Speaker 1: Are you ready, mister Mayhem.
Speaker 2: Oh yes I am, Oh yes i am.
Speaker 1: I'm Buzzsnight, the host of the Taken a Walk podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm so happy that you're here for another look
Speaker 1: at this week in music history and master of music
Speaker 1: Mayhem Harry Jacobs. What week are we looking at?
Speaker 2: This is the week of December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Speaker 2: Holy moly, you know, I distinctly remember last year we
Speaker 2: were at this point. A year ago, we were about
Speaker 2: a month or so into doing this. I had no
Speaker 2: idea it would last a year right where. I think
Speaker 2: we're both surprised by that.
Speaker 1: By everything every day.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that doesn't surprise you exactly? So, you know,
Speaker 2: as we were thinking about this today, I was looking
Speaker 2: back at the notes and I'm like, oh, buzz, maybe
Speaker 2: we should just run a rerun or a best of
Speaker 2: I was thinking these are really slow music weeks as
Speaker 2: we as we get it into Christmas. But there's a
Speaker 2: lot of information, you know, Claude dot Ai. I have
Speaker 2: to tip my hat to them for the research help.
Speaker 2: They're sponsor of the show, and they're they're a major
Speaker 2: help in terms of researching and confirming things. And it's
Speaker 2: just that. That's been a delight. But I've got a
Speaker 2: lot of information. You know, the next two weeks, which
Speaker 2: I thought were going to be slow, We've got a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff I
Speaker 2: was unaware of.
Speaker 1: So we'll we'll have to parcel it out and maybe
Speaker 1: minimize the amount of Connie Francis references because it's Christmas time.
Speaker 2: Oh, here we go, Here we go. You think I'm
Speaker 2: going Connie Francis. You're wrong, my friend. I think I
Speaker 2: may have to leave you with a cliffhanger for the
Speaker 2: week of the fifteenth, when we may have to break
Speaker 2: up the week of the fifteenth to the twenty first
Speaker 2: into two parts. Let's get it rolling. December fifteenth, John
Speaker 2: Lennon and the Yoko the Plastic ownA band with George
Speaker 2: Harrison and Air Clapton and others, played the UNISEF charity
Speaker 2: in London. This has happened in you know, nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: I think this was his last appearance in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: I think about a while to think about that. Yeah, boy,
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have been a fly in
Speaker 1: the world for that.
Speaker 2: Oh can you imagine? Do they know it's Christmas? Entered
Speaker 2: the UK charts at number one. We've had this conversation
Speaker 2: biggest selling single in the United Kingdom of all time,
Speaker 2: George Michael and Sting and Bono and Phil Collins and
Speaker 2: a host of others, and.
Speaker 1: I still love hearing it. I mean, I don't race
Speaker 1: towards the dial to turn the dial if I'm listening
Speaker 1: to a Christmas station and that song comes on, like
Speaker 1: I do with some songs.
Speaker 2: Right, I was speaking speaking at Christmas. I was watching
Speaker 2: an interview with this guy's name Graham Norris, the guy
Speaker 2: from London. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like he's English, but no, I know.
Speaker 2: I think that's who he is. Anyway, he had Jennifer
Speaker 2: Laurie song. She was on at the same time Springsteen
Speaker 2: was on, and he asked her a question and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, you have a favorite song that cheers you
Speaker 2: up when you're on a movie set or you're feeling lonely,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what time of year it is, And it's
Speaker 2: a Springsteen song. And and they literally were asking Bruce
Speaker 2: to guess what the song might be. They use the
Speaker 2: word jolly, Well, will it makes her feel jolly? Makes
Speaker 2: me feel jolly every time, and I'm thinking that would
Speaker 2: be a dead giveaway for Santa Claus's coming to town.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it is a dead giveaway.
Speaker 2: I can hear that song anytime, anywhere and be.
Speaker 1: Happy, no disrespect to when I say jolly.
Speaker 2: But yeah, or how jolly Christmas, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: So at any rate, that's that's Jennifer Lawrence's favorite, cheer
Speaker 2: her up kind of song.
Speaker 1: I love her.
