I'm listening to the Norah Jones song, Toes and it just hits me, why haven't I created a summer mix playlist every summer like I've done with my Christmas Mix since 2015?
Wait a minute, let the old brain clear out the cobwebs, actually I've kind of done that. I went back into the MMM archives and sure enough found that I had built up a playlist over a couple of summers in 2018 and 2019 called, Summer Tunes. I cleaned out the deleted files and cut the playlist down to just under 100 songs.
Then, I created a new playlist for 2022 as I'm a little late to the party publishing this new summer playlist in August, but I think it's worth the wait.
I would suggest you have a little OUTDOOR summer barbecue this month with only people in your inner circle because of the BA 5 thing, and play both playlists at your party!
I have even embedded both playlists right here because you'll have had several drinks at your party, and won't be able to find the other one.
Enjoy my friends! Hope I can remember to make a new playlist next summer?
Hey, where's my drink!
Dug;s Wurl Famuss Strwbary Banannna Smotieh
Find a blendr
Covid Summer Bummer 2020 Cocktails with the Family
In the frig- find the Strwberry Margrrrrita miX - poor whatevr amoun in
find the Frezzzr
50-50 chAnce, there will b a bag of frozn bananassss and maybe strawberries too, cuz in summer all the Costico fruit goes bad unles u freeeez it - Put the frozn frut in - maybe sum ice cUbes 2
somewear On the counter their wil be tequila or my fav, Ketel ONE vodca - Pour in wahtever
Dn't forget tu put on the lid - I hate wehn that happins
Turn on teh radio I mean blender
you Might hav to TilT it bac and rok it back and fourth to brak up the frozen stouf
pur carfully Enjoy!
Drink, but do nut drive my friedns- Happi Sumner!
p.s The drunk I mean drink aT the top is MK's grapfrut wodka, not my dreek.
This past week I began the rather easy and fun task of listening, shifting, and sorting new music that was released this month, or songs I have missed in the past couple of months.
The Mosaic browser
Recently on CNN, I watched the decades series, "The Nineties: The Information Age." I watched it in real time, and ironically was just so annoyed at having to watch the commercials.
Most of my teaching career was spent as a educational technology resource teacher and so the time beginning in September of 1993 when the Internet began with the Mosaic browser, then Netscape, then Microsoft Explorer, were exciting times. The pioneer days.
The evolution of Internet music with music piracy servers like Napster in 1999, then legit online music stores like Apple iTunes, and now online subscription music streaming services, actually rekindled my interest in music. After years of being a working stiff in the 80's and 90's, I rediscovered my passion for rock 'n' roll and folk through the shear ease of access, online.
A Monday Monday Music™ blog post now averages between 150-200 hits during its first week of publication. During that first week, the playlist that accompanies the post gets about 1/3 of the hits than the post itself. I realized early on in the world of blog writing that the author has about 3 minutes tops to convey their message. So, when it comes to listening to a playlist of 25+ songs, most just ignore it altogether.
I say this as I'm just so thankful that you're actually here reading this at this moment. If you never listen to my playlists, I would just suggest, pick one song to listen to as most songs are also typically no more than 3 minutes too. (Although, most of the songs I usually pick for the playlist are 4+ minutes. This week there are several songs in the 7-10 minute category like the old days of rock 'n' roll.)
In any event, do like most of my playlist listeners do, and just do the famous 'digital skip' until you land on something that catches your ear. I will guarantee there's at least one song here worth listening to that you've never heard before, and most likely will never ever hear on the radio.
Enjoy my friends. Skip, skip, skip to my Paul McCartney.
U.S. actress Jane Fonda tours North Vietnam, during which she is photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms becomes independent from the IRS.
July 8 – The U.S. sells grain to the Soviet Union for $750 million.
July 11
The long anticipated chess match between world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, and United States champion Bobby Fischer, began in Iceland at Reykjavík.
July 10–14 – The Democratic National Convention meets in Miami Beach. Senator George McGovern, who backs the immediate and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, is nominated for president. He names fellow Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate.
July 18 – Anwar Sadat expels 20,000 Soviet advisors from Egypt.
July 21
Bloody Friday: 22 bombs planted by the Provisional IRA explode in Belfast, Northern Ireland; nine people are killed and 130 seriously injured.
Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee police for public obscenity, for reciting his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" at Summerfest.
July 25 – U.S. health officials admit that African-Americans were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.
July 31 – The Troubles, Northern Ireland:
Claudy bombing ("Bloody Monday"), 10:00 AM: Three car bombs in Claudy, County Londonderry, kill nine. It becomes public knowledge only in 2010 that a local Catholic priest was an IRA officer believed to be involved in the bombings but his role was covered up by the authorities.
August 1 – U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, withdraws from the race after revealing he had been treated for mental illness.
In looking back to the events of July, 1972 as a 17 year-old, it's the first Presidential race where I had an introductory grasp of our nation's domestic and international politics. I had just completed my junior year in high school where I had taken a class titled, "International Relations" taught by History teacher and my freshmen football coach, Randy Enberg.
Up until that spring semester, I had only known the rather tall Mr. Enberg by his hunched over cranky demeanor on the practice field in the summer of '69, getting us ready for the fall season. Jeff Muro, who would later play linebacker for UCLA was our fullback. During practice one day he was carrying the ball through the line and hit me square in my chest with his helmet and drove me straight down on my back into the turf. Now that left an impression. Mr. Enberg just looked at me and said, "Well McIntosh, are you going to get up?"
