Hope everyone has been doing well. Have a great weekend watching the Masters!
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson OBE is celebrating his 73rd birthday today.
Thompson first gained prominence in the late 1960s as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the folk rock group Fairport Convention, which he had co-founded in 1967. After departing the group in 1971, Thompson released his debut solo album Henry the Human Fly in 1972. The next year, he formed a duo with his then-wife Linda Thompson, which produced six albums, including the critically acclaimed I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974) and Shoot Out the Lights (1982).
After the dissolution of the duo, Thompson revived his solo career with the release of Hand of Kindness in 1983. He has released a total of eighteen solo studio albums. Three of his albums—Rumor and Sigh (1991), You? Me? Us? (1996), and Dream Attic (2010)—have been nominated for Grammy Awards, while Still (2015) was his first UK Top Ten album.
He continues to write and record new material regularly and frequently performs at venues throughout the world.
Music critic Neil McCormick described Thompson as "a versatile virtuoso guitarist and a sharp observational singer-songwriter whose work burns with intelligence and dark emotion". His songwriting has earned him an Ivor Novello Award and, in 2006, a lifetime achievement award from BBC Radio. His 1991 song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" was included in Time magazine's "All Time 100 Songs" list of the best English-language musical compositions released between 1923 and 2011.
Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire(OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music. Many varied musicians have recorded Thompson's compositions.
In 2021, his book Beeswing: Losing my Way and Finding my Voice, 1967-1975 was released. Published by Algonquin Books, it is mainly a memoir of his life as a musician from 1967 to 1975.
[The above is from Wikipedia. The following are excerpts from an interview held last year with The Guardian just before his memoir was published.]
The folk-rock pioneer has finally written his memoir, covering a life-changing crash and his fiery romance with his ex-wife and singing partner Linda Thompson.
It’s been nearly 55 years since Richard Thompson began his career in music. A pioneer of folk-rock, hugely influential singer-songwriter and one of Britain’s most astonishing guitarists, he was only a month out of his teens on the morning of 12 May 1969 when all promise was nearly stopped short. His band, Fairport Convention, had been signed on the spot in 1967 when producer Joe Boyd saw his talent with a guitar at 17, and their mission to reconnect British rock with the older, beautiful songs of their home country was well under way.
He’d already jammed with Jimi Hendrix and supported Pink Floyd; now Thompson’s band had recently finished their third album, Unhalfbricking, with singer Sandy Denny. A work full of ambitious originals and covers that still regularly appears in best British album polls, it got to No 12 in the charts then; decades later, it became a touchstone for the Green Man festival-endorsed folk-rock revival of the 2000s when everyone who liked Joanna Newsom and Will Oldham raved about it.
That morning they were driving back to London from a Birmingham gig, approaching the last service station on the M1. Guitarist Simon Nicol was trying to sleep off a migraine, stretched out on top of the speakers in the back. Thompson’s girlfriend, fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn, was asleep. Thompson was dozing between her and roadie Harvey Bramham, who was driving. “It was starting to get light. Nearly dawn…nearly home,” Thompson writes in Beeswing, his forthcoming memoir.
Thompson noticed the van, travelling at 70mph, suddenly veering towards the motorway’s central reservation. In those days there were no crash barriers. He turned his head to Bramham – his eyes were closed. Thompson grabbed the wheel to avoid hitting a pole. The van came off the road.
“The only way I could get through writing about it was to think, ‘This is something that happened to somebody else,’” Thompson says now as we chat on Zoom. “It brought up all kinds of stuff. I had to metaphorically put the pen down, take a deep breath, have a little cry.” In one of the most arresting passages of the book, he describes crawling over to Jeannie a few yards away. He is bleeding, with broken ribs; he finds her upside down on a sloping embankment. “She was unconscious but frowning, as if she was struggling to remember someone’s name,” he writes.
They had been together a fortnight: he didn’t really know her at all, and then she died. Martin Lamble, the band’s 19-year-old drummer, also didn’t survive. Remarkably Nicol got out and walked down the road, flagging down a passing car. He is still the leader of Fairport Convention, 52 years later.