Speaker 2: I've seen him play that in the summer. I saw
Speaker 2: him play that somewhere in July. It was funny if
Speaker 2: people were throwing the Santa hats up and he said,
Speaker 2: let's do it. Nineteen seventy nine, Pink Floyd started a
Speaker 2: five week run at number one on the UK charts,
Speaker 2: and this led to the band's only number one single
Speaker 2: the album was The Wall and Another Brick in the
Speaker 2: Wall Part two was the song their only song that
Speaker 2: made it to number one. And this was such an
Speaker 2: interesting album for so many reasons. I can tell you
Speaker 2: that this morning, twice this morning, I listened to that
Speaker 2: album all the way through the double album. I just
Speaker 2: I wanted to get back into it. I knew we
Speaker 2: were going to talk about it, I realized that, you know,
Speaker 2: I knew this like we all do, that there were,
Speaker 2: you know, three different sections of Another Brick in the Wall,
Speaker 2: Part one, Part two, and part three, and I went
Speaker 2: specifically to listen to those three different parts. Initially I
Speaker 2: think my favorite is Another Brick. Part one really dark, creepy,
Speaker 2: but the song ends up rocking out. Part two was
Speaker 2: the whole how can you have any meat if you
Speaker 2: don't have your pudding right? We don't need no education.
Speaker 2: And number three was the darkest of the of the three.
Speaker 2: And and it was one of those things. One of
Speaker 2: the lyrics is I don't need no arms around me,
Speaker 2: I don't need no drugs to calm me. It was
Speaker 2: this the guy, the protagonist, the pig, three stages of
Speaker 2: grief and trauma in his life. It's a very dark
Speaker 2: when you look at when you get down the rabbit
Speaker 2: hole of what the Wall was all about. It's a
Speaker 2: very dark album. And and that song, the three different,
Speaker 2: three different you know it takes Another Brick part are
Speaker 2: the three different parts one, two, and three, all very different,
Speaker 2: but all three really dark.
Speaker 1: When I put my Psychosis playlist together, that album is
Speaker 1: at the height of it.
Speaker 2: There's someone that that was damaged writing writing that album.
Speaker 2: Roger twenty one a guy we owe a tip of
Speaker 2: the hat to his birthday Alan Freed was born. He
Speaker 2: actually coined the phrase rock and roll. But we all
Speaker 2: know him a little tip of the hat. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing what we're doing today without him.
Speaker 1: That's right, Minus the fact that he got messed up
Speaker 1: in the Paola side of things.
Speaker 2: You know, I forgot all about that. But he was
Speaker 2: a part of that, wasn't he, So I believe Yeah,
Speaker 2: for those that are unaware, Paola Plugola is when record
Speaker 2: companies or artists went to the disc jockeys who in
Speaker 2: those days were making decisions about songs that were getting played.
Speaker 2: And Alan Freed took a bunch of money from the
Speaker 2: record companies.
Speaker 1: But we do owe him, and to your point, a
Speaker 1: debt of gratitude.
Speaker 2: Right nineteen seventy seven, who played a surprise show for
Speaker 2: the documentary The Kids Are All Right. There's a you know,
Speaker 2: a scene in that movie where they're playing, you know,
Speaker 2: in a very small venue, and that was the Shepperton
Speaker 2: Studios that was used for the documentary, and they it
Speaker 2: was basically an audience made up of fan club members
Speaker 2: for that show. That's quite a prize, right, pretty Neat
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, Joe Walsh received an honorary doctorate
Speaker 2: of Music from Kent State. I was unaware that it's
Speaker 2: doctor Joe Walsh, but it is doctor Joe.
Speaker 1: Walsh and Ken State too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right, the song Ohio the Violence in seventy two, No, no,
Speaker 2: before that had to be before that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would have been sixty eight. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say sixty eight or nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sixty eight or sixty nine. Song came out.
Speaker 2: Ohio came out right away, But a long way around
Speaker 2: for Joe Walsh getting his doctorate. I'm surprised that we
Speaker 2: never heard that. I'm surprised he didn't take that name
Speaker 2: and you know, or take that title and add it to,
Speaker 2: you know, to his name. Dr wolfsh absolutely. Dr two
Speaker 2: thous Presume you're not a doctor, you're a dentist. From
Speaker 2: the Hangover two thousand and three, Courtney Love sentenced to
Speaker 2: eighteen months in rehab after she admitted she was under
Speaker 2: the influence of coke and various opiates. I saw her
Speaker 2: around that time. Our friend Billy Bush was here in
Speaker 2: town to do something. I remember where we were at
Speaker 2: the UNLV the auditorium there where they have shows their arena,
Speaker 2: and we I did something with Billy around Beyonce and
Speaker 2: jay Z who were at that show. But I remember
Speaker 2: seeing Courtney Love there. I was struck by how enormous
Speaker 2: she was in high heels. I mean, she was taller
Speaker 2: and I'm over six feet and she was significantly taller
Speaker 2: than I was, as I recall, and she was just
Speaker 2: a disaster. I think it's fair to say once she
Speaker 2: walked by, yeah sad, you know. Yeah, I could smell
Speaker 2: the pills coming off of her. It was it was set.
Speaker 2: I think her life is together these days, maybe maybe not.