A couple of years later, I meet a completely different man in the classroom as Mr. Enberg would start a discussion on a world topic and then let us freely discuss as students. He would essentially moderate and keep the conversation going. I loved it! For the second part of the semester, we did a research project where he guided us to independent study and we had to submit a paper with all our references to him a couple of weeks before school got out.
I had handwritten my report, put it in a folder and for the life of me forgot where I put it! I had worked in the library like two weeks straight on this thing. I went to Mr. Enberg to tell him (like... my dog ate it) but decided to tell him the truth of how I just screwed up and lost it. He looked down at me like he had on that practice field a few years prior, and said, "Meet me after school in my class." Oh shit!
So I go to his classroom and he's sitting at his desk. He tells me to pull up a chair and looks at his notebook and says, "Your report was on Israel and Arab relations, correct?" I said, "Yes." Then he says, "Tell me what you learned." We spent the next 20 minutes or so talking about Israel becoming a nation after World War II and the hot button issues of religion and politics including American and the Soviet influence in the region. Mr. Enberg gave me a B for the class.
•••••
Summer of 1972 has me buying Son of Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson and Trilogy by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
In listening to Son of Schmilsson after many years and a lot more knowledge of Harry Nilsson's life, I realize this is the beginning of the end. I loved this album as a kid, but you can kind of hear between the record grooves that all is not well, and the extremely talented Mr. Nilsson is kind of doing it here half-ass. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good songs on this album, especially, Remember (Christmas) but you know he could have worked it a bit harder.
Trilogy by Emerson, Lake and Palmer is an album that I listened to a lot the year it came out. They really were at the forefront of progressive rock and got a lot of kids to listen to their reworks of the classics.
I have never really been a Rod Stewart fan, but all these years later I can appreciate his band, Faces as the second-string to The Rolling Stones. I say that as a high compliment as Rod after he blew up the band a few years prior. He used all the guys from Faces to back him up on his albums in the early 70's when he became a huge star. Never a Dull Moment has me listening carefully to the very tight rock and roll of Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, and Kenny Jones. In three years, Ronnie Wood would join the Rolling Stones and is still a band member today, and Kenny Jones would be the Who's drummer for a few years after Keith Moon died in 1978.
Songs That Piss People Off: No. 1is a satirical album I dreamed up one day back in 2020 during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. My state of mind at the time was to put together 12 song titles with the ability to piss off or even get a laugh from my readers depending on their personal or political perspectives. My goal was to be an equal opportunity offender where I would be successful with at least one title pushing one of your buttons. Hell, several of these titles pushed my own buttons when they came into my head.
This blog has just been sitting in my drafts folder and for some reason I decided to pull the publish trigger and just let this one fly. Actually, I know why I picked this week is because this shit just doesn't seem to go away. Many of these titles are simply ongoing themes of life in America that I could have coined yesterday.
Anyway, I had fun designing the album jacket and you can only imagine what my "Number 2" album cover is going to look like.
Here's the titles with no explanations or apologies.
People And Their F***ing Dogs
Defund Stupid Liberal Slogans
Old Lady Shopping Cart Blocking Aisle 2 Blues
Fascist Patriot Games (beat you with my American flag)
Note- If I didn't piss you off this round, I hope to do better next time.
Bonus Track - 1,000,000 Inconveniences
At some point, I shared these titles with my buddy and guest writer for Monday Monday Music™, Paul Hobbs. Paul and I got to talking about actually writing some songs from these titles and then we settled on, A Million Inconveniences.
That whole collaboration resulted in Paul writing the lyrics and music for the song that he recorded and was featured in the Monday Monday Music blog, A Million Inconveniences on May 9th, 2022.
What was so great about working with Paul is that he encouraged me to write some lyrics of my own. I did that and he then went to work again and recorded a whole new song with the same title with my lyrics (this one with the number in the title, 1,000,000 Inconveniences). He also wrote new music for this second perspective on the theme of a million people dying of Covid-19 during the past two years. Paul is a very special person, and anyone would be honored to be his friend and now for me, an ongoing collaborator.
I thought this might also be a good time to release this second version as Covid cases (+11%) and hospitalizations (+18) are both up again. As this latest strain, Omicron subvariant BA.5 becomes dominant, everybody now has family and friends, all vaccinated testing positive for Covid. I'm just so thankful for the Covid-19 vaccination for all ages NOW as my youngest two grandchildren under 5 were recently able to get their first shots.
Covid-19 is NOT going away, and probably never will. All of us will eventually get it, but again I'm so thankful we have the medical technology through vaccinations, boosters and medications like Paxlovid to greatly reduce the symptoms and not put larger numbers in the hospital as in 2020-21.
Since the May 9th blog, 17,000 more people have died from Covid-19. Deaths are down to about 300 a day in the U.S. but as in all tragedies like this, the simply phrase, "We can never forget" is still appropriate and ongoing.
So here's our reflection after two years of the pandemic in a song. It's a sarcastic response to the naysayers, deniers, liars, selfish, and pussies who simply can't tolerate a little mask, all wrapped in the American flag with the misconception that their personal behavior trumps the collective safety and liberty of the many. Grow up and face adversity like the generations of Americans before us. Piss off.
And, what a feeling to say, "I co-wrote a song" for the first time in my life. Thank you Paul!
