It's been the Soap Opera Digest Story of the Week ...
And boy, I wish I'd saved all of the updates and revisions I've made to it over the past several days because they've been coming fast and furious ...
But best as I can recollect, the whole thing unfolded like this ...
Back on Tuesday (April 15th), the announcement came that after nearly thirty years, The Who and Drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son) were parting ways. The headlines at the time stated that Starkey had been “sacked” by the band … but no real explanation was given initially.
Rumors of a dispute with lead singer Roger Daltrey were not confirmed … but are a likely cause. Starkey himself seemed to confirm this in an Instagram post on April 13th:
HEARD TODAY FROM INSIDE SOURCE WITHIN WHOSE HORSES NOSE THAT TOGER DAKTREY LEAD SINGER AND PRINCIPAL SONGWRITER OF THE GROUP UNHAPPY WITH ZAK THE DRUMMER’S PERFORMANCE AT THE ALBERT HALL A FEW WEEKS AGO IS BRINGING FORMAL CHARGES OF OVERPLAYING AND IS LITERALLY GOING TO ZAK THE DRUMMER AND BRING ON A RESERVE FROM ‘THE BURWASH CARWASH SKIFFLE ‘N’ TICKLE GLEE CLUB HARMONY WITHOUT EMPATHY ALLSTARS’ THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY WHOSE LONG TIME MANAGER WILLYAYOUWONTYOUKNOW
(Some reports suggested that Starkey's playing style had changed after developing a blood clot in his leg in January, which forced him to cancel an appearance with the band Mantra Of The Cosmos ... and that this may have had something to do with it.)
In my original post, I wrote:
It is a bit of irony that Zak was given his first drum kit by The Who’s original drummer, Keith Moon, who was also his godfather. When Moon died in 1978, he was replaced by former Faces Drummer Kenney Jones. Starkey joined the band in 1996 … and last performed with them at Royal Albert Hall on March 27th and 30th as part of their fundraising efforts for The Teenage Cancer Trust. (kk)
UPDATES #1 & 2: The Who have now confirmed Starkey’s dismissal issuing the statement (on Wednesday, 4/16):
“The band made a collective decision to part ways with Zak after this round of shows at the Royal Albert Hall. They have nothing but admiration for him and wish him the very best for his future.”
(The U.K. tabloid “The Mirror” offered up the following details:
“Sources claim the decision has upset Zak. An insider said: ‘It’s a little acrimonious to say the least.’ Sources claim there were question marks over Zak’s drumming at the March shows, which were in honour of Daltrey’s Teenage Cancer Trust charity.)
In all cases, Starkey is referred to as a “touring member of the band” … the only OFFICIAL Who members these days are Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend.
Another report says that Daltrey actually stopped the show at the Teenage Cancer Trust Charity to offer up this comment during their final song, “The Song Is Over” …
“To sing that song, I do need to hear the key, and I can’t. All I’ve got is drums going boom, boom, boom. I can’t sing to that. I’m sorry guys.” (kk)
UPDATE #3: This has been an evolving story over the past several days. (What is life without drama?!?!) Zak Starkey has now issued the following statement (on Thursday, 4/17):
“I’m very proud of my near thirty years with The Who. Filling the shoes of my Godfather, ‘Uncle Keith,’ has been the biggest honor and I remain their biggest fan. They’ve been like family to me. In January, I suffered a serious medical emergency with blood clots in my right bass drum calf. This is now completely healed and does not affect my drumming or running. After playing those songs with the band for so many decades, I’m surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night, but what can you do? I plan to take some much needed time off with my family and focus on the release of ‘Domino Bones’ by Mantra of the Cosmos with Noel Gallagher in May and finishing my autobiography written solely by me. 29 years at any job is a good old run, and I wish them the best.”
Classy way to go out, Zak … wishing you the best!
And now, on Saturday (4/19) comes UPDATE #4, stating that Starkey is back in the band!!! (Why didn't these guys just talk this out in the first place?!?!?)
It sounds like this was really just an issue between Roger and Zak, as Pete Townshend issued the following statement on Saturday (4/19):
News Flash! Who Backs Zak!
