I'm ready!!! (kk)
Don't know what the weather might be like in Chicago, but in Denver, here's the changing Weather this time of the year, as we Welcome the First Days of Spring ~~~
One Day, it can be Below Freezing ~~~
And the next day, they tell us to Dress for the Mid 60s!
Then,
when it soon gets really nice and Music fills the air, I'm reminded of
that Big Springtime Forgotten Hit Song from the 1960s, "Blowin' in the
Wind" by Peter Pollen Mary!
kk …
Last Night,Cousin Brucie Talked To Felix Cavaliere, Who's Living In Nashville.
Felix & Gene Cornish Will Be Touring Together = "TIME-PEACE TOUR."
Name Comes From Their Rascals’ Album.
Tour Kicks off 4/6/2023 In New Jersey.
Correct Me If I'm Wrong --- But Didn't Felix Do A Few Concerts With Micky Dolenz?
They Did A Few Shows In New York & Then I Didn't Hear Any More About It.
Sounds Like A Winner. I Wonder Why It Didn't Last Longer Than It Did?
FB
PS – The Wild Wayne Fund Raiser Starts Tonight. They Do It Twice A Year To Cover Expenses.
Felix and Micky did an assortment of dates together, but you’re right … it didn’t go on for very long (nor was it ever intended to.) His tour teaming up with former bandmate Gene Cornish is only a handful of dates, too … but you’ve got a much better chance of seeing them than I do … nearly all the shows are on the east coast. (kk)
>>>In 1956, Frankie Avalon Was Playing Trumpet And Bobby Rydell Was Playing Drums With Rocco And The Saints. (FB)
Frankie began his career in early 1954 with the single "Trumpet Sorrento" on the "X" label. That single notched a week on the Cash Box Best-Selling Singles chart at #42. Three years later, on his first single on the Chancellor label, "Cupid" (not the Sam Cooke song), he was backed by Rocco & The Saints.
Randy Price
The long-standing legend about Frankie and Bobby Rydell being in the same band together proved to be greatly exaggerated as well.
From the bio I was given when I interviewed Bobby Rydell a few years ago for Forgotten Hits:
In 1956, Bobby played drums in the unsuccessful band Rocco and the Saints, which included Frankie Avalon on trumpet. As a drummer, he teamed with Frankie Avalon (on trumpet!) in Rocco and the Saints when he was just twelve years old.
kk: One more question from a reader (and in hindsight, after reviewing the comments shown above, I have GOT to believe that this reader was Randy price!!!): "Bobby had been in a band as a drummer called Rocco and the Saints with Frankie Avalon. Frankie played trumpet (I have an EP by Frankie from 1954 on X Records) and Frankie was signed by Chancellor Records in 1957. Did Bobby continue playing with Rocco and the Saints? The group was even featured on the flipside of "Cupid", Frankie's first single for Chancellor Records, with a song called "Jivin' With the Saints". Was Bobby on drums on this track? Chancellor then signed Fabian in 1958. I'm wondering why they didn't sign Bobby, too, who signed with Cameo in 1959." Were there ever any talks between you and Chancellor Records? Did you play drums on Frankie's B-Side?)
BR: I only played for Rocco and the Saints for one night … the drummer got sick so I only sat in for the one night … I was never really a full member of the band.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I think
THAT may be new information shared with our readers for the very first
time … so much has been made over the years about Frankie Avalon and
Bobby Rydell being in a band together early on, but I don't think most
of America ever figured it lasted only one single evening!]
You can read our FH Interview with Bobby Rydell here:
http://forgottenhits.com/bobby_rydell
Dolly Parton and Elton John have just finished recording their new duet together for Dolly's upcoming Rock And Roll Album.
It's (yet another) remake of Elton's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," one of Dolly's favorites, she says.
Dolly recorded a solo version of the tune and then was hoping to get his input on the track.
“I’ve sent out a message asking if he would sing with me on it and possibly play the piano. So if y’all get to see him, say, ‘Dolly wants you to sing on her record!’” (kk)
FH Reader Timmy C sent this very cool photo out to several music friends this past weekend (myself included, thank you very much) ...
But a few of us (also myself included) questioned if this was actually a real photo or if something had been manipulated to create it.
(Ken Voss ... I'm counting on you to weigh in on this one!!!)