A little more than two months ago, I tripped (yet again) while running as I was transitioning from concrete to grass. This is becoming a recurring nightmare as I clipped the edge of the grass with my left shoe, stumbled badly and not wanting to fall on the concrete somehow tore my left hamstring in some awkward fashion trying to right myself.
I instantly knew I was toast. In my swirling head a six-week recovery awaited with 'waiting' being the operative word. The walk back home was depressing... Edvard Munch in Adidas.
You may be screaming to yourself upon reading that the old man is writing yet again about another running injury. But it beats listening to Michael Flynn plead the 5th when asked if he believes in a peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America. My God it's fascists pleading the 5th on parade- Roger Stone, Jeffery Clark, John Eastman... Hey I even found a perfect song to describe these guys this week in the playlist. Do not even get me started on the five Supreme Kangaroo Court Justices driving their Keystone Cop car over the cliff over and over and over.
Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett
Anyway, it's happy trails again as I'm back running with a new group of songs collected while picking them up and putting them back down, at 4.3 mph. Let's hope I can stay upright for awhile. My close friends probably have a running bet on the matter.
As Americans, we have a long history of progressively adding things to make our lives better 💪. Whether it be civil liberties, creating new genres of music, social security, medical breakthroughs, inventing new technologies, or even a city getting a new sports franchise team.
We Americans don't like things being taken away from us. Whether it be our civil liberties, prohibition, nazis trying to take over the world, an insurrection, or even a professional sports team moving away from your city (I've had two, mother... 😖).
Every month, I write a blog and make a playlist about fifty years ago in music, so that puts me currently in 1972.
In 1972, the Supreme court debated Roe v. Wade and on January 22, 1973 voted 7-2 to give women the fundamental right to have the option to have an abortion.
On June 23, 1972, Title IX also became Federal law giving women the right to equally participate in educational sports that received federal funding.
Both Roe v. Wade and Title IX created new opportunities for women and I will go so far as to say, saved lives.
A human life is very limited without two essential things: opportunity and choice.
I'm writing this on Friday, June 24, 2022 just as the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade and almost 50 years of protecting women. This backward decision has taken away an attained right affecting opportunity and choice for women with the rippling effect to all American families (including men).
I have two daughters, two step-daughters, and four granddaughters, all born after Roe v. Wade and Title IX. Let me just say as a father speaking with my collective daughters in mind, that they will not endure or suffer the religious zealot fools kindly in taking away a woman's fundamental right to an abortion. They refuse, or will refuse the idiot's premise that to make America great (white) again, America must go backwards in time.
Best album title of the year
So the white religious crazies have successfully played the political long game on abortion. You can disagree or even hate their motives and methods, but you have to acknowledge and respect their tenacity to tirelessly fight for what they believe in.
With right-wing-nuts like Clarence (and Ginni) Thomas leading the charge, who say the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings to now take away Americans rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, you have to marvel at their privileged power position in action. If 63% of Americans who support Roe v. Wade have seen it fall, why wouldn't evangelicals keep their clown car rolling with the pedal to the floor?
I wonder, will my inept majority Democratic Party ever get off its ass to simply vote in the midterms? What's the midterms?
Ok, enough for now. In times like this it's probably best to just take my shaking hands off the keyboard and sit back and listen to the playlist I made this past week. I will leave with my new favorite album title of the year including a couple of songs featured in the playlist this week.
Summer's here and Jack Johnson grabbed my attention with his new album, Meet The Moonlight. He's the tonic I need right now including the new song called, Calm Down. I think I'll take Jack's advice.
I'm not an Alice Cooper fan, but his timely June, 1972 release of School's Out was a big hit with all the kids back in the day. Years later as a teacher inside the educational system, I remember our host playing School's Out at a year-end staff party at his house with assorted beverages. I was ready to hit the beach.
On a recent weekend trip to Santa Maria to see my mother, I was driving on a two lane blacktop back road (the old Highway 1) heading down from the Nipomo mesa to Oceano. I suddenly had a flashback of being on this same stretch as a 14 year old in the summer of 1969 with pals, Ron, Paul, and Gary on our bikes. As I remember it, they were all on their 10-speed bikes, but I had my sister's old three-speed clunker as my 10-speed had recently been stolen from my front driveway, the frickin' nerve. I even wrote a letter to the Santa Maria Times editorial page warning of the rash of bike thefts at the time. That bike was a jewel with its metallic pearl white finish.
"And meaner than a junkyard dog" –Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
So the lads and I just out of school head out one early morning west of Santa Maria on Main St. (166) to the little town of Guadalupe.
Note-I guess living in a small town in the late 60's our parents would just let us take off on our bikes to go beach camping by ourselves. I can't even imagine a parent letting a 14 year old do that today.
Anyway, somewhere on the often dangerous two lane to Guadalupe, Gary gets a flat tire and we waste a good part of the day walking to a gas station in Guadalupe to get the tire patched. Then we head north through the eucalyptus trees on Nipomo Highway 1. I remember we rode past one of the old junkyards that used be there in the woods and suddenly several junkyard dogs emerge chasing us on this backroad. My friends on their 10-speeds put their bikes into gear and easily sped away from the dogs. I on the other hand with a rusty chain in a single gear was instantly the sole target now standing and frantically pedaling to get some speed. With the handlebars swaying from side to side I thought I'd finally pumped up enough speed when suddenly I feel a stinging pain as the lead dog sinks his teeth into my right ankle. Winded and defeated, I ride up to the rested and waiting boys. They ridicule the old family 3-speed, and revenge visions of catching my 10-speed bike thief in his criminal act come back to play in my head.