But Thompson left in early 1971, still shell-shocked by the crash, to pursue a solo career that flew well beyond British folk. Ever since, he’s lovingly explored and excavated genres from rockabilly to flamenco, music-hall to pop (2003’s 1,000 Years of Popular Music did all this in one album, moving from 13th-century ballad Sumer Is Icumen In to Britney Spears’s Oops!… I Did It Again). A favourite of both Robert Plant and Elvis Costello, Thompson has also been covered by acts as varied as feminist punks Sleater-Kinney, REM, David Byrne and, most recently, Mark Ronson, who covered the 1974 title track of Thompson’s album with first wife Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. Ronson tweeted how much the song had given him comfort during lockdown. “It’s the ultimate song about a messy weekend night out… I miss that all very much.”
That period of Thompson’s career is especially rich: he met Linda in 1969, and they married in 1972, then made fantastic music together for the next decade. Linda is one of Britain’s greatest, but most overlooked, singers, possessed of a bold, beautiful voice that carried the songs Richard wrote for her, and accompanied dramatically with his guitar. Their story outside music is dramatic too. It involves Richard’s conversion to Sufism, a move with their two young children to a rural commune without hot water and electricity, subsequent adultery during pregnancy, and a traumatic tour after their breakup where Linda kicked Richard in the shins while he played guitar solos (it’s known by their fans as The Tour from Hell).
Thompson is still a restlessly curious, active musician, and a raucous one live: his shows often have the power and fervour of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He’s worked with Werner Herzog and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and kept busy in the pandemic, releasing two EPs (Bloody Noses and Live from London), and doing live streams from home for the Royal Albert Hall. An eight-CD box set compilation of all his work, including demos and rarities, with Linda, Hard Luck Stories, was released in October; he also recorded a Christmas message for his local venue wearing a Santa hat. But most of last year was spent finishing the book he’d said he’d never write.
When we speak, he’s midway through recording the audiobook, and recently had to read the chapter about that May morning. He speaks softly. “We never mourned properly. There wasn’t the language then to describe those feelings. I’m still learning.”
It may be surprising that the great man of British folk-rock has lived in America for the past 30 years. Women took him there: his second wife, Nancy Covey, booked his first solo tour in the US in 1981 as his marriage to Linda was crumbling. He lived with her in LA; now he’s with singer-songwriter Zara Phillips, 56, who lives around the corner (she often pops up in his online shows: they share a love of Kate Bush). [CRRK note: Richard and Zara were married late last year.]
Thompson loves America’s generosity of spirit, its get-up-and-go. “In the US, if you say, ‘I want to start a company,’ they’ll say, ‘Great, let’s get on this!’ In Britain, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that, no, the computer says no’.”
Here’s a link if you’d like to read the full interview: https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/14/richard-thompson-beeswing-fairport-folk-rock-interview
TODAY at 5 pm ET, Richard will be spending part of his birthday at Little City Books to read from his memoir, “Beeswing” and chat with James Mastro of The Guitar Bar. Tickets to the event are sold out, however livestream tickets are still available. Each ticket purchase will include a signed book.
Tickets available at smarturl.it/RT4.3Livestream
Do you have a favorite song written by Richard? Have you read “Beeswing”?
Happy Birthday, Richard Thompson - RT!! Faculty and staff here at the College are looking forward to seeing you via Zoom later today!
If THE BAND's Richard Manuel was still with us, he would have had 79 candles on his birthday cake today. Richard had an incredible talent but, unfortunately he had his hidden demons.
Richard took his own life on March 4, 1986, just one month before his 43rd birthday. Even those close to him didn't see it coming.
Happy Birthday Richard. RIP and thank you for the music.
They had played together in the past and had worked on each other's solo projects. So, on April 3, 1988, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison got together in Malibu to record an all-star single called "Handle With Care." The session went so well that the group, calling itself the Traveling Wilburys, decided to record an album together. They even did a second one.
Happy 34th Birthday to the Traveling Wilburys!!!!
Think we should charge Gretsch Guitars for the mention?
How many of you know how the name 'Traveling Wilburys' came about?
