The Magnificent Seven

Hanspostcard is hosting a movie draft from 12 different genres…this is my Western entry.

There have been actors and musicians that exuded cool…Steve McQueen would be one of the top ones…and he was just starting in this movie…and not the star. 

This cast is just incredible… Along with McQueen, you have Charles Bronson, James Coburn,  Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Horst Buchholz,  Brad Dexter,  and the great Yul Brynner. We are not talking about cameos here…Brynner is the unquestioned leader of this band of mercenary gunfighters…but money is not the most important thing to most of them. They believe in Brynner’s character and the adventure.

I could go through talking about each actor, but I won’t…there are a few I’ll touch on. Eli Wallach… did a masterful portrayal of Calvera. He is one actor that I would have loved to have met. His personality was so big in films, but he didn’t over act…he was just that good.

The actor that caught my attention the most in this was the newcomer of the seven. Chico, played brilliantly by Horst Buchholz. His character was young, impatient, cocky, but a nice kid who you saw grow in the movie. He wanted to join the six fighters, but he wasn’t accepted until he persisted and wore Chris Larrabee Adams (Yul Brynner) down.

John Sturges directed this movie and also The Great Escape plus Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. This movie was not shot on some studio backlot somewhere. It was real locations and it showed.

A brief look at the plot. A gang of bandits terrorizes a small Mexican farming village each year. They ride in and take what they want like the village is their own personal store. Several of the village elders send three of the farmers into the United States to search for gunmen to defend them. They end up with seven, each of whom comes for a different reason. They must prepare the town to beat an army of thirty bandits who will arrive wanting food. In came the Magnificent Seven to defend the village and teach the farmers how to fight.

A little trivia about the movie. Yul Brynner had a major role in casting, and he wanted Steve McQueen in the movie. At the time McQueen was in a television western called Wanted: Dead or Alive.

They ended up not getting along because McQueen supposedly was trying to upstage Brynner. When McQueen was dying of cancer he called Brynner and made up with him for the trouble in the film. McQueen said: “I had to make it up with Yul ’cause without him I wouldn’t have been in that picture.”

It’s not only a great western, it has comedy, drama, and most of all…all the characters are real. There is a reason some of them were huge at the time and others went on to be not only popular but legends. 

CAST

Yul Brynner … Chris Larabee Adams
Eli Wallach … Calvera
Steve McQueen … Vin Tanner
Horst Buchholz … Chico
Charles Bronson … Bernardo O’Reilly
Robert Vaughn … Lee
Brad Dexter … Harry Luck
James Coburn … Britt
Jorge Martínez de Hoyos … Hilario (as Jorge Martinez de Hoyas)
Vladimir Sokoloff … Old Man
Rosenda Monteros … Petra
Rico Alaniz … Sotero
Pepe Hern … Tomas
Natividad Vacío … Villager (as Natividad Vacio)
Mario Navarro … Boy with O’Reilly

…

 

Let’s Active – Every Word Means No…. Power Pop Friday

This is great 1980s college radio power pop. Everything is there you want…the jangle and the jangly hook.

Let’s Active was formed in 1981 by Mitch Easter, a guitarist and songwriter best known as a record producer, with Faye Hunter on bass. Drummer Sara Romweber, then 17 years old, joined to form the original trio two weeks before their first live performance. Their first performance was opening for R.E.M. in Atlanta, Georgia in 1981.

Let’s Active was critically praised but like their peers did not sell a ton a records. This song was on the 1983 EP Afoot and they would go on to release three more LPs in all before breaking up in 1990.

Mitch produced REM on their Chronic Town EP, Murmur, and Reckoning. Easter also produced Marshall Crenshaw, Suzanne Vega, and bunches of indie acts. He also took a trip to Memphis in 1978 with members of the dB’s to meet two members of Big Star.

Romweber quit the band in 1984 after the release of the Afoot EP and their debut full-length, Cypress. Later, she co-founded the group Snatches of Pink and performed with her brother as the Dex Romweber Duo. In 2014, she reunited with Mitch Easter as Let’s Active for a benefit show. She would die of a brain tumor in 2019. Bassist Faye Hunter died in 2013.

Mitch Easter:

“I could not imagine myself singing in a Johnny Winter-style voice about ‘I just wanna make love to you,’ but the new goofball lyrics were something I could pull off,’ “I read an article with Andy Partridge of XTC back then where he was saying at no other time in history would he have been allowed to be the singer in a band. And I felt just like that, you know.

“I had this weird voice, but now maybe I could be allowed to sing without suffering some hopeless comparison to Gregg Allman.’

