Great piece by YOU on Joel Whitburn!
You've probably already seen NYT obit on . . .
NYT Obituaries (@NYTObits) tweeted at 6:12 PM on Thu, Jun 23, 2022:
Joel Whitburn's books “had a profound impact on the music
industry as a whole,” an executive of Billboard magazine said. “Joel’s
chronicling of the Hot 100 gave it a significant stamp of approval nationally.”
https://t.co/nrTEQ7TKEP
(https://twitter.com/NYTObits/status/1540140665484591106?t=iM-oMX5c_7hS2Qpqbwh-oQ&s=03)
>>>I Don't Know If It's Possible To Do A Countdown Of Joel Whitburn Books … Most Sales #1 and Least Sales, Last Place. I Think He'd Like That. (FB)
Don't know if that works, but how about how many of us bought that first 1955 - 1969 book originally? That would be cool to know, as I know both you and I bought it, Kent. I THINK it was $15 then.
Clark Besch
Actually, the first one I ever bought was the little 6 x 9, perfect bound edition with the orange cover that listed the data thru 1972. (I wanna say it was $40 … but worth every single penny. I must have used it over 2000 times!)
And it was about as basic a list as you can imagine … it
almost looked typewriter-generated with absolutely NO details on the artists or
chart data above and beyond the original chart date, title, record label, peak position and
number of weeks charted. (I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I used
to see walking around the record convention carrying their copy of this book,
using it as their “buyer’s guide check-list” trying to get their hands on every
record they ever missed growing up! And I'm talking even several years later ... it was the go-to guide, along with those Rockin' Records Price Guides that were invaluable in finding non-charted, obscure titles ... and knowing how much to expect to pay for them.)
I’ve still got a copy of every book I ever purchased thru Joel’s company. They’re all packed away in boxes (many, MANY boxes) in the garage as I replaced each one with the newest, latest edition the minute it came out … but I could never really bear to part with any of them. (I used to swear that I would NEVER write in them or mark them up in any way … and then time and time again I would give in and try to use Joel’s list as my own master, slugging in additional chart facts I wanted documented as well … usually whether or not I had a copy and, if so, where to find it … also adding in our local chart information as a comparison factor.) There was simply no end to the joy these books would bring chartaholics like us. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine having this much information so readily available … and all in one spot!!! (kk)
Ross On Radio singled out this pick as one of the month’s best so far …
It’s our FH / Record Research Buddy Paul Haney’s appearance on Ron Gerber’s “Crap From The Past” program that we told you about last week! (In fact, that first link allows you to listen to the entire two hour broadcast!) kk
Best Reader Pick: “Ron Gerber’s ‘Crap from the Past’ and his guest Paul Haney from Record Research, Inc., on KFAI Minneapolis. Together, they did a wonderful tribute to [chart historian, and Haney’s boss] Joel Whitburn.” – Jay Philpott, Love 105 Minneapolis. Gerber is a longtime friend of ROR. Another friend of the column, S-Curve’s Steve Greenberg, wrote this Whitburn appreciation.
The show gets off to a bit of a rough start ... first he plays the wrong Rick Nelson record ("Fools Rush In" instead of "Poor Little Fool," which I'm sure was meant to be a tie-in to the Hot 100's first #1 Record ... then incorrectly stating the name of Joel's Record Research company a few times ... but Paul goes on to paint a pretty thorough picture of what it was like working for Joel's company for 30+ years and some of the many conversations he and Joel shared over those years.)
I got a notice from Blogger that our Joel Whitburn tribute was our most-read post of the past two years … his work truly did touch every music fan out there … and on so many different levels … whether you were a casual fan or lived for the charts. (Look at any Greatest Hits CD compilation you’ve bought in the past fifty years and odds are Joel’s data is incorporated somewhere in the liner notes.) He documented the facts, the stats and the figures that explain popular music history of our lifetime.
Chuck Buell suggested that we consider designating November 29th (the date of his birth) as “Forgotten Hits National ‘Joel Whitburn Day,’ “in honor of his impactful, never-ending dedication to compiling valuable Facts and Figures about today’s Popular Music in all genres that have been, and still are, referenced to by Music Aficionados everywhere.”
Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me ... and a great way to keep the tribute going. (Who knows ... I may even be able to incorporate my Top 40 Hall Of Fame idea into all of this!!!)
