The ever resilient Chuck Buell comes thru once again with some great, last-minute Fathers Day gift ideas!
(Where would we be without him???)
[Well, I for one, would probably still be sleeping since it IS, after all, a SATURDAY!!!]
But for all of the rest of you out there chomping at the bit to do some last minute Fathers Day shopping, may we suggest ...
Our in-resident Forgotten Hits Fantasy
Gift Shop Manager, Chuck Buell, now follows up his recent romantic Valentine’s
Day Gift Giving Suggestions with his very special select Gift Giving
Ideas for Father’s Day!
As usual ALL of these ARE actual
items; some can be personalized; others he just added the FH Logo on them himself
just for imaginary visual Fun!
So, here we go again!
The Dad Chef who loves to cook will be
truly inspired when he begins creating his medley of his food specialties with
this Forgotten Hits Turntable Design Heavy Duty Glass Prep Board!
Then to serve his culinary delights, this
Truly Fine, Solid Wood, Cassette-Designed Space-saving Dining
Table!
Dad can set his table
with the Forgotten
Hits, 12-inch, Heat-resistant, Silicone Cassette Table Protective,
Record Design Placemats, complete with Grooves, that look like real 33
LPs in every expected detail!
He can pair them with these compatible
4-inch, Slip-proof, Silicone Cassette Table Protective, Record Design Beverage Coasters, complete with Grooves, that also look like real 45 Singles in every
smaller-sized expected detail!
Plus, their own Right-sized Miniature Turntable to Stack those Record Coasters on to be Ready to Play at another time!
After Dinner is done and the lights are
down low and Dad's Relaxing, be sure he can easily find his Favorite Forgotten Hits Records with
these special Glow in the Dark 45 Spindle Adapters!
When Dad’s done listening to his Favorite Forgotten Hits, he’ll want
to protect his fine Headphones by placing them carefully and safely on his
personal Walnut Finished Layered Wood Headphone Stand designed just like his own personal
no-haircut pandemic year Hair Style, his Dead Head Fandom Hair Style, or his 1960s Hippie Hair
Style of many years ago!
Then,
it’s off for his nightly shower. It’ll
be a rockin’ song-filled Shower Concert every night, Standing Room Only,
with this amazing, Detailed, Working Replica of the Classic Vintage
Shure Model 55 “Elvis Mic” Shower Head
Microphone!
This unique Shower Head Mic easily
replaces his previous standard shower head!
(OK ... now THIS I love!!! - kk)
Why, it's just like the one Kent enjoys anytime in his
own Personal Master Bathroom!
(Hit it, Kent!)
Just ANOTHER great service provided to you out there at home by your friends at Forgotten Hits.
And VERY special thanks to our Personal Shopper, CHUCK BUELL, for making it all possible! (kk)
The movie I've been waiting 2 1/2 years to see ... the new Peter Jackson Director's Cut of "The Beatles: Get Back" ... originally due in theaters LAST year (and then delayed because of the pandemic ... but pushed back to open in theaters THIS year ... on my BIRTHDAY, no less) has now been pushed back to Thanksgiving Weekend ... and airing exclusively on Disney+, the premium streaming channel. (Now I know why the book accompanying the film was delayed until October!)
On the PLUS side (no pun intended), we already HAVE Disney+ ... signed up for it so we could see "WandaVision" and kept it going for "Big Shot," the new John Stamos television series (and any number of Disney programs for the Grandkids) ... and, instead of being a two-hour theatrical release, we'll get 6+ (there's that "+" again) hours ... a full director's cut with footage NEVER before seen. (This rivals "The Beatles Anthology" in terms of length .... but focuses on a VERY specific era in Beatles folklore ... the sessions that nearly broke up the band and begat the "Let It Be" album.) The six-hour mini-series will air on three consecutive nights, November 25th, 26th and 27th, kicking off on Thanksgiving Day.
Actually, the "Get Back" / "Let It Be" sessions (including the legendary rooftop concert) all took place BEFORE the band regrouped to record their REAL swan song LP, "Abbey Road" ... and this film promises to show a MUCH happier and carefree group of guys, together now for over a dozen years, (long and) winding down a career unparalleled by any other. It rewrites history to allow the band to end their career on a high note. (Honestly, the best one could previously have hoped before with the original theatrical release plan for was maybe a few hours of dvd extras ... but NOW, we get the six hour version up front with ... hopefully ... several more hours of unaired footage once the BluRay and DVD are released, most likely JUST in time for Christmas.)