Speaker 1: Luckily we haven't heard much, so I think maybe it is.
Speaker 1: But listen, you know that deep loss, you know, never
Speaker 1: never loves her for sure, It's get carried through her
Speaker 1: entire life. So you know you do have to have,
Speaker 1: you know, empathy for.
Speaker 2: Loss, you know, get a little you know, a little
Speaker 2: Kurt Kobain coming up to talk about as well, so
Speaker 2: we'll touch on that. But yeah, very sad sequence of
Speaker 2: events that led her down her road of self destruction, No,
Speaker 2: no other way to put it. Elton John hitting number
Speaker 2: one on the fifteenth in the UK was sorry. It
Speaker 2: seems to be the hardest word. Really. I'm a fan
Speaker 2: of those ballad the long ballads, Sorry and Tiny Dancer
Speaker 2: and leave On. Just the softer kind of Elton from
Speaker 2: that period of time, you know, those longer ballads. Yeah,
Speaker 2: even I like the.
Speaker 1: Old Yeah, the older versions. I think the Disney version
Speaker 1: of Elton it wasn't my favorite part, by the way.
Speaker 1: Brief sidebar relating to to Elton, uh and to Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1: We finally saw the spinal Tap reboots.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Paul rob Reiner was on the show and Elton plays
Speaker 1: a prominent role in it, as does Paul McCartney too,
Speaker 1: So it's totally worth seeing. You know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: even though I loved having Rob on. Listen, I'm calling
Speaker 1: him Rob. Yeah, I I love having loved having them on,
Speaker 1: But it's definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic. I have not seen it, and I will
Speaker 2: take the assignment and I will watch it. Unlike you,
Speaker 2: you don't always take the movie assignments for me, but
Speaker 2: I guess in this arrangement, I work for you, So
Speaker 2: I will watch it and report were Back in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: Rod Stewart married Supermodel with Rachel Hunter. He was famously
Speaker 2: quoted as saying, this is one of the most misogynistic
Speaker 2: quotes ever in the history of misogynistic statements, that he
Speaker 2: would no longer be putting his banana in anybody's fruit
Speaker 2: bowl from then on.
Speaker 1: They divorced. He's awful soul.
Speaker 2: No. Nineteen eighty eight, Summer fifteen, James Brown sentenced to
Speaker 2: six years in prison for various offenses, including a firearms
Speaker 2: offense and also resisting arrest. Mister Brown was uncooperative when
Speaker 2: authority showed up. He was waving the gun around.
Speaker 1: He probably meant, well, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he meant, and I don't think he knows what
Speaker 1: he meant at that time.
Speaker 2: No. December sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, Hey Joe was released
Speaker 2: by Jimmy Hendrick Jimmy Hendrick Experience. It was on Pollardor
Speaker 2: That song. Three years later was the close out for
Speaker 2: his set at Woodstock.
Speaker 1: Did a great version of that Oh there you go Yeah.
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty three Pete Towns and announced he was leaving
Speaker 2: the WHO. It's a big deal at the time. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't know how many farewell tours later, all due
Speaker 2: respect to Pete and Roger.
Speaker 1: I know it's incredible, what a what a what a.
Speaker 2: Couple of they are, and I don't know if they're
Speaker 2: you know, I always like to kind of get a
Speaker 2: little bit of information and insight into what people what
Speaker 2: the relationship was like, you know, Jagger and Richards and
Speaker 2: Lennon and McCartney, and I think with with these guys,
Speaker 2: you know, I just wonder, you know, what the what
Speaker 2: the relationship was like between them. I never heard much
Speaker 2: about arguing or disagreeing. I know, you know, Roger needed
Speaker 2: to continue to tour, he wanted the wanted and needed
Speaker 2: the money. But I never heard much in the way
Speaker 2: of content.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I have another assignment for you relating to
Speaker 1: a band situation or you know, two partners in music situation.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic this documentary it's called in Restless Dreams The
Speaker 1: Music of Paul Simon. And there's two Paul Simon documentaries
Speaker 1: that came out. There was the other one was Hulu
Speaker 1: and this one we just recently watched. And boy, oh boy,
Speaker 1: you get tremendous insight into that question. I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at that because you will see it in very
Speaker 1: harsh terms with our garb uncle.
Speaker 2: It's on my list. I came across it the other night.
Speaker 2: I had watched something musical and then in the list
Speaker 2: of suggested shows after that the Paul Simon thing, and
Speaker 2: I need to watch it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fabulous, And you really gain greater appreciation for him.