There have been a number of 'artists of influence' in the history of Rock and Roll. Today we are remembering one of the most influential of all, McKinley Morganfield. Mr. Morganfield would have turned 109 years old today. You will know him better as Muddy Waters.
We could go on for days about Muddy, but we wanted to share one story about him. In 1972 he went to England to record "The London Muddy Waters Sessions" with Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing was not up to his standards. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know." "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." He was a true Bluesman.
To show his influence, The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song "Rollin' Stone." Rolling Stonemagazine also took its name from the same song. Hendrix recalled that "the first guitar player I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death". Cream covered "Rollin' and Tumblin'" on their 1966 debut album Fresh Cream, as Eric Clapton was a big fan of Muddy Waters when he was growing up, and his music influenced Clapton's music career. The song was also covered by Canned Heat at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival and later adapted by Bob Dylan on the album Modern Times. One of Led Zeppelin's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love", is lyrically based upon the Muddy Waters hit "You Need Love", written by Willie Dixon. Dixon wrote some of Muddy Waters' most famous songs, including "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (a big radio hit for Etta James, as well as the 1970s rock band Foghat), "Hoochie Coochie Man", which the Allman Brothers Band famously covered (the song was also covered by Humble Pie and Steppenwolf), "Trouble No More" and "I'm Ready". In 1993, Paul Rodgers released the album Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters, on which he covered a number of Muddy Waters songs, including "Louisiana Blues", "Rollin' Stone", "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I'm Ready" in collaboration with a number of famous guitarists including Gary Moore, Brian May and Jeff Beck.
Waters died in his sleep from heart failure, at his home in Westmont, Illinois, on April 30, 1983. At his funeral, throngs of blues musicians and fans showed up to pay tribute to one of the true originals of the art form. "Muddy was a master of just the right notes," John P. Hammond told Guitar World magazine. "It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple... more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves."
Happy Birthday Muddy. Thank you for all you did.
When the new Billboard charts came out on April 4, 1964, The Beatles broke all American chart records when they had the Top Five records in the country simultaneously (#5: "Please Please Me," #4: "I Want To Hold Your Hand," #3: "She Loves You," #2: "Twist And Shout," #1: "Can't Buy Me Love").
Plus they had nine other singles scattered in various other positions around the "Hot 100."
How many of you still have your Beatles' 45 records? And how many of you have the original picture sleeves?
The British Invasion was in full swing 58 years ago today.
This is one of those "And the rest is history" things….
By the beginning of April in 1967, the Monterey International Pop Festival was starting to be put together. The people involved included Mamas and the Papas' John Phillips, record producer Lou Adler and Beatles' PR man Derek Taylor and others.
There is some speculation that Taylor was included in the group in hopes that he could get The Beatles to play the festival. So, on April 4th, when Paul McCartney heard about it, pretty much knowing The Beatles were done touring, told Taylor he should try and get this new guitar phenomenon he's seen in London.
They got him. His name was Jimi Hendrix. 'And the rest is history…' Suggested 55 years ago today….
On April 4, 1981, Styx reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with their LP "Paradise Theater". Even though their previous 3 albums had each sold in excess of 3 million copies, this was the first and only time that one of their albums would be number 1. It remained at the top for three non-consecutive weeks
A promise made was kept 41 years ago today. How many of you still listen to this record?
On the morning of April 4, 1996, after a total lunar eclipse earlier that day, The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir accompanied by Sanjay Mishra, spread half of Jerry Garcia's ashes into the Ganges River at the holy city of Rishikesh, India, a site sacred to Hindus. The remaining ashes were poured into the San Francisco Bay.
Did you ever say something that you meant as a joke, but it didn't quite work out that way?
On April 4, 2007, The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards retracted / took back a statement that he had made to the Britain music magazine New Musical Express a few days earlier. He thought everybody would know it was an ‘April Fool's joke.
He told the magazine that he snorted his dad's ashes. He didn't. But the story sure took off. Do you remember your thoughts when you first heard about it?