Filmed over a three week period in January of 1969, as sort of a musical diary showing The Beatles making their new record album, it was interesting to see The Beatles warming up with a number of old '50's and early '60's favorites in the studio before laying down tracks of their own. In addition to the footage used in the original "Let It Be" film, Jackson had another sixty hours of unseen video footage to review, as well as another 150 hours of audio recordings ... and, thanks to all the delays up to this point, he also had ample time to determine the pick of the litter ... so this should REALLY be something.
Paul and Ringo have already heaped massive praise on the final results, as have Beatle widows Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono Lennon ... and we're chomping at the bit to see it, too. (It all culminates with the full-length rooftop concert, the last time all four Beatles performed together live as a band.)
Vanity Fair (in on the well-kept secret for awhile now) ran this exclusive piece yesterday ...
A GREAT way to end the week ... as we now begin the countdown to Thanksgiving Weekend!!!
And, since we're talking Beatles ...
Happy 79th Birthday to Paul McCartney!
In reflecting on his career AFTER The Beatles (he charted an incredible 48 more times on Billboard's Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart between 1971 and 2018 with NINE more #1 Hits), I challenged myself to pick my All-Time Top Ten Favorite Macca Singles. (As a lifetime fan, I can assure you that this was no easy task ... and that the titles on this list have changed MANY times over the past fifty years!)
But after hearing many (if not MOST) of these songs literally THOUSANDS of times now, here's what I've come up with:
(Remember, these are my PERSONAL favorites ... and do not reflect how well these songs performed on the chart.)
# 1 - Listen To What The Man Said (#1, 1975)
# 2 - Live And Let Die (#2, 1973)
# 3 - Say Say Say (with Michael Jackson) #1, 1983
# 4 - Coming Up (Live At Glasgow) #1, 1980
# 5 - Arrow Through Me (#29, 1979)
# 6 - Goodnight Tonight (#5, 1979)
# 7 - Take It Away (#10, 1982)
# 8 - This One (#94, 1989)
# 9 - So Bad (#23, 1984)
#10 - My Brave Face (#25, 1989)
Surprised? Only three of my Top Ten Favorites were #1 Hits ... and, incredibly SIX are from the '80's (which surprised even ME!)
Happy Birthday, Sir Paul ...
And thank you for ALL the great music. (kk)
Lots of press this past week, too, on the new 50(+) Year Anniversary Deluxe Box Set of George Harrison's #1 Album, "All Things Must Pass" ... so LOTS of "new" Beatles-related events going on right now! (kk)
Kent,
Thank you for including the piece on
Tufano & Giammarese. It was a very creative time for Dennis and I, one of my best
musical experiences in my long musical career.
Best,
Carl
My pleasure ... this was not an era in the band's history that a lot of people got the chance to explore ... so I am happy to relive those memories here. (kk)
I stand corrected ...
>>>Some of the songs on Sean Ross' "Lost Songs of the '70's" list simply don't fit Me-TV-FM's "soft rock oldies" format ... I don't think you're going to hear "Dynomite!," "My Ding-A-Ling," "Scorpio" or the Frijid Pink version of "House Of The Rising Sun" any time soon on Me-TV-FM ... no matter HOW long you listen!!! (kk)
Good Morning, Kent:
Thank you for mentioning our weekend features in your blog today — above the fold, no less! We truly appreciate that.
As for the “Lost” songs that “simply
don’t fit their ‘soft rock oldies’ format,” you referred specifically to
four titles. We’ll be playing three of them over the weekend. One of
them will be on “Dance With Me” Saturday night, and two
others can be heard between 10:00 am and 12:30 pm on Sunday, so it’s not
like we’re relegating them to the overnight.
Rick O'Dell
Program Director
Me-TV-FM
Well, I can pretty safely guess the Bazooka song playing on their "Dance With Me" feature ... and will go out on a limb and guess that "My Ding-A-Ling" (which may have already received airplay on the station during their Thanksgiving / Novelty Turkeys feature) and Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio"may be the other two he's referring to ... but I stick with my gut feeling about the Frijid Pink tune. (So I guess we'll have to feature it HERE so that you all still get the chance to hear it!!!) kk
Speaking of Me-TV-FM, it looks like they still have a safe home at 87.7 on the Chicagoland dial … for a while
anyway …
A new
ruling, coming in ahead of the July 13th deadline to convert from an
analog tv signal to a digital one (or face cancellation and, in this case,
extinction), is allowing Me-TV-FM (a Top Ten Station here in Chicago … and now
boasting six affiliates throughout the country with streaming available from
their Milwaukee hub) to continue broadcasting from their 87.7 FM berth.