What do you guys think? And what would be a good way to recognize Joel's efforts each year? (I even thought about doing either a Whitburn Award ... or maybe sending a Record Research book to one lucky winner on each anniversary. I'm thinking Paul Haney would lend his support to such an event on an annual basis ... let's see what he says.)
Hey, I'm open to your suggestions ... let me know what you think! (kk)
From Tom Cuddy …
Janitor
Goes Viral During School Assembly for Singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey
https://americansongwriter.com/janitor-goes-viral-during-school-assembly-for-singing-dont-stop-believin-by-journey/
(This one’s worth watching … but I don’t know if it’ll outsell the “Glee” version from 2009 … that one got all the way up to #4 … which is five spots higher than the Journey original made it!!!) kk
And our buddy Spud sent us these links to Beach Boys and Beach Boys / Chicago info …
Aloha!
Here are some fun links for the weekend:
The Beach Boys on 10 of their favourite Beach Boys songs:
https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/lists/the-beach-boys-on-10-of-their-favourite-beach-boys-songs-139063
(My copy of this just
came in the mail yesterday! – kk)
Nice review of the Irvine, CA show including a cool video of Darian singin’
“Darlin’” with the Chicago horn section:
https://livemusicnewsandreview.com/2022/06/brian-wilson-plays-california
Great video of Chicago playing “Wishing You Were Here” with Al, Matt and
Brian’s band in Phoenix, AZ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPRC9GwQQxc
And finally, here’s a new song from my band Drifting Sand that
features Al on chorus vocals and his son Adam too (in the outro)! The
song was recorded in Carmel and Pacific Grove, CA and produced by Stevie Heger
(co-producer/engineer & drummer on A Postcard from California). Additional
credits listed in link below:
https://driftingsand.bandcamp.com/track/best-summer-ever
Enjoy and have a beachin’ weekend!
Spud
DRIFTING SAND
www.driftingsand.com
Paul McCartney just crushed another career milestone …
Billboard Magazine announced last week that Macca has passed the ONE BILLION DOLLARS Box Office mark. (The incredible dollar amount reflects gross ticket sales over the past thirty years)
Some would consider this to be an incredible career milestone …
Others might say, “See … he’s charging too much for a ticket!!!”
While still others might say, “WHY is he charging so much per ticket then?” (I mean they won’t be holding any kind of a Paul McCartney fund-raising telethon any time soon!)
Still, we’ve gotta say Congrats … that’s a pretty incredible statistic. (kk)
McCartney also played a small club gig on Friday Night (June 24th), the evening before he was due to perform at the Glastonbury Festival.
A standing room only crowd of 800 fans were treated a full 25-song set. The show sold out in minutes (first come, first served) and it was a requirement that all cell phones be turned in prior to admission so that nothing from this special event could be taped and circulated. (By the way, tickets to this gig were only $31 US Dollars ... so he didn't do much to increase that billion dollar tally Friday Night ... my guess is he did ok on Saturday 'tho!!! He was joined on stage for THIS gig by surprise guests Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen!)
Here's the complete set list from the "Cheese And Grain" show ... to paraphrase one of MY favorite McCartney songs, "The Night Before" the big gig at Glastonbury ...