He’s not being asked to step down from The Who.
There
have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides,
that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.
Roger
and I would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to
accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed. I
take responsibility for some of the confusion. Our TCT (Teenage Cancer Trust) shows at the
Royal Albert Hall were a little tricky for me. I thought that four and a
half weeks would be enough time to recover completely from having a
complete knee replacement. (Why did I ever think I could land on my
knees?) Wrong!
Maybe we didn’t put enough time into sound checks,
giving us problems on stage. The sound in the centre of the stage is
always the most difficult to work with. Roger did nothing wrong but
fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has
apologised. Albeit with a rubber duck drummer.
We are a family, this
blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It’s over. We move forward
now with optimism and fire in our bellies.
As for Roger, fans can
enjoy his forthcoming solo shows with his fabulous drummer, Scott
Devours, who it was rumoured might replace Zak in The Who and has always
been supportive of the band.
I owe Scott an apology for not crushing
that rumour before it spread. He has been hurt by this. I promise to
buy him a very long drink and give him a hug.
Pete Townshend
19 April 2025
Unfortunately, all of this ridiculous hoopla bumped our original lead story, paying tribute to Wink Martindale, who passed away early last week ...
I was sad to hear about the passing of Wink Martindale, who died last Tuesday (4/15) at the age of 91.
During his very lengthy public career, Wink has been a deejay and television personality, a recording star (his spoken word recording of “Deck Of Cards” made The Top Five in 1959), spokesman, movie actor, game show host and, most recently, the voice of Gary Theroux’s recently resurrected “History Of Rock And Roll” radio program. (He has also been the voice behind their annual Top 100 Christmas Songs syndicated radio special for the past several years.) I had the chance to talk to Wink a couple of times over the years and found him to be, agreed upon by all accounts, once of the nicest people you could ever meet.
From Gary Pig Gold …
Wink Martindale Has Left The Planet
Still my Absolute Favourite clip of Wink
(alongside an absolutely gum-grapplin' Elvis) ...
What a GREAT clip!!! (Does Elvis look confident enough for you here???) By the way, the above photo is from Jim Roup ... this advertisement appeared in a 1959 edition of "TV Guide." You'll find more from Jim below (kk)
Wink remained in fine voice through the production of all 154 evergreen episodes of THE HISTORY OF ROCK 'N' ROLL. The series has been in eternal reruns since earlier this year and will continue as long as stations remain interested.
Here is a quote from Wink from only about two months ago: "During my many years in radio and television, there is no project I am prouder to have been associated with than the award-winning “HISTORY OF ROCK 'N' ROLL."
All the best,
Gary Theroux
Sean Ross did a great interview with Gary and Wink a few years back …
You can check it out here:
https://radioinsight.com/blogs/298810/wink-martindale-in-his-own-words/
From an interview that Harvey Kubernik did with Wink Martindale for Goldmine Magazine back in 2006 …
Wink Martindale
By Harvey Kubernik © 2006
Legendary radio DJ, TV game show host, and musicologist Wink Martindale, a Southern California resident with his wife Sandy in a Tudor-style Calabasas home they purchased in 1994, recently published his autobiography, “Winking At Life.”
On June 2nd, 2006, Martindale received a long time overdue star on Hollywood Blvd’s Walk of Fame. In 2006, Wink also executive produced the DVD “7 Steps To Stardom: How to Become a Working Actor in Movies, TV, & Commercials” by Christina-Ferra-Gilmore. In this decade, he was featured in the VH-1’s “Behind The Music” profile on Barry White.
Currently, Martindale is doing the high profile television appearances and TV spots for Orbitz Travel and, in 2006, the A&E cable channel broadcasted a two-hour “The History of Game Shows,” which Martindale narrated and was featured quite extensively. Readers might be familiar with Martindale from the nineteen TV game shows he hosted over multiple decades including “Gambit,” “Tic-Tac-Dough,” Shuffle,” “Trivial Pursuit,” “High Rollers,” “Debt” “Words and Music” and “What’s This Song?”