Layne Staley the legendary frontman for Alice in Chains, left us 20 years ago today. The date of his passing is estimated as his body was not found until April 19. (The following is from wikipedia) "On April 19, 2002, Staley's accountants contacted Staley's former manager Susan Silver and informed her that no money had been withdrawn from the singer's bank account in two weeks. Silver then contacted Staley's mother Nancy McCallum, who placed a call with 911 to say she hadn't heard from him "in about two weeks." The police went with McCallum and her ex-husband to Staley's home; "When police kicked in the door to Layne Staley's University District apartment on April 19, there, laying on a couch, lit by a flickering TV, next to several spray-paint cans on the floor, not far from a small stash of cocaine, near two crack pipes on the coffee table reposed the remains of the rock musician." It was reported that the 6 foot Staley weighed only 86 pounds when his body was discovered.
In an interview on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with McCallum, former Alice in Chains bass player Mike Starr said that he spent time with Staley the day before he died as Starr's birthday was April 4. Starr claimed that Staley was very sick but would not call 911. The two ex-bandmates briefly argued, which ended with Starr storming out. Starr stated that Staley called after him as he left: "Not like this, don't leave like this". Since Staley is believed to have died a day later, on April 5, Starr expressed regret that he did not call 911 to save his friend's life; Starr reported that Staley had threatened to sever their friendship if he did. Starr was the last known person to see Staley alive. The interview ended with Starr apologizing to McCallum for not calling 911, but McCallum was insistent that neither she nor anyone in her family blamed Starr for Staley's death. She also told Starr: "Layne would forgive you. He'd say, 'Hey, I did this. Not you.'" With that said, Starr still blamed himself for the death of Staley. Starr kept this story a secret until his appearance on Celebrity Rehab in August 2009. Starr was found dead on March 8, 2011 as a result of prescription drug overdose. During this same interview, McCallum also claimed that Staley had attempted rehab 13 times, although it is not clear whether any of these attempts were during his reclusive years."
The passing of Layne is often overlooked on April 5th as it is the same date on which Nirvana's Kurt Cobain passed away in 1994. There are many that feel that Layne's work was more important to the 'grunge' sound than Cobain's was.
We will not try to make any assumption on either artists work or its importance. We just wish they both were still with us. Layne was just 34 years old when he passed.
Pink Floyd First New Song in 28 Years
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson OBE is celebrating his 73rd birthday today.
Thompson first gained prominence in the late 1960s as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the folk rock group Fairport Convention, which he had co-founded in 1967. After departing the group in 1971, Thompson released his debut solo album Henry the Human Fly in 1972. The next year, he formed a duo with his then-wife Linda Thompson, which produced six albums, including the critically acclaimed I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974) and Shoot Out the Lights (1982).
After the dissolution of the duo, Thompson revived his solo career with the release of Hand of Kindness in 1983. He has released a total of eighteen solo studio albums. Three of his albums—Rumor and Sigh (1991), You? Me? Us? (1996), and Dream Attic (2010)—have been nominated for Grammy Awards, while Still (2015) was his first UK Top Ten album.
He continues to write and record new material regularly and frequently performs at venues throughout the world.
Music critic Neil McCormick described Thompson as "a versatile virtuoso guitarist and a sharp observational singer-songwriter whose work burns with intelligence and dark emotion". His songwriting has earned him an Ivor Novello Award and, in 2006, a lifetime achievement award from BBC Radio. His 1991 song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" was included in Time magazine's "All Time 100 Songs" list of the best English-language musical compositions released between 1923 and 2011.
Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire(OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music. Many varied musicians have recorded Thompson's compositions.
In 2021, his book Beeswing: Losing my Way and Finding my Voice, 1967-1975 was released. Published by Algonquin Books, it is mainly a memoir of his life as a musician from 1967 to 1975.
[The above is from Wikipedia. The following are excerpts from an interview held last year with The Guardian just before his memoir was published.]
The folk-rock pioneer has finally written his memoir, covering a life-changing crash and his fiery romance with his ex-wife and singing partner Linda Thompson.
It’s been nearly 55 years since Richard Thompson began his career in music. A pioneer of folk-rock, hugely influential singer-songwriter and one of Britain’s most astonishing guitarists, he was only a month out of his teens on the morning of 12 May 1969 when all promise was nearly stopped short. His band, Fairport Convention, had been signed on the spot in 1967 when producer Joe Boyd saw his talent with a guitar at 17, and their mission to reconnect British rock with the older, beautiful songs of their home country was well under way.