According to
Venture Technologies Group CEO Paul Koplin on behalf of Me-TV-FM, “We still need
to make this a permanent solution ... but in the meantime, MeTV FM will live
and thrive, and we are lucky to have someone like Neal Sabin entertain us.”
Venture leases WRME-LP to Weigel Broadcasting as Soft Oldies “87.7 MeTV-FM,“ of which Sabin is vice chairman of
Weigel Broadcasting and creator of MeTV FM … and a pretty savvy
businessman.(He took the whole concept
of Forgotten Hits and turned it into a successful radio station, proving once
and for all that listeners DO remember all this great music that we all grew up
with way back when ... just like I kept trying to tell everybody they would!!!)kk
Speaking of
Me-TV, here’s a story we’ve told a few times …
Being a HUGE
Rick Nelson fan (I was fortunate enough to see him perform live about a dozen
times … and was even mistaken for BEING him when I was ambushed by four girls
as I was coming out of the bathroom prior to Rick taking the stage at one of
his shows … yeah, right ... like I look like Rick Nelson … or the REAL Rick Nelson would be using the public
bathroom at the venue!), I thought I knew everything there was about the guy …
including the fact that his dad, Ozzie, would NOT allow his son to perform on
The Ed Sullivan Show at the peak of his career … despite the fact that an
appearance on Ed’s show would most certainly result in even MORE record sales for the early rock star. (Life Magazine literally coined the phrase "Teen Idol" when referring to Rick in and early profile ... and that distinction has been with us ever since!)
The idea was that
if Rick ONLY performed on The Ozzie and Harriet Show, more teenage fans would
tune in to see him.(Once Nelson's singing career took off, he typically ended each episode with a musical performance.I have quite a collection of these on video …
unfortunately VHS tapes for the most part … but they’re still fun to watch
every once in a while!)
It’s not
like his not appearing on Ed’s program really hurt his career … from 1957 to
1964, Nelson made The National Top 40 an incredible 34 times before The Beatles hit and put
nearly every American act that came before them out of business.(This tally included 18 Top Ten Hits, including two
that went all the way to #1.)
So I
maintained Rick’s Sullivan status until Frannie blew me out of the water one
day when she told me that she had seen Rick Nelson on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“Impossible,”
I maintained … “It never happened” … but Frannie insisted that she had seem him
perform, wearing a yellow sweater, on one of those “Best Of Ed Sullivan” episodes
that came out AGES ago (and are currently still running on Me-TV-FM.)
Turns out
she was right …
After The
Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet went off the air (and the competition was no
longer a threat … AND, quite honestly, Rick’s career was in the doldrums, not having a hit since
1964), he FINALLY appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1966 to perform both
sides of his latest single, “Fire Breathing Dragon” and “Your Kind
Of Lovin’” … and guess what … after all that, the Sullivan magic didn’t work … the record never
even made the charts!(Cue the Johnny
Mathis record “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late!!!”)By 1966, nobody cared WHAT Rick Nelson was
doing … but Little Ricky (oh wait, that was the other one!) still had a couple
of comebacks up his sleeve.
In 1968, he
made the charts with this version of a Bob Dylan tune, “She Belongs To Me,”
which peaked at #23 … and, four years later, after a disastrous appearance at a
Madison Square Garden oldies concert, he was inspired to write and record
“Garden Party,” a hit that went all the way to #3 in 1972.(Nelson’s foray into Country/Rock with his
Stone Canyon Band made him one of the first innovators of this genre of music,
soon taken to even greater heights by bands like The Eagles, Poco and several
others.)
Sadly,
Nelson died on New Year’s Eve, 1985.(I
had seen him perform on New Year’s Eve just a couple of years before at The
Park West here in Chicago, making this an even more eerie death for me.I even got interviewed by Alan Krashesky of
ABC News inside Rolling Stones Record about what Nelson’s music meant to me.It meant a LOT.)
Me-TV ran a
feature on this particular topic this week in their newsletter (which is what
inspired me to tell this story again)
After recently rerunning our “Songs Of Bob Dylan” / 80th
Birthday feature (which just happened to feature Rick Nelson singing Bob's "She Belongs To Me"), I just had to tell you that Bob has announced a brand new,
streaming concert event to take place on July 18th, kicking off at
noon Chicago time.
While more details are expected to come as the concert date
draws near, it is currently being described as “An exclusive broadcast
performance, Shadow
Kingdom, which will showcase the artist in an intimate setting as
he presents renditions of songs from his extensive body of work created
especially for this event.”