So, we proceed on our bike journey and come to a downward grade (pictured above from Google Maps). I will estimate it is about a mile long as you come out of Nipomo. It drops into a left turn on Highway 1 that leads into Oceano and then north to our destination, the Pismo Beach Campgrounds.
The boys take off for the glide and brake down the hill as I follow in tow. As I pick up speed, the bike starts to shake, rattle and rattle some more. I apply both the front and rear brakes on my handlebars... nothing! I'm now speeding down this hill in this rocket rust bucket as the worn down brake pads serve only as a hood ornament.
If you look at the picture where the road bends, I think this is the spot where I was going to attempt to ride up the side of the hill to slow myself down. Unfortunately, my front tire flipped sideways as it hit the dip at the edge of the asphalt. This did stop the bike cold, but my inertia propelled me straight over the handlebars in a momentary superman fashion before landing hands first sliding across the road for probably 5 or 6 feet. Luckily, I was wearing my trusty Levi 501 jeans that protected my knees, but my hands absorbing the impact were a fire hot red from the horizontal skid on the pavement. I picked myself up, the bike actually still rideable. I then straddle the bar with my tennis shoes acting as my new brake pads until I get to the bottom of the hill, where I find the boys rested and waiting for me.
When we finally got to Pismo Beach, I remember going into the pacific ocean with the healing properties of the salt water washing over me like a cool blanket. School's out. I'm surrounded by great friends, free and on our own as young teenagers on the central coast of California with many fun days of summer still ahead.
Enjoy the eclectic sounds of June, 1972 with the Eagles debut album, David Bowie taking off as Ziggy Stardust, Aretha's gospel roots on full display, Leon Russell's great songwriting, and Jethro Tull with sort of a compilation album with some songs never released in the U.S. before. No format radio here. Take it easy my friends and have a great summer!
The Beatles at the Indra Club, Hamburg, August 17, 1960. L-R: John Lennon, George Harrison, Pete Best, Paul McCartney, and Stuart Sutcliffe.
Songs of 1960-1962 concludes my mini-series Under The Influence. This series is based on my primary source, Wikipedia and their organization of music through the years. What I found interesting about Wikipedia's (Year) In Music entries is their succinct 'Events' highlights. Then, new albums released are listed alphabetically for the entire year, until 1963.
In 1963, Wikipedia entries go from a yearly album overview, to a month to month breakdown of mostly all popular albums from that month in time. As it turns out, rock 'n' roll is a lot bigger deal than the short-lived fad that many in the short-minded establishment predicted would quickly fade away.
In 1964, popular music just explodes with The Beatles coming to America and the The British Invasion.
On January 28th, 2019, I started my Fifty Years in Music • (Month and Year) Series starting with January, 1969. I noticed in going back to find that first post of the series, that I actually had skipped several months along the way. I will correct that, and at some point will have a Monday Monday Music™ historical record of the music that has influenced my life, and probably yours, since 1949.
My long-term game plan will be to have two concurrent 'Way Back' series– my current Fifty Years in Music that will cover the 1970's, and starting in 2023– Sixty Years of Music to cover every month and year of the 1960's, starting in 1963.
••••••••••
No regrets.
Now one of the things I have mentally done over the years in the reflection of my life, is that I play the game, What If...
I've gone back to the fall of 1973 when I started college and started planning my life as a future teacher. My plan at the time was to become a special education teacher. I did that, and then I went on to become a general education elementary teacher, I did that, and so forth...
But, I did have an alternate plan of becoming a History major and teaching History at high school as it was my favorite subject in all of school. In my recent shoulda coulda reflections, that would have included a minor in English, but at 18 years of age, writing something more than a school assignment was something that I was never going to do. Later at San Diego State, I had to pay other students to type my assignments that required a typed finished product.
So as a pretext here, I'm writing (typing on my laptop from the home row) about music every week that often goes back in history to the second half of the 20th century.
Never say never.
••••••••••
1960 through 1962 is still about Elvis, but the King is already transitioning to ballads as many rock 'n' roll bands are forming in England and America and preparing for their own ascent to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, if not the rock 'n' roll throne.
In putting the playlist together, I was amazed at how many electric guitar instrumentals were huge Billboard 100 hits creating the whole surf music craze of the early 1960's. I think the public had just fallen in love with the electric guitar and you could see how every kid interested in playing music, simply had to have one.
Note- All dates and timeline descriptions below in italic are from Wikipedia. What I have done in this cut and copy exercise is to only include the interesting and influential stuff (from my perspective) from 1960-62. I have also interjected some (mostly sarcastic) commentary of my own in regular text.
January – Stuart Sutcliffe joins the Liverpool band Johnny and the Moondogs and suggests they change their name to the Beatals; after several variations this settles on The Beatles in August. Stu was quite the looker, no doubt the best looking and coolest BEATAL starting out.
January 14 – Elvis Presley is promoted to Sergeant in the United States Army. Really.
January 25 – The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States reacts to the payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys accepting money for playing particular records. The music business has always been such a slimy business.
March 5 – Elvis Presley returns home from serving in the U.S. Army in Germany, having stopped off on March 2 at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, his only time in the U.K. Really, with all those #1's in the U.K. I would have thought he played there.