Wink even hosted a 1999 music video for the popular alt rock group Everclear. In 1959, Martindale had his own national best-selling #7 record in “Billboard” with the Top 40 hit, “Deck of Cards,” recorded for the influential Dot Records label, and appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” His chart success led to subsequent movie appearances in “Let’s Rock” in 1958 and “The Lively Set” in 1963.
Martindale, in 1956 on WHBQ-TV, hosted “Top Ten Dance Party,” a 90-minute show that also featured live performances and interviews with Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. In 1959, after relocating to the West Coast, he headlined “The Wink Martindale Dance Party” on KHJ-TV 1959-1960, and later KCOP-TV 1960-1962. From February - August of 1962, Martindale then had a brief stint working for Dot Records in A&R. He signed Dore (Herb) Alpert, who took his $750.00 record advance monies from Dot and quickly plowed it directly into forming A&M Records with Jerry Moss, and their label’s first hit single “The Lonely Bull.”
Wink then returned to DJ work on KFWB, having been behind the microphone of both KHJ and KRLA. He also asking his agent to send him out for game show auditions and, in 1963, he hosted his first game show “Zoom,” for Los Angeles area station KTLA-TV. It was in February, 1964, that Wink hosted “What Is the Name of That Song?” The local buzz and attention the melodic program received steered Wink to NBC-TV in October, 1964, and shortened its title to “What’s This Song?” that had Gene Pitney, Skitch Henderson, Ruta Lee and Deborah Walley on the series.
Wink, birth name, Winston Conrad Martindale, born December 4, 1933 in Jackson, Tennessee, began his radio journey in 1951 at WPLI-AM in Jackson, Tennessee, and today U.S. music fans can enjoy his inviting voice through the sound of MOR pop standards, the American songbook singers, arrangers and songwriters. Martindale is a resident archivist, music historian and well-intentioned friend serving them well in Southern California on AM 1260/540 with his educational and essential weekly three hour “Weekend With Wink” program Saturday 12 - 3:00 p.m. In addition, Wink does “Music Of Your Life,” a nationally syndicated broadcast Monday - Friday nationally since 1996 on 177 radio stations. Previously, for nearly 50 years listeners have heard Wink’s indelible voice and his highly informative radio shifts in Southern California on stations KHJ, KRLA, KFWB, KGIL, KMPC, KABC, and KJQI.
In 2006, his two current radio shows are recorded daily in his Calabasas home studio. His very enjoyable format incorporates a wide variety of music from the 1940s to current popular recording artists. “I play adult contemporary music. Standards. One thing I always like to do is to leave people with some nuggets, something to chew on. The elements of my shows have good content. A sound bite, history, just something that makes people think rather than segue into music,” suggests Wink, who regularly spins Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Vic Damone and spotlights musical arrangers like Percy Faith, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Axel Stordahl, and Tommy Dorsey. “I integrate the new vocalists as well like Diana Krall, Michael Buble and Michael Feinstein. The local 1260 show has a regional angle. And the 540 signal goes into San Diego like a local, so we’re dealing with both L.A. and San Diego. It’s sort of a magazine of the air. I get amazing fan mail. I’m also turning people on to Percy Faith like his ‘Theme from A Summer Place’ and ‘Delacato.’”
In 1977 we will sadly approach the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. Martindale decades ago narrated an audiobiography “The Elvis Presley Story” for Ron Jacobs and Tom Rounds of Watermark Productions. In 2005, Wink and his wife Sandy appeared in “Elvis, by the Presleys,” a May 2005 CBS-TV telecast, now out on DVD.” In addition, Wink is also cited in author Peter Guralnick’s book on Presley, “Last Train To Memphis.”
Wink Martindale was actually present on Thursday, July 8, 1954, at radio studio WHBQ in Tennessee the night Sun Records founder, and record producer, Sam Phillips came to the station with the first copy for fellow DJ Dewey Phillips, who had the 9 - midnight shift on WHBQ when he spun Presley’s “That’s Alright Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” numerous times on his influential radio shift in the mezzanine of the Chisca Hotel on South Main Street.