Speaker 2: And he's got a hearing issue which is preventing him,
Speaker 2: you know, from playing and some more singing. But for both,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you can't hear, yeah, you sing so sad.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking forward to seeing it. I want to
Speaker 2: try to watch it over the coming days and check
Speaker 2: that out. In nineteen ninety three, on December sixteenth, Nirvana's
Speaker 2: Unplugged concert air on MTV. This was a big deal.
Speaker 2: This was one of Cobain's last performances. This is what
Speaker 2: I was alluding to a few minutes ago when we
Speaker 2: were talking about Courtney. He died on April eighth of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, and the prior week he had escaped rehab.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you remember the sequence of events,
Speaker 2: but when you know the situation, the circumstances around his
Speaker 2: death were very cloudy. April first, he escaped from rehab
Speaker 2: two days after checking in and then he was found,
Speaker 2: you know, on the eighth and in his suicide note
Speaker 2: he used the words over the line, better to burn
Speaker 2: out than fade away. Neil Young, Right, he part of
Speaker 2: the twenty seven club. Kurt Cobain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and unbelievable and yeah, that MTV performance was you know,
Speaker 1: words can't describe it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if folks are curious about that, you've got
Speaker 2: a great segment where Rob Barnett joined you to talk
Speaker 2: about that. Rob Barnett, who was, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the big wigs for MTV for a period of time
Speaker 2: and he was a great guest. So folks cancerts that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Danny Goldberg too, the manager of Nirvana, actually
Speaker 1: is part of the great great episode.
Speaker 2: Had taken a walk. And in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: the remaining members of the Beatles began their legal action
Speaker 2: against EMI on behalf of their interests in Apple. They
Speaker 2: sued for I believe about thirty million dollars that they
Speaker 2: thought was owed that EMI had Pilford from them.
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy just to think about that?
Speaker 2: And now in this day and age, when you think
Speaker 2: about the money that they thought they were owed and
Speaker 2: we continue to have this discussion about streaming and album
Speaker 2: sales and records in the record business. It's just they're
Speaker 2: worth nothing. It would be worth nothing, you know at
Speaker 2: this point, even though there's value in the catalog. That
Speaker 2: what would that lawsuit have looked like today, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty years twenty twenty one years later.
Speaker 1: It's crazy to think about it. Yep.
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty nine. Billy Gibbons, the Reverend Willie g As
Speaker 2: he refers to himself, one of my favorite guitar players.
Speaker 2: He was number thirty two on the twenty eleven Rolling
Speaker 2: Stone list of best Guitar Players of all time, was born.
Speaker 2: This is his birthday. Also on this day, this is
Speaker 2: I never even heard this story. Same day Billy is
Speaker 2: celebrating his birthday, Dusty is unpacking his car, either looking
Speaker 2: deliberately for his Darringer pistol or it just falls out
Speaker 2: of the car, but he inadvertently shoots himself in the
Speaker 2: gut with his derringer pistol, and then he drove himself
Speaker 2: to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, he obviously he can't make this, sup he
Speaker 1: would he would go on to that way some years later.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that that happened to Dusty. Nineteen sixty seven
Speaker 2: Big Day for Credence. Five singles and five albums were
Speaker 2: certified gold literally on the same day. For Cretans, the
Speaker 2: songs were down on a Corner looking out my back door,
Speaker 2: traveling band Bad Moon up around the Bend, and then
Speaker 2: the albums were Cosmos Factory, William, The Poor Boys, Green River,
Speaker 2: Bayou Country, and the self titled Credence Clear Water Album.
Speaker 2: So ten ten times the gold records in one day
Speaker 2: for John Folgune Company, Big Day on this day in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventh year, nineteen seventy three, seventeen seventy three, some
Speaker 2: guys did a thing. Members of the Sons of Liberty
Speaker 2: boarded three British cargo ships in Boston Harbor and they
Speaker 2: dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into
Speaker 2: the ocean. It's by the way, it's alleged this was
Speaker 2: a quiet attack on the British. They actually swept up
Speaker 2: their mess on the deck, so the British didn't even
Speaker 2: know right away. It was this thing that happened under
Speaker 2: the cover of darkness, and they cleaned their mess up
Speaker 2: and then split.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that about the story. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Seventeenth nineteen seventy seven, Elvis Costello was on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember the story around this,
Speaker 2: but he was supposed to play a couple of songs.
Speaker 2: Sex Pistols were the original guests. There was a visa
Speaker 2: prop that I think Laurene offered it to the Ramones.