April 4 – RCA Victor Records announces that it will release all pop singles in mono and stereo simultaneously, the first record company to do so. Elvis Presley's single "Stuck on You" is RCA's first mono/stereo release.
April 17 – Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Cochran's girlfriend Sharon Sheeley are injured in a car accident near Chippenham in England. Cochran dies in a hospital in Bath, Somerset, from severe brain injuries. Police officer David Harman, who attends the incident, starts learning to play the guitar using Cochran's impounded Gretsch, later becoming professional musician Dave Dee. I've never heard the last part of that story.
April 20 – Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood for the first time since coming home from Germany to film G.I. Blues. Bring on those "B" slock movies.
May 2 – The Drifters' Ben E. King leaves the group and signs a solo record contract with ATCO Records.
May 20–28 – The Beatles, as the Silver Beetles (uncredited), play their first ever tour, as a backing group for Johnny Gentle on a tour of Scotland. The lineup comprises John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Tommy Moore.
July – The Shadows' instrumental 'Apache' is released in the U.K. I Love that song!
August 17 – The Beatles make their debut under this name in Hamburg, Germany, beginning a 48-night residency at the Indra club. The band at the time comprises John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe on bass and Pete Best on drums. (see photo above, credit to The Beatles Bible.)
The last 78 rpm records are released in the U.S. and the U.K.
English rock musician Ritchie Blackmore's musical career begins.
14-year-old Neil Young founds The Jades with Ken Koblun. Neil loved The Shadows and playing Apache, not to mention his affinity for surf-style guitar.
January 15 – Motown Records signs The Supremes. Have you ever heard of anyone not liking the Supremes? It's like someone saying, "I don't like pizza."
February 9 – The Beatles at The Cavern Club: The Beatles, at this juncture John, Paul, George and Pete, perform under this name at The Cavern Club for the first time following their December return to Liverpool from Hamburg. Beginning with this lunchtime session, the group would go on to make almost 300 appearances here in total. Practice, practice, practice.
February 12 – The Miracles' "Shop Around" becomes Motown's first million-selling single. Smokey Robinson's influence is off the charts.
February 13 – Frank Sinatra forms his own record label, Reprise Records, which will later release recordings by The Beach Boys, Ella Fitzgerald, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix. Frank knew his way around a recording studio. Frank was very business savvy, like reading the script and not making "B" movies.
The 3rd Annual Grammy Awards are held in Los Angeles, hosted by actor Lloyd Bridges. Lloyd must have had a great agent! Ray Charles wins the most awards with four. Ray's on fire! Bob Newhart's The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart wins Album of the Year, Percy Faith's version of the "theme from A Summer Place" wins Record of the Year and Ernest Gold's "Theme from Exodus" wins Song of the Year. Newhart also wins Best New Artist. Really, Percy Faith? Love Bob Newhart who was the young part of that older generation tradition of being a lifetime comic and actor on TV.
June 14 – Patsy Cline is hospitalized as a result of a head-on car collision. While she is in hospital, the song "I Fall to Pieces" becomes a big Country/Pop crossover hit for her. Bigger news coming...
June–July – Stu Sutcliffe leaves The Beatles to resume his art studies in Hamburg. Man, who's gonna play bass now?
July 17 – Billboard magazine first publishes an "Easy Listening" chart, listing songs that the magazine determines are not rock & roll records. The first #1 song on this chart is "The Boll Weevil Song" by Brook Benton. This chart will be renamed a number of times, becoming the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart. The kids are driving the bus now.
October 17 – Former schoolfriends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, later of The Rolling Stones, meet each other again by chance on Dartford railway station in Kent, England, on the way to their respective colleges and discover their mutual taste for rock and roll. Turns out, the whole universe is a series of random events.
November 9 – The Beatles at The Cavern Club: Future manager Brian Epstein first sees The Beatles. A huge part of The Beatles early success.
December 8 – The Beach Boys release their debut 45rpm single: "Surfin'"/"Luau" on the small California label Candix Records. If you love The Beach Boys, you have to read David Marks' book, 'The Lost Beach Boy.'
December 9 – The Beatles play their first gig in the south of England, at Aldershot. Due to an advertising failure, only 18 people turn up. In the early hours of the following morning they play an impromptu set at a London club. You mean Facebook screwed up back then too.
The Country Music Association (CMA) creates the Country Music Hall of Fame and inducts, Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose and Hank Williams as the first three members.
January 1 – The Beatles and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes both audition at Decca Records in London which has the option of signing one group only. The Beatles are rejected, mainly as they come from Liverpool and the others are Dagenham-based, nearer London. Decca will come to regret that decision.
January 5 – The first album on which The Beatles play, My Bonnie, credited to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers" (recorded last June in Hamburg and produced by Bert Kaempfert), is released by Polydor.
January 24 – Brian Epstein signs on to manage The Beatles. Good move lads.
March 19 – Bob Dylan releases his debut album, Bob Dylan, in the United States, featuring mostly folk standards. The New Folk Movement gets their superstar.
April 7 – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet Brian Jones at The Ealing Club, a blues club in London. What if Brian Jones had lived past 1969? It sure would have made things even more interesting with their very interesting band.
April 10 – Former Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe dies from cerebral paralysis caused by a brain hemorrhage in Hamburg, Germany. The good die young.
April 12 – A recording is made of Bob Dylan's concert at the Town Hall, in New York City by Columbia Records. (Columbia eventually release the recording of "Tomorrow is a Long Time" from this concert.)
