Avila Beach Pier and town. Notice the red rectangle?
Music is all about association. In March of 1963, I turned 8 years old. This post is about my childhood in the 1960's and the associations I have with California beach culture growing up on the central coast. For me, Avila Beach and the Beach Boys are joined as sand is to the surf.
Left of the pier, sunning by the wall.
I picked the panoramic photo above because it best helps tell this little story. I want you to picture this scene if you drove into Avila Beach with your family in the 1960's, parked the station wagon, and walked to the beach. As you approach, the right side beach at the pier was the family side, and the left side was more of the teenager's side. If you look how I've blocked off the rising road and embankment wall in the red rectangle, that particular section was where all the high school and possibly Cal Poly college students laid out their beach towels and sunned themselves in all their beach blanket bikini glory. As a child and adolescent, I walked that section many times, not only on the beach, but walking up on the sidewalk and looking down the embankment, if you get my drift. Oh my wannabe self, to be one of the guys with my Gordon and Smith surfboard resting against the embankment wall while I was talking with the girls... Hello cowgirl in the sand.
Now to the right of the pier (the family side), that's where my parents would set up. When you were really little you played in the sand, on the slide or took a spin on the merry-go-round. It was so cool, that they had all that right there in the sand for the kids to play.
A vintage "Surf Mat"
When we got a little older, we would rent the inflatable canvas blue and yellow rafts for 50 cents a hour under the pier and ride the waves in the pre-Boogieboard days (see the photo on the left I found on the Internet called, "surf mats"). Typically Avila waves are not a left or right break at all. On bigger days (3-5 ft.) the swell would develop and just slam straight down. A great ride was being in the wave and when it slammed, the industrial strength rental raft just bounced and you held on for dear life and rode that buckin' bronco in a wave of white foam. A bad ride was usually catching it a little too early on top and going over the cliff of the wave to be body slammed. Now as an 8-9 year old, if you did that in the shallower water, you'd get slammed into the sand. By 10 years old, you were a pro, and if you were going to get slammed, it would be on bigger waves in deeper water, or what everybody called, "the washing machine."
It was so fun. You would spend about a hour in the water, and the water was not like Southern California that warmed up in the summer. The water in Northern and Central Coast beaches are cold. You would see kids come out of the water shivering and their skin would be blush red. I remember, running from the surf with my raft to my beach towel cooking on the sand. I would dive into that big beach towel as my shivering would turn to roasting, and then running back into the surf to repeat the whole cycle. I was stoked.
Now back in those days, you could be 10 years old, and your mom gives you money for a burger or treat and you go to the beach strip of shops, all by yourself! I remember this like it's yesterday. The smell of burgers cooking on the grill, teens drinking cokes, kids eating cotton candy all covered in sand, and The Beach Boys playing through a shop's rusted outdoor cone speaker system. I can't say that Surfin' USA was playing in that most vivid moment of my memory, but let's just say it was.
The Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis), cousin Mike, and neighbor David Marks had tapped into the early sixties beach culture and surfer music. Sixty years later, why would anyone ever want to leave that scene, you gremmies.
Enjoy my friends.
Here are some common surfing terms from the 1960s:
Beach Bum: Someone who spends most of their time at the beach, usually a surfer.
Cowabunga: The surfer's cry "Cowabunga" as they climb a 12 foot wall of water and "take the drop."
Ditching: Skipping school to go surfing.
Gremmie: A beginner surfer.
Gun: A long surfboard used for riding big waves.
Hang Ten: A term used to describe a surfer's ability to ride a wave with both feet at the front of the board, toes over the edge.
Hotdogging: Showing off one's surfing skills, often involving radical maneuvers and tricks.
Kook: A surfer who is inexperienced or lacks skill.
Nose Riding: Riding the front of the board while balancing on the nose.
Soul Surfer: A surfer who embodies the spirit and culture of surfing.
Stoked: A feeling of excitement or happiness.
Tubed: To successfully ride inside a wave's hollow barrel.
Wipeout: Falling off the board while surfing.
Avila Beach today, minus the oil storage tanks on the bluffs, and that's another story.
