Today marks the EIGHTH Anniversary of Me-TV-FM Radio ...
After we made mention of that fact the other day, we received this nice note from Program Director Rick O'Dell, who I've had the pleasure of working with on a few projects now since the station launched in Chicago ...
Good morning, Kent:
What a nice surprise! On behalf of
Neal, Bill Cochran and Bob Lawson, thank you for the tremendous
above-the-fold mention in your blog this morning.
We couldn’t have made it this far
without the support we’ve received from you and so many Chicago area
listeners. You’ve all helped to reaffirm the faith that MeTVFM creator
Neal Sabin had in a format based on older songs that “Big Radio”
had willfully been ignoring for many years.
It’s been a pleasure working with you
on a number of special feature concepts you’ve suggested to us. And,
whenever a listener has us stumped with a question about a song, artist
or album, we know a message to you will generally provide
us with an answer within 24 hours.
Thanks so much, Kent. You and Me have a lot in common. Through hard
work, determination, faith in our judgment about the loyalty of oldies
fans and a little luck, we’ve carved out a nice little niche for ourselves.
Rick O’Dell
Program Director
MeTVFM Chicago
It took me a little bit of digging, but believe it or not, I found the very first post I ever did after Me-TV-FM launched eight years ago today. (Rick hadn't joined the station yet ... and my observations were based solely on my first couple of days of listening ... but it's still fun to read them back now, after all this time ... and bask in all the glory that Me has achieved since then in this relatively short period of time) ...
'60's FLASHBACK:
This was the lead story in Forgotten Hits on February 26th, 2015 ... three days after Me-TV-FM first signed on the air ...
Keep in mind, NOBODY really knew what to expect just yet ...
And I'd venture to say that the station itself was still trying to find its way ...
But these were my initial reactions after a couple of days of listening.
(I do remember telling Neal afterwards that I couldn't turn the station off at the beginning ... keep in mind there was NO advertising then ... I just couldn't bear the thought of missing whatever song they might be playing next ... or worse yet, not knowing what it was going to be!!! [I had to wait for a real "dud" to come on, just to be able to go back into the house!!! lol])
Me-TV-FM can STILL draw that reaction ... you just don't want to miss what might be coming up next!
https://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/2015/02/chicagos-got-new-radio-station.html
Chicago's Got A New Radio Station
Chicago's newest radio station
signed on shortly after noon on Monday by playing two Chicagoland
standards ... "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah and
"Take Me Back To Chicago" by Chicago.
Me-TV-FM can best be described as
soft rock / easy listening oldies from the '60's, '70's and '80's.
There are no live dj's yet ... and
no commercials ... right now they're simply setting the tone for the type
of music you can expect to hear from the station, located at 87.7 FM ...
so it's an excellent time to listen.
(My initial reaction: I hate
the name ... I mean, I understand that they're trying to
capitalize on the success of Me-TV resurrecting some vintage television
shows not normally found in mass circulation in the world of syndication, by
following the same mind-set that this station will be playing music long-absent
from the standard, repetitive programming found everywhere else up and down the
dial ... and they obviously feel the need to establish a connection between the
two in order to help reinforce their mission statement ... but I'm hoping
they eventually break from this pattern and allow the station to establish its
own identity ... TV is TV and radio is radio. Their slogan of playing
"Me-zy" Listening Music was already stale the second time I heard
it!)
I listened the entire way to and
from work yesterday to try and get a feel of where they're headed ...
and it DEFINITELY is a soft rock mix. (Suggestion: An up-tempo
tune here and there might liven things up a bit ... and help keep your audience
awake!) They're taking requests and suggestions at their website: metv.fm ... it's not really clear yet as to how much impact this
will have on their future play list ... but it certainly is a nice gesture ...
and a great way to draw listeners in early and make them feel part of something
new.