Every Word Means No

Watching for a sound to lead me to where ever you are
I can’t help it I will always love you

It used to be no words could come between us
Any time was right for secret meetings
It’s different now and when you speak
Every word means no
Every word means no

I’m thinking, of things that never come to life
You’re going through some things so shallow
There’s nothing to fight

It used to be no words could come between us
Any time was right for secret meetings
It’s different now and when you speak and
Every word means no
Every word means no

And it’s just anathema
I haven’t lost my way
I’m looking around in directions
‘Cause all I ever thought about was you
I never noticed anything but you
Predicting, puts me down on shaky ground
I keep on thinking your looking at me
Do you want me around

It used to be no words could come between us
Any time was right for secret meetings
Now and then I forget the rules have changed
You always remind me
That every word means no, every word means no

Paul Simon – Old

I heard this in 2000 and it sounded like the Paul Simon of old…no pun intended.  It’s about when people telling you…you are getting old whether you are there or not.

It was on the album You’re The One released in 2000. You’re The One was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2001. As a result Simon became the first artist to be nominated in that category in five consecutive decades (1960s-2000s). Paul McCartney also joined that club in 2006 with his album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.

You’re the One‘s generally upbeat tone arose out of his happy home life with singer Edie Brickell and their children… “the first time that I ever had domestic bliss.”

You’re The One peaked at #19 in the Billboard Album Chart, #8 in Canada, and #20 in the UK. This release was 3 years after his album Songs from the Capeman which contained songs from a Broadway Play he wrote.

Old

The first time I heard ‘Peggy Sue’, I was twelve years old
Russians up in a rocket ships and the war was cold
Now many wars have come and gone, genocide still goes on
Buddy Holly still goes on, but his catalog was sold

First time I smoked, guess what, paranoid
First time I heard ‘Satisfaction’, I was young and unemployed
Down the decades every year, summer leaves and my birthday’s here
And all my friends stand up and cheer

Say man you’re old
Getting old
You’re old
You’re getting old

We celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day
And Buddha found Nirvana along the Lotus Way
About fifteen hundred years ago the messenger Mohammed spoke
And his wisdom like a river flowed through hills of gold

Wisdom is old
The Koran is old
The Bible is old
Greatest story ever told

Disagreements?
Work ’em out

The human races walked the Earth for two point seven million
And we estimate the universe about thirteen to fourteen billion
When all these numbers tumble into your imagination
Consider that the Lord was there before creation

God is old
We’re not old
God is old
He made the mold

Take your clothes off
Adam and Eve

Twilight Zone – People Are Alike All Over

★★★★ March 25, 1960 Season 1 Episode 25

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

***Special announcement Watch all you can this month on Netflix because Netflix is not streaming the Twilight after June 30th…Fellow blogger Blackwing666 posted this here. If there was ever a show you would think about purchasing… The Twilight Zone would a great one.

Roddy McDowall was one of my favorite TV actors. He normally plays caring, worried,  and vulnerable characters. This episode is another story on human nature…earth bound and Martians…are they the same all over? Sam Conrad will find out. It’s a good episode but doesn’t jump in the great category. 

SPOILERS Below

You can take this episode in many ways…is it a commentary on humans being a caged animal instead of its keeper? Possibly a prelude to the Planet of the Apes?  Does it comment on luxuries entrapping us when they become necessitates or just human nature? Its a very good episode of the Twilight Zone .

The living room set is the same one seen in The Twilight Zone: Third from the Sun (1960). It is a redressed version of George’s living room from The Time Machine

Rod Serling changed a couple of elements from the original source story (Brothers Beyond The Void, by Paul W. Fairman) for this episode. In the original story the protagonist is Marcusson and Conrad is only in the beginning of the story as Marcusson makes the trip to Mars alone. Serling also changed the climatic utterance from the story’s mundane “People are the same everywhere,” to his more poignant version. It isn’t clear why Serling changed the story and made Conrad the protagonist.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Paul W. Fairman

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animal with extremely small heads, whose name is Man. Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one. They’re taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers up into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we’ll land there with them.

Summary

Biologist Sam Conrad is scheduled to go on a mission to Mars and is genuinely concerned about what they will find there. The mission commander, Mark Marcusson, tells him there’s nothing to worry about as he firmly believes that God made everyone in his image; no matter what they find, he is certain that people are alike all over. They crash-land on Mars and Marcusson dies from his injuries. Conrad is happy to find that the people of Mars are very human-like, friendly and intelligent. They provide him with a home and promise him much more. Too late, however, he realizes that, just as Marcusson had said, people are alike all over.

Complete episode here

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain. Comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Roddy McDowall … Sam Conrad
Susan Oliver … Teenya
Paul Comi … Marcusson
Byron Morrow … Martian
Vic Perrin … Martian
Vernon Gray … Martian
Herbert Winters … Martian Observer (uncredited)

…

Dwight Yoakam – Fast As You

I was playing in some club in 1994 and the other guitar player wanted to try a new song that he and the drummer knew. He said it was easy so we followed him and this was the song. It went over really well and I had never heard it before. We didn’t do that often…to attempt a song that most of us never heard but we kept playing it for the next couple of years.