Speaker 2: After that, the Ramones said no, and then they went
Speaker 2: to Elvis, who had just released My Am Is True,
Speaker 2: and the song that they wanted him to play, the
Speaker 2: label wanted him to play was less than Zero. So Elvis,
Speaker 2: during rehearsal, plays the song and then he realizes that
Speaker 2: the song is just too somber, it's too down. It's
Speaker 2: it's just a it's a downer for Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 2: twelve o'clock at night on a Saturday night. So when
Speaker 2: it's his time to come out and play, he plays
Speaker 2: a couple of bars of less than zero, and then
Speaker 2: he said he basically stops the band and announces to
Speaker 2: the audience that that song is just too down, too somber,
Speaker 2: and then he goes rip it into radio radio. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do recall that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a great I'm standing tools and the
Speaker 3: story was legend would have it that he was banned
Speaker 3: forever from Saturday Night Live, and that turned out to
Speaker 3: not be true.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, he went back on twelve twelve
Speaker 2: years later, he went back on and play So but
Speaker 2: you know, great musical guest. And Elvis Costello is you know,
Speaker 2: one of the the most underrated artists and writers of
Speaker 2: our time. Springsteen, who we talk about often, has said
Speaker 2: about Elvis Costello, we can't all be Elvis Costello, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just so great. And by the way,
Speaker 2: Elvis does a great version of She's the One.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He's a big Springsteen fan, and I love Elvis is
Speaker 2: agent gracefully too. I would agree. He did a tour
Speaker 2: and they stopped here in Vegas. I remember, if you
Speaker 2: remember that, it was like a game show where he
Speaker 2: spun the wheel. The wheel was on stage.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I saw that. I saw that.
Speaker 2: I've never seen him. I would like to see Elvis.
Speaker 1: Oh he's great.
Speaker 2: Is he like a Van Morrison, like Grumpy Moody, is
Speaker 2: like one of those guys where you just feel the
Speaker 2: energy is just, you know, not ideal.
Speaker 1: I think he used to be more that way. I
Speaker 1: don't perceive it this way now.
Speaker 2: He's still active, he's still playing, he's still out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so creating. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In eighty two, who played the last show of that
Speaker 2: farewell one of many farewell tours as we talked about
Speaker 2: at the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens And this was actually
Speaker 2: part of a TV special called Who's Last. You keep
Speaker 2: waiting for these things to show up on Amazon or whatever,
Speaker 2: these little gems. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be out there at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they will.
Speaker 2: December eighteenth. Zz Tops first album was released nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2: I'm a fan. I've always been a fan. I've got,
Speaker 2: you know, I think a good personal history with zz Top,
Speaker 2: just if nowhere else in my own mind centrum nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two on the Eliminator tour, drinking Schlitz beer backstage
Speaker 2: with the great Paul Lemmier and three of my buddies
Speaker 2: from high school, and you know, just a just you know,
Speaker 2: three guys that make a lot of noise, that sound great.
Speaker 2: It's just a great show. That first album, though I
Speaker 2: don't know a thing about any of it. The songs
Speaker 2: are shaking your Tree, Brown Sugar, I don't think I mean,
Speaker 2: they do a version of Jailhouse Rock the Elvis, but
Speaker 2: that wasn't on an album. Squank going to Mexico, old Man, Neighbor, Neighbor,
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff that I don't know. Backdoor Love
Speaker 2: Affair may be the only like deep cut that I'm
Speaker 2: aware of from that that album, But that was the
Speaker 2: first album nineteen seventy one. December eighteenth, it Zeazy Top.
Speaker 2: Keith Richards in nineteen eighty three, at forty years old,
Speaker 2: married Patty Hanson. This is also an interesting day because
Speaker 2: he chose to marry Patty Hanson on his birthday. Who
Speaker 2: does that on their birthday? I believe, and he married.
Speaker 2: He married up too, of course, but I would believe
Speaker 2: that if there was some sort of, you know, psychological
Speaker 2: examination done on this, this would be considered in this
Speaker 2: day and age, maybe narcissistic behavior. Possibly You've got to
Speaker 2: have your birthday on our wedding day. Like can you
Speaker 2: imagine the what I mean, You're married for a long time.
Speaker 2: I was married twice. I wasn't good at it, but
Speaker 2: I can just imagine one of my ex wives saying,
Speaker 2: why would you choose your birthday as our wedding day?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 2: And that would be the end of that conversation we
Speaker 2: moved it would be over yeah, oh yeah. Nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan made his movie debut. This was a Pat
Speaker 2: Garrett and Billy the Kid. The big song that came
Speaker 2: out of this was Knocking on Heaven's Door part of
Speaker 2: the soundtrack. James Coburn, so familiar. Another guy with a
Speaker 2: great voice, right remember you know his voice big had
Speaker 2: a white hair. And Chris Christofferson both in that movie
Speaker 2: with Dylan, and the movie doesn't tickle anything in particular
Speaker 2: inside of me. I guess I got to go back
Speaker 2: and watch it, but I don't think it was one
Speaker 2: of those that you know, goes down in history. Is
Speaker 2: you know something you got to see.