Martindale, a librarian, whose own program, “Clockwatchers” was a morning drive time slot, was interestingly at the radio station that night when Sam Phillips handed the monumental advance pressing of the record to the influential DJ Phillips. Martindale really had no reason to be at the station when Sam Phillips arrived. Wink was at the station with two of his football-playing buddies in Memphis who wanted to see the studio. “We elected to do it at night. Sam Phillips walked in with ‘That’s All Right Mama.’ I later found out that Dewey knew Sam was coming in with the record but didn’t know a lot about Elvis. He just knew he had something hot, according to Sam. We’re at the station and hear all this commotion going on, and Dewey is playing it over and over and the switchboard lights up like the proverbial Christmas tree, and we all felt this stream of excitement but had no idea we were watching and experiencing music changing that night. It was that heavy.
“By now, we’re in the studio with Dewey and we got Vernon and Gladys Presley’s telephone number. They lived in a Lauderdale Courts apartment, which is low rent housing in East Memphis. Gladys answered the phone, and she said Elvis was so nervous he went by himself to see a double feature of westerns at the Suzores Theater on Jackson Avenue, not that far from the station. Elvis knew Dewey Phillips would be playing his record that evening. The Presleys had a truck, drove over and they found him, sitting by himself in the dark theater, and whispered, ‘Son, your record is getting played and they want you to come to the radio station because there is a lot of excitement.’ Dewey then interviewed him on the air and Elvis later said he didn’t know he was on the air and that there was a microphone sitting in front of him. He was very quiet, soft spoken, and introverted at the time, and if he knew he was being interviewed, he would have been so nervous, he wouldn’t have been able to talk. That night started Presley-mania. I met him that night and we remained friends until the day he died.
“In 1956, right after he’d come back to Memphis from doing his first movie, he came on my television show, ‘Top Ten Dance Party’ to say hello. Shortly thereafter Presley became a star in 1956.” Wink, through Dewey Philips, had convinced Elvis to appear on his own “Dance Party” to help support the Cynthia Milk Fund Charity. “Elvis chose my show, did me a favor, the Colonel didn’t want him doing interviews, and did the community a favor, and as far as I know it’s the first filmed interview he ever did.”
There were no videotape recorders in ’56, but Wink, knowing it was not in the show’s budget, hired a local photographer who also made a kinescope of what might be one of the first ever-recorded interviews with Elvis. “He still was approachable and was nice, pleasant to be around. The big difference was that he had security around the block when he did my ‘Dance Party.’ He danced with the kids. He was even more different in those early days than later like in 1969 in Las Vegas when he made his comeback with ‘Suspicious Minds.’ He was electrifying when he used to sing on the back of flatbed trucks because that’s when he was unbridled. All that stuff was new then. Later, it became more structured. He would do the karate moves, and all that, adding to his luster, if you will, doing that new stuff. In those early days, like at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, being from Memphis, we were amazed in the beginning, and amazed even more so as the years went on by. Then he got to be so big. Because there had never been an Elvis Presley before. Even Dick Clark said ‘There will never be one again.’ It was phenomenal.
“I think his voice became better and better as he sang and the sessions went by more and more. He had just a natural voice that has exemplified everything he had grown up with. It was beautiful. It was an amalgam of rhythm and blues, black music, country, gospel, hillbilly, pop. He always said his favorite records in 1953 were Patti Page’s ‘Tennesse Waltz’ and he loved all those records we were playing on WHBQ. ‘Vanilla music,’ but he also listened to WBIA all the time in addition to WHBQ, because he loved black music.
“When Elvis was in town, it was routine that Gladys, Vernon and when Elvis was in town, they would all watch my show every Saturday ‘cause that’s the way he kept up on what the kids were doing,” Wink volunteers. “The day I started my teenage dance party out in California on KHJ-TV in 1959, we arranged to air an interview with Elvis from Germany where he was stationed and just gotten in the army. Plus, I used some of the interview I did with Elvis in Memphis. And I was talking to Elvis, (supposedly live) in Germany, he had just gotten in the army, we were able to build up and it was really quite a coup.