And sent me this to back things up!
Jimmy Carl Black, interview:
Where was the inside cover shot done for the "Money" album. Jimi Hendrix joined you for the album picture. Do you remember how he felt, or what his attitude was toward the Mothers in dresses, and the photo experience?
Some place on Fifth Ave. in New York City. I think the photographer was Faye Dunaway's husband at the time. I don't know how Jimi felt about the whole thing. I think it was good publicity for him. I know I didn't like that dress 'cause it didn't fit but I thought it was a great picture. We weren't the first band to do a picture in drag; The Rolling Stones were. If it was good enough for them, then it had to be good enough for us.
In June, Cal was working on the cover design for We're Only In It For The Money. He had a little workshop above the theater where he was putting all the mannequins and things together for the cover. When he had finished them all, we went to Jerry Schatzberg who was a famous photographer on Park Avenue and that's were we shot the actual pictures.
Jimi Hendrix was in the Village that week we did the album cover. He was back in America for the first time since he'd make it big in England. He'd come back to headline at The Monterey Pop Festival. He's not a cardboard prop on the album cover because he was actually with at the shoot. For the record, the other black guy on there is Tom Wilson, the guy with my high school letterman sweater on.
This was the first of many parodies of Sgt Pepper and very much in the Mothers' irreverent style.
Cal Schenkel: "It was Frank's concept, and it was just a question of parodying what existed. First Frank did a little sketch of the cover and said, I want to find all these people and get them and put them in the picture. And there were like 100 people. We started to try and get people and it was just impossible. Jimi Hendrix was the only live person there other than the Mothers and the corporate members and Herbie Cohen, Tom Wilson and a few other people like Gail. The rest were either just found images: some of them came out of Frank's High School Year Book and there were some old pictures I had.
"We put the cover together in three pieces, foreground, the Mothers and the foreground people, then the rest was all collaged and stripped in. The photography was done by Jerry Schatzberg who was a pretty famous fashion photographer. We went to his studio, a really upscale New York fashion studio, and there were like ten assistants. It was great!"
Jerry Schatzberg: Frank approached me because he'd seen the sleeve that I did on the Stones' Can You See Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadows? when they were in drag, and he had an idea that he wanted to do a combination of that and Sgt. Pepper. And instead of flowers and wonderful dreams, he wanted garbage and old food and what you see around on the floor. We both knew Jimi Hendrix, so we asked Jimi to come in, so Jimi sat in there as one of the faces. Frank knew exactly what he wanted, and we discussed it, and stuff just started coming in and we started setting it up and preparing it. It took us, I think, the better part of a day and a half to actually shoot it and I remember finishing quite late at night, but the studio was an absolute mess afterwards, all those vegetables rotting.
And, as requested, Ken Voss (our resident Jimi Hendrix expert) DID weigh in on this ... and in a big way, with more photos from this same session ...
July 18, 1967 – The Experience record overdubs for “The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice” at Mayfair Studios. The band first laid down instrumental tracks 6/28/67 at Houston Studios in Los Angeles.
Mitch Mitchell recalled in an interview, “’The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice’ was a deliberate joke, you know, S.T.P. and L.S.D. But it was just filler, done in one take with the background vocals done by people in the studio. They were Jimi’s old friends like Devon Wilson.”
A mono version was originally released as the B-side of the single “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp,” with an alternate stereo mix included on the 1997 MCA commercial release South Saturn Delta.
Frank Zappa himself attended the Jimi Hendrix Experience recording session at the Mayfair Recording Studio on 701 Seventh Avenue, New York, on July 18, 1967. Although his presence is unconfirmed, Zappa may very well be one of the many people who made up "the Milky Way Express" for "The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice" [S020], contributing an assortment of voices, whistles, cheers, et cetera.
JHE roadie Neville Chesters remembered the day well . . . "Quite a few people dropped in on that session. It was a really shitty studio, it was about six or eight floors up . . . Midtown New York, a pretty dreadful place. It was just like offices and they converted it into a studio, most odd. I remember a photo session came out of that. It was the same day or later in the day of that session" (UniVibes #18, May 1995, p. 18).
The same night, Zappa had a scheduled photo shoot for the album, the cover being a take off of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. Zappa invited Jimi along, and he actually appears in the group on the cover.