The song crosses the country line into rock so I was surprised it didn’t rise higher in the Billboard 100.

The song peaked at #2 in the Billboard Country Charts, #5 in the Canadian Charts in 1993…it also peaked at #70 in the Billboard 100.

It was on his great album This Time released in the spring of 1993…it was a big hit, spawning three number two country singles — “Ain’t That Lonely Yet,” “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,” and “Fast As You.”

Fast As You

Maybe someday I’ll be strong
Maybe it won’t be long
I’ll be the one who’s tough, yeah
You’ll be the one who’s got it rough

It won’t be long
And maybe I’ll be real strong

Maybe I’ll do things right
Maybe I’ll start tonight
You’ll learn to cry like me, girl
Baby, let’s just wait and see

Maybe I’ll start tonight
And do things right

You’ll control me, oh, so boldly
Rule me ’til I’m free
The pain that shakes me finally makes me
Get up off of my knees
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Maybe I’ll be fast as you
Maybe I’ll break hearts too
But I think that you’ll slow down
When your turn to hurt comes around

Maybe I’ll break hearts
And be as fast as you, uh

You’ll control me, oh, so boldly
Rule me ’til I’m free
The pain that shakes me finally makes me
Get up off of my knees

Maybe I’ll be fast as you
Maybe I’ll break hearts too
I think that you’ll slow down
When your turn to hurt comes around

Maybe I’ll break hearts
And be as fast as you
Maybe I’ll break hearts
And be as fast as you

Oh, sookie

Maybe someday I’ll be strong
Maybe it won’t be long
I’ll be the one who’s strong
You’ll be the one who’s got it rough

You’ll be the one who’s got it rough

…

Scruffy the Cat – My Baby, She’s Alright…. 80’s Underground Mondays

Somewhere in the 80’s out of all the synthesizers, electronic drums, quadraverbs, and that big sheen production…there was a rock roots movement playing out on college radio. Some was a mixture of punk rock, country, British Invasion, and power pop.

Scruffy the Cat was a cowpunk band that was popular on the Boston area, but never sniffed the charts. My Baby, She’s All Right is from 1987 that got some MTV airplay. I do barely remember the song after seeing the video. I want to thank Paul for bringing this one up.

The song was off the album Tiny Days released in 1987 and the album was in the top 5 of college national radio charts.

Charlie Chesterman was in a band in Iowa and they all moved to Boston in 1981. The band he was in then broke up and some moved back to Iowa.  Chesterman stayed on in Boston and eventually helped put together another band called Scruffy the Cat (named for a cat owned by the father of one of the band members). Scruffy the Cat began playing around Boston in 1983 and released its first EP-”High Octane Revival”-on the Relativity label in 1986. They released the LP Tiny Days in 1987, Boom Boom Bingo EP in 1987, and their final album Moons of Jupiter in 1988.

They had several national tours and shared the bill with such acts as The Replacements, Yo La Tengo, and Los Lobos. The band played its final shows in 1990 before disbanding. In 2011, Scruffy The Cat played three reunion shows in the Boston area, with the initial show being arranged as a benefit concert for the cancer-stricken Chesterman. Chesterman died in November 2013.

Their music as been described as “a combination of early Elvis Costello and the Attractions with a touch of Jason & the Scorchers’ tough country punk and the American jangle of the Byrds.” They were together between 1984 through 1990.

My Baby, She’s All Right

She’s a long, tall drink of water
Badder than Bo Diddley’s electric guitar
Badder than anything this whole year
I don’t like bragging but I can’t help myself, well…

Long and lean like a Cadillac
Supercharged like the Batmobile
She drives me into the woods
When she gets behind the wheel

In the desert, in the hottest fire, in the houses and over the seas
In the cities, in the telephone wires
They all talk about what she means to me, ’cause…

My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby…

She’s got that certain something
Man, I hope you know what I’m talking about
If you’ve ever had a lover who was really true
Just walking down the street or when you turn out the lights, ’cause…

My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby…

And when she kisses me, I hear the Drells or is it T. Rex?
I could hang my arm out the window, but around my baby is where I’ll be…

I know you must have heard about her
You know everything they say is true
I suppose you know what she means to me
And if you don’t then what’s the matter with you? well…

Haven’t you been listening
Or did you hear what I just said?
If someone tried to show me something better
I’d have to say I’m not interested, because…

My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby…Yeah, yeah, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby, she’s allright
My baby…Yeah

Twilight Zone – Long Live Walter Jameson

★★★★1/2  March 18, 1960 Season 1 Episode 24

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

How would you like to live thousands of years? Mr. Jameson was given that option that many of us would love to have…but it’s not without it’s downfalls. Like the episode “Escape Clause” this episode explores immortality except in this one the main character is sophisticated but can be just as selfish. Even with his considerable life experiences some things don’t sink in.