I Wanna Be Your Man
Junior’s Farm
Letting Go
Got To Get You Into My Life
Come On To Me
Let Me Roll It
Getting Better
My Valentine
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
Maybe I’m Amazed
I’ve Just Seen a Face
From Me To You
Blackbird
Fuh You
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
You Never Give Me Your Money
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window
Get Back
Lady Madonna
Band On the Run
Let It Be
Hey Jude
Encore
Birthday
Helter Skelter
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End
As well as the more traditional, slightly varied set he performed at Glastonbury (with Dave Grohl's and Bruce Springsteen's appearances noted):
Paul McCartney Got Back setlist, Glastonbury, 25 June 2022
Can’t Buy Me Love (from The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, 1964)
Junior’s Farm (single 1974)
Letting Go (from Venus and Mars, 1975)
Got to Get You Into My Life (from The Beatles, Revolver, 1966)
Come On to Me (from Egypt Station, 2018)
Let Me Roll It (from Band On The Run, 1973)
Getting Better (from The Beatles, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Let Em In (from Wings At The Speed of Sound, 1976)
My Valentine (from Kisses On The Bottom, 2012)
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (from Band On The Run, 1973)
Maybe I’m Amazed (from McCartney, 1970)
I’ve Just Seen A Face (from Help, 1965)
In Spite of All the Danger (The 1959 Quarrymen song released on The Beatles Anthology, 1995)
Love Me Do (from The Beatles, Please Please Me, 1963)
Dance Tonight (from Memory Almost Full, 2007)
Blackbird (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Here Today (from Tug Of War, 1982)
New (from New, 2013)
Lady Madonna (The Beatles single 1968)
Fuh You (from Egypt Station, 2018)
Jet (from Band On The Run, 1973)
Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite (from The Beatles, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Something (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
You Never Give Me Your Money (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Get Back (from The Beatles, single in 1969 and then from Let It Be, 1970)
I Saw Her Standing There (from The Beatles, Please Please Me, 1963) (with Dave Grohl)
Band On The Run (with Dave Grohl) (from Band On The Run, 1973)
Glory Days (with Bruce Springsteen)
I Wanna Be Your Man (from The Beatles, With The Beatles, 1963) (With Bruce Springsteen)
Let It Be (from Let It Be, 1970)
Live and Let Die (from single 1973, and from the Live and Let Die soundtrack)
Hey Jude (from The Beatles, single 1968)
ENCORE:
I’ve Got A Feeling (from Let It Be, 1970) (duet with John Lennon on screen)
Birthday (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Helter Skelter (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Golden Slumbers (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Carry That Weight (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
The End (with Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen) (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Jann Wenner Memoir Like a Rolling Stone coming from Little, Brown and Company in September
By Harvey Kubernik Copyright 2022
Wenner was born in New York City, raised in Southern California’s Palos Verdes region, and relocated to San Francisco in 1963. He founded Rolling Stone in 1967. Over the ensuing decades, Rolling Stone was instrumental in launching the careers of many groundbreaking journalists and photographers. Wenner also founded and published Outside, US Weekly, Family Life, and Men’s Journal. Wenner is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which he co-founded, and the youngest inductee in the American Society of Magazine Editor’s Hall of Fame. He turned 75 on January 7th, 2022.
A media announcement from the Little, Brown and Company hailed the book. “Jann Wenner has been called by his peers ‘the greatest editor of his generation.’ His deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics, and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond. The age of rock and roll in an era of consequence, what will be considered one of the great watersheds in modern history. Wenner writes with the clarity of a journalist and an essayist. He takes us into the life and work of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono, and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. He was instrumental in the careers of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Annie Leibovitz. His journey took him to the Oval Office with his legendary interviews with Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, leaders to whom Rolling Stone gave its historic, full-throated backing. From Jerry Garcia to the Dalai Lama, Aretha Franklin to Greta Thunberg, the people Wenner chose to be seen and heard in the pages of Rolling Stone tried to change American culture, values, and morality.”
During 2012, I interviewed Jann Wenner for A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival, published by Santa Monica Press. https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Haze-Illustrated-Monterey.../dp/1595800603
In 1967, Jann Wenner was at the epicenter of a new world in San Francisco. California. Back in 1963, he attended the University of California, Berkeley. By 1966 he wrote for the student-run newspaper, The Daily California, and had a column, Something’s Happening. Ralph J. Gleason, the jazz critic at The San Francisco Chronicle, mentored Wenner, and secured him a job at The Sunday Ramparts, where Gleason served as a contributing editor
Wenner had a front row seat to a thriving musical community pop culture scene that was already supporting regional sounds he would eventually tout, nurture and help spread nationally and internationally.
Marty Balin: I grew up and got to see all the jazz cats in the clubs. Plus, I saw all the beatniks, and great writers and poets. This is a world before 1967 and the Summer of Love. It started with the beatniks and poets. I think San Francisco was full of all these people who were talented and who were expressing themselves or their rights or playing music. And I think San Francisco has a lot to do with that. I don’t know if it’s the geomagnetic forces of the earth and the ocean but something went on there. It’s a lot different than the rest of the world. In 1965 I helped open the Matrix Club and did some booking in 1966 and ’67. People were comin’ in lookin’ for places to play, the infamous Warlocks and Janis [Joplin]. I had an immediate influx of people. And besides that, I had jazz guys playing there. Blues guys, and cats from The Committee. Grace Slick was real popular at the time with her own band, the Great Society. She had her brother and her husband in that band. When we need to get a new girl, because Signe [Anderson] was pregnant and she didn’t want to tour outside San Francisco, so we needed the new girl. “There were only three girls around singing: Janis in Big Brother, Grace with the Great Society and Lydia Pense, later of Cold Blood.
