mike Vale and I – bass player – actually wrote another song called ‘Crimson and Clover.’ And it just wasn’t quite there. And I ended up writing ‘Crimson and Clover’ with my drummer, Pete Lucia, who has since passed away.”
Tommy James: ‘Crimson and Clover’ was so very important to us because it allowed us to make that move from AM Top 40 to album rock. I don’t think there’s any other song that we’ve ever worked on, any other record that we made, that would have done that for us quite that way. And it came out at such a perfect moment because we had been out with Hubert Humphrey on the presidential campaign for several months in 1968. And we met up with him right after the convention. The convention where all the kids got beat up. And we met up with him the following week in Wheeling, West Virginia, and of course we didn’t know where all the rallies were gonna be, like the convention. What have we gotten ourselves into? We had been asked to join him. And this really was the first time, I think, a rock act and a politician ever teamed up. But it was an incredible experience.
But when we left in August, all the big acts were singles acts. It was the Association, it was Gary Puckett, it was the Buckinghams, the Rascals, us, I’m leaving several people out. But the point was that it was almost all singles. In 90 days, when we got back, it was all albums. It was Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Joe Cocker, Neil Young. And there was this mass extinction of all of these other acts.
It was just incredible. Most people don’t realize that that was sort of the dividing line where so many of these acts never had hit records again. And we realized while we were out on the campaign that if our career was gonna continue, we had to make a move. We had to sell albums, which is something Roulette had never really done. The album, up to that point, had been whatever wasn’t the single. And then it was usually named the single, which I thought was a great idea. Morris (Levy) usually would name the album the same title as the single, so it would get kind of a head start. But the point was we knew we had to sell albums. Also that year the industry went from 4-track to 24-track in about the same period of time. So if we were gonna sell albums, we had to completely reinvent ourselves. And so it was a very dramatic moment. And the record we just happened to be working on at that moment, at the end of the campaign, was ‘Crimson and Clover.'”
Crimson and Clover
Ah, now I don’t hardly know her
But I think I could love her
Crimson and clover
Ah when she comes walking over
Now I’ve been waitin’ to show her
Crimson and clover over and over
Yeah, my, my such a sweet thing
I wanna do everything
What a beautiful feeling
Crimson and clover over and over
Crimson and clover over and over
Crimson and clover over and over
Crimson and clover over and over
Crimson and clover over and over
Everyone…I messed up last week. While making these, I go to Wiki’s Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles to go over some of the singles and then… I look at album cuts. Well, I didn’t check to see when American Pie was released…it was released in late 1971…but I would never have left that one off…ever. So forgive me…I won’t do this again…but I am leading off with it. It did its damage on the charts in 1972…so this one time I’m breaking my rule. It’s too important of a song.
American Pie… by Don Mclean. Where do I begin with this one? The song has so many references that it acts as a pop culture index itself. We do know the song was inspired by Buddy Holly’s death… What does it all mean? While being interviewed in 1991, McLean was asked for probably the 1000th time “What does the song ‘American Pie’ mean to you?,” to which he answered, “It means never having to work again for the rest of my life.” Now that is a great and honest answer by Mclean.
The holy trinity of power pop for me is…Badfinger, Big Star, and The Raspberries…those were the 70s pioneers. Badfinger was the most successful out of the three…hit wise anyway. You can hear later bands like Cheap Trick, The Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and even KISS get something from each three.
This is my personal number 1 Power Pop song of all time. Baby Blue was written by Pete Ham.
He was playing in a Rock and Roll revival show in 1971 at Madison Square Gardens with other artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell. Ricky Nelson was releasing new music and he did not look the way he did in the 50s. He had long hair and dressed modern. He started off with some of his old songs the fans responded enthusiastically but then he played “Country Honk” a country version of the Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Women.” That is when it went south.
Arlo Guthrie seems like the most laid-back guy in the world. His father was the great singer-songwriter, Woody Guthrie. Arlo wrote some very good songs but he didn’t write this one. The City of New Orleans was written by Steve Goodman. Steve did a great job writing this song. Its structure and imagery are fantastic.