Compared to shows in 2021 this episode is paced slow but that is a great thing. The story has room to breathe and is laid out in front of us. Living forever looks great on paper but in real time it would be hard to lose people you love over and over again… and lose yourself in parts and pieces in the process.

This is a great episode and an interesting view on immortality.

This episode deals with immortality. The entire cast all lived exceptionally long lives. Kevin McCarthy lived to be 96, Estelle Winwood was 101 when she passed away, Edgar Stehli passed away shortly after turning 89, and Dodie Heath turned 90 in August of 2018.

McCarthy died September 11, 2010 at the age of 96, having earned an acting credit as late as the year he died, more than 50 years after this episode was produced.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive…In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn’t come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.

Summary

Walter Jameson is a successful history professor. He’s been teaching for 12 years and has proven to be very popular with his students for his ability to bring his subject to life. He is engaged to Susanna Kittridge, his good friend Professor Sam Kittridge’s daughter. One thing that Professor Kittridge has noticed about Walter is that he doesn’t seem to have aged one bit in the 12 years they have known each other. Walter admits that he is far older than anyone can imagine but before he and Susanna can elope, someone from his past pays him a visit.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Kevin McCarthy … Prof. Walter Jameson / Tom Bowen / Maj. Hugh Skelton
Edgar Stehli … Professor Sam Kittridge
Estelle Winwood … Laurette Bowen
Dodie Heath … Susanna Kittridge (as Dody Heath)

…

Rolling Stones – Jigsaw Puzzle

This song is from my personal favorite Rolling Stones album, Beggars Banquet released in 1968. As great as Beggars Banquet is, it could have been considered  even better had they included the song they recorded during the early sessions….they released it as a single instead…the song was Jumping Jack Flash.

Jigsaw Puzzle is a great album cut on an album full of them.  The song seemed influenced by Bob Dylan. It has Nicky Hopkins on piano, Keith Richards on slide, and Brian Jones on Mellotron. This album was the first of 5 produced by Jimmy Miller.

Rolling Stone ranked it 69th in its countdown of the band’s top 100 songs, calling it “a country-rock blast of Highway 61 Revisited surrealism.”

Non guitar players may not see the significance in this but when Keith Richards found the 5-string open G tuning…some say from Ry Cooder… that changed the Stones future. Without that discovery I don’t think they have the songs or impact they ended up having.

Songs that were written around that tuning was Brown Sugar, Jumping Jack Flash, Start Me Up, Street Fighting Man, and the list goes on and on. If you are a Stones cover band…most songs after 1967 is in this open G tuning…you have no choice but to learn it.

Those songs would not have sounded the same without that tuning or maybe not written at all. Keith showed Mick that tuning and he wrote the music to Brown Sugar. For the guitar players out there….the tuning is G-D-G-B-D staring with the A string after you remove the low E.

Jigsaw Puzzle

There’s a tramp sittin’ on my doorstep
Tryin’ to waste his time
With his methylated sandwich
He’s a walking clothesline
And here comes the bishop’s daughter
On the other side
And she looks a trifle jealous
She’s been an outcast all her life

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh the gangster looks so fright’ning
With his Luger in his hand
But when he gets home to his children
He’s a family man
But when it comes to the nitty-gritty
He can shove in his knife
Yes he really looks quite religious
He’s been an outlaw all his life

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Yes, yes now
Oh, all right

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh the singer, he looks angry
At being thrown to the lions
And the bass player, he looks nervous
About the girls outside
And the drummer, he’s so shattered
Trying to keep up time
And the guitar players look damaged
They’ve been outcasts all their lives

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh, there’s twenty-thousand grandmas
Wave their hankies in the air
All burning up their pensions
And shouting, “It’s not fair!”
There’s a regiment of soldiers
Standing looking on
And the queen is bravely shouting,
“What the hell is going on?”

With a blood-curdling “tally-ho”
She charged into the ranks
And blessed all those grandmas who
With their dying breaths screamed, “Thanks!”

Me, I’m just waiting so patiently
With my woman on the floor
We’re just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Silent Footsteps – SFSFF Amazing Tales Online

I know some Silent Movie fans follow my blog…if you are interested go to John’s blog for a webinar on June 6th … Hosted by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, John will be presenting a Silent Footsteps Zoom webinar on Sunday, June 6 at 12:00 noon PST…free for those who register. Please read his blog for more details…

John Bengtson's avatarChaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more)

Hosted by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, I will be presenting a Silent Footsteps Zoom webinar on Sunday, June 6 at 12:00 noon PST, as part of its ongoing Amazing Tales Online series. The webinar is free (register HERE), but SFSFF welcomes new members and support. The recorded presentation will be uploaded later to the festival’s online screening room.