I am happy to report, however,
that I heard some things that I haven't heard on the radio in a long, long
time. (Honestly, the mix may not be for everyone ... but I'm one of
those who simply enjoys hearing something DIFFERENT and out of the norm,
regardless of whether or not I happen to be in love with the tune
... rather than feeling the constant need to turn off the same music that
we're being force-fed everywhere else.) That being said, I'm not sure how
many people out there have been craving a John Denver or a Helen Reddy tune ...
but both were significant artists of this era and it's nice to hear them
FINALLY represented on the airwaves again. This is something Forgotten
Hits has been fighting for for a long, long time. (A few years back
K-Hits counted down The Top 40 Artists of every decade for the '60's, the '70's
and the '80's and left The Carpenters off the list ... today I got to hear The
Carpenters back where they belong ... on the radio. With twenty National
Top 40 Hits, it's flat out WRONG that radio today ignores them ... and the same
can be said for both Reddy and Denver, too ... in moderate doses ... it comes
across as a nice change of pace ... and certainly helps break the monotony
of what has come to pass as "classic hits" radio today here in
Chicago.)
Here is a recap of what I heard
both to and from work today ... give it a once-over and if it sounds
interesting, tune in to 87.7 FM and check it out for yourself.
(Note: the station is not yet streaming ... but I expect that they will
be soon.)
AM:
Daniel by Elton John / In The
Ghetto by Elvis Presley / It's Sad To Belong by England Dan and John Ford
Coley / The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson / Everywhere - Fleetwood
Mac / This Girl Is A Woman Now (my all-time favorite song by Gary Puckett and
the Union Gap ... and one you NEVER hear) / Galveston by Glen Campbell /
Carefree Highway by Gordon Lightfoot / Sooner Or Later by The Grass Roots /
Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates / You And Me Against The World by Helen Reddy
/ A Little In Love by Cliff Richard (when's the last time you heard THIS
one?!? And just try NOT singing along!) / Make Me Lose Control by Eric
Carmen (another personal favorite) / A Taste Of Honey by Herb Alpert and the
Tijuana Brass / Listen People by Herman's Hermits (another seldom-played gem) /
On A Carousel by The Hollies / How Sweet It Is by James Taylor / I Got A Name
by Jim Croce / I'm Happy That Love Has Found You by Jimmy Hall (I'll bet I
haven't heard this one played on the radio since 1980) / Follow Me by John
Denver (evidently an album track I wasn't familiar with) and the Judy Collins
version of In My Life
PM:
Another Park, Another Sunday by
The Doobie Brothers (NOT one of their WAY over-played hits for a change) / Does
Anybody Really Know What Time It Is by Chicago / Beautiful by Carole King
(which sounded great, by the way!) / Yesterday Once More by the Carpenters /
Never Be The Same by Christopher Cross / Three Times A Lady by The Commodores /
You're All I Need To Get By by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell / A Groovy Kind of
Love by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders / I'm A Believer by The Monkees /
Shilo by Neil Diamond / King Of The Road by Roger Miller / Leader Of The Band
by Dan Fogelberg / Diary by Bread (another long lost favorite) / Moonshadow by
Cat Stevens / Handy Man by James Taylor / The Longest Time by Billy Joel /
Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles and Taxi by Harry Chapin
Chicago radio veteran Mark Zander
(late of The River, one of Chicago's better Classic Rock stations, which
broadcasts out of the suburbs ... and a guy who really knows his
stuff) is helping the station take shape ... and Mark, if it's an eclectic mix
of hits and FORGOTTEN HITS you're looking for, we are more than happy to
help lend a hand. Chicago's been in need of a GOOD oldies station for
awhile now and while we're optimistic that the station will find its way with
the right mix of easy listening and up-tempo tunes to perk up listeners
and get them singing along, (hopefully pleasing them along the way
by FINALLY playing some tracks they haven't heard for awhile ... Lord
knows, there are hundreds if not THOUSANDS of legitimate Top 40 Hits that don't
get played anymore to choose from), a station concentrating ONLY on the soft
rock / pop hits risks branding itself as the 2015 version of "elevator
music" ... if you're not careful, it can get kinda boring rather
quickly. At this point, it's still VERY early in the game ...
hopefully they can steer the course and draw a substantial number of listeners
to jump on-board who are fed up with hearing the same 200 songs and
artists on nearly every other radio station in town. Word of mouth
can be a very powerful thing ... if the word is good. (kk)
Me and Rick O'Dell a couple of years ago at
The Micky and Mike Show at The Copernicus Center
We had
another anniversary of sorts to celebrate this week … or, at the very least,
the approximation of one.
The other day
we ran Mike Wolstein’s comments about Dick Biondi being the first deejay here
in America to play “Please Please Me.”