April 24 – Bob Dylan begins recording The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in New York. Look out world.
May 29 – The 4th Annual Grammy Awards are held in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Henry Mancini wins the most awards with five, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for his song "Moon River". Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall wins Album of the Year, while Peter Nero wins Best New Artist. The old guard will run the Grammy's for years to come and mostly be out of touch with the changing culture.
June 6 – The Beatles play their first session at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London.
June 19 – The film version of the musical The Music Man is released to theaters by Warner Bros. "Ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City."
August 2 – Robert Allen Zimmerman legally changes his name to Bob Dylan in the New York Supreme Court. Bob has repeatedly said that he did not take his name from Dylan Thomas. His quote, " I have done more for Dylan Thomas than he's ever has done for me."
August 16 – The Beatles fire drummer Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr. Single best decision the lads ever make as a band.
August 17 – 'Instrumental Telstar,' written and produced by Joe Meek for English band The Tornados, is released in the UK. The song will eventually be the first song by a British group ever to reach the top spot on the Billboard Top 100 in the United States, proving to be a precursor to the British Invasion.
August 18 – The Beatles play their first live engagement with the line-up of John, Paul, George and Ringo, at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight on the Wirral Peninsula.
August 20 – Albert Grossman becomes Bob Dylan's manager. Colonel Tom Parker with a beard?
August 23 – John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell in an unpublicized register office ceremony at Mount Pleasant, Liverpool. She would not be treated well by John.
September 21 – New Musical Express, the British music magazine, publishes a story about two 13-year-old schoolgirls, Sue and Mary, releasing a disc on Decca and adds "A Liverpool group, The Beatles, have recorded 'Love Me Do' for Parlophone Records, set for October 5 release."
September 22 – Bob Dylan appears for the first time at Carnegie Hall in New York City as part of a hootenanny including the first public performance of "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". I've heard live 1963 and 64 recordings of Hard Rain and they are extremely powerful, I got chills the first time I heard these live recordings just a few years ago.
September 23 – Opening concert at the New York Philharmonic's new home, Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, conducted by Leonard Bernstein and broadcast live on television across the United States by NBC. The opening work, Aaron Copland's specially commissioned Connotations, sends "shock waves through the world of music".
October 5 – The Beatles' first single in their own right, "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You", is released in the UK on EMI's Parlophone label. Look out world!
October 17 – The Beatles make their first televised appearance, on Granada television's local news programme People and Places.
October 20 – Peter, Paul and Mary's self-titled debut album reaches No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Like a Hard Day's Night, I found this album in my grandfather's 'Columbia House Record Club' collection in his stereo console after he died and snatched it to be part of my new record collection in 1967.
Joan Baez has all of her first three albums on the Billboard charts, on their way to Gold status. I was not a fan of Joan Baez as a young person, but have grown to admire her life-long activism and singing. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Baez is a great example to anyone in how to take care of yourself over the years.
Two Pete Seeger classic songs reach the Billboard pop charts:"Where Have All the Flowers Gone" recorded by The Kingston Trio reaches No. 21. "If I Had a Hammer", recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, reaches No. 10. Pete is such an influence to kick-starting the new folk movement and bringing folk music into U.S. classrooms across America.
The first American Folk Blues Festival, initiated by German promoters, tours Europe; artists include Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and T-Bone Walker. Its only UK date, 21 October at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, is influential on the British R&B scene, with the audience including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones with Jimmy Page, Paul Jones, John Mayall and other musicians, and with a second show filmed and shown on Independent Television. Sad to learn years later that American Blues and Jazz treasures had to go to Europe to get the recognition they deserved. In a large sense Europe is like a boomerang for American music, where we put it out there, it's appreciated and absorbed by European fans who in turn bring it back around to American audiences.
A complete rust bucket by 2025? That's my prediction of this metal bucket turned flower pot purchased a couple of years ago at Ross Dress For Less on the senior 10% off Tuesday. I'm always on the hunt for Mexican clay pots or metal containers that I can stick my succulents in.
Now let me tell you straight up, I don't know squat about succulents. I don't know know their names, I don't know what this one's name is, I'll call it, "Not Dead Yet" succulent. All I know is that if it has a thick rubbery petal, it's a succulent. All I have to do is snap off a limb from a larger plant (thanks mom) and stick it in some kind of pot with planting soil, and I'm good to go. People ask me what I do to have such green plants? um.... "I send them positive vibes." I was going to say, "I pray with them" but the proof-reader in me said, "Maybe just try not to piss off anybody in authority this week."
Now the impending rust bucket is a daily visual reminder for me to stay sharp, keep moving, and to do a little more in life, than "just add water," as you can see what it's done for this bucket, just sitting around. Hey, I even drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom of this bucket for drainage and all. The gratitude of such objects, probably is going to start calling itself, "shabby chic" any day now. (Is he going to talk about music at some point here?)
So I bumped into Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps (1979) (from Youtube's AI watch over me) the other day, and I thought I'd marry my succulent bucket with Neil's sentiment to keep moving forward... like ride your bike or you're going to freeze up the gears and chain, something like that. (Can you believe he's not going to talk about the song, 'My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)' and Kurt Cobain and everything about better to be this than that? I tell ya, he's no Robert Hilburn. I just checked the playlist and it's not there either.)
