WINNERS
AND LOSERS:
The Peter Jackson / Beatles “Get Back” documentary won FIVE
Emmys this past weekend!
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series award
(an award shared by Peter Jackson, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono,
Harrison, Clare Olssen and Jonathan Clyde.) Jackson also won the Outstanding
Directing for a Documentary or Nonfiction Program Award, while the production
won for picture editing, sound editing and sound mixing. (Pretty impressive indeed! Maybe now Disney+ and/or Apple will consider
releasing an additional 5-6 hours of unused footage???)
Jackson used the opportunity to again let it
be known that he is hoping to work with The Beatles on another project “NOTHING
like ‘Get Back’ … and not a documentary” … so time will tell how that all works
out.) kk
Spencer Elden lost his lawsuit (again!) in the Nirvana
album “child pornography” case on the “Nevermind” cover dispute (where a four
month old Elden was pictured naked), ultimately because the statutes of
limitations had already expired on this.
(As covered here previously, Elden “cashed in” on this publicity other
times in his career, even posing naked for a “tribute” cover in his 20’s … so
the whole concept has been ludicrous from the beginning … but hopefully this
puts an end to this ridiculous waste of time once and for all. (kk)
THIS AND THAT:
McCartney also made headlines this weekend when he showed up to perform at the Taylor
Hawkins Tribute Concert … performing a duet with Chrissie Hynde of The
Pretenders on “Oh! Darling” and then soloing (along with a little bit of help from Dave Grohl) on “Helter
Skelter.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxtP2ycGvyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Z30HZM-Hg
If nothing else, it offers proof once again that McCartney should
have hung it up years ago as a vocalist!
(kk)
Yesterday we shared a 1972 chart from Louisville, Kentucky …
And over the weekend Best Classic Bands ran a recap of KHJ’s
biggest hits in LA for this same week
https://bestclassicbands.com/radio-hits-september-1972-9-4-15/
A quick comparison shows only THREE songs common to both Top
Tens: “Honky Cat” (#4 KY / #5 LA),
“Alone Again (Naturally)” #5 KY / #4 LA and “Black And White” (#7 KY / #1 LA)
Two of LA’s Top Ten Hits are still on WAKY’s “Hitbound” list
(“You’re Still A Young Man” and “Nights In White Satin”) while LA’s #3 Hit,
“Play Me” by Neil Diamond only registers at #19 (and climbing) in Louisville …
and Daniel Boone’s “Beautiful Sunday,” a #6 hit in LA, has fallen from #18 to
#25 this week on WAKY. (Just shows you
again how “consistency” can great impact the overall success of any given
record on the national charts. (kk)
Kent-
As always, Forgotten Hits has jogged up some memories and filled in
quite a few gaps in my music library. In regard to the Jerry Wallace song that
charted 50 years ago, it gained traction by being prominently featured in a
Night Gallery segment called "The Tune in Dan's Cafe". It
turned out to be his first (and only) Number One song on the Country charts
(his biggest Pop hit, "Primrose Lane", made it up to #8 on
Billboard). I thought I'd share this bit to trivia with you.
Sincerely,
Todd W. Zimmerman
P.S. I haven't seen anything about this on FH, but I received
word that David Muse of Firefall passed away last month.
Here is the link: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/david-muse-firefall-dead/
I think we may have overlooked the David Muse story because
he wasn’t an original member of the band … but he did, in fact, play on the
majority of Firefall’s hits, so I apologize for the oversight.
We have seen Firefall three times now and each and every
time they have stolen the show from that night’s headliner. GREAT band in concert. (kk)
WOW!