He’d already jammed with Jimi Hendrix and supported Pink Floyd; now Thompson’s band had recently finished their third album, Unhalfbricking, with singer Sandy Denny. A work full of ambitious originals and covers that still regularly appears in best British album polls, it got to No 12 in the charts then; decades later, it became a touchstone for the Green Man festival-endorsed folk-rock revival of the 2000s when everyone who liked Joanna Newsom and Will Oldham raved about it.
That morning they were driving back to London from a Birmingham gig, approaching the last service station on the M1. Guitarist Simon Nicol was trying to sleep off a migraine, stretched out on top of the speakers in the back. Thompson’s girlfriend, fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn, was asleep. Thompson was dozing between her and roadie Harvey Bramham, who was driving. “It was starting to get light. Nearly dawn…nearly home,” Thompson writes in Beeswing, his forthcoming memoir.
Thompson noticed the van, travelling at 70mph, suddenly veering towards the motorway’s central reservation. In those days there were no crash barriers. He turned his head to Bramham – his eyes were closed. Thompson grabbed the wheel to avoid hitting a pole. The van came off the road.
“The only way I could get through writing about it was to think, ‘This is something that happened to somebody else,’” Thompson says now as we chat on Zoom. “It brought up all kinds of stuff. I had to metaphorically put the pen down, take a deep breath, have a little cry.” In one of the most arresting passages of the book, he describes crawling over to Jeannie a few yards away. He is bleeding, with broken ribs; he finds her upside down on a sloping embankment. “She was unconscious but frowning, as if she was struggling to remember someone’s name,” he writes.
They had been together a fortnight: he didn’t really know her at all, and then she died. Martin Lamble, the band’s 19-year-old drummer, also didn’t survive. Remarkably Nicol got out and walked down the road, flagging down a passing car. He is still the leader of Fairport Convention, 52 years later.
But Thompson left in early 1971, still shell-shocked by the crash, to pursue a solo career that flew well beyond British folk. Ever since, he’s lovingly explored and excavated genres from rockabilly to flamenco, music-hall to pop (2003’s 1,000 Years of Popular Music did all this in one album, moving from 13th-century ballad Sumer Is Icumen In to Britney Spears’s Oops!… I Did It Again). A favourite of both Robert Plant and Elvis Costello, Thompson has also been covered by acts as varied as feminist punks Sleater-Kinney, REM, David Byrne and, most recently, Mark Ronson, who covered the 1974 title track of Thompson’s album with first wife Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. Ronson tweeted how much the song had given him comfort during lockdown. “It’s the ultimate song about a messy weekend night out… I miss that all very much.”
That period of Thompson’s career is especially rich: he met Linda in 1969, and they married in 1972, then made fantastic music together for the next decade. Linda is one of Britain’s greatest, but most overlooked, singers, possessed of a bold, beautiful voice that carried the songs Richard wrote for her, and accompanied dramatically with his guitar. Their story outside music is dramatic too. It involves Richard’s conversion to Sufism, a move with their two young children to a rural commune without hot water and electricity, subsequent adultery during pregnancy, and a traumatic tour after their breakup where Linda kicked Richard in the shins while he played guitar solos (it’s known by their fans as The Tour from Hell).
Thompson is still a restlessly curious, active musician, and a raucous one live: his shows often have the power and fervour of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He’s worked with Werner Herzog and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and kept busy in the pandemic, releasing two EPs (Bloody Noses and Live from London), and doing live streams from home for the Royal Albert Hall. An eight-CD box set compilation of all his work, including demos and rarities, with Linda, Hard Luck Stories, was released in October; he also recorded a Christmas message for his local venue wearing a Santa hat. But most of last year was spent finishing the book he’d said he’d never write.
When we speak, he’s midway through recording the audiobook, and recently had to read the chapter about that May morning. He speaks softly. “We never mourned properly. There wasn’t the language then to describe those feelings. I’m still learning.”