Pop music. I'm mostly underwhelmed by most pop artists and bands today, and then Harry Styles came along a few years back. He's so good, and getting better. So good in fact, that I keep listening to his new album, Harry's House like I used to listen to new albums. I think it's simply fantastic! Harry's a terrific person who's really lifting people up with this new album and it's perfectly timed to counter the hate in our increasingly 'cruel country.' Go Harry!
Last Friday, my daughter Shawna stopped by to help me take my car in for some service. While my car was in the shop, we drove together to get some breakfast at our favorite, DZ Akins. In her car, she starts to play Harry's House and asks me if I have heard any of the new songs?
She then tells me how Harry Styles is part of a group of artists with a special invite to Joni Mitchell's house (pre-Covid) to play, sing and just jam together. Harry's House is in fact a Joni Mitchell song (not on Harry's new album) but on her 1975 album, The Hissing of Summer Lawns (still part of my vinyl collection). I'm sure as polite as Harry is he probably asked for permission first, as Joni tweeted her approval when the album was announced in March. Oh Harry, the friends you keep.
In my opinion, I think Harry Styles is going to be the artist of his generation as his greatness has only just begun.
I was also pleased to discover that this was a great release month for new rock 'n' roll and Americana with a little something for everybody. I'll let my usual album focused playlist speak for itself this month.
But first, something more important from the editorial desk- My fellow 90% of Americans, enough. It is time to vote out all the politicians who don't support background checks on all gun sales. These same NRA funded politicians continue to support the insanity of letting the general public continue to buy assault weapons with high-capacity bullet magazines. I think the NRA's issue of Democrats taking away people's guns for hunting animals has never been the issue at all. But now more than ever, Americans face the much larger crisis of people hunting people with AR-15 style rifles (60 Minutes) as their mass weapon of choice in our schools, churches and public gathering places. It's way past time to throw these assholes out of office and their semi-automatic thoughts and prayers. Enough. If you didn't watch 60 Minutes last night, I recommend you click on the link above.
Now Harry Styles brought me to Everytown for Gun Safety where he has just donated 1 million dollars to this leading non-profit organization. I can't match that but Mike Bloomberg is tripling Harry's donation and yours too if you make a donation by May 31st. I just donated $25 so thank you Mr. Bloomberg for tripling that!
Meaning, what month would I only have three albums to showcase as the header for this month fifty years ago. Typically, I can have between 6 and 10 albums that I feel are worthy as whole albums. Was this the month where the rock 'n' roll well started to lose water?
In 1972, The 60's were officially dead, not to mention Jimi, Janis, and Jim. The Beatles were no more. The Beach Boys were done, Bob Dylan was where? The original Byrds had long flown, Neil Young was embarking on making non-selling solo albums, CS&N were toast, Motown took the last train for the coast...
Yet, The Rolling Stones make their critically received Exile On Main St., an album I would appreciate much later but I'm sure for many, a 'stay calm and rock on' moment... we still have the Stones. Elton John has moved from the new kid in town into being a huge superstar, and Randy Newman ascends into 'American Treasure' songwriter status even though many people will only know him for his much later, Toy Story movie score.
These three albums are for me a perfect moment in rock 'n' roll time.
The Stones are the 60's past but in 1972 are still making great rock 'n' roll and white boy blues. In the 70's, The Rolling Stones cement their 'best rock 'n' roll band of all time' title in that they are the band who lived for another day, then year, and as it's turned out decades... 60 years baby!
After Brian Jones death in 1969, The Stones have only had two new members, guitarist Mick Taylor who lasted 5 years (1969-74) because he probably thought he'd be dead in another 5 years, and his replacement, Ronnie Wood (1975-present). The line up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood would remain the same until Charlie's death last year. And, they're still a band today adding all-star drummer Steve Jordan recently. Of all the bands in the world, nobody can deny their greatness and appreciate their sheer longevity in an industry that chews up bands and spits them out as sport. Not to mention most bands tendency to self-destruct once money, drugs and fame enter the picture. Long live The Rolling Stones.
Elton John represents the transition to 1970's rock 'n' roll. He with David Bowie become huge stars. In an odd way, Elton replaces Neil Young for me. Elton with Bernie Taupin are fantastic songwriters. He is also a great singer and entertainer, basically the whole package. Loggins & Messina replace the whole sorted mess with Crosby, Stills & Nash, then Young, then not any of them. James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Carol King and Linda Ronstadt continue to rise as great solo artists, and another big band is about to break out in my 50 years feature next month, the Eagles.
In 1972, Randy Newman is both the past and the present. He's steeped into an early 20th century songwriting style, becoming a timeless artist with a quirky voice who writes songs like Mark Twain wrote books. More importantly, he's a songwriter's songwriter. His influence with his peers and now a couple of generations is unmeasurable. Over the years he's had a few non-movie based hits, Short People and I Love LA come to mind, but I'll take songs like Dayton, Ohio - 1903. If there's one person to take in this week on the playlist, take him in, you've got a friend in Randy Newman.
Paul and I were talking the other day on the phone and in our conversation he was wondering when Loggins & Messina were coming up in the 50 year blog series? He said something like, "Loggins & Messina were a pretty big deal for me in my senior year of high school."
That got me thinking too. Loggins & Messina's debut album, Sittin' In surely must have come out by the spring of 1972?
I get 99% of my 'this month 50 years ago' from Wikipedia. Could they have screwed up and missed such an important album? So I went to the way back on Wikipedia, and low and behold I found the album sittin' in November, (1971 in Music). Yeah guess who screwed up!