We heard a nice selection of Wow! songs this weekend …
“Don’t Let Go” by Roy Hamilton on Sirius XM’s ‘50’s Gold
Channel
“I Know A Heartache When I See One” by Jennifer Warnes on
Sam Tallerico’s “Lost And Found Oldies Show”
“Who Do You Think You Are” by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
on Me-TV-FM
“She” by Tommy James and the Shondells … “Another Instant
Request” on Rewound Radio
And, as part of Rewound Radio’s WLS / WCFL Weekend:
“Mississippi”* by John Phillips (heard that one three times!); “The Lord’s Prayer”* by
Sister Janet Mead; “Wake Up, Wake Up” by The Grass Roots (not sure I’ve ever
heard that one before … but Dick Biondi played it as “brand new” in 1967 … and
then I heard it again on Dick Williamson’s program), “You Know What I Mean”* by
The Turtles (one of my favorites by them … and one of Howard Kaylan’s LEAST
favorites … also played twice on ‘CFL); "Westbound #9"* by Flaming Ember,“I Love” by Tom T. Hall (when’s the
last time you heard THIS one?!?!); "Somebody's Been Sleeping"* by 100 Proof Aged In Soul, "I've Got The Music In Me"* by Kiki Dee, “The Americans” by Byron MacGregor; “In The
Mood” by Bette Midler; “Play Me” by Neil Diamond (not sure I really needed to
hear this one FIVE TIMES!!!), "A Song Of Joy"* by Miguel Rios, "Amazing Grace"* by The Royal Scot Dragoon Guards, "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield, "Teenage Lament '74" by Alice Cooper (when's the last time you heard THAT one?!?!), "American City Suite"* by Cashman and West, “Thunder And Lightning”* by Chi Coltrane,
“Simone”* by Henry Gross (Man, I LOVE this song … a hit on ‘CFL only),
“Virginia”* by Bill Amesbury (another ‘CFL-only hit), "Stay Awhile"* by The Bells, “Jambalaya”* by The Blue
Ridge Rangers (John Fogerty), “This Song”* by George Harrison (SO good to hear
the single version again – which is virtually impossible to get these days!), "That's Where I Went Wrong"* by The Poppy Family, "Why" by Donny Osmond, "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues""* by Danny O'Keefe, “Baby
Let Me Take You”* by The Detroit Emeralds (one of my “go to” songs … and
recently used in a television commercial, too!!!), "Suavecito" by Malo (which just happened to be my pick for #1 Favorite Song from 1972 on Phil Nee's "Those Were The Days" radio program) as well as "Crazy Mama"* by J.J. Cale, my #2 pick!, “Love Me For A Reason”* by
The Osmonds, "I Can Feel You"* by The Addrisi Brothers, Frijid Pink's version of "House Of The Rising Sun"*, ... and about 20-30 others that I wasn't able to write down and have already forgotten!!!
NOTE: * - songs
previously featured in Forgotten Hits AS forgotten hits
So how was the Rewound WLS/WCFL salute?
It was a whole lotta fun to hear the pacing of Top 40 Radio
again … some of these jocks were just so talented with their off-the-cuff
commentary (the obvious ones shone head and shoulders above the others. A special tip of the hat to jocks like Larry
Lujack, Fred Winston, Bob Sirott, Kris Erik Stevens and a few others for
entertaining us then and proving to be just as entertaining NOW, all these
years later.)
For me, WLS won this “competition” hands down … but I
attribute part of this to the fact that the program was so 1970’s-heavy. When WCFL first showed up on the dial with
the sole intent of giving WLS a run for the Top 40 money late in 1965, the competition
was fierce. Contests and prize giveaways
ruled the airwaves … but the entertainment level provided by the on-air talent made us tune in to hear the jocks just as much as we did
to hear the music. (I can only guess
that finding pristine air checks from the ‘60’s proved to be far more difficult
than finding their 1970’s counterparts, as they were few and far between. Unfortunately, the essence of the REAL difference between the two stations was reflected in those earlier years. By the 1970's, they were essentially the same, especially once they started flip-flopping jocks from one station to the other ... and some more than once.)
The other downside to airing so many of these clips from the '70's was that was that several of those clips were from the
exact same era, meaning quite a bit of song repetition spread throughout the
weekend (not like song repetition wasn’t the very essence of Top 40 radio back
then!!!)
Still, it would have been nice to hear guys like Ron Riley
in ’64-’65 when he was Chicago’s biggest connection to The Beatles and The
British Invasion and truly in his prime. (Ron used to always
play cuts by The Fab Four not yet available in the US yet … and his “British
Billboard” countdown was always a favorite.