Paul Kantner: Jefferson Airplane had the fortune or misfortune of discovering Fender Twin Reverb amps and LSD in the same week while in college. That’s a great step forward. One of the reasons I started a band was to meet girls. And to this day it beats given guitar lessons at a guitar store. I did that too. In San Francisco we had no restrictions. We never thought about being in an independent record label for cred. It came to us. All we had to do was roll with it. I liken it to white water rafting. There was so much going on you didn’t worry about what was around the next curve. Or what are you going to do on the third curve. ‘Cause you are right in the river.
Grace Slick: Most singers had a band, but to be able to front that volume of music, you can’t just kinda stand there (laughs). For rock ‘n’ roll - these people are not opera singers, O.K.? It’s not the business of how fine and pristine your voice is. It’s about the entertainer enjoying himself not the audience. Hopefully the audience will. If the entertainer is enjoying himself and feels at home on a stage, that’s 50 percent of it. The audience and the bands were not that separate. In other words, a large amount of the audience was the other bands at the time. There were lots of bands that were working in San Francisco and we played with each other on the stage sometimes. As a rock ‘n’ roll force I mostly liked Bill Graham and his energy, both physical and mental. He was able to keep an awful lot of balls in the air. He could organize, and do business, whereas most of us were on the artistic side, which is a positive thing, but we would not have been able to deal effectively, I don’t think, with the business end of it, which he did. And without that, we would not have had what we did, a venue to express ourselves.
Bill Graham: In the long run it’s the public that has to get the good energy from them. I really sincerely feel this, is that the reason the relationship lasted over the years, is that those of us who live in the Bay area and lasted over the years have always had the same goal. We want to turn people on and we want them to have a good time. There is something that the Grateful Dead always had in common from the beginning, something hardly spoken about in the media after all these years. The San Francisco bands, starting with the Dead, always went to the gigs with the intention of putting it out there. It was the lack of professionalism at the beginning that made that possible. It wasn’t that the contract said 45 minutes and ‘that’s what we’ve got to play.’ They were the first one who asked to play longer. They wanted to extend the relationship between the audience and themselves.
Jerry Garcia: One of the things you could say about all the bands that came from San Francisco at that period of time was that none of them were very much alike. I think that the world has changed. I think the United States has changed very visibly in the last ten years. A lot of it had to do with what happened in San Francisco. I can’t say how or why, but I also think it’s affected everything. Just all the interest in things like ecology. All the interest in the sense of personal freedom as expressed by all kinds of movements. All these things were designed to free the human. Social overtones. All that stuff. The communal spirit. I really think the scene out here created the possibility for Woodstock to happen. The Monterey International Pop Festival. The thing, the activity, music and people. The set-up was out here. When the Acid Tests were happening, [in Los Angeles during August 1965], I personally felt, ‘in three months from now the whole world will be involved in this.’ So, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been slow and disappointing. Why isn’t this paradise already? My personal feeling has been one of waiting around.
Ram Dass: Back in the 60’s and early 70’s, I spent a lot of time at The Fillmore, The Avalon and Family Dog in the San Francisco area. I went to The Monterey International Pop Festival and it was a time when the San Francisco sound was rock by Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Grateful Dead. What I loved was that these experiences were community and a ritual of a very high order. Where people felt safe to be open and very uninhibited and there was a sweetness about it all. We’re on a journey together, and I’ll be as honest as I can about my trip and you can do whatever you want to do, but I’m going to create the space where it’s safe to be very vulnerable. That’s about drugs, sexuality, about politics, everything.
Playboy Magazine’s reporting on the contemporary music scene of 1967 spread the June Monterey Pop happening and the counterculture revolution to a much wider audience. The Jazz & Pop Poll ballot of October 1967 reflected the current audio climate. In the Male Vocalist category, Marty Balin, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, John Mayall, Scott McKenzie, and Johnny Rivers were now listed with Frank Sinatra, Gene Pitney, Sammy Davis Jr., Al Martino, and Mose Allison. The Female Vocalist listing now found Janis Joplin, Cass Elliot, and Grace Slick right alongside Dionne Warwick, Julie London, Anita O’Day, Jackie DeShannon, and Eartha Kitt.