But then,
after running his post, we got this from Mike the other day …
Something that I just learned, by accident
…
A reader of the 'Biondi Film FB
page' wrote in saying that "Please Please Me" wasn't played for the
first time on WLS on the date that I specified, February 23rd, and I was pretty
sure I'd gotten it all cleared up before I responded to him.
However, after doing some more calculation, it appears that the number shown in
the "weeks played" column on the March 8th survey is wrong. It shows
THREE weeks, which would have required PPM to have been played around the 15th
of February. That's a week before WLS received the record.
Now I'm really confused.
Mike
Several
things come into play here … (trust me, I went down SO many avenues trying to
nail down and verify the timeline that proved that Biondi was the first to play
The Beatles in America that I can assure you, it’s a tangled path, especially trying
to reenact it some sixty years later!)
First of all,
WLS routinely claimed they’d been playing a record longer than they really had
… it was part of their way of taking credit for being the first radio station
in Chicagoland (and often The Midwest) to debut a record on the air. In all fairness, most of the time it was true
… but sometimes they stretched the truth a little bit.
As to the
exact date it first aired, my guess would have been the 22nd of
February and NOT the 23rd, because the 23rd would have
been a Saturday in 1963. The new survey
came out on Fridays and Biondi would have been the most likely jock to premier
any new music featured on the station for any given week as he was their
top-rated jock.
As I
explained to Pam recently (after we watched the full screening of her new Dick
Biondi film), Biondi played this record more as a favor to a friend, not
because he had this unparalleled believe that The Beatles were going to be the
next big thing here in The States.
(Truth is, there was no reason to think that at all!)
He met with Ewart
Abner of Vee Jay Records for lunch that afternoon and Abner handed him a stack
of new releases and asked him to give this one a listen and see what he thought. (He told him that The Beatles were all the
rage in England … which wasn’t exactly 100% true yet either … their first
single, “Love Me Do,” topped out at #16 … and most of its sales came from
Liverpool, where The Beatles, their families, friends and fans who watched them
perform regularly at The Cavern Club, bought up most of the copies trying to
get them on the charts.) “Please Please
Me” was released on January 11th in Great Britain … and on the 7th
of February here in The States, which was just about the time it had made its
way up to the top of the charts back home.
As such, asking Biondi to check it out on the 22nd of February
meant that it was now an established hit back in the UK.
Capitol
Records who, as a division of EMI, had first rights to this record, had taken a
pass on The Fab Four, finding nothing magical about them at all. Vee Jay, a predominately black record label,
used to promoting black artists, figured they’d give it a shot since they had
scored the year before with a white group out of New Jersey called The Four Seasons. (You may have heard about them … those Jersey
Boys scored #1 Hits with their first three major Vee Jay releases … “Sherry,” “Big
Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like A Man” … and as a result, Vee Jay had picked up
quote a few WHITE customers along the way … why NOT take a chance on another
white group???)
Airing the
record on the 22nd lines up with its Silver Dollar Survey chart
debut on March 8th … that would have been its third week on the air …
although I don’t know how much WLS really played it prior to it making their
survey list.
But once it
did, it got played at least once every day when they counted down the list every
Monday thru Friday afternoon. It charted
for two weeks and then disappeared for a year!
Dick told me
he really didn’t give it a second thought … it was just another new release …
The Beatles’ novelty at the time was their hair, not their music … and Vee Jay
thought so little of the release, they misspelled the band’s name on the label
as Beattles! (Bruce Spizer reports that
the single only sold between 5000 – 7000 copies nationwide during the first half
of 1963 … and only TWO copies during the entire second half of the year!)
Clark Weber
told me any number of times over the years that The WLS Silver Dollar Survey
really only reflected The Top 20 Best-Selling and Most-Popular songs in Chicago
… the bottom 20 were songs records they were giving a shot to (or doing a favor
for!) and if they happened to click with their listeners, all the better. (Think about it … six months later Dick Clark
played “She Loves You” on American Bandstand and it got a mediocre rating at
best … and HE had a reason to push it … that record was released on Swan
Records, a label that Clark had a stake it!
And even THAT didn’t make it a hit.)
It all boiled
down to timing.
But back in
February of ’63, there was nothing definitive to officially mark the date of “Please
Please Me” … because it was completely inconsequential at the time. There was absolutely nothing significant about it ... and nobody thought any more about it than hearing a new song
on the radio with kind of a catchy beat.
