Thursday, June 7, 2018

Thursday This And That



Hey Kent ... 
THANKS for running the piece on Taylor’s In Orbit!!!
She is scheduled to run again on June 15th at Gulfstream Park.
First three races ... two wins and a 4th place finish ... not bad!
Cheers ...
Tommy Roe
kk …
Does Tommy Roe have a song for "Taylor's In Orbit?"
FB
Not yet … but if she keeps racking up these victories, he very well may have one soon!  (He told us earlier that he once owned a horse named “Heather Honey,” which was the name of one of his biggest hits!)  kk  

The announcement I saw two Sundays ago about a mini-Byrds / Sweethearts Of The Rodeo Reunion Tour FINALLY popped up again online yesterday … and Ultimate Classic Rock ran this story:



Byrds co-founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman have announced a tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their landmark country-rock LP, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
They will play the classic album in its entirety and share stories of its creation. The duo will receive backing by country music legend Marty Stuart and his band the Fabulous Superlatives.
“On March 9, 1968, Roger McGuinn and I, along with many fantastic musicians, began recording the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album at Columbia Studios in Nashville,” said Hillman. “We are honored that it has left a strong, long-lasting impression on country and rock music.”
“Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo with a group of my favorite musicians is an honor," McGuinn added. "We're all looking forward to taking the fans through the back pages of the recording.”
Though greeted with commercial indifference when it was released (it rose no higher than No. 77 on the Billboard 200 albums chart), Sweetheart’s stature has grown in the ensuing five decades, due in no small part to the influence of Gram Parsons, who had joined the Byrds, but due to contractual issues was not heavily featured on the album. Years later, his original vocals for the album were unearthed and included on a deluxe edition of the record.
Sweetheart of the Rodeo is widely considered to be one of the most influential country-rock albums of all time, and is often credited with impacting both the genre’s greatest bands (including acts like the Eagles, the Long Ryders and Wilco) and its genre offshoots, like Americana.
You can see a list of announced tour dates below. More shows will be announced soon.
Byrds Co-Founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman's 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' 50th Anniversary 2018 Tour 
July 24 - Los Angeles, Calif. -- Ace Hotel
July 29 - Saratoga, Calif. -- Mountain Winery
Sep 18 - Albany, N.Y. -- Hart Theater @ The Egg
Sep 20 -- Hopewell, Va. -- Beacon Theatre
Oct 3 -- Akron, Ohio -- Akron Civic Theatre

Not much of a list yet … but we fully expect more dates to be announced soon.  (kk)

The announcement I saw must have been a premature release ... damn, I could have scooped the world had I ever heard anything back from Roger McGuinn!
I did catch Roger on The Beatles Channel over the weekend, however, talking about some of his favorite Beatles tracks.
One that he singled out is George Harrison's "If I Needed Someone," a track clearly influenced by Roger's guitar playing style from The Byrds, of whom all of The Beatles were huge fans.  So I found it particularly fitting that Roger has taken the mutual admiration society approach a full step further by recording his own version of George's song.  (Kind of the ultimate Paying It Forward since The Byrds themselves were influenced by The Beatles and Bob Dylan at the start of their career!) 



Speaking of The Beatles, Rolling Stone ran an excellent article last week spotlighting the demos The Beatles recorded at George Harrison's house after their return from India, many of which ended up on The White Album.  (Still no word yet as to whether these will see official release as part of a 50th Anniversary Celebration … it would be nice to have them in pristine condition … but RS does feature sound clips for each track mentioned.)

We reviewed "The Beatles" several years ago in honor of the double album's 40th Anniversary … and noted Beatles Historian Bruce Spizer shared his thoughts track-by-track as well.  You can find this piece here:
Which again begs the question, did The Beatles spread themselves by recording a double album for their Apple debut?  Critics have speculated for years what the ultimate single album might have been.  We'd love to hear from you guys out there … can you put together the ultimate 16-track LP?
Email us your suggestions and we'll run your feedback during our 50th Anniversary celebration.  (kk)

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the release of The Beatles animated film "Yellow Submarine," a brand new picture-disc single is being released featuring the original pairing of "Yellow Submarine" with "Eleanor Rigby," just like it was back in 1966.  (The film, of course, came on a couple of years later.)

 

The film will also be rereleased in theaters for a limited run.
More details on this release can be found here:

Ultimate Classic Rock also dropped this one-liner last week:

You can also hear someone exclaim "fucking hell" at about the three-minute mark during "Hey Jude."