The
announcement goes on to say that “Shadow Kingdom will mark the first
concert performance since December, 2019, and first performance since his
universally acclaimed album, Rough and Rowdy Ways.”
Tickets ($25) are on sale now at Veeps.com(Those
who purchase tickets will be able to rewatch it until July 21 at 2:59 a.m. ET.)kk
From Frank B. on one of his faves ...
WCBS-FM 101 New York - Bruce Morrow FIRST SHOW - June 5,
1982 - Radio Aircheck – YouTube
>>>I
have seen a brand new commercial (at least brand new to me) on television. It
is 15 seconds long and the item is Lipton Iced Tea. In the background is
the song by Davie Allan and the Arrows, I'M LOOKING OVER A FOUR LEAF CLOVER.I have only seen this commercial twice … so I
am not positive that it is Davie Allan ... but I am positive about the song,
even though it is done very quietly in the background, causing one to have
problems figuring it out at all!(Larry)
>>> Well, I can ask
Davie Allan if his song is being used in the new Lipton Tea advertising
campaign!!! (Davie has been a long-time Forgotten Hits Reader … so let’s
see what he has to say.) kk
>>>I
have searched the Iced Tea tune and couldn't find my recording. Is there a way
your reader can give me more info and somehow get a copy of the commercial?Thanks.(Davie)
>>>I can only
surmise by this response that either it isn’t Davie … or if it is, he was never
notified (or likely compensated!)Can we
get a little bit more information on this so we can check things out?(I found a site that shows all of the recent
Lipton Iced Tea commercials … and none of them feature this song. Maybe
it’s a different brand? (Not Lipton)Since
I’ve never seen the commercial, maybe you can let us know the next time you see
it. Thanks, Larry … or any other readers who can steer us right!
(kk)
I saw that
commercial again last night after I emailed you concerning the Lipton Iced Tea.
Now this commercial seemed to be a different one, but also some 15 seconds
long. It appeared to not have quite as much instrumental in the background. Now
I know that through the years this song has been recorded some half-dozen times
or more. I did look up who did the other versions but none of those seemed to
fit the commercial. I'll try to update you when I get something more
substantial. But the first time I saw the commercial, Davie Allan's version was
what came to my mind.
Larry
But then …
Kent,
I just now saw
and heard that commercial advertising Lipton Iced Tea. This time I heard it
somewhat more distinctly and came to the conclusion that it wasn't Davie
Allan's version of I'M LOOKING OVER A FOUR LEAF CLOVER ... but initially when I
heard it the first two times, I actually thought it was Davie Allan's
recording.
Now you ain't
gong to believe this. A few minutes before that, I saw another commercial.This is a new one advertising Clorox Hand
Sanitizer. Kent, call me crazy, but I swear that the music I heard being played
in the background is a Little Richard tune.
Larry
Based on all of these recent
reports, I can only conclude that you are watching WAY too much TV!!!
I haven’t seen this one
either (but probably a bit more likely to hear a Little Richard tune than Davie
Allan’s version of “I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover” which, I must admit, I
have never heard in my entire life (nor could I even find a copy on YouTube.)
Regardless, NOW I want to see
this commercial!(The fact that you’ve
seen it this many times in the past two weeks tells me it must be a VERY recent
ad … it doesn’t even appear on that Lipton collection I sent out the other
day.)kk
I, for one, am very happy to
report that the new Peacock Series “Girls 5eva” has been renewed for a second
season.
It’s a fun, light-hearted
look at a One Hit Wonder, flash-in-the-pan ‘90’s girl group (not too unlike The
Spice Girls) who had their moment in the spotlight and then disappeared into
obscurity until a present day rapper sampled one of their songs in his new hit
single … and now all of a sudden they’ve decided it’s time for a comeback.
Anyway, to show
you just how talented these girls really are … and with a wink and a nod homage
to the group who probably inspired the lion’s share of inspiration for their
characters … check out Girls 5eva performing The Spice Girls’ hit “Wannabe”
with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots!(What a
great clip!)kk
And how about this ...
What a GREAT way to end the week!!!
Kent …
Your blog continues to ROCK!
All
of us at the “Rare & Scratchy Rock ‘N Roll” podcast get smarter
every week that we peruse what you and your subscribers have written.
Absolutely great, and reliable information you cannot get anywhere else!
Great stuff!
Rock on,
Radio Dave
Disc Jockey At Law
Thank you, kind sir ... your praise is MUCH appreciated. (kk)