An all-new program, my talk covers in part the hidden interplay between movies filmed in Hollywood and in San Francisco. Buster Keaton filmed scenes adjacent to several San Francisco landmarks, but in each case before they were actually built!

Working with Biograph scholar Russell Merritt, we uncovered surprising vestiges of many important locations from D. W. Griffith’s epic masterpiece Intolerance (1916), hidden for over a century, that will be revealed for the first time during my talk. Above, a teaser of what we’ve discovered.

I’ll also…

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Twilight Zone – A World of Difference

★★★★  March 11, 1960 Season 1 Episode 23

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is the kind of story that the Twilight Zone excels at. Vanishing into a fantasy world of your own design forever. They explored this plot device more than once in episodes like The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine and A Stop at Willoughby just to name a few. Don’t worry though because the variations are so good that you would not mind more.

You think Arthur Curtis  is just a white-collar worker until you hear the word “cut.” He is an actor on a set but to him…he is the character he is playing. Howard Duff plays Arthur Curtis who is really Gerry Raigan. You get the feeling you would not like Raigan at all. It seems he has a drinking problem and an ex-wife that just despises him. You start seeing the reason why Arthur Curtis was born. 

Duff is very believable as Curtis…You see the worried look in his eyes yet he is hanging on to Arthur Curtis. 

When Gerry’s ex-wife demands he give her a check, she spells out the last name as “Raigan”. This isn’t the expected way to spell it, which may have been deliberate, so as to not associate the character with Ronald Reagan, the then-President of the Screen Actors Guild.

Look for David White…who became famous a few years later for the character Larry Tate in Bewitched. 

This show was written by Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.

Summary

Arthur Curtis is sitting his office chatting with secretary about plans for his daughter’s birthday party and that he and his wife will be flying off for a couple of days of rest and relaxation. Suddenly he hears someone yell “cut” and he realizes he on a movie sound stage. He can’t understand what has happened to him. Everyone refers to him as Gerry Reagan, but he insists that he is Arthur Curtis. He runs off but can’t find any of the familiar landmarks he knows such as his house or his place of work. He is desperate to return to the world of Arthur Curtis but that window of opportunity may be closing on him.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The modus operandi for the departure from life is usually a pine box of such and such dimensions, and this is the ultimate in reality. But there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six. His departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads, “This Way To Escape”. Arthur Curtis, en route to the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Howard Duff … Arthur Curtis / Gerry Raigan
David White … Brinkley
Frank Maxwell … Marty Fisher
Eileen Ryan … Nora Raigan
Gail Kobe … Sally
Peter Walker … Sam
Susan Dorn … Marion Curtis
Bill Idelson … Kelly (as William Idelson)

…

Beatles – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

This is a great opening track to this famous album. What a way to introduce probably the most famous album ever.

The slicing guitar stands out and the drum sound that Ringo got. Paul McCartney wrote this and sang lead. After recording it, he had the idea of doing the whole album as if Sgt. Pepper was a real band. It became the title track of what was considered a “concept” album, with the songs running seamlessly together on the record.

The title is a parody of American bands who were choosing long names for their bands.

Three days after the album came out, Jimi Hendrix opened a concert with this. McCartney and Harrison were both there, and were very impressed that Hendrix learned it so quickly.

Jimi Hendrix cover The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'

The reprise of the song is right before A Day In The Life.

This song was produced in a rush when The Beatles decided to bring back the theme song to introduce the last track on the album, “A Day In The Life.” The idea to reprise the song came from Neil Aspinall, The Beatles’ friend and road manager.

George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr played this on May 19, 1979 at Eric Clapton’s wedding. Clapton married Harrison’s ex-wife, Pattie. Pattie didn’t think John Lennon would fly over from America so she never sent an invititation. John Lennon said later he would have come.

From Songfacts

The album was heavily produced and took 129 days and about 700 hours to complete. The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in less than 10 hours.

The crowd noise was dubbed in. The Beatles had stopped touring by then.

There really is an apostrophe in this song’s title, although on the album cover, it is rendered without. Since the Lonely Hearts Club Band belongs to Sgt. Pepper, it is possessive, thus “Sgt. Pepper’s.”

This is reprised at the end of the album before the final track, “A Day In The Life.”

This was recorded as one song with “With A Little Help From My Friends.” They flow seamlessly on the album, creating a problem for radio stations that want to play just one of the songs. 