If you are a regular reader of the Monday Monday Music™ blog, you will be familiar with Paul Hobbs being a guest contributor and writer. I asked Paul if he would be interested in writing a little piece about The Beatles first album as he is the biggest Beatle fan I know. Any musician who grew up with The Beatles in the sixties knows their impact on the millions of lives they touched so deeply. Paul was 9 years old when Please Please Me was released. Check out Paul's music at Paul Hobbs Music on YouTube.
As I read about the 60th anniversary of The Beatles release of Please Please Me in March of 1963, I get a little wistful, like I wasn’t invited to the party. The Beatles released their first album in 1963? How could I have missed it? I’ve been a diehard Beatle fan for most of my life, for crying out loud! But, I guess it only proves what great strides we’ve made in media and communications. Or, could it be that we didn’t really have an overwhelming interest in England until The Beatles pulled the curtain back and revealed just how cool it was over there?
All I know is that when Capitol Records released Meet The Beatles in the U.S. in January of 1964, and then they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for three consecutive weeks, all hell broke loose. Beatlemania was here! But first it was there. Word has it that Ed had run into a mob scene when he’d flown out of Heathrow Airport in London. The Beatles were returning from some dates in France and Spain, and the sight of their throngs of screaming fans prompted him to book them on his show.
At any rate, this is a commemoration of a Beatles release that illustrates the separate worlds we Beatle fans once lived in. We got our Beatle albums, up to Sergeant Pepper, from America’s Capitol Records, who borrowed tracks from one album and added them to another to create bastardized versions of what The Beatles released in England. We didn’t realize the Please Please Me album existed, let alone that it was The Beatles maiden release from almost a year before we knew anything about them.
Oh well. I’ve gone back and filled in the blanks from The Beatles beginnings and I’m a better man for it. I don’t love them any less for being left out of their initial, remarkable achievement. And it’s a great album. I still love the excitement and energy that comes across when the needle hits the vinyl. In fact, I think I’ll put it on and dance around the living room, as long as nobody’s watching.
Monster month. It's my 18th birthday and I'm counting the days before graduation. It's the spring semester and I still have an English class requirement for graduation and decide to take a literature class with Miss Dunn. A pretty and spunky little redhead is sitting right behind me everyday now in class. Her name is Mary Kit and I love that name as she'll quickly correct anyone that calls her, "Mary."
We are starting to strike up a daily conversation. She quickly works out a routine of leaning forward and talking to me as I don't turn around to attract attention to Miss Dunn, she's reading passages from To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, I'm hatching a plan that we sit together in the Ethel Pope Auditorium to watch the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, as Miss Dunn has planned this as a culminating event to the Harper Lee classic.
Mary Kit's a Junior but I find out soon enough that she's graduating a year early and my fascination is increasing by the day as I can't wait for the few moments before and after English class to have a little face to face conversation with my new friend. Sitting directly behind Mary Kit is her best friend, Valerie and when Miss Dunn breaks us off into small discussion groups, we quickly form our little triangle.
At some point, I find out she's Judge Smith's daughter and I'm thinking, am I way out of my league to ask her out?
Many of the tunes in the playlist this month are all over the radio and the association of meeting Mary Kit and hearing these songs in that spring and summer of 1973 are seared into my brain forever. Pink Floyd's, The Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin's, Houses of the Holy, and the Doobie Brother's, The Captain and Me, playing on KUHL FM. So I'm driving to the southside of town to get gas for .25 cents a gallon, listening to the car radio in my 1957 MGA convertible, and I'm thinking about that girl.
Amazingly enough, I don't have a picture of that car, but here's a 1961 I found on the Internet that had the same deep green color. I bought mine for $600 my Junior year in high school, and all I wanted in life at the time, was to have a girl in the passenger seat.
From a music standpoint, listening to all the Rock, Folk and R&B from fifty years ago always has it's wonderful surprises. In 1973, I never listened to Tom Waits debut album, Closing Time. I don't have to tell you it's a classic like the car above, as I couldn't get enough of listening to the entire album this past week. It's ironic that I am now listening to digital streaming music made from 50 to 60 year old vinyl records. The early 70's had such fantastic singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson who had that early 20th century upright piano playing and singing style that goes with a cold beer sitting in a bar. Raise a glass to Tom Waits and Closing Time!
Lots of little gems here, but I found myself also listening to the Faces, Ooh La La. This would be the Faces last album as Rod Stewart broke up one of the truly great rock 'n' roll bands seeking his own fame and fortune.