Speaker 1: Kind of a spaghetti western. Just the fact that Bob
Speaker 1: was in it was made it cool. And Christofferson it's
Speaker 1: but it's a spaghetti western, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And pop culture and nine Avatar premiered. One of
Speaker 2: the things I just saw on social media was Matt
Speaker 2: Damon talking about things the roles he turned down that
Speaker 2: he should have never turned down. And he says it
Speaker 2: like shaking his head. He said, he said no to Avatar,
Speaker 2: No boy, he said no to that lead role for
Speaker 2: a percentage. December nineteenth, nineteen seven. We've all done We've
Speaker 2: all done shit like that. December nineteenth, nineteen seventy. Your
Speaker 2: song by Elton John hits the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Speaker 2: This is an interesting thing because this show at the
Speaker 2: Troubadour earlier that year and in August, I think August
Speaker 2: twenty fifth of nineteen seventy, Elton does the show at
Speaker 2: the Troubadour. By the by Christmas time, the song goes
Speaker 2: number one. But that show at the Troubadour is one
Speaker 2: of those things that will live on in infamy. The
Speaker 2: Beach Boys several members of the Beach Boys were there.
Speaker 2: Levon Helm was their record executives. Neil Diamond was in
Speaker 2: the crowd for that show, and that was one of
Speaker 2: those where you know, the La Times said, you know,
Speaker 2: they basically crowned him, you know, the next celebrity, the
Speaker 2: must see artists. But a legendary show. And to watch
Speaker 2: the clips and hear stuff, you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: tracks from that it was, you know, it sounds great
Speaker 2: still to this day, it sounds great. In seventy five,
Speaker 2: Ronnie Wood joined the Stones. Ronnie Wood not just a
Speaker 2: great guitar player, and musician, but also an amazing artist.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen the set list that
Speaker 2: he draws before after the Stones show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you a terrible story. I got his
Speaker 1: book that depicts his artwork from him and he doodled
Speaker 1: and created some additional little art work. I can't find
Speaker 1: the freaking thing. Oh that's awful. I can't find it.
Speaker 1: It's one like I can find everything, but that I
Speaker 1: can't find it for the life of me.
Speaker 2: M And don't you there Ask your wife because there
Speaker 2: will be some sort of response there.
Speaker 1: Oh she's she knows too, she's asked the same questions.
Speaker 2: Oh, she's looked forward to you know. Yeah, but there's
Speaker 2: you don't get the what did you do with it?
Speaker 2: Where did you leave it?
Speaker 1: No, it was it was from being in Columbus running
Speaker 1: into him and and and I can't freaking find it.
Speaker 2: He he sells that his beautiful artwork. They do it
Speaker 2: through the website, but there are art galleries that that
Speaker 2: offer it up as well. But his artwork is really
Speaker 2: pretty fantastic, and he's he's one of the great guitar
Speaker 2: players of our time as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Nineteen fifty five Carl Perkins wrote what would end up
Speaker 2: becoming a rock and roll standard. Think about Blue Swaye Shoes,
Speaker 2: think about you know, Elvis did a version of it,
Speaker 2: Buddy Holly did a version of it. But if you
Speaker 2: were in a cover band, you know, a rock band
Speaker 2: in the sixties and seventies and even in the eighties,
Speaker 2: you covered Blue Swaite shows, that's one of those songs
Speaker 2: that like, it's like for a guitar player or a musician,
Speaker 2: it's like, Johnny be good, you gotta know that song. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a standard, a rock standard. In fifty seven, Elvis
Speaker 2: while living at Graceland, I didn't realize how long he
Speaker 2: has or how he long he did own Graceland. But
Speaker 2: in fifty seven he was served with his draft papers
Speaker 2: at Graceland. That's where the notice came. He ended up serving,
Speaker 2: and he ended up in the thirty second I want
Speaker 2: to get this right, the thirty second Tank Battalion, third
Speaker 2: Armor Corps, based in Germany, where he served his time
Speaker 2: in the army.
Speaker 1: He looked good in a uniform, now.
Speaker 2: Yeah he did. Yeah, he just you know, he was
Speaker 2: a good looking guy. That sixty eight Elvius was arguably
Speaker 2: probably the best to come back tour with the letter
Speaker 2: suit and you know, the red guitar. It's probably the
Speaker 2: best of Elvis. Soe twenty sixteen, this is interesting to me.