Artist Peter Blake designed the album cover as if Sgt. Pepper’s band had just performed a concert. He asked The Beatles who they wanted at the concert, and put them in the cover design.

All living people depicted on the cover were asked permission. Mae West refused at first – she didn’t want to be part of a “Lonely Hearts Club Band” – but The Beatles wrote her a letter and she agreed. Other characters depicted on the album cover include comedic duos Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Temple and W.C. Field. 

Lennon wanted Jesus, Gandhi, and Hitler on the cover. He had recently taken a lot of heat for saying The Beatles were “Bigger than Jesus,” so they decided not to.

It was rumored that the hand that is sticking out above Paul is that of Adolph Hitler. A Hitler cut out was on the set, but if you look at some side shots of the photo session, you can clearly see that the hand belongs to comic Issy Bonn, whose face is seen in between Paul McCartney and George Harrison. 

On the cover of this album McCartney is taller than the other Beatles. This added to rumors of his death, since there is also a hand above Paul’s head which is an omen of death. Also, if you take a mirror and put the edge on the center of the Lonely Hearts Club Band drum an arrow will point directly to McCartney.

Sgt. Pepper was the first pop album to come with printed lyrics on the cover.

Twelve years after “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “With a Little Help from My Friends” appeared on the Sgt. Pepper album, they were released together as a two-song medley and reached US #71 and UK #63. 

In 2005, Bob Geldof helped organize Live 8, a set of concerts held in eight countries with the goal of promoting activism. The concerts coincided with the G-8 summit, and Geldof was hoping to send a message to world leaders that they should increase aid to Africa and institute fair trade practices. On the London stage, U2 played this with McCartney to kick off the concert. The opening line, “It was 20 years ago today,” was a reference to Live Aid, which Geldof organized for famine relief in 1985.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first rock album to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. 

On the album cover, Paul McCartney is wearing an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) badge on his right sleeve. You can see this better on the inside artwork. 

The hand-painted drum skin used on the cover of the Sgt Pepper album was sold at Christie’s House in London on 10th July 2008 for £541,250 ($1,071,000) – setting a record for non-lyrics Beatles memorabilia.

In 2007, the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool went on a search for real Sgt. Peppers and found seven police or army officers in the UK that were sergeants with the last name Pepper. “Being Sgt. Pepper is awesome but sometimes people think I am bogus when I call them on the phone or introduce myself,” Sgt. Sean Pepper of Highfields said.

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

It was twenty years ago today
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play,
They’ve been going in and out of style,
But they’re guaranteed to raise the smile,
So may I introduce to you,
The act you’ve known for all these years,
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We’re Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
We hope you will enjoy the show
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sit back and let the evening go
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

It’s wonderful to be here,
It’s certainly a thrill
You’re such a lovely audience,
We’d like to take you home with us, we’d love to take you home

I don’t really want to stop the show,
But I thought you might like to know,
That the singer’s going to sing a song
And he wants you all to sing along,
So let me introduce to you
The one and only Billy Shears
And Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Oh ha ha
Yeah, dress down
I feel it, I feel it, I feel it
Oh baby now, I feel it, I feel it, I feel it
Baby, free now
Gotta be free now, gotta be free now, gotta be free
Don’t like that
I think it’ll probably be another day singing it
Yeah so just edit that then, it’s nice
Yeah, and what you can do with the bits where you can’t get it ’cause you haven’t got enough breath
Just take over, yeah

dB’s – Black and White ….Power Pop Friday

The Db’s were a great unknown power pop band…who would influence many bands but not sale many records. The band members were Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby, and Gene Holder.

All of the members are all from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but the band was formed in New York City in 1978. They never broke through to the masses but they were heard on college radio in the 80s. 

“Black and White,” is the leadoff track to The dB’s debut album Stands for Decibels, and it is pure power pop. The dB’s were signed to the U.K. label Albion, which had trouble licensing the record for American distribution…. and subsequently went un-promoted in radio and only received sporadic play from college radio stations.

The Stands for Decibels album was ranked at number 76 on Pitchfork‘s list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s. The dB’s would released 6 albums in all. The last album was released in 2012 when the members reunited. 

The dB’s broke up in 1988 and Peter Holsapple would go on to be an auxiliary guitarist and keyboardist for REM on the Green tour. He then helped in writing and recording their Out Of Time album. Holsapple subsequently worked with Hootie & the Blowfish as an auxiliary musician.

The dB’s worth checking out. 

Good story on two of the members meeting two Big Star members:

In May of 1978 two members of the dB’s Will Rigby, Peter Holsapple, and future R.E.M producer Mitch Easter made a pilgrimage to Memphis. They were about the only people in America who, while attending high school in the early ’70s, were under the impression that Big Star was a major band.

