The final fan vote is in …
Here are the Top Fan Vote Nominees for The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Class of 2024 …
(SIX artists earned more than 300,000 votes … so we’ll highlight those, prior to listing them all)
#1 – The Dave Matthews Band – 586,211 votes
#2 – Peter Frampton – 528,482 votes
#3 – Foreigner – 527, 193 votes
#4 – Ozzy Osbourne – 480,292 votes
#5 – Cher -339,939 votes
#6 – Lenny Kravitz – 310,663 votes
Surprising upsets include Mariah Carey (who may still get in … the fan vote does NOT guarantee induction … and, in fact, only counts as ONE additional vote above and beyond the normal committee’s votes), Oasis and Mary J. Blige. (The Dave Matthews Band came out of nowhere to take the title this year … they ALSO won the fan vote in 2020 … but STILL haven’t made their way inside the hallowed halls.)
Matthews had this to say after being nominated again
this year: “If there’s any outcome that
could arguably be better than actually getting into the Hall – not to say
there’s anything better than getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame –
but if there was anything better, it would be if the fans overwhelmingly voted
for you to get in and you still weren’t let in. I can live with that.”
The ceremony will be broadcast live on Disney+ again this year (for the second year in a row) and then rebroadcast, at a later date, in edited form on ABC Television.
In what seems to be the antithesis of what The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is all about, the 2024 Inductees will be announced live on “American Idol” (?!?!?) this weekend. Say what?!?!? Seriously???
Be watching this Sunday (April 21st) and Lionel Richie (himself a member of The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame) and Ryan Seacrest will announce the Class of 2024 Inductees live on the air. (kk)
LOTS of flack over CBS chopping off the ending of Sunday Night’s Billy Joel Concert from Madison Square Garden (his 100th appearance, which also featured special guest Sting … one of only two songs I was able to see Sunday Night)
Seems that since everything started late that night due to The Masters Tournament, CBS (in their infinite wisdom) cut off the last two minutes of Joel’s performance of his signature tune “Piano Man” to cut to the local news at 10 pm (instead of just starting the newscast two minutes late)
As a result, the concert will be rebroadcast TONIGHT (April 19th) IN ITS ENTIRETY on CBS starting at 8 pm Central Time (which means that THIS time I’ll actually be able to see it!) We were traveling over the past five days and were visiting with family down in Texas Sunday Night … so I only got to catch Billy’s performances of “Vienna” and “Big Man On Mulberry Street,” which Sting sang the hell out of. It’ll be great to take in the whole concert, the way it was intended to air. (kk)
The other big news this past week is that Disney+ will air the original Michael Lindsay-Hogg produced film, “Let It Be,” shown for the first time in over fifty years in its original state, cleaned up by Peter Jackson. (I’m not quite sure what that means … hopefully, it just means much cleaner, clearer audio and video like he did with the 8-hour “Get Back” series from a couple of years ago. But I’m hoping that doesn’t mean that Jackson is going to edit out every potentially “uncomfortable moment” that exists in the original film, which was always intended to show The Beatles at work on their new album, “warts and all.”)
Jackson has also commented that there are another 5-6 hours of EXCELLENT footage that deserves to be seen, rather than be locked away again for another fifty years … so will we also get the Peter Jackson “extended cut” of the film???
All of these questions still seem to be a bit unclear
… but we’re hoping for the best of BOTH worlds, with the original airing the
way it was always intended as well as gobbs and gobbs of “extras,” if not now, then somewhere down the line.
.jpg)
Even back then the quality of the film wasn’t very good … and I’ve owned several copies since, each purporting to be the “best, cleanest version yet,” including one recorded from the laser disc edition (which I also saw … and it really WAS quite brilliant) … to cleaned up dvd versions, supposedly sourced from the original master tapes.