Best we can
surmise is that Biondi played it the evening of the 22nd … (and our
purpose here has always been to print THE MOST ACCURATE TRUTH we can find) … so
THAT’S the anniversary we’re also celebrating today. (kk)
Ultimate
Classic Rock traced some of these steps this week in their 60th
Anniversary Tribute to The Beatles’ first US airplay …
You can read
their accounting here:
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-vee-jay-records/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ugh&utm_term=UCR
And, of
course, OUR accounting as well, which was the first major step in putting
Forgotten Hits on the map …
http://forgottenhits.com/who_played_the_very_first_beatles_record_in_america
Speaking of
The Beatles, George Harrison has been all over the music news this past
week. (His 80th birthday
would have been this Saturday, the 25th. OMG … the “Baby Beatle” is turning 80!!!)
A new deal
was struck for Harrison’s back catalog, all reverting to BMG. Although it is not his COMPLETE collected works
(“The Concert For Bangladesh” and two Traveling Wilbury CD’s are not part of
the arrangement), everything else George recording, dating back to his earliest
Beatles solo album “Wonderwall” are included, as is all of the material he
released under his own Dark Horse record label.) kk
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/george-harrisons-solo-catalog-dark-horse-bmg-1235530267/
Harvey
Kubernik shared this piece he had written about the relationship between George
Harrison and Phil Spector …
53 Years Ago Today When George Harrison Taught
Us How To Listen to What He Played.
By Harvey Kubernik © Copyright 2023
George Harrison would have been age 80 on
February 25th. According to
his sister Louise, I share the same birthday as fellow Piscean.
Harrison’s debut solo album All Things
Must Pass was recorded May – October, 1970 in London at the Abbey
Road, Trident and Apple studios. It was co-produced by Harrison and Phil
Spector, with assistance from engineers Ken Scott and Phil McDonald.
Contributing to the sessions were musicians
Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, Gary Wright, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Pete
Drake, Dave Mason, Gary Brooker, Jim Price, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Bobby
Keys, Ginger Baker, Peter Frampton, Tony Ashton, Jim Gordon, Alan White,
members of Badfinger, and John Barham, who provided the orchestral arrangements.
Upon initial release on November 27, 1970, the
triple-LP topped the sales charts around the world and George became the first
Beatle to have a solo number one single in both UK and America with the album’s
initial single, “My Sweet Lord.” Harrison penned the album’s opening track,
“I’d Have You Anytime” with Bob Dylan, who also wrote another song on the
album, “If Not For You.”
There are recurrent and still relevant lyrical
themes on All Things Must Pass reflecting Harrison’s spiritual
quest: “Isn’t It a Pity, “My Sweet Lord,” “What is Life,” “Hear Me Lord,”
‘Wah-Wah’ and “Beware of Darkness,” his ongoing devotion in Hindu religious
mythology, the Hare Krishna movement, Indian classical music, and southern
gospel, gleaned from George’s relationship with members of Delaney & Bonnie
and Friends.
It was in January, 1970, when Harrison
extended an invitation to record producer / songwriter Phil Spector to
participate in the recording of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band single “Instant
Karma!”
This association subsequently led to Spector
being asked to salvage the Beatles’ Get Back rehearsal
tapings, eventually issued in 1970 as the Let It Be album, and
then co-producing All Things Must Pass, after Phil heard
Harrison’s demos at George’s Friar Park home.
The black and white album cover photograph was
snapped on a lawn at Friar Park by Barry Feinstein.
All Things Must Pass was
shipped to retail outlets the last week of November, 1970.
Reviewer Richard Williams in Melody
Maker enthusiastically touted the endeavor as “the rock equivalent of
the shock felt by pre-war moviegoers when Garbo first opened her mouth in a
talkie: Garbo talks! - Harrison is free.”
In addition, Williams wrote another review
for The Times, suggesting that of all the Beatles’ solo releases
available, Harrison’s album “makes far and away the best listening, perhaps
because it is the one which most nearly continues the tradition they began
eight years earlier.”
“When All Things Must Pass came
out I sat down and listened to it for three days,” record producer / author / and
deejay Andrew Loog Oldham told me in a November, 2020 telephone call. “It was
the first album that sounded like one single.”
The collection of Harrison compositions
spawned the hit singles “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life.”