In 1967, Jann Wenner, a recent drop out from UC–Berkeley had already positioned himself in the vanguardof young journalists intent on chronicling this restive youth movement, wandered like a cub reporter backstageat the Monterey International Pop Festival, soaking up all the ambiance with a questing eye. Rolling Stone magazinewas born that weekend, its first issue out in the fall.Dr. James Cushing (Poet/Deejay): Rolling Stone publisher and editor Jann Wenner learned under Ralph J. Gleason, Rolling Stone’s “spiritual adviser,” who seemed to understand the connection between jazz and the new rock, both in the sense of using improvisation and in the sense of the existential-humanistic philosophy of life the boppers enacted rather than theorized about. And the same is true for the people of ’67. They enacted the philosophies rather than representing them. The underground newspapers, The Los Angeles Free Press, The Oracle, The Berkeley Barb, The Kaleidoscope in Milwaukee and The Seed in Chicago were very important, as were the glossy Ramparts and a little eccentric outsider, Paul Krassner’s The Realist. The mainstream press thought these new media outlets were dangerous or silly, but they really presented balance and exposure.
Jann Wenner: We saw rock ‘n’ roll as the purest non- commercial form that could be supported by the people and dance concerts. So, it was magic and special and everyone was keeping it magic and keeping it special and being very alert to not being co-opted by the forces of commerciality. We all saw Monterey as a big event and something special. Maybe Ralph J. Gleason saw it as a potential game changer. I don’t think we thought of Monterey as a market. We thought of it as the furthering of this great rock movement. Another milestone along the way where we would grow, our voices would be heard more loudly and more nationally and internationally. I mean, everybody knew that was going to happen.
I saw the entire Monterey Pop Festival. The memories that stick out? One was all the camaraderie backstage, you know. I had seen musicians interacting backstage at performances, on the beaches on sunny afternoons, at friends’ houses, socially. All that kind of stuff. This was the first time I saw a lot of people of many groups of all kinds wandering around, smoking, shooting the shit, drinking, obviously a copious amount of drugs around, and just relaxed. Everybody kind of meeting each other for the first time and being in this kind of wonderful setting I kind of remember backstage to be. There was a spirit of camaraderie and fellowship. That was the first time that really surfaced at that scale. You had that feeling that the community and the people were joined as one. ‘Game changer’ is kind of a recent word but a major step forward. A major evolutionary point. A new plateau, a new kind of thing. All those things, yes. It hadn’t been done before.
Top 40 radio was a little different, you know. KFRC and Tom Rounds. Radio station KYA had always been a little different. It was a tight scene with Tom Donahue. When FM radio began, a lot of those guys came from AM radio. So, they were AM radio jocks who were, like, very attuned to what was going on in the so-called underground scene. It kind of crossed over a lot. There wasn’t that huge divide that existed in Los Angeles or New York in the bigger markets.
Janis was even more riveting on that stage. One of the few of the San Francisco people that really were than her normal stages. Having seen the San Francisco groups a lot, the Dead, Airplane, they weren’t bright and new and they weren’t terribly good. I don’t really remember at the time thinking they were very good and then having seen the film recently a few years ago it’s shocking. But it was nice to see them as part of a whole event. Which had a legitimizing effect on them. More than they had. There was a mutual legitimation going on. We were making those guys from L.A. as it were, hip, you know, and they were making these guys part of the broader part of the music. The international aspect at the time did not register on me.
Everything we cared about in music, in creating community, and camaraderie and fellowship, all flowed out of the Monterey International Pop Festival. It was the spirit, the mood, the vibe, the hippies. By the time we started several months later, Monterey was still a central event of our lives, as big an event to ever happen in San Francisco. Seeing the Pennebaker film Monterey Pop a few years ago really brought me back to that time and place, and I loved it. I still have my ticket stubs from Monterey.
Celebrate WILLIAM SHATNER’s Historic Space Trip With A Commemorative 7” Vinyl!