After seeing the screenplay, Mayfield jumped into this movie project and was given complete creative freedom. He wrote the songs to suit the scenes, but he made sure they could stand on their own, telling the stories even without the visuals. “Superfly” works very well outside of the film. It was written by Curtis Mayfield. I saw this on the big screen a few years ago.
In May of 1960, Stuart Sutcliffe was a brilliant young artist with a bright career ahead of him when he sold one of his paintings and his friend John Lennon talked him into buying a bass. He didn’t know how to play bass but was taught by John, Paul, and George because like George said…it was better to have a bass player that couldn’t play than no bass player at all.
Stuart Sutcliffe 1960
Stuart did learn to play bass and had a lot of stage time in Hamburg. He was never a great bass player but good enough to hold the position down. Stuart and John came up with the band name Beatles. Stuart wanted it to be Beatals but John stuck with Beatles. He quit art college to go on tour with The Silver Beatles to help back up a performer named Johnny Gentle in Scotland. After that they went to Hamburg and that changed their career. John also quit art college but he didn’t have the talent that Stuart did.
After a year or so he wasn’t at the other Beatles level and Paul never let him forget it. Paul was jealous of Stuart because of him being so close to Lennon. George also was a little jealous but not like Paul. John was basically hero-worshiped by Paul and George. In Hamburg, Paul said something about his girlfriend Astrid and tiny Stuart tackled Paul while they were on stage…they rolled around a bit and then it was finally over. Paul still talks about how he feels bad for the way he treated him.
He probably would have never got to their level musically because although he was good friends with John… his heart was in art not music. He was with them from May 1960 to August of 1961.
Many art experts say Stuart would have been a major artist had he lived… with or without the Beatle connection. He was indeed a sought-after artist when he quit the Beatles. He was the James Dean of the Beatles…He was the Artist…the Stylish one who attracted new friends in Germany that forever changed the Beatles. Some pictures of him make him look ahead of his time.
While playing in Hamburg Germany he met Astrid Kirchherr who would become the love of his life. Astrid would take some of the most famous early photographs of the Beatles.
Astrid’s soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Klaus Voormann would befriend the Beatles and later designed the Revolver cover and play bass for John, George, and Ringo at different times in their career. Jürgen Vollmer, a photographer in the circle of Astrid’s friends would end up cutting John and Paul’s hair into the famous haircut …after Astrid had already cut Stuart’s hair in that fashion first. Stuart was of course laughed at by the rest until they got theirs cut. Pete Best refused and did his own thing.
Stuart’s influence went beyond playing bass. Without Stuart, things may have turned out differently for The Beatles.
Stuart finally quit The Beatles to concentrate on art and to marry Astrid. He got a scholarship while living with Astrid in Germany, at the Hamburg College of Art in 1961. He produced a lot of paintings in the last year of his life. He started to lose weight, got terrible headaches, and had trouble walking. He kept going to college and kept painting in Astrid’s attic. They wanted to marry in May but on April 10, 1962, he had a ruptured aneurysm and passed away on the way to the hospital in Astrid’s arms.
If Stuart had lived he would have almost certainly stayed in the Beatles circle although not playing…he may have been remembered more as an artist than a one-time bassist of the Beatles that happened to be an artist.
For the Beatles part…he was a major influence in coming up with the name, helped bring on the haircuts, and gave them a more sophisticated style other than leather jackets and boots.
John Lennon would remember his friend in his song “In My Life.”
George Harrison: “He wasn’t really a very good musician. In fact, he wasn’t a musician at all until we talked him into buying a bass, we taught him to play 12-bars, like ‘Thirty Days’ by Chuck Berry. That was the first thing he ever learnt. He picked up a few things and he practiced a bit until he could get through a couple of other tunes as well. It was a bit ropey, but it didn’t matter at that time because he looked so cool. We never had many gigs in Liverpool before we went to Hamburg, anyway.” John Lennon: “I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth, Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really.”
More about Stuart and his Art…thank you for reading this.
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 