THIS, however, should blow everything else away … so I am quite excited not only to see it again on Disney+, but also to be able to buy the home video version when it is ultimately released down the road. (kk)
Harvey Kubernik files this report:
The Beatles Let It Be To Launch Exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024
By Harvey Kubernik © Copyright 2024
Featuring Harvey Kubernik’s 2021 Interview with Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Disney+ has announced that “Let It Be,” director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original 1970 film about The Beatles, will launch exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024. This is the first time the film is available in over 50 years.
First released in May, 1970, amidst the swirl of The Beatles’ breakup, “Let It Be” now takes its rightful place in the band’s history. Once viewed through a darker lens, the film is now brought to light through its restoration and in the context of revelations brought forth in Peter Jackson’s multiple Emmy Award®-winning docuseries, “The Beatles: Get Back.” Released on Disney+ in 2021, the docuseries showcases the iconic foursome’s warmth and camaraderie, capturing a pivotal moment in music history.
From the Disney announcement touting the May re-release:
““Let It Be” contains footage not featured in the “Get Back” docuseries, bringing viewers into the studio and onto Apple Corps’ London rooftop in January, 1969, as The Beatles, joined by Billy Preston, write and record their GRAMMY Award®-winning album Let It Be, with its Academy Award®-winning title song, and perform live for the final time as a group. With the release of “The Beatles: Get Back,” fan clamor for the original “Let It Be” film reached a fever pitch. With Lindsay-Hogg’s full support, Apple Corps asked Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production to dive into a meticulous restoration of the film from the original 16mm negative, which included lovingly remastering the sound using the same MAL de-mix technology that was applied to the “Get Back” docuseries.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg says, “’Let It Be’ was ready to go in October / November, 1969, but it didn’t come out until April, 1970. One month before its release, The Beatles officially broke up. And so the people went to see ‘Let It Be’ with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see The Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film. But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs? And then you get to the roof, and you see their excitement, camaraderie, and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with the full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy. I was knocked out by what Peter was able to do with ‘Get Back,’ using all the footage I’d shot 50 years previously.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, ‘Let It Be,’ has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” says Peter Jackson. "I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for 'Get Back,’ and I’ve always thought that ‘Let It Be’ is needed to complete the ‘Get Back’ story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and The Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and ‘Let It Be’ is that documentary – the movie they released in 1970. I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: ‘Let It Be’ is the climax of ‘Get Back,’ while ‘Get Back’ provides a vital missing context for ‘Let It Be.’ Michael Lindsay-Hogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made ‘Get Back,’ and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word ... looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
“Let It Be,” directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, stars John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, with a special appearance by Billy Preston. The film was produced by Neil Aspinall with The Beatles acting as executive producers. The director of photography was Anthony B Richmond.
“Let It Be” will debut exclusively on Disney+ May 8, 2024.”
“I see this Beatles reissue as connected with the reissues of the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 anthology albums, on CD and vinyl,” posted poet and deejay, Dr. James Cushing. “The value of these items, I suggest, depends on when you were born. For baby boomers like us, those double-albums are just another money-squeeze, a chance to buy something we already have. For Generation Z and Generation Alpha kids who didn't already have these songs, they're a good way into the catalogue.
“For baby boomers like us, Let It Be -- The Movie is a 54-year-old memory of a disappointment. For Generation Z and Generation Alpha kids, it may work, assuming they don't have seven hours to binge-watch Get Back. This reissue is a kind of 90min ‘compressed version’ of it.
Classic rock syllogisms: The Beatles Get Back is to Let It Be -- The Movie as No Direction Home is to Eat the Document. The Rolling Thunder Revue is to Renaldo and Clara. Another Self Portrait is to the original 1970 Self Portrait album
“Our classic rock icons cannot be allowed to have made substandard movies or albums in the past, so we have these latter-day improved versions.
Two questions: 1) Does Martin Scorsese plan to oversee remastered versions of Eat the Document or Renaldo and Clara? And 2) what happened to the reissue of The Concert for Bangladesh? That's a way better rock-u-mentary than Let It Be.”