I was given a limited edition copy of the
promotional album A Conversation With George Harrison February 15,
2001 where Harrison cited Spector’s work with the Beatles and how he
came to be the producer of both Lennon and his first "proper" solo
albums.
"Well, we knew him a little bit. He
needed a job (laughs). And Phil was around, if you remember he was brought into
London by Allen Klein when we had done the record Get Back or Let
It Be, it became the Let It Be record.
“Let It Be was supposed to be just
a live recording and we ended up doing it in the studio and nobody was happy
with it. But, it was troubled times. Everybody listened to it back and didn't
really like it and we really didn't want to put it out.
“So, later down the line Klein, this guy Allen
Klein brought in Phil Spector and said, 'Well, what do you think about Phil
Spector looking at the record?' So, at least John and I said, 'Yeah, let's
see.' We liked Phil Spector; we loved his records. So, let him do it and he did
what he did and then you know everybody knows the rest. And so he was around
and one day I was with Phil and I was on my way to Abbey Road to do 'Instant
Karma.' And so I made Phil go with me and that's how he got to do that record
as well. This is how we first started working with him."
The roots of All Things Must Pass stem
from the Spector sonic tree and the implementation of his groundbreaking Wall
of Sound production techniques.
Spector’s hit tune “To Know Him is To Love
Him” was covered by the Beatles on their Decca Records audition recording
session on January 1, 1962, and performed when the band were booked at the
Cavern in Liverpool, and later recorded at their BBC Radio broadcasts.
Spector, as a session guitarist for the Jerry
Leiber and Mike Stoller songwriting and production team, worked with Lavern
Baker and the Drifters at Atlantic Studios. He later co-produced with Jerry
Wexler the original studio version of the Bert Berns and Phil Medley-penned
“Twist and Shout,” by the Top Notes, subsequently re-worked by Berns, which
became a hit record for the Isley Brothers, then landing in the Beatles’ stage
and recording repertoire.
On January 28, 1964, the Beatles encountered
Spector and the Ronettes at a party at the Green Street home of deejay and
Decca Records promoter, Tony Hall. By next month Phil was a passenger on the
airplane with the Beatles when they landed in New York on February 7, 1964.
“We met a few people through Phil Spector,”
remembered Paul McCartney in the Beatles’ Anthology. “We met the
Ronettes, which was very exciting, and various others, such as Jackie
DeShannon, a great songwriter, and Diana Ross and the rest of the Supremes.
They were people we admired and as we went on, we met them all - all the people
who were coming up as we were coming up. It was a matey sort of thing.”
George Harrison in March,1966, provided a
sleeve endorsement for the Spector-produced Ike & Tina Turner River
Deep, Mountain High popular 45 RPM in the UK when it first charted.
"It is a perfect record from start to
finish. You couldn't improve on it." John Lennon called it a
“masterpiece.”
In the May 31, 1975, issue of Melody
Maker I published an interview with Phil Spector, culled from a series
of conversations, in Hollywood at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College.
“I like to have all the musicians there at
once,” explained Spector about his recording process. “I get everything on one
track that I need. I put everything on 24 tracks just to see if it’s plugged
in. The finished track never ends up on more than one track. I don’t wear a
‘Back To Mono’ button for no reason at all. I believe in it. I can make quad,
it’s easy.
“I record in a strange way. I haven’t changed.
I go from the basic track and put it onto 24. Then I have one track and 23
open. That’s the difference between having 24 filled or 19 filled. Which means,
I can get 23 string players and overdub them 10 times and have 200 strings then
I put them on one track. Do you know Ray Conniff uses more tape echo than I
ever used in my life? That’s a fact.
“I record basic tracks and then put it all
onto one track or maybe two. Then I condense. I put my voices on. The better
the talent is around you, the better the people you have working with you, the
more concerned, the better you’re gonna come off as a producer, like a teacher
in a class.
“The musicians I have never outdo me. I’m not
in competition with them. I’m in complete accord with them. You need the
ability, so you hire the best. I have the creativity. I know what I want.”
In a 1977 interview with me for Melody
Maker Spector one afternoon, talked about employing singers on
sessions.
"When you see a (Stanley) Kubrick movie,
you tell me how many names you immediately remember in the cast. One, two? It's
the same with Fellini, and that's what I wanted to do when I directed a
recording. Singers are instruments. They are tools to be worked with.
“It was very easy to work with John Lennon.
There was no problem working with him. I think he is one of the greatest
singers in music. I honestly believe that. I feel the same way about Paul
(McCartney) as a singer. They are in a league with few others. I don’t feel the
same way about George (Harrison) or Ringo (Starr). John and Paul are great rock
and roll singers.”
Ken Scott first started engineering for the
Beatles in the middle of their Magical Mystery Tour album and was
behind the board on the mix for “I Am The Walrus.” He then EQ'ed the master mix
tape of “Hey Jude” and subsequently engineered the Beatles’ White album.
“I know one of my own original things going
into engineering is that I wanted to be a backroom boy,” Scott reminisced to me
in a 2011 interview.
“I didn’t have the confidence or the desire to
sort of be in the public eye or to be known or anything like that. I know it
was a conscious effort on my part to do it that way. When I was at school, working
with the drama society, I didn’t want to be on stage. I wanted to be in the
back helping to move everything along.
“Yes, there were some blowups on the
Beatles’ White album, but not as many as people believe. There
really weren’t. But the majority of the time, it was fine.
“On that album, George Harrison was really
coming into his own. During that period, they were laying down the tracks and
playing together, sorting out the arrangements together. It was all good.
Obviously, whoever wrote the song had more sort of sway over ideas than the
others did. It was very much a group effort.
“Generally speaking, the others would filter
out whilst whoever’s song it was worked on the finished thing. And it was like
that for all of them. You knew that it would go a lot quicker with John than it
would with Paul or George. Vocals would take the longest with Ringo. (laughs).
Especially ‘Good Night.’
“It was pretty much the same for all of them.
I think very much the difference, writing wise, for George, was that he was on
his own. Even during the White album, there were times when
Paul and John would interact on how a song should be. But George didn’t have
any of that. It was all him. And he didn’t initially have the confidence in his
songs. Even at the White album stage. Yes, he was coming up
with incredible stuff. He didn’t know it yet. He was writing more for other
people,” volunteered Scott.
“If you think about it, he gave ‘My Sweet
Lord’ away to Billy Preston. There was something he wanted to give away to
Jackie Lomax. He didn’t have the confidence within himself to do those songs.
Like ‘Not Guilty,’ even then, we never completed it. We never really got it to
the point where it was even sort of even considered going on the album.
“And the fact that Trident had 16-track. There
was a technical side to it as well. ‘I don’t want to work at Abbey Road
studios. I want to work with Ken …’ It
wasn’t quite like that. It worked out very well for both of us I think,” added
Ken.
“Like Abbey Road, the control room at Trident
was still above the studio where we were looking down. So, it was very much
like Abbey Road number 2 studio in design. They were both great studios. There
was something for me about number 2, the history of it. The whole thing. No
matter how many times I go there, I would stand at the top of those stairs and
the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up. For me personally it has such
a feeling. It’s amazing.
“Comparing the two studios … Trident was much
more laid back. It was young people. It wasn’t the old people who ran Abbey
Road. For musicians, Trident was a place to hang out. Whereas Abbey Road you
only went in there when you had to kind of thing.”
As far as the reason George Harrison titled
his album All Things Must Pass, in a December, 2000, interview
with Billboard Editor-In-Chief Timothy White, Harrison
disclosed the origins of the phrase “All Things Must Pass.”
“I think I got it from Richard Alpert / Baba
Ram Dass, but I'm not sure. When you read of philosophy or spiritual things,
it's a pretty widely used phrase. I wrote it after [The Band's 1968] Music
From Big Pink album; when I heard that song in my head I always heard
Levon Helm singing it!”
“All Things Must Pass. Incredible,”
enthused Jim Keltner in a 2004 interview we conducted. “Jimmy Gordon and Ringo
played great on the record. Ringo is one of rock’s all-time great drummers. All
you have to do is listen to the Beatles records, of course, especially,
the Live at the BBC. Rock and roll drumming doesn’t get any better
than that. Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Gary Chester, Fred Below, David ‘Panama’
Francis, great early rock and R&B drummers, and Ringo fit right in there
with those guys. Listen to the BBC tapes and you’ll hear what
I’m saying.
“Klaus Voorman was the principal bass player
on the Concert For Bangladesh. Phil loved the way Klaus played. He
had a great way of stretching the time. Klaus is one of the greatest bass
players I’ve ever played with. His playing was always just exactly right for
the song. He didn’t have that much in the way of chops, but he made up for that
with his great musical sense.”