It may be surprising that the great man of British folk-rock has lived in America for the past 30 years. Women took him there: his second wife, Nancy Covey, booked his first solo tour in the US in 1981 as his marriage to Linda was crumbling. He lived with her in LA; now he’s with singer-songwriter Zara Phillips, 56, who lives around the corner (she often pops up in his online shows: they share a love of Kate Bush). [CRRK note: Richard and Zara were married late last year.]
Thompson loves America’s generosity of spirit, its get-up-and-go. “In the US, if you say, ‘I want to start a company,’ they’ll say, ‘Great, let’s get on this!’ In Britain, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that, no, the computer says no’.”
Here’s a link if you’d like to read the full interview: https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/14/richard-thompson-beeswing-fairport-folk-rock-interview
TODAY at 5 pm ET, Richard will be spending part of his birthday at Little City Books to read from his memoir, “Beeswing” and chat with James Mastro of The Guitar Bar. Tickets to the event are sold out, however livestream tickets are still available. Each ticket purchase will include a signed book.
Tickets available at smarturl.it/RT4.3Livestream
Do you have a favorite song written by Richard? Have you read “Beeswing”?
Happy Birthday, Richard Thompson - RT!! Faculty and staff here at the College are looking forward to seeing you via Zoom later today!
If THE BAND's Richard Manuel was still with us, he would have had 79 candles on his birthday cake today. Richard had an incredible talent but, unfortunately he had his hidden demons.
Richard took his own life on March 4, 1986, just one month before his 43rd birthday. Even those close to him didn't see it coming.
Happy Birthday Richard. RIP and thank you for the music.
They had played together in the past and had worked on each other's solo projects. So, on April 3, 1988, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison got together in Malibu to record an all-star single called "Handle With Care." The session went so well that the group, calling itself the Traveling Wilburys, decided to record an album together. They even did a second one.
Happy 34th Birthday to the Traveling Wilburys!!!!
Think we should charge Gretsch Guitars for the mention?
How many of you know how the name 'Traveling Wilburys' came about?
There have been a number of 'artists of influence' in the history of Rock and Roll. Today we are remembering one of the most influential of all, McKinley Morganfield. Mr. Morganfield would have turned 109 years old today. You will know him better as Muddy Waters.
We could go on for days about Muddy, but we wanted to share one story about him. In 1972 he went to England to record "The London Muddy Waters Sessions" with Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing was not up to his standards. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know." "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." He was a true Bluesman.
To show his influence, The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song "Rollin' Stone." Rolling Stonemagazine also took its name from the same song. Hendrix recalled that "the first guitar player I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death". Cream covered "Rollin' and Tumblin'" on their 1966 debut album Fresh Cream, as Eric Clapton was a big fan of Muddy Waters when he was growing up, and his music influenced Clapton's music career. The song was also covered by Canned Heat at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival and later adapted by Bob Dylan on the album Modern Times. One of Led Zeppelin's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love", is lyrically based upon the Muddy Waters hit "You Need Love", written by Willie Dixon. Dixon wrote some of Muddy Waters' most famous songs, including "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (a big radio hit for Etta James, as well as the 1970s rock band Foghat), "Hoochie Coochie Man", which the Allman Brothers Band famously covered (the song was also covered by Humble Pie and Steppenwolf), "Trouble No More" and "I'm Ready". In 1993, Paul Rodgers released the album Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters, on which he covered a number of Muddy Waters songs, including "Louisiana Blues", "Rollin' Stone", "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I'm Ready" in collaboration with a number of famous guitarists including Gary Moore, Brian May and Jeff Beck.
Waters died in his sleep from heart failure, at his home in Westmont, Illinois, on April 30, 1983. At his funeral, throngs of blues musicians and fans showed up to pay tribute to one of the true originals of the art form. "Muddy was a master of just the right notes," John P. Hammond told Guitar World magazine. "It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple... more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves."
Happy Birthday Muddy. Thank you for all you did.
When the new Billboard charts came out on April 4, 1964, The Beatles broke all American chart records when they had the Top Five records in the country simultaneously (#5: "Please Please Me," #4: "I Want To Hold Your Hand," #3: "She Loves You," #2: "Twist And Shout," #1: "Can't Buy Me Love").