‘Who is this redneck from Tennessee, Wink Martindale, who comes out here and is able to get Elvis Presley?’ And we’re talking 1959. And he already had hits like ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’” This interview, along with the audio soundtrack of Wink’s 1956 TV interview with Elvis are included along on the disc “This Was Elvis To Me.” www.winkmartindale.com
Later, in 1961, when Presley was filming the movie “GI Blues” in Culver City at MGM, Wink saw Elvis again. “He was still approachable, nice and very pleasant to be around. I went over to the studio at MGM with my producer Al Burton from ‘Dance Party’ who wanted to meet him. We said hello. Elvis had his uniform on that he was wearing in the movie. He was busy but he had a break in shooting. He was the same to me and no difference whatsoever.”
Ironically, Wink’s wife Sandy Ferra had met Elvis during the filming of “G.I. Blues” in April, 1960, at her father’s Panorama City nightclub, The Crossbow. “When Elvis first came out of the army, he came to my dad’s nightclub The Crossbow in Panorama City. (Actor) Lance LaGault was our bandleader. (LaGault acted in some Presley films and was a pal of his.) Red West was the bouncer when he first came out of the army,” mentions Sandy, who briefly joined our conversation. “Elvis first came to dad’s nightclub on every Thursday. There was a dance floor, band, stairway, balcony, and Elvis could be up there with Tuesday Weld or whomever, having a great time looking at the kids dancing, seeing Lance, and no one bothered him because he had his own little area and my dad would bring him whatever, seeing Donnie Brooks, Dorsey and Johnny Burnette. Sam Cooke was in there. Glen Campbell would play for $5.00 a night just after he and Jerry Naylor had just got to town from Albuquerque, New Mexico.”
Sandy was cast as a dancer in several Elvis movies, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “The Trouble With Girls,” and “Girls, Girls, Girls.” Presley was also a regular visitor a few years later to Tony Ferra’s Red Velvet club in Hollywood, where he enjoyed the Righteous Brothers on occasion. Future Presley band mates James Burton and Glen D. Hardin would play the room. The historic “Shindig!” TV series taped in the same neighborhood held some show after parties at this famed venue. The Knickerbockers were the house band in 1965. Before he was a member of the Monkees, Mickey Dolenz was a parking lot attendant there.
“The last time Wink and I saw Elvis in Las Vegas at the Hilton that same day he had seen us together on a show called ‘Tattletales’ on CBS. He had watched this show about how much do you know about your spouse. And he was amazed that we knew so much about each other. He said what a small world it is because he raised me in California, knew Wink in Tennessee, and now here we were together, recently married. (August 2, 1975) Elvis was thirsty and I went behind the bar in his dressing room and gave him Mountain Valley mineral water,” recalls Sandy. “We had health concerns about him and we wrote him a letter,” Sandy muses. “We had a little house in the Pacific Palisades at the time and said ‘If you just want to get away, please stay with us and let us take care of you.’ I don’t know if they gave him the letter when we were leaving the hotel. But we never heard from him.”
“Sandy and I went to Las Vegas to see him twice and were always invited backstage,” Wink continues. “It was December of 1976 at the Las Vegas Hilton. We went back and the place was packed with people. That’s when he was going with Ginger Alden. All the guys were in the room, but he only wanted to talk to Sandy and I. He was behind the bar, you could hear a pin drop, because when the king was talking no one talked. ‘Tick-Tac-Dough’ also was a huge, big hit and he was going on and on how proud he was of me and my career. That night after Sandy and I left his dressing room, we got depressed and cried. I told Sandy, ‘This will be the last time we ever see him.’” Presley died the next year. “We went to Graceland a month after the funeral with DJ George Klein and saw Vernon Presley and we paid our respects privately and prayed. It was so sad. I gave Vernon a copy of my ‘That Was Elvis To Me,’” Wink discloses.
On his current radio shows Presley is heard often. “Elvis is background for me,” reflects Wink. “When I play his music on the radio it’s almost like a celebration. I play his songs and any negatives that might go along with the later stages of his career and life don’t even occur to me. It’s only when I make it a point to talk about a specific thing that I have a memory of the down days. I think about Elvis Presley the superstar, the king of rock and roll and the good times. We weren’t around the bad times, I knew they were happening, but we weren’t privy to them. Elvis fits many radio formats. I’ve got all these sound bites that work so well around his songs with people talking about him.