During 2020, I interviewed Michael Lindsay-Hogg about his career.
Before The Rock and Roll Circus, Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed many of The Rolling Stones’ promotional video clips: “She’s a Rainbow,” “2000 Light Years From Home,” “Child of the Moon,” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” as well as The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” “Rain,” “Hey Jude” and “Revolution.”
In addition to directing The Beatles’ Let It Be feature film, during the course of his career, Michael also directed specials for Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, Paul Simon and The Who.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg is the author of the well received 2011 autobiography Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York and Points Beyond.
Lindsay-Hogg is the son of actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, who starred as Marilyn Birchfield in the Sidney Lumet-directed The Pawnbroker.
Like the visionary stage/director/producer Jack Good before him, both studied at Oxford, Michael Lindsay-Hogg viewed and subsequently documented rock ‘n’ roll as a dramatic subject. His first job, at age 16, was serving as an apprentice for John Houseman’s repertory theatre company in Stratford, Connecticut.
“I started out as a child actor and fell in love with the theater,” Michael told me in a 2019 interview. “The first jobs I had were in Shakespeare on stage. And that’s how it started and I tried very much to bring some of those elements to Ready, Steady Go!”
This landmark British music program was broadcast every Friday night debuting August 9, 1963, and a final taping December 23, 1966.
RSG! was conceived by Elkan Allan, then head of Rediffusion TV. Vicki Wickham assembled the talent and dancers and served as one of the producers. After 1964, the live show was aired nationally on network. The program was recorded at the RSG! studio in Rediffusion’s headquarters in Kingsway, London.
RSG! gave a platform to some of the most successful recording artists of the sixties: The Who, Otis Redding, The Animals, Gene Pitney, The Zombies, Sandie Shaw, The Beatles, Burt Bacharach, The Stones, The Temptations, Donovan, The Kinks, James Brown, The Fortunes and The Walker Brothers.
Initially, the musical guests on RSG! mimed to their pre-recorded tracks; by late 1964, some artists performed live and eventually all acts to all-live performances in April, 1965. The hosts/presenters were Keith Fordyce and Cathy McGowan. Early shows were introduced by singer Dusty Springfield.
“It was a black and white program,” underscored Michael. “A lot of the great comedies and dramas from the forties and fifties were in black and white. In England we had no color,” he reinforced.
“I had no worries from the people above me. Elkan Allen was the creator and always encouraged me to go further. Very helpful.
“And I think people were stunned by the comparative substance of the rock ‘n’ roll that was on television.
“1963 was a revolution. It was the kids who had been children in World War 2. The world was opening up for them. They could have long hair if they wanted to. And it was the discovery of the pill for pregnancy. And so, a whole nation was open for young people and freedom. There was long hair, the pill and music. The paper was ready to be lit and the match came,” stressed Lindsay-Hogg, who along with John Lennon, Andrew Loog Oldham, Vicki Wickham, Mick Jagger and other bold Brits embodied the confidence of a new London.
“There were new managers in rock ‘n’ roll and around Ready, Steady Go! Don Arden, Andrew Loog Oldham, and Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, had been assistant stage managers or involved in acting.”
“In 1963 I was working. RSG! represented the time when we were in the business we wanted to be in and RSG! on a Friday night the Green Room was the meeting place of all those similarly blessed,” Andrew Loog Oldham recalled to me in my 2004 book, Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music In Film and on Your Screen.
‘Vicki Wickham booked the show from late 1963 to December, 1967. Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed it, and tried new techniques like stop action and freeze frame while the band was on camera.
“Safe to say I still communicate with both of them so that tells you the lot. You were dealing with nice people. None of the people had an agenda. On the show, the visuals propelled the music.”
“On RSG! Andrew had some ideas about lighting and shots,” offered Lindsay-Hogg. “One evening at the Ad Lib club I met up with Andrew and we agreed to debut a couple of new songs he was hyped about, including ‘Satisfaction.’”