I also gave some extra listening time to Fleetwood Mac's Penguin, as one of my favorite's, Danny Kirwan was fired from the band while on their Bare Trees album tour for his out of control behavior. Bob Welch would suddenly take on a more important central role on Penguin and in a band that had a knack for losing great musicians only to replace them with newer great musicians.
Enjoy my friends, and thanks to Monday Monday's spunky little editor for proofreading this publication every week. It's been 50 years in the making. And, Happy 68th birthday to the Ol' 55 who writes this rag.
I was thinking about Brian Jones the other day when The Rolling Stones song, Around and Around came on. He drowned in his swimming pool in 1969 and it was described in the coroner's report as, "death by misadventure." Brian Jones was 27 years old and kicked off the whole modern era of the 27 Club of deaths by misadventure.
Now you might think that's an interesting blog post to write about, but I just wasn't in the mood to write about a drug related death this week, or next. But, Brian did get me thinking about musical artists who have recently died and basically made it well into their 70's and beyond.
Burt Bacharach's recent death at 94 hit me this past week. It was a bit of a delayed reaction on my part, but I started playing songs by famous people like Dionne Warwick and Jackie DeShannon who were made famous by the sheer splendor of Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs. So I thought what a great blog that would make, and then, didn't have the writer's drive to do it, probably some day.
I then thought about David Crosby, but then, nah. Although through it all, he still had the sweetest singing voice ever, right up to the end. How was he not in the 27 Club? Second only to Keith Richards to dodge that distinction.
Then, I thought about Christine McVie and how she was always my favorite Fleetwood Mac member of the second iteration of the band starting in 1975. Then I thought about Peter Green and Danny Kirwan in the first iteration of Fleetwood Mac and how I loved those guys too!
Oh, and I can't forget Jeff Beck and what a wonderful playlist that would make, or Jimmy Seals from Seals and Crofts, or the wonderful wonderful Tom Petty, I'm still not over that one.
Then, I started listening to my almost finished #BestSongIHeardToday Vol. 20 and thought, "hell that will do" as half the people I listen to in my 30,000+ Amazon Music app are already dead. All I have to do is switch out about 10 songs and put some more dead musicians in, and I'm good to go!
and this just in, and now a regular event for us rockin' rollers
David Perry Lindey (March 21, 1944 - March 3, 2023)
Bonus this week, all songs are videos! Enjoy the playlist my friends.
Thinking about Gary Hill thinking about Duane Allman.
Within a genre of music you're going to encounter, sameness. As a big fan of rock 'n' roll back in the 60's and 70's there were always the imitators. This continues today as many young artists fall into the stereotypical pattern of sameness all trying to relight that spark of familiar hits by previous artists.
In listening to modern streaming genre playlists with titles like, "Fresh Folk," "Emerging Americana," and "All New Indie," I find that they just seem to perpetuate homogenous grouping of young artists and their niche songs. I'm totally showing my age here, but how many solo droning self-indulgent "smelly cat" artists can there be on a new songs streaming playlist? This past week I kept saying to myself, where have all the bands gone?
In any event, it's getting to be a bit of a grind, as I don't have the time I did a few years ago to do a deep dive hunt for rock 'n' roll and Americana and put a monthly 50+ playlist together. So I'm going to just roll with it. If it takes me two or three months to put a worthy new playlist together with a little musical diversity, then that's where I'm at with my taste in music in 2023.
There are so many young talented artists I have discovered for myself in the past eight years and shared with my dedicated little group of Monday Monday listeners that I will alway keep this #NewMusicMonday series going. So even though I'm basically saying that the new gems are further distanced from each other these days, it's probably the same feeling I had back in the late 1970's too.
Enjoy my friends. There's people like (header above left to right) Andrew Bird, Bonny Light Horseman, Joy Oladokun, The Lemon Twigs, Caitlin Rose, and (below them) the Milk Carton Kids out there making great new music.
We got a couple of big debut rock 'n' roll albums coming next month, but in this journey of 1960's music we are going to encounter albums in months like this. I call these albums, "Under the Influence" to the up and coming stars of the 1960's who had their musical roots in the 1940's and 50's of popular music. These songs embody the fabulous popular singers, musicals and movie scores, soul, