If you’ve ever dreamed about undressing Stevie Nicks, (and let's face it, who hasn't), you
can soon join the hundreds that came before you (read that any way you like) …
Well, in some perverted fashion anyway.
Mattel has announced that they will be releasing a limited
edition Stevie Nicks Barbie Doll!!!
It’ll become available on November 10th … and
captures Nicks in her “Rumours” period.
Stevie herself had this to say …
My Stevie Barbie has been with
me now for several months. When Mattel came to me asking if I would like to
have a Barbie made in the “Rumours” cover style I was very overwhelmed. Of
course I questioned “Would she look like me? Would she have my spirit? Would
she have my heart…” When I look at her, I see my 27 year old self ~ All the
memories of walking out on a big stage in that black outfit and those gorgeous
boots come rushing back ~ and then I see myself now in her face. What we have
been through since 1975 ~ the battles we have fought, the lessons we have
learned ~ together. I am her and she is me. She absolutely has my heart.”
From the official announcement:
Barbie® celebrates the iconic “Queen of Rock and Roll,”
Stevie Nicks, with a Barbie® doll in her likeness. Nicks achieved worldwide
success with the band Fleetwood Mac before embarking on a critically acclaimed,
chart-topping solo career. Known for her captivating stage presence and
signature style, she has left an indelible imprint on artists and fans around
the world. Stevie Nicks Music Series Barbie® doll wears a beguiling black dress
inspired by the legendary Rumours album cover and holds her iconic tambourine.
Includes doll stand and Certificate of Authenticity. Barbie® doll cannot stand
alone. Colors and decorations may vary.
• Barbie® honors the iconic “Queen of Rock and Roll,” Stevie Nicks, with a
collectible doll that emulates her signature spellbinding style.
• Stevie Nicks Barbie® doll is ready to groove on a moonlit stage with her
flowy blonde hair, full textured bangs, and smoky eye.
• Her ethereal dress is inspired by the legendary 1977 album Rumours and
features a velvety wrap bodice with a layered skirt that drapes and swirls like
smoke.
• As in the hit song Rhiannon, Stevie looks ready to take to the sky like a
bird in flight with her flowing chiffon statement sleeves.
• Stevie’s bewitching look is finished with her signature golden moon necklace,
tall black boots, and a tambourine with cascading ribbons.
(kk)
Stevie also said in a recent interview that she sees no reason to ever reassemble Fleetwood Mac again with Christine McVie gone.
Stevie essentially said "What's the point?" She told Vulture Magazine:
"Without her, what is it? You know what I mean? She was like my soul
mate, my musical soul mate, and my best friend that I spent more time with than
any of my other best friends outside of Fleetwood Mac. Christine was my best
friend. Who am I going to look over to
on the right and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we really can't go
any further with this. There's no reason to."
Fleetwood Mac last toured in 2019 (famously without Lindsey
Buckingham.) McVie died suddenly and
unexpectedly in November of last year. (kk)
Boy, this story sure spread like wild fire!
We’ve seen some pretty crazy performance riders over the
years …
But this one just leaked for Bruce Springsteen SURE is
specific! (37 pages long?!?! Seriously?!?!)
It’s hard to think about how much extra money this tacks on
to the artist’s performance fee!
(They’re likely already getting free airfare and hotel accommodations as
it is! And I’m sure there are more than
a few other perks thrown in along the way as well)
So when fans wonder about the ridiculously high price of
concert tickets, here’s a little insight as to why. (kk)
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bruce-springsteen-tour-rider/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ugh&utm_term=UCR
Tomorrow, Rick O'Dell bids us all adieu from Me-TV-FM, where he has been their Program Director for the past eight years. He has helped to build the station into quite a franchise, helping Neal Sabin to realize his original vision several times over.
I'm not sure why anybody retires in the middle of the week ...
Or if tomorrow's date hold any special significance for Rick ...
But it DOES give us the final opportunity to say goodbye by wishing him all the best from this day forward ...
With a final "10-4, Good Buddy!" (kk)
Kent,
First, congrats to CB for his
excerpts on IT'S ALL IN THE GAME. What a record to come out of 1958.
About two or three or those artists I didn't even know had recorded the
song. One song or version I thought of and it did make our weekly survey
back in 1967 and that was singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon. It was released on Imperial records with the flip being CHANGIN' MY MIND.
Larry
Chuck is outdoing himself with his research!
He must have been a teacher's dream.
Vote YES Vote NO
Shelley
Here’s a link to a nice piece by Harvey Kubernik about the
50th Anniversary of The Roxy in LA last week. (We ran some exclusive pictures from Neil
Young’s two night performance there.)
https://ugly-things.com/lou-adler-and-the-roxy-50-years-on-the-sunset-strip/
And more from Harvey, too, about the new book profiling The
Women of The Rolling Stones!
https://www.musicconnection.com/kubernik-parachute-women/
And it sounds like we'll soon be treated to a motion picture spotlighting the life of Anita Pallenberg
Everyone who has seen ”The Jersey Boys” Broadway show or
movie will remember its depiction of the true story of deejay Joey
Reynolds’ stunt of locking himself in the WPOP radio studio playing
“Sherry” for four hours until police broke down the door. Joey was the
big nighttime star on many Top 40 stations in the 60s.
Joey
(left) and I got together this weekend at our friend Art Vuolo’s 78th
birthday party. We became friends when Joey programmed KQV and I
programmed WEEP in Pittsburgh at the same time in the early 70s.
Today,
Joey is getting a lot of attention for the cheesecakes that he makes
(and sells by mail) and is in negotiations to turn his record, “Rats In
My Room” by Joey and Danny, into a video game. Here we are in Art’s
studio recording an interview.
Ed Salamon
Fresh off his 'Micky Dolenz Celebrates The Monkees' tour, Dolenz appeared at the Days of the Dead-Comic-Con this past weekend in Houston ... with Tom Arnold.
Wow, the list of artists who have
passed away this year is quite staggering … and we’re still on 3/4 of the way
thru!
Best Classic Bands ran this recap on
October 1st …
https://bestclassicbands.com/musician-deaths-2023-10-2-23/
Forgotten Hits Reader John Pumilia sent us this story from the Monday, October 2nd, 2023 "Portland Oregonian:
Music Marathon ...
" 'Louie Louie' Concert Will Feature 70 Acts
Playing Iconic Song "
by Samantha Swindler - The
Oregonian / OregonLive
In 1963, The Kingsmen made one of the greatest
rock-’n’-roll recordings of all time in Portland.
The original “Louie Louie” was a calypso-style
song, but today it transcends genre — a theory that will be put
to the test when some 70 performers play it during a 24-hour
marathon concert to honor the 60th anniversary of the Kingsmen’s
iconic record.
The current lineup of the Kingsmen will
perform the opening and closing renditions of the song at 6 p.m.
Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday at AFRU (Art Freaks Are Us) Gallery
in Southeast Portland. In between, local acts will take turns
with the song for a nonstop performance in every style
imaginable.
There will be a Tuvan throat singing version,
a bagpipe version, a ukulele version and a full marching band
version. Attendees will hear “Louie Louie” performed by a drag
king, a singing Santa Claus, the Cleveland High School jazz
ensemble and in the soothing whispers of an ASMR (autonomous
sensory meridian response) performer.
“We have a group of mascots and furries who
will be doing a cover of their own rendition of ‘Louie Louie,’”
said organizer Luke Strahota. “We’ve got a band called Viral
Tyrant doing a half-hour stoner doom metal version of ‘Louie Louie.’”
This whole thing is Strahota’s wild idea. He’s
the founder of the “Louie Louie Committee Committee” that’s
organizing the event.
“It’s been in my brain for about 13 years,”
Strahota said. “It’s a total passion project. No one in the
committee is making any money. We’re all just friends doing this
thing.”
The “Louie Louie” Marathon is free to attend,
but donations taken at the door will support the nonprofit AFRU
Gallery.
From about 2 to 8 a.m., the event will be
invitation-only, but the music won’t stop. Bands and singers
will alternate between two stages. In case of a lull between
sets, a third auxiliary microphone will be available for
impromptu “Louie Louies.”
“We will be keeping the ‘Louie Louie’ flame
lit the entire time,” Strahota said. “If one person is hitting a
tin can and the other person is saying ‘Louie Louie’ on kazoo,
that’s ‘Louie Louie,’ and that’s kind of the magic of ‘Louie
Louie’ in general.”
Richard Berry wrote “Louie Louie” in 1955 with
a rhythm based on René Touzet’s “El Loco Cha Cha.” The
(innocuous) lyrics tell the story of a sailor headed home to
Jamaica to see a girl.