His Batman skits were fun to listen to, too … as were all the Chickenman
episodes from WCFL ... and I don't think I ever heard a single one of those.) A little more Art
Roberts … at least SOMETHING by Jerry G. Bishop, always one of my favorites …
here’s hoping that if they do attempt to put something together like this
again, the focus can be on scouring the nation for more clips from the ‘60’s to help balance things out a little bit.
If WLS oozed personality (and they did), WCFL was a bit more avant garde in
their approach to broadcasting with jocks like Ron Britain and Barney Pip, proving
more of a “theater of the mind” concept to their shifts. Jim Stagg had his fingers on the pulse of the
music biz at the time and regularly had some of our favorite and most popular
acts on the air. And I found Dick and Doug
(who I didn’t listen to at the time) to be extremely entertaining on these
clips, especially when they teamed with Fred Winston after being escorted off
the air for calling Fred (from WLS) the day before during their WCFL morning show!
Also lacking due to the limited ‘60’s air checks was the sheer
volume of local talent being presented on the radio at the time on a regular
basis. While we did hear a song
sprinkled in here and there from time to time over the weekend by The
Buckinghams (“Susan”) and The Ides Of March (“Vehicle”), other big names like The
New Colony Six and The Cryan’ Shames were noticeably missing. (We even heard them play the Them version of “Gloria”
instead of The Shadow Of Knight’s #1 Hit version from Chicago’s very own! That was rectified later on when Jim Stagg featured it on Monday from a show where "Gloria" just happened to be the #1 Record in Chicago!)
The idea of rotating clips between the two stations meant
that some of the ‘CFL jocks got more airplay than several of the more deserving
WLS jocks, just to keep a balance in check.
With 150 hours to choose from, I think I would have gone for the
strongest tracks rather than concentrating on “playing things fair” to the extent that they did. At times, it made the program weaker in context, as many of the WCFL clips just didn't measure up to the standards being set across the river.
The biggest complaint that I heard from readers was the fact
that there was no advance notice as to who might be on when … and that efforts
to record portions of the program were often not successful, almost as if some
type of “block” was in place to prevent this from happening. I can only say that the “secrecy” of what
would air when was intentional … the idea being for the listener to never know
what might be happening next and keep tuned in with the anticipation of some element of surprise. (I had a schedule and I STILL missed several
programs that I wanted to hear because they aired in the middle of the night or
while I was committed to doing something else.)
Let’s face it … NOBODY was going to be able to listen to all 66 hours …
but the fact that I heard from many who DID devote 20-30 hours of their weekend
to tuning in speaks volumes as to just how popular these jocks really were. (I think I logged in about 36 hours myself!!! lol)
It was an incredible feeling to get so many of the original
jocks to participate by way of recording new promos and drop-ins for the big
event. I thank each and every one of you
again for taking part and making this whole thing all that much more special.
I quite enjoyed the whole thing … it was GREAT to hear
some of this stuff again … not just the “Wow!” songs … but the whole way radio
was presented back then … all the jingles, the newscasts that always seemed to
end with a humorous story (and there were some KEY news events covered during
the course of the weekend), the original commercials and the way the jocks
interacted with some of them … it was a fun listen. (I would LOVE to see a radio station devoted to
preserving and broadcasting these clips.)
I have said for years that WLS-AM, one of the most recognized “brands”
in radio, should throw in the towel on their dismal talk radio ratings, dig
into their own archives, and start rebroadcasting the wealth of quality, vintage
programs that kept generations entertained for decades. I’d be willing to bet you they could double
their audience in 90 days once the word got out. Lujack – Biondi – Landecker – Fred Winston – Tommy
Edwards - Art Roberts – Ron Riley – Sirott – Chuck Buell – Kris Erik Stevens –
Clark Weber – Jeff Davis – Yvonne Daniels – Brant Miller – Steve King – Dex Card
– Joel Sebastian – all back on the air again, playing the music of our lives. (kk)