With that news, the proof-reader gal over hearing the conversation on my iPhone in speaker mode, squealed my mistake to the new owner of Monday Monday Music™some guy named Musk. Anyway, Musk fancies MMM and is attempting a hostile takeover bid estimated to be around $44 and a song to be named later.
So with the office mole's intel, the SOB fired me on the spot through one of his stupid tweets. He then cooled down and recanted, but hired Paul to be a staff writer and was told, "To watch Mr. McIntosh very carefully."
Late breaking news on the MMM takeover... It appears Musk (wasn't that the worst cologne ever from the 1970's) is now saying he won't buy the blog to drive the price down further. Stay tuned loyal readers...
So I guess, Paul takes it over from here... Actually I've been mentoring Paul, which is kind of funny because he's older than me... Anyway, I got him up to speed in how things work around here– where you basically retell stories of your childhood and youth because your long-term memory is the last thing to go. Anyway, here's Paul.
I was working after school at the Tognazzini Box Co. my senior year in high school. We blasted a big radio, living room console type, that my parents had donated when they upgraded our household system. KSEE reverberated through the echoey warehouse. I remember a recurring advertisement for a concert featuring a band I was unfamiliar with, Loggins and Messina. They played parts of 3 selections from their newly released album and 2 of the 3 had me hooked, 'Danny’s Song' and 'Nobody But You.' I got myself a ticket and accompanied byRon Zieman, Gary Hill, and Doug McIntosh went to see them play at Cal Poly in SLO. We were summarily impressed and in one combination or another, some including Paul Tognazzini, of Box Co. fame, proceeded to see them play four more times on the central coast within the next year.
left to right - Danny Walker, Sean Landers, and Paul Hobbs circa 1976 @ The Feed Store in Santa Barbara (Photo by D. McIntosh who subbed as driver and equipment guy with his green Chevy truck w/camper shell, and let Gary sleep one off in the truck bed with the guitars and amps on the return trip to Santa Maria. )
I was introduced through Gary and one of his friends to a new musical partner, Danny Walker. We got together to play music exclusively. He was a couple of years older, from a different school, and a tad intimidating. We had one goal and that was to practice up a bunch of songs and start playing out. Friendship would come later. He had an older brother who played and brought a lot of music around that Danny learned and taught me without me ever hearing the recorded versions. It was very organic, shades of the early folk scene. I was, and still am, a Beatle nut, and a big JT fan so I knew a bunch of their stuff. We also each had some songs we’d written.
Loggins and Messina provided a brand new opportunity. We were hearing a band that neither one of us had heard before. It gave us some songs to learn, we did 5 from this album alone. And, they exhibited several qualities that we, humbly, counted among our strengths.
They were essentially a duo. Both were lead singers. There were usually two distinct guitar parts to choose from. Danny would play the more difficult one. They had a folkie quality and at the same time a country feel. We did a pared down version of their songs, of course, as they had a large band and a couple of spare singers when needed. However, with the addition of a singing bass player, Sean Landers, who came along in pretty short order, we could rock a bit more and do the bigger production numbers serviceably well. Their material was very popular with our audiences so they were quite the boon to our fledgling act.
Beautiful stuff from the cub reporter there... and I didn't realize until the proof-reader gal informed me that this Musk fellow is going to pay us by the letter. (Geez, I must have used 280 characters in this blog title alone. sweet!)
Anyway, Paul was talking about the Loggins & Messina concert in the Cal Poly Gym which was my first rock 'n' roll concert! It was a great show that happened sometime in the first half of 1972 (I'm guessing, 'Steel Trap' Hobbs can't even remember).
L&M opened for The Youngbloods and blew the crowd away, we were so excited! Then, The Youngbloods come out who were on their last legs as a band. I didn't even know who Jesse Colin Young was at the time, and would become a big fan of his as my bay area SDSU roommate Mark Hunter would turn me on to him a few years later. So The Youngbloods come out very flat and definitely were not the youngblood band that night. People in the audience, including our gang of four mentioned above, left the concert in the middle of their set. I imagine Loggins & Messina weren't going to remain an opening act shortly after that.
"The album's first single release, the Caribbean-flavored Vahevala, found top 3 success on WCFL on May 18, 1972. Although the album went unnoticed by radio upon release, it eventually found success by fall 1972, particularly on college campuses where the pair toured heavily. Loggins and Messina's vocal harmonies meshed so well that what was begun as a one-off album became an entity in itself. Audiences regarded the pair as a genuine duo rather than as a solo act with a well-known producer. Instead of continuing to produce Loggins as a sole performer, they decided to record as a duo, Loggins & Messina." Wikipedia
This week I feature the entire Sittin' In album as the playlist this week. As stated, the first single from the album was the very catchy Vahevala and fifty years later it's come back to play in my KSEE radio head all week. I then added some concert videos of the same songs performed over the years including a couple songs from their 2005 performance at the wonderful Santa Barbara County Bowl.
The central coast, not a bad place for a band like Loggins and Messina to get famous and launch another duo who would play there and eventually end up in my neck of the beach, in San Diego for a year in 1975-76. Paul and Danny, now called Southwind played at a couple of Pacific Beach and Mission Beach bars during their year there. I loved this because I would sometimes go see Paul at the beach after classes at SDSU, and then attend their evening gig. I remember waking up one morning on Paul's living room floor at his rented beach house in Mission Beach, not remembering the night before. Then it dawned on me, "Shouldn't I be in my Jazz Appreciation class right now?"
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