Speaker 2: We were talking about charts and downloads and with the
Speaker 2: Beatles and the money the lawsuit with the MII. The
Speaker 2: official chart company announced that they were changing the way
Speaker 2: that it calculated the top forty to reflect the rise
Speaker 2: in streaming back in twenty sixteen. So we're going back
Speaker 2: nine almost ten years. So here's the way it works. Currently,
Speaker 2: one hundred streams is counted as one sale of a song.
Speaker 2: So you know, we used to go buy music when
Speaker 2: we were kids. You go buy a forty five or
Speaker 2: buy an album, that counts as a sale. Now someone
Speaker 2: has to have a song eemed one hundred times to
Speaker 2: consider it the sale of a song.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting? And then from January twenty seventeen, the
Speaker 2: ratio would become one hundred and fifty to one, so
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty downloads equals the sale of a song.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Interesting to me how that's kind of we've never stopped me.
Speaker 2: We're in this music thing here together talking about this
Speaker 2: and it's never come up. It's very interesting to me
Speaker 2: that that's how they thought that they would break the
Speaker 2: bottleneck in the music industry with the charts and everything
Speaker 2: else people, because songs were just hanging on forever.
Speaker 1: It'll read the fine print, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Twenty fifteen, Thriller became the first album to ever sell
Speaker 2: thirty million copies, the runner up to this day biggest
Speaker 2: selling album. The runner up is The Eagles' Greatest Hits
Speaker 2: seventy one to seventy five, twenty nine million copies as
Speaker 2: of today, Insane. In my garage, I have a sign
Speaker 2: that a friend of mine gave me in Woolster in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, and it was an
Speaker 2: item he found at the Brimfield Fair and it was
Speaker 2: and is this sign for Buffalo Springfield. It's a tractor plate,
Speaker 2: so it's you know, it's you know, maybe a foot
Speaker 2: and a half by a foot tall, and it's green
Speaker 2: with white print, and it's from a Buffalo Springfield brand tractor.
Speaker 2: That's where they got their name. And I have one
Speaker 2: of those tractor plates in my garage. The thing weighs
Speaker 2: a ton. Bring it by sometimes. Yeah, well, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: easy I don't know if I get through security with that.
Speaker 1: Probably not.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy five, Joe Walsh replaced Berna leadon a recent
Speaker 2: guest on taking a Walk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, he did go back to
Speaker 1: the Eagles for a run, so they were on friendly
Speaker 1: enough terms there. But are they still Are they still okay?
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it's all you know, this
Speaker 1: reconciliations or whatever. Yeah, it seems like, who knows, what
Speaker 1: do I know?
Speaker 2: I let's see. Just like starting Over, the John Lennon
Speaker 2: song from the Double Fantasy added up hitting number one.
Speaker 2: This happened at a time it was just literally right
Speaker 2: after his death. It was less than two weeks after
Speaker 2: he was shot in front of the Dakota. But that
Speaker 2: was his first and only number one song. It's just
Speaker 2: like starting Over.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful song and a heartbreaking loss, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of things for the Stones on this day.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy one, they released Hot Rocks Great double
Speaker 2: album Greatest Hits Collection. It was one of the first
Speaker 2: albums I remember having as a kid. I think I
Speaker 2: grabbed it from my parents, from my father. And also
Speaker 2: in sixty nine, Let It Bleed hit the top of
Speaker 2: the charts, so sixty nine and seventy one Big Days.
Speaker 2: By the way, Let It Bleed was the last album
Speaker 2: with Brian Jones. He was fired midway through Let It Bleed,
Speaker 2: and if you'll excuse my crass comment, he ended up,
Speaker 2: you know, being found face down on the pool, his pool.