Plus they had nine other singles scattered in various other positions around the "Hot 100."
How many of you still have your Beatles' 45 records? And how many of you have the original picture sleeves?
The British Invasion was in full swing 58 years ago today.
This is one of those "And the rest is history" things….
By the beginning of April in 1967, the Monterey International Pop Festival was starting to be put together. The people involved included Mamas and the Papas' John Phillips, record producer Lou Adler and Beatles' PR man Derek Taylor and others.
There is some speculation that Taylor was included in the group in hopes that he could get The Beatles to play the festival. So, on April 4th, when Paul McCartney heard about it, pretty much knowing The Beatles were done touring, told Taylor he should try and get this new guitar phenomenon he's seen in London.
They got him. His name was Jimi Hendrix. 'And the rest is history…' Suggested 55 years ago today….
On April 4, 1981, Styx reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with their LP "Paradise Theater". Even though their previous 3 albums had each sold in excess of 3 million copies, this was the first and only time that one of their albums would be number 1. It remained at the top for three non-consecutive weeks
A promise made was kept 41 years ago today. How many of you still listen to this record?
On the morning of April 4, 1996, after a total lunar eclipse earlier that day, The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir accompanied by Sanjay Mishra, spread half of Jerry Garcia's ashes into the Ganges River at the holy city of Rishikesh, India, a site sacred to Hindus. The remaining ashes were poured into the San Francisco Bay.
Did you ever say something that you meant as a joke, but it didn't quite work out that way?
On April 4, 2007, The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards retracted / took back a statement that he had made to the Britain music magazine New Musical Express a few days earlier. He thought everybody would know it was an ‘April Fool's joke.
He told the magazine that he snorted his dad's ashes. He didn't. But the story sure took off. Do you remember your thoughts when you first heard about it?
Layne Staley the legendary frontman for Alice in Chains, left us 20 years ago today. The date of his passing is estimated as his body was not found until April 19. (The following is from wikipedia) "On April 19, 2002, Staley's accountants contacted Staley's former manager Susan Silver and informed her that no money had been withdrawn from the singer's bank account in two weeks. Silver then contacted Staley's mother Nancy McCallum, who placed a call with 911 to say she hadn't heard from him "in about two weeks." The police went with McCallum and her ex-husband to Staley's home; "When police kicked in the door to Layne Staley's University District apartment on April 19, there, laying on a couch, lit by a flickering TV, next to several spray-paint cans on the floor, not far from a small stash of cocaine, near two crack pipes on the coffee table reposed the remains of the rock musician." It was reported that the 6 foot Staley weighed only 86 pounds when his body was discovered.
In an interview on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with McCallum, former Alice in Chains bass player Mike Starr said that he spent time with Staley the day before he died as Starr's birthday was April 4. Starr claimed that Staley was very sick but would not call 911. The two ex-bandmates briefly argued, which ended with Starr storming out. Starr stated that Staley called after him as he left: "Not like this, don't leave like this". Since Staley is believed to have died a day later, on April 5, Starr expressed regret that he did not call 911 to save his friend's life; Starr reported that Staley had threatened to sever their friendship if he did. Starr was the last known person to see Staley alive. The interview ended with Starr apologizing to McCallum for not calling 911, but McCallum was insistent that neither she nor anyone in her family blamed Starr for Staley's death. She also told Starr: "Layne would forgive you. He'd say, 'Hey, I did this. Not you.'" With that said, Starr still blamed himself for the death of Staley. Starr kept this story a secret until his appearance on Celebrity Rehab in August 2009. Starr was found dead on March 8, 2011 as a result of prescription drug overdose. During this same interview, McCallum also claimed that Staley had attempted rehab 13 times, although it is not clear whether any of these attempts were during his reclusive years."
The passing of Layne is often overlooked on April 5th as it is the same date on which Nirvana's Kurt Cobain passed away in 1994. There are many that feel that Layne's work was more important to the 'grunge' sound than Cobain's was.
We will not try to make any assumption on either artists work or its importance. We just wish they both were still with us. Layne was just 34 years old when he passed.
Pink Floyd First New Song in 28 Years
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