“What happened to me, and the reason I can sit in this beautiful home with a beautiful wife and live a wonderful life, evolved and happened because I knew what I wanted,” concludes Martindale, who holds a B.S. degree from Memphis State University, with a major in Speech and Drama and a minor in Journalism. “So many kids don’t know, even when they get out of college, what they want to do with their life. I was so lucky because I always wanted to be in radio.”
Fan voting for The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ends tomorrow (4/21). Phish continues to hold a dominating lead with approximately 325,000 votes. Bad Company is in a distant second place with roughly 275,000 votes, followed by Billy Idol (255,000), Cyndi Lauper (230,000), Joe Cocker (just under 230,000, with a big gain in the past week), Soundgarden (225,000) and Chubby Checker in sixth place with just over 195,000 votes.
Winning the fan vote does not insure induction to The Rock Hall … the winner only gets the equivalent of one member’s vote on the voting committee … but my guess is that, at the very least, Phish, Bad Company, Billy Idol and Joe Cocker (thanks to a HUGE support campaign) will all make the cut this year. Time will tell! (kk)
Tomorrow is your last chance to cast your vote(s) for your favorite(s) ... just click the link below and vote for up to seven of the artists you feel deserving of such an honor ...
>>>Happy Together 2025 Tour – with now fifty dates booked, it is likely coming soon to a theater near you!!! (kk)
50 Dates. Yet they consider Denver a Fly-over city!
Maybe they can't find planes that can fly high enough to land in our "Mile High City."
Or tour buses that can climb our 5,280 foot height.
Or fording the wide Mighty Mississippi is too much of a challenge.
East Coast, West Coast, South ... Interesting that their booking agency pretty much doesn't know the expanse of the Midwest! Two kinda such stops yet not even a Chicago stop either?!
Wait! I feel a song coming on!!
"Ain't no mountain high enough,
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wide enough,
To keep me from gettin' to you!"
Unless you're the "Happy Together Tour."
CB ( which stands for "Curmudgeon Boy!" )
Great article in Billboard this week spotlighting the return of John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band ...
We wish these guys the best of luck ... they certainly are getting a lot of press lately! Glad I had the chance to talk to John early on. (kk)
We told you about the new survey book coming from Carl Mann, spotlighting radio station Top 40 surveys from around the country, circa 1965-1970.
Just got this note from Carl … and it sounds like it may be delayed till May. (Just wanted to let everybody know in case you’ve either already ordered a copy … or still want to!)
Kent –
AVAILABLE MAY, 2025 -- Stations and Surveys, 1965-1970 … from the Burgeoning Years of Rock --
The final edit and proofing are underway, to be followed by page numbering (over 170 pages) and Indexing ... then prep for publishing.
It's already mid-April, so the release date has to be pushed to May. It was a watershed half-decade for popular music in a rather turbulent period, so there's lots more text. Here's an attachment of the cover. Thanks again for your support.
Carl
You should be able to pre-order your copy thru Amazon.com (kk)
Belated Happy Birthday 🎈🎂! to Al Green. Ran in to him at Spago one night.
Hey Kent,
Here's a photo of the late Gene Weed, host of "Shivaree," seen at The Golden Globes show he produced at The Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Jim Roup
So why no Nat King Cole with the TJB album cover girl?
Clark Besch
THAT cover would have probably been deemed FAR more scandalous at the time than the whipped cream-covered nudie photo Herb Alpert got away with!!! lol (kk)
From Tom Cuddy (by way of Billboard Magazine) …
Bobby Vinton’s 10 Biggest Hot 100 Hits for His 90th Birthday
https://www.billboard.com/lists/bobby-vinton-10-biggest-hits-billboard-hot-100/
Roger McLachlan, an original founding member of The Little River Band, has died from pancreatic cancer. McLachlan was the band’s original bass player, but was only with the band for their first two albums (and first US chart hit, “It’s A Long Way There,” #28, 1976.) He was replaced the following year by George McAndle on bass. (kk)
Frank B tells us ...