Speaker 2: Mick Jones joined to replace him, and that's a story
Speaker 2: with those two Stones albums and Brian Jones Man nineteen
Speaker 2: forty seven, two birthdays, nineteen forty seven, nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven. Peter Chris, drummer from Kiss, Gene Simmons,
Speaker 2: after the recent passing of Ace, freely has talked kind
Speaker 2: of openly about how the band treated Peter and Ace,
Speaker 2: you know, during the eighties after they were essentially sent
Speaker 2: packing out of the band. I knew Ace had his issues,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize Peter did as well. But there was
Speaker 2: a time where Gene was just kind of inconsiderate in
Speaker 2: terms of the way he did by his own admission,
Speaker 2: about the way he talked about Ace and Peter. And
Speaker 2: I think since Ace is passing, he's come out and
Speaker 2: he said, listen, we didn't do enough as a band
Speaker 2: to take care of these guys. We weren't as patient
Speaker 2: as we should have been there. I mean, there was
Speaker 2: obviously unreliability. Both Peter and Ace, you know, were late
Speaker 2: or didn't show up for rehearsals. And you know, Jean
Speaker 2: and Paul are guys that don't drink or don't do
Speaker 2: any drugs, and I think it was probably trying on
Speaker 2: them to have these two important members of the band
Speaker 2: that were under in the clutches of alcohol and drugs
Speaker 2: at the time. So Alan Parsons nineteen forty eight, famous musician,
Speaker 2: probably the I would think, maybe one of the most
Speaker 2: well known projects. He may not be well known for
Speaker 2: it to those that don't pay attention to the weeds
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, but a producer for Dark Side of
Speaker 2: the Moon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, think about his career, you know, the
Speaker 1: production excellence, career as a solo artist. Just a great
Speaker 1: respect for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked in the past. I shared with you
Speaker 2: that I interviewed him maybe nineteen ninety seven or ninety
Speaker 2: eight on July fourth, and I remember the conversation specifically
Speaker 2: because I had asked him our friend George Taylor Morris
Speaker 2: was starting to talk about Dark Side of the Moon
Speaker 2: and Wizard of Oz and I asked Alan Parsons about that,
Speaker 2: and I can't think of another time I felt like
Speaker 2: such an idiot where I put my foot in my mouth.
Speaker 2: But he didn't know a thing about it. He claimed
Speaker 2: to be unaware of the connection at that point in time.
Speaker 1: Believe him too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's no reason to lot, no reason exactly. No.
Speaker 2: This is an interesting day that December twenty first, our
Speaker 2: next day. This was a day that in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 2: Elvis drove from Graceland to Washington. His first stop in Washington.
Speaker 2: I want to get this right because they're no longer
Speaker 2: called by this name. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous
Speaker 2: Drugs was around at that time under Tricky Dick. So
Speaker 2: Elvis shows up at this agency and pleads with them
Speaker 2: that he can help with the war on drugs. Right,
Speaker 2: this was before Nancy Reagan's War on drugs. This was,
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen seventy. So they basically show them the door.
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2: We're not interested. He wanted a badge, he wanted to
Speaker 2: be named and you know, an agent in fighting the
Speaker 2: war on drugs. So he gets turned down by this group,
Speaker 2: and then he goes to the White House with a
Speaker 2: six page letter for Nixon and wants to be seen
Speaker 2: by Nixon, so he asks to be named a special agent.
Speaker 2: He asks for a badge. I never heard this, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm reading this story this morning. I'm like, how do
Speaker 2: we not know this? It's such good information. So it's juicy,
Speaker 2: it really is. So the government agency, the Bureau of
Speaker 2: Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, takes a hard pass. Elvis is
Speaker 2: able to talk Nixon into it. Nixon gives him a badge.
Speaker 2: Elvis gives Nixon a gun, a cult forty five from
Speaker 2: the war, like a trade. You give me a badge,
Speaker 2: I give you a gun. And then that famous picture
Speaker 2: was taken. It seems like I almost always see the
Speaker 2: black and white version, but Elvis in that picture is
Speaker 2: wearing this purple vlure or velvet jumpsuit, shaken Nixon's hand. Classic,
Speaker 2: it's one of That picture is one of the most
Speaker 2: requested photographs still to this day in the US National Archives.
Speaker 1: Interesting, it's a classic.
Speaker 2: A couple more, yeah, A couple more quick ones to
Speaker 2: wrap this up. Born in the USA passed thriller to
Speaker 2: hit seventy nine weeks on the charts, and which Taal
Speaker 2: lineman hit the top two hundred. Glenn Campbell's only number
Speaker 2: one and the Billboard Charts ever, and there's an appreciation
Speaker 2: I have for him and we all should have. And
Speaker 2: we'll talk more next week about that Beahemian Raps that
Speaker 2: he hit number one in ninety one after Freddie Mercury's death.
Speaker 2: And Paul Simon performed Sound of Silence at the funeral
Speaker 2: of a teacher in one of the twenty six victims
Speaker 2: at the Sandy Hook shooting on this day. You mentioned
Speaker 2: Paul Simon earlier, and that happened. Victorious Soto was a
Speaker 2: first grade teacher and one of her favorite songs of
Speaker 2: all time was Sound of Silence, and Paul Simon heard
Speaker 2: about it and he sang at her funeral.
Speaker 1: It didn't really interest you.
Speaker 2: Wow, And that is how we end this week in
Speaker 2: Music History. I promise you that we were going to
Speaker 2: have to maybe cut this into two parts, but we
Speaker 2: somehow got it all in December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Speaker 1: It's quite a whirlwind. Master of Music, Mayhem, and thank
Speaker 1: you for another look at this week in music history,
Speaker 1: and thank you all for checking it out on the
Speaker 1: Taking a Walk podcast