Not many real life events can elicit chills from sci-fi fans but when William Shatner, who portrayed space captain James T. Kirk on the long-running sci-fi series Star Trek, was actually flown into space aboard the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin rocket, well, even the most cynical among us couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of astonished delight!
Now, fans of Mr. Shatner can celebrate that historic, out-of-this-world trip with a fun commemorative single! Shatner’s brilliant rendition of Elton John’s classic “Rocket Man” was originally released as a part of his 2011 solo album Seeking Major Tom. The track featured guitar work from influential Gong axeman Steve Hillage and recently has been newly mixed by producer Jürgen Engler. This new version is being released on both digital platforms as well as a limited edition 7” vinyl backed with Shatner’s version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity featuring Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore & Candice Night! Get your copy now before the Klingons destroy them all!
Stream the single: https://orcd.co/william_shatner_rocket_man
Order the 7”: https://cleorecs.com/store/shop/william-shatner-rocket-man-limited-edition-silver-7-vinyl/
Track List:
SIDE A
Rocket Man feat. Steve Hillage
SIDE B
Space Oddity feat. Ritchie Blackmore & Candice Night
“Hey Little Cobra don't you know I’m gonna shut you down!”
For Forgotten Hits Auto Racing Fans everywhere, the “Pikes Peak International Hill Climb,” also known as “The Race to the Clouds,” and the second oldest auto race in America, runs up the mountain's highway today, Sunday, June 26th, to the very top of Pikes Peak – “America’s Mountain” – in Colorado -- so named because it was from the pinnacle of that mountain with its expansive view of the beauty of the landscape that inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write her poem "America," which later became the song "America the Beautiful."
The mountain was named after 19th-century Zebulon Montgomery Pike who, on the other hand, never did make it to the top!
The Green Flag Drops at 7:30 AM.
This is their 100th year!
For those of you who are now saying, “Gee, Chuck! Couldn’t you have told us sooner?! How are we supposed to enjoy it now?!”
Well, I have just the thing!
From Kent's Favorite Year, 1967, there’s this!
Now, you can enjoy the Thrills and Race Day Excitement ANY Day of the year!
And at $19.99, this is far less than the $80 Ticket Price to see it live in person! ( If you can even find one these days! Or even find a SEARS Store! )
The real race event will be streamed live on the Mobil 1 Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Varoooom!
Keep on Chuckin'!
For this occasion, attached is my Special “Chuck Buell Pikes Peak Hill Climb Minute Medley” along with a Minute of "America the Beautiful!"
CB ( which stands for “Catalytic Boy!” )
Now this is one we never saw coming!
A Mike and the Mechanics Reunion Tour!!!
Booking dates throughout Europe for 2023, the revamped lineup includes founding member Mike Rutherford (of Genesis fame) on guitar and vocalists Andrew Roachford and Tim Howar. (The ad says “the pair share vocal duties adding a soulful dimension to the band’s already established sound.”)
I guess Mike enjoyed getting back out on the road last year with Genesis (not a feeling Phil Collins would echo … Collins said he will never tour again) so he has put The Mechanics back together for a little road trip of 34 dates.
I lost interest after their first album … but an exceptional album it was.
The original band (which featured Paul Carrack on lead vocals) placed four Top 40 Hits on the Billboard Charts between 1986 and 1989, including the #1 Hit “The Living Years” in 1989 and “Silent Running” and “All I Need Is A Miracle,” which both made The Top Ten in 1986. (I remember Micky Dolenz saying at the time that “All I Need Is A Miracle” would have made for the perfect Monkees song. They were enjoying their own chart resurgence at the time with the Top 20 Hit “That Was Then, This Is Now.”)
A full list of dates (and more details) can be found here:
https://bestclassicbands.com/mike-mechanics-2023-tour-6-23-22/
(kk)
Question Mark is one of those people about which people would ask me, "He's still alive???" 😂
And getting back to Thursday, even if you couldn't stand the movie Stuck on You with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear (I'll bet Frannie didn't care for it), at least admit that Kinnear's imitation of Billy Stewart singing "Summertime" is fabulous!
--Bob Frable
I had to look that up …
I only saw the movie once (and honestly I didn’t care for it either!) …
But here it is for any other fans or those remotely curious …
OK,
I have never seen this clip before!!!
Makes me think I never made it all the way to the end of the movie! Thanks for sharing! (kk)