To mark the 30th anniversary of All
Things Must Pass, Harrison supervised a remastered edition of the
album, which was issued in Januar,y 2001, less than a year before his death
from cancer at the age of 58.
This configuration implemented five bonus
tracks including two Spector-supervised songs “Beware of Darkness” and “Let It
Down” done at Abbey Road.
On the disc A Conversation With George
Harrison February 15, 2001, George further described the All Things
Must Pass recording, and working with Phil Spector on the production
of his post-Beatles' solo outing.
"Well in those days it was like the
reverb was kind of used a bit more than what I would do now. In fact, I don't
use reverb at all. I can't stand it. But at the time I did the record with Phil
Spector and we did it like Phil Spector would do it. You know, it's hard to go
back to anything 30 years later and expect it to be how you would want it now.
I'd dare say if I did a record today, in 30 years I'd probably want to change
it. That's the only thing about the production. It was done in cinemascope and
it had a lot of reverb on it to what I would use now, but that's how it was and
at that time I really liked it."
Talk of a new
Rolling Stones album (and likely a tour) this year have been rampant of late …
And now
Variety is reporting that both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will appear on
the new LP. (While some of the basic
tracks date back decades, these would be fairly recent overdubs … Mick and
Keith have been seen studio-hopping in both LA and NYC of late. In fact, late Drummer Charlie Watts is
expected to appear on at least half of the new album once it’s released. It will be the first new Stones album of
original material since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.”
More info as
we get it! (kk)
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/rolling-stones-paul-mccartney-recording-music-ringo-starr-1235529654/
I couldn’t
help but smile at this story, thinking back to all the fuss McCartney caused a
short while back when he referred to The Stones as “a blues cover band.” Lol
(kk)
Sony Music is
looking to purchase 50% of Michael Jackson’s estate … but the “asking price”
seems to be a little up in the air right now.
(Jackson’s most successful solo work was all released under the CBS
banner … and reports say that his estate is still earning at a rate of about
$75 Million a year! So while this is
expected to be a sizeable investment on Sony’s part, the long-term dividends
could be huge!) Guesstimates put the
purchase price at right around $2 Billion.
(kk)
Streaming of
Rihanna’s music catalog continues to soar post her Super Bowl appearance. (I remember when an appearance on The Ed
Sullivan Show Sunday Night pretty much guaranteed a move up the charts of 20
spots in the week to follow … but we’re talking MILLIONS and MILLIONS of
streams here!) kk
My first introduction to the song “Any Day Now” came by way
of the B-Side of Elvis’ 1969 Hit “In The Ghetto.”
My Mom had the 45 (with a picture sleeve!) and I used to
play both sides of this record all the time.
Elvis’ version never officially charted, but I know I’ve
heard it on the radio from time to time over the year.
The BIGGEST hit version of the song was done by Ronnie
Milsap. Ronnie’s version topped both of
Billboard’s Country and Adult Contemporary charts … and was a #14 pop hit as
well (that’s nearly ten places higher than Chuck Jackson’s record went in
1962.) It just offers further proof once
again of the perfect blend of country and rhythm and blues music. (kk)
The other day we told you about the new 12-CD Del Shannon CD
Box Set, released to tie-in with the Del Shannon Weekend that Frank B. told us
about last month.
Now, more info from Harvey Kubernik. (Are you gonna be there, Harvey???) kk
Here are the direct links to
delshannon.com for the Battle Creek events thus far ...
Friday, June 23rd, 2023 -
Concert: Brian Hyland and James Popenhagen
Saturday, June 24th - First
Annual "Del Shannon Car Show" in Battle Creek
Sunday, June 25th - Del Shannon
Historic Legacy Event at the Battle Creek Museum (memorabilia display, some
speeches, etc)
One more page will be created
shortly for Sunday's Museum event:
https://delshannon.com/links.html
and
https://delshannon.com/fanclub.html
Brian
Young / delshannon.com
Del
Shannon Appreciation Society
This photo
cracked me up earlier in the week …
Especially
when it arrived under the banner heading:
Ladies & Gentlemen - - - CREAM!
(sent
in by FH Reader Timmy C)
Oh
yeah … I remember this tour …
The
audience kept screaming “Look at the grouse, look at the grouse!!!” (kk)