Their first stop was Danver’s…a restaurant that former Big Star’s Chris Bell worked at and his father owned. They passed a note to the server to talk to Chris and out he came. He was shocked that fans would track him down. It had been 6 years since the Big Star debut album was released.  They were impressed by how nice he was to them.

Bell invited them to join him after work at a ferny bar-café called the Bombay Bicycle Club. Here, while Bell played backgammon with a buddy, the three guys peppered him with questions: What kind of guitar did he play? How did he get those great sounds? 

Bell wondered if the boys were up for maybe checking out a Horslips (local rock band) concert. They instead decided to go over to Sam Phillips Recording Service to visit Alex Chilton, Bell’s former Big Star bandmate, then making his experimental album Like Flies on Sherbert. Bell and Chilton exchanged quiet hellos before Bell went home. 

A few days later Alex Chilton drove Easter and Rigby (Holsapple had already left) around Memphis, showing them the old Sun Studios building (which had a Corvair parked inside it), and taking them up a bluff overlooking the Mississippi. He pulled out a cassette and played a song on a junky little cassette player that took his visitors by surprise.

Chilton played the guys a Chris Bell song. He was raving about it saying it was Chris’s best song and it was the ultimate “Big Star song “…the song was I Am The Cosmos which the public had not heard at this point. 

Chris Bell would die in a car wreck on Decemeber 27, 1978…only 7 months after this happened. 

Chris Stamey on Big Star:“They were my favorite, and as far as I knew they were popular all the way across America. At least for that moment, I forgot about Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.”

Peter Holsapple on meeting Chris Bell and I Am The Cosmos:  “that the person who made all that beautiful music was a right-on kind of guy, too.” “It’s that kind of rife-with-sadness record, but it’s realized with the same imploding beauty that Big Star had. I mean, I Am the Cosmos-it’s just wry enough to make you turn your head and do a double-take, you know, the first sixteen thousand times you listen to it.”

Black and White

I, I never would hurt you
But even if I did you
You never would tell me
Oh, we are finished
As of a long time ago
As of a long time ago
I stop
I don’t enjoy you anymore
Well I guess I just don’t enjoy you anymore
Well I guess it’s all laid out in black and white
You don’t like it at all

Love
Love is the answer
To no question
But thanks for
Oh, the suggestion
I know I don’t care at all
Yeah, I know I don’t know anything at all
But I stop

I don’t enjoy you anymore
Well, I guess I just don’t enjoy you anymore
Well, I guess it’s all laid out in black and white
You don’t like it at all
You don’t like it at all
You don’t like it at all
(In black and white)

Lone Justice – Shelter

Dolly Parton: “it makes me so happy that after all of these years they are still Lone Justice with Maria, the greatest girl singer any band could ever have. ”

If I could have controlled the outcome of the 80s…Maria McKee and Lone Justice would have been huge. She is one of my favorite singers of that decade. I had friends listening to more commercial music…while I was stuck on Maria.

Lone Justice had all the potential in the world, but ended up more of a cautionary tale. They had a charismatic lead singer with Maria McKee, a big time producer in Jimmy Iovine, the backing of a major label and contributions from Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Little Steven, and many more. The problem is none of these people knew what to do with their blend of classic country and punk leaving Lone Justice to wither on the vine. One problem is that Geffen just was not patient enough.

Lone Justice was formed in 1982 and played rockabilly and country music as part of the cowpunk scene.

Shelter peaked at #47 in the Billboard 100 and #26 in the Mainstream Rock Tracks.

In 2014 This Is Lone Justice: The Vaught Tapes, 1983 was released…this was pre-Geffen recordings with old country, traditional, and a few originals. I will be posting something from that collection.

Dolly Parton on Lone Justice and Maria McKee:

I have loved Lone Justice and Maria McKee since they first started out as a group. I remember going to see them at The Music Machine in Los Angeles in 1984. I was so impressed that I told everybody about them and encouraged different management people to manage them. I remember that different management groups and record labels wanted to break the group up and record the band and Maria as separate acts. And I remember hearing that they did not want to separate. No matter what might have gone on in the years between, it makes me so happy that after all of these years they are still Lone Justice with Maria, the greatest girl singer any band could ever have. Maria has such charisma and stage presence. I love her voice and her vocal style as well as the way the plays that big ol’ guitar and how she looks while she is playing it. I especially love this new CD. It has some of my favorite old songs on it and some new favorites that I’ve never heard. Hope you enjoy Lone Justice everybody…I know I will.