The Patsy Cline Museum Closing --- So That The Johnny Cash Museum Can Get Bigger.
Patsy Cline Fans Have Less Than A Month To Visit Her Nashville Museum.
The Johnny Cash Museum Expanding By 4000 Feet,
The Patsy Cline Museum Opened In April, 2017. It Sits Above Johnny Cash Museum at 119 3rd Ave. S in Nashville.
FB
We LOVE hearing from new readers discovering Forgotten Hits for the first time!
Just got this email from Ken Jackson, who grew up in the area during the ‘70’s and got to see some great bands in some long-gone clubs back in the day …
I grew up in Lemont, IL. Left in 1973 and lived in Lake Geneva, WI from ’73 – ‘81. Been in Colorado and California since then, but have really enjoyed reading this regarding all the great clubs back in the day. Saw Harpers Bizarre and The Association at Majestic Hills. Went to the Blue Village when it started in the basement in 1966 of what I think was a VFW in Westmont before it moved to the old grocery store. Of course, I saw all the 60's bands like CSNY before Woodstock with Joni Mitchell opening, Cream, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, etc., etc.
More importantly, do you remember the Fickle Fox in Plainfield? The Buckinghams and several others played there. It was an old roller rink. I also remember the Black Knight in Lake Geneva. Saw Cheap Trick playing behind the bar in the early 70's. Anyway, just fun memories. Good times, great places.
Ken Jackson
Best Classic Bands ran a GREAT piece by Jeff Tamarkin about The Hollies’ first US appearance at the Paramount Theatre 60 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK that we mentioned on the opening night anniversary, April 16th. LOTS more details here than I was aware of … so be sure to check it out! (kk)
https://bestclassicbands.com/soupy-sales-easter-show-1965-4-16-17/
So, a very old, lifelong, since we were five years old friend, expressed his interest to me in Todd Rundgren.
It was a perfect time to share with him some of my Rundgren memories and I thought I'd share them with you, too, because of your interest in songs and artists of his era.
I wrote to him ~~~
Back in the late 1960s through the 1980s when I was a part of picking the National and International Pop Music Hits, Rundgren released a song that I didn't particularly care for a lot, but felt it sounded like it had the potential to be a "hit." It did peak on Billboard's Hot 100 at Number 20 in 1971.
And his record label was appreciative enough to give me this token plaque of their appreciation. (Hardly the status of a Gold Record Award like others I've received for breaking such bigger hits like "Maggie May," "Your Song," "Take Me Home Country Roads" and others but still . . . )
My favorite of his, if I had to pick one, is far and away, "Bang My Drum All Day," which peaked at Number 39 in 1982 on "Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart," which was their chart of "most played" songs, not to be confused with their "Hot 100" charts which, in reality, IS confusing! Todd Rundgren produced, sang, and played ALL of the instruments on that song as he did on other songs of his!
Now then, I've attached a singular version of that song that I don't think you've heard before ( "I Don't Want to Work!" ), which I like a LOT! Listen carefully to the lyrics in that attached 75-second version! (Rundgren's Original is also attached for reference.)
CB ( where "You Hear Things First!" )
Funnily enough, Frannie and I were just talking about “We Gotta Get You A Woman” the other day when I mentioned that I had the opportunity to interview Todd Rundgren … but didn’t have the faintest idea of what I’d ask him!!!
We both LOVE the song (it did a little bit better in Record World, peaking at #17 … and was a #11 Hit at your old Chicagoland stomping grounds, WLS.)
LOVE the customized Buell version of “I Don’t Want To Work” … you’re right, I’d never heard it before … but that’s a keeper! (kk)
By the way, several dates in August have been added to Heart’s new tour and Todd will be the opening act for most of them!
Harvey Kubernik provides an in-depth look at the new SMiLE book by David Leaf with a lengthy interview with its author.
Good reading here: https://www.musicconnection.com/smile-the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of-brian-wilson-from-omnibus-press/
>>>Also on 4/19, the album “Whipped Cream And Other Delights” is released by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (Have you seen this album cover before? It's pretty cool!!!) kk