“When The Stones did ‘Paint, It Black,’ we put camera effects on Mick’s face and made it darker and darker,” emphasized Lindsay-Hogg. “We were broadcasting live. It felt dangerous and primitive.
“The cameraman, Bruce Gowers, later did the great video of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ which was a very calculated video.
“With RSG! it was about as much about the technique as the performer. In the early RSG! stages I was always thinking about the performer and somehow marrying the technique to them.
If the performer was Mick Jagger or John Lennon, you don’t want to get in the way too much.
“RSG! went off the air in 1966 when the video was music promotion for the record to be out. 1967 was a difficult year for the Rolling Stones. The set-up drug arrest in Redlands. Touring was becoming a headache.
“In 1966 I had done earlier videos of the Beatles’ ‘Rain,’ and ‘Paperback Rider.” And Mick knew that. And it always was between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones,” suggested Lindsay-Hogg.
“The music video had been around. There were earlier attempts. Scopitone. [A jukebox 16 mm film]. The first Scopitone ones were made in French. Lip-sync to a pre-recorded track. Used to be seen in bars or in diners with French acts [Serge Gainsbourg, Johnny Hallyday] miming to rock ‘n’ roll videos,” reminisced Michael.
“There was Dick Clark‘s American Bandstand. I used to watch it in the fifties, Jack Good, the wonderful producer and director of Shindig!
“Mick was always thinking of the next step. ‘Because we can.’ That is to say ‘We’re strong enough and powerful enough like The Beatles are. And this is the way to get our song out to most of the plug shows who were gonna play it. Because they want the Rolling Stones. What do we do? How can we do it?’ And I asked what song they had. ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’ ‘OK. Let’s hear it,” he recalled.
In a July 28, 2014 interview with Robert Ayers in Rural Intelligence, Michael Lindsay-Hogg reflected about The Rock and Roll Circus,
“I still have a very soft spot for it.
“It has a poignancy to it. When you’re 28 you can’t imagine you’ll ever be 70, nor can you imagine that some of the participants in the movie will soon be dead - in Brian Jones’ case, in only five months; in Keith Moon’s, in less than ten years, and in John Lennon’s, in twelve years - because everybody seemed so incredibly alive, and so in the moment. There wasn’t any future, there was just now."
After 54 years, it's a very big deal! (kk)
Dickey Betts, a co-founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, died yesterday (4/18) after bouts with cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 80 years old.
While many other guitarists may have been content to play in the shadow of Duane Allman, Betts had mad guitar skills of his own … and he and Allman had an understanding early on when forming the band ...
Instead of allowing one guitarist to shine in the limelight, they would create a “collaborative” style of playing, each complimenting the other. Betts said that he and Duane would actually sit around and talk about how so many bands couldn’t stay together because of the internal jealousies of one guitarist always trying to outdo the other. The reason things worked in The Allman Brothers, Betts said, was that "Duane and I had a mutual understanding of 'Let’s play together.'"
It was Dickey that wrote the band’s biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man” (#1, 1973), as well as their beautiful instrumental “Jessica” (#33 the following year.) In fact, Betts penned eight of the group’s Hot 100 Pop Singles … and he was well-respected by his bandmates and his peers.
On The Allman Brothers’ website, they posted
the following message:
“His extraordinary guitar playing alongside guitarist Duane Allman created a unique dual guitar signature sound that became the signature sound of the genre known as Southern Rock. He was passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing. Dickey was all in on and excelled at anything that caught his attention.
“Play on Brother Dickey, you will be forever remembered and deeply missed.”
The Allman Brothers Band placed eight songs on our list of THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME, including these five that made The Top 1000:
# 27 - Ramblin' Man
#546 - Melissa
#784 - Ain't Wastin' Time No More
#790 - Jessica
#886 - One Way Out
And this from Clark Besch ...
And this "never was a US 45 at all" on yellow swirl with an alternate photo of Ringo sitting on John! Never a better photo, right?