I have NEVER heard this before … and I’ve been listening to “Hey Jude” for fifty years now!  Listening to the muffled background they’re referring to (which I have heard before), I’ve always taken it to say “let it out” as in “let it out and let it in,” a phrase that’s used in the song as well as in the background vocals.

However, the link above references this quote from Mark Lewisohn’s book “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions”:

Hey Jude contains an unedited expletive, which is often played by radio stations to this day. In the final verse, John Lennon sang "Let her into" instead of "Let her under your skin". His cry of "Oh!", followed by "Fucking hell", remains in the final mix. 
I was told about it at the time but could never hear it. But once I had it pointed out I can't miss it now. I have a sneaking suspicion they knew all along, as it was a track that should have been pulled out in the mix. I would imagine it was one of those things that happened – it was a mistake, they listened to it and thought, 'doesn't matter, it's fine'.
Ken Scott, Engineer
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
Oh, well I can’t hear it.  (Never heard the dog whistle on “Sgt. Pepper” either or the run-out groove until it was released on CD!  But some of those "I buried Paul" clues were pretty creepy!!!)  kk


Hi Kent -
I know how much Chicago loves their hometown boys, The Buckinghams, but so does Ohio!
The Buckinghams returned to Hoover Auditorium at Lakeside, Ohio, to kick off the summer!
Original members Carl Giamarese and Nick Fortuna put on an amazing show with a little help from Dave Zane, Rocky Penn and Bruce Soboroff - as well as the horn section from Sonny Geraci's band.
The boys did all the hits - Susan - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy - Hey Baby - Don't You Care, taking the crowd back thru memory lane.  Also performing hits from groups from the Happy Together tour, Time Won't Let Me by the Outsiders, and many more.
A great show as always.
Tom Apathy
 



And, as always, great shots! Thanks, Tom!  (kk)


>>>During the course of the past 40 years I have had tickets to see Billy Joel three times … and have yet to make it to a single concert.  Each and every time something came up that prevented me from being able to attend … and all those tickets went into the garbage instead!  (kk)
Maybe you'd have better luck going to the ballgame instead of the Billy Joel Concert. 
Speaking of which, I just read this in the newspaper …
Alexa Ray Joel knows daddy, Billy, wants a duet at Madison Square Garden. She says "Our duet will be my Father's Day gift to him."
I guess it beats a tie! 
FB  

Hey Kent,
A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation about the singers who sounded like Elvis and had hit records.
My older brother told me about a guy named Ral Donner, who was getting on the charts. I listened to him lately and thought he actually was trying to sound like The King. There was Crispian St. Peters, from England, with his hit, "The Pied Piper."  Another Brit was Tony Sheridan, a singer The Beatles backed, in the early days. Dan Hamilton, of Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds, sounded quite a bit like Elvis. Then there was Terry Stafford, who sang a cover of Elvis' "Suspicion," my favorite recording of the song.  Somewhere, I heard or read that Elvis said that Terry Stafford sounded more like him than HE did! Stafford also wrote George Strait's big hit "Amarillo By Morning," as it was Terry's home town. The sad thing is that some of these guys lived short lives. I can't think of any more Elvis-like singers, but probably will come up with another after I send this to you!
- John LaPuzza
I don't know that I've ever heard anybody lump Crispian St. Peters into the Elvis sound-alike category before but two that immediately came to mind when I read your email were Ronnie McDowell, who had the hit "The King Is Gone" (#12, 1977), released shortly after Elvis' death.  It was more a tribute to The King, but sung in Elvis' style.



The other was a done by a guy calling himself Vince Everett (the name of the character Elvis played in his movie "Jailhouse Rock.") He did an absolutely outstanding version of one of my favorite Elvis songs "Such A Night," which became a #16 Hit here in Chicago but never charted nationally.




Ral Donner sounded a lot like Elvis on some of his hits … but his #4 Hit "You Don't Know What You've Got (Until You Lose It)" is a stand-alone great record all on its own.  (Ral was regarded highly enough to be asked to provide the narration in the film "This Is Elvis," a great biopic if you haven't seen it.)




Here in Chicago we also had the great Rick Saucedo, who has now been "doing Elvis" for longer than Elvis did Elvis!!!  There are all kind of great impersonators of The King all over the world … but as far as hit records go, recorded in the style of Elvis, I think we've mentioned the best known of this genre.  We welcome our readers to provide other suggestions and/or examples.  (kk)

By the way, in the spirit of 50th Anniversaries, we're hearing that Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special will be re-released in theaters to coincide with the anniversary.  More details to come ... but be sure to check theaters near you! (kk)