It’s a simple song — just three chords — and
it’s often one of the first tunes someone learns when picking up
the guitar or joining a marching band.
“I always call it a gateway song because it’s
something that is empowering to learn and it’s empowering to be
able to play it and share it,” Strahota said.
As Richard Berry and his band the Pharaohs
toured the Pacific Northwest, “Louie Louie” became a minor
regional hit.
A few years later, a band of teenagers called
the Kingsmen got their chance to record it at Northwestern Inc.
Recording Studio at 411 S.W. 13th Ave. in Portland. Singer Jack
Ely, in recently tightened braces, shouted the lyrics toward a
microphone suspended from the ceiling. The result was a muffled,
chaotic recording that at first seemed like a dud — but had
actually captured a new, pronto-punk, garage rock sound.
“The vocals were garbled because of how they
recorded in the circumstances of the time,” said Julie Madsen,
who’s married to Strahota and part of the Louie Louie Committee
Committee. “It became a scandal where people were saying that it
had obscene lyrics. … J. Edgar Hoover was involved. That moral
panic is a thing that we still see happening today.”
An 18-month investigation by the FBI
determined the sloppy lyrics where simply unintelligible, not
obscene. But the debacle launched the Kingsmen to worldwide
fame.
“It wasn’t that popular until the controversy,
and because of that, it’s legendary,” said Dick Peterson, the
longest-playing member of The Kingsmen.
Peterson joined the Kingsmen at the end of
1963 as a 17-year-old Grant High School student. The band had
recorded their version of “Louie Louie” a few months earlier,
but it hadn’t made any waves by the time Peterson joined.
“I knew the bass player, Norm. I knew his
girlfriend in high school. She sat across me from me in study
hall,” Peterson said. “The guys were all 19 at the time, and we
had the draft back then, and so the drummer (Gary Abbott) was
drafted, and I took his place. She said, ‘Hey, these guys make
$20 a weekend a piece, you should come try out for the band.’ I
did, and I got the job.”
The Kingsmen version of “Louie Louie” started
to see success when a radio DJ from Boston picked up a copy of
the record during a convention in Seattle. He played the record
on air during his “Worst Record of the Week” segment, but people
loved the song.
“The kids would call in and rate the record,
and ‘Louie Louie’ was winning as the worst record every day for
a month,” Peterson said. “The kids were dancing to it and
thinking it was cool.”
But as the song took off, rumors began to
swirl that Ely’s muffled lyrics were obscene. In February 1964,
the governor of Indiana banned it.
“As soon as he banned that record, it took off
like wildfire,” Peterson said. “It was on the front page of
every newspaper in the country, and the kids thought, ‘Wow,
these guys are getting away with something. Our parents hate it.
We must love it.’”
Within weeks of the ban, The Kingsmen were
invited to tour. Peterson was still a senior in high school. He
turned in his homework from the road and graduated on time. But
he never left The Kingsmen.
“It really did start a movement,” Peterson
said of the song. “It gave kids, musicians, hope that if a
garage band like The Kingsmen can make it, so could they.”
Berry died in 1997, a decade after recovering
the rights to “Louie Louie” and receiving royalties for the
song.
Ely, The Kingsmen’s former signer, died in
2015. Mike Mitchell, who played the famous guitar solo on The
Kingsmen’s recording, died in 2021, but his son will join the
band onstage during the “Louie Louie” Marathon.
Since The Kingsmen’s hit, “Louie Louie” has
been covered by thousands of artists. There are versions by Iggy
Pop, Motörhead, Toots & the Maytals, Joan Jett, and Ike
& Tina Turner.
But “Louie Louie” has always had a strong
Oregon and Northwest connection. Paul Revere and the Raiders
also recorded “Louie Louie” in 1963 — in the same Portland
studio as The Kingsmen. And in 1978, when John Belushi’s
character in “Animal House” — filmed in Eugene — drunkenly sang
along with the song, it cemented “Louie Louie” as a classic
party anthem.
“Portland’s gotten knocked around pretty hard
the last few years, and it just feels like the time is right to
come back with something that is reminiscent of old Portland,”
Strahota said. “We all grew up around the X-Ray cafe,” an
all-ages music venue that introduced many of Portland’s ’90s
underground bands. “This is the kind of stuff that they would
do. This is bringing our community back together, showing
really, truly the underground artists coming together and
performing.”