Respectfully and musically yours.
Dolly Parton

Shelter

Well all right you gave it all up for a dream
Fate proved unkind
To lock the door and leave no key
You’re unsure
Well baby I’m scared too
When the world crushes you

[Chorus]
Let me be you’re shelter shelter
From the storm outside
Let me be your shelter shelter
From the endless tide

Disillusion has an edge so sharp
It tears at your soul
And leaves a stain upon your heart
I need you to wash mine clean
You’ve felt it too
And you need me

[Chorus]

Your struggle with darkness has left you blind
I’ll light the fire in your eyes

[Chorus]

Your struggle with darkness has left you blind
I’ll light the fire in your eyes

[Chorus]

Let me be your shelter shelter shelter shelter shelter

Twilight Zone – Twilight Zone – The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

★★★★★  March 4, 1960 Season 1 Episode 22

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

A 5-Star Classic… This episode has some alien intervention but not much. This is a wonderful study of human nature at work. The outcome could have happened without aliens. A few paranoid panicky people can start a mob and a mob can become a deadly thing. This episode is so good because you can see it build and build into panic until somebody does something that cannot be undone.

Very good character actors with faces…faces that you remember. You also have Claude Akins as the voice of reason…but even he can get caught up in it. This is a must watch…forget the Twilight Zone twist…just watch suspicion and paranoia grow.

The uniforms worn by the aliens, their spaceship’s ramp, and the shot of the flying spaceship were originally used in Forbidden Planet.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Maple Street, U.S.A., late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor. At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 P.M. on Maple Street…This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment—before the monsters came.

Summary

On a pleasant day, the residents of Maple Street feel something akin to a tremor and hear a loud noise. Steve Brand thinks it’s a meteorite though they didn’t hear a create. When young Tommy tells them the science fiction story he read about an alien invasion where they were first sent among humans to live with them in disguise, paranoia sets in. They first suspect Les Goodman and loudmouth Charlie Farnsworth then points the finger at Steve and then Tommy. Events turn on Charlie as everyone runs amok.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Claude Akins … Steve Brand
Barry Atwater … Les Goodman
Jack Weston … Charlie Farnsworth
Jan Handzlik … Tommy
Amzie Strickland… Woman
Burt Metcalfe … Don Martin
Mary Gregory … Sally
Jason Johnson … Man
Anne Barton … Myra Brand
Leah Waggner … Mrs. Goodman (as Lea Waggner)
Joan Sudlow … Old Woman
Ben Erway … Pete Van Horn
Lyn Guild … Mrs. Farnsworth
Sheldon Allman … Alien
Bill Walsh … Alien (as William Walsh)

…

Bodeans – Only Love

Another band that missed the masses but were a hit on college radio in the 80s.

Only Love was released in 1986. The Bodeans opened up for U2 on their Joshua Tree tour and you would think they would have broken through a little more than they did.

This song was on the album “Outside Looking In” their second album released in 1987.  Their first album “Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams” was released in 1986 and it lead to a full-page profile in Time Magazine. The story, written by  critic Jay Cocks, quotes Llanas as saying, “We were a big fish in a little pond. Now we’re little fish in a big pond. You’re a local band until you get a record contract, then all of a sudden Bruce Springsteen is your competition.”

In 1977 Sophomores Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann meet in study hall at Waukesha South High School and bond over a shared love of music. The two later end up playing music together. In 1980 At Neumann’s urging, Llanas dropped out of college to pursue music full-time. The group pursues gigs at small bars, clubs, dances and events. Llanas comes up with the name, Da BoDeans.

Llanas and Neumann added drummer Guy Hoffman (Oil Tasters, Confidentials, later the Violent Femmes) and bass player Bob Griffin (The Agents) to fill out their sound in 1983.

Their first album was referred to as cowpunk, rockabilly, roots-rock, revivalist rock, and as a synthesis of the a Rolling Stones and the Everly Brothers. Band member Sammy Lianas made more modest claims for the group, telling Cosmopolitan columnist Michael Segell, “I’d describe us as a band that writes a lot of good songs in different styles and plays most of them pretty well… . Our biggest influence was mid-sixties radio.

The band was still touring as of 2019 but Kurt Neumann is the only original member left.

Only Love

See you walking down the street now every day
Pushing by the people as you make your way
You’re walking proud now, baby
You got your head held high
Want you to know that this whole world
Sees your heart cry
Now see how hard you try
To make yourself believe

It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love

Maybe love shouldn’t have to be so hard to take
Shouldn’t have to feel that love
Until your poor heart breaks
So why you tell yourself
You know there’s no one else
Then it ain’t worth the waiting anymore
Don’t you wonder if there’s such a thing

It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love

You better look in there
Believe it, even if it’s too hard to
Someone who’s been waiting
Oh, baby, just for you and love
It’s only love

If I could, I’d take you, baby, in my arms
Take away all love’s blame
And all love’s scars
Maybe we could ride away
Till we get so far away
And then I couldn’t see us coming back again
Well show me what you think of it
Show me what you need

It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love
It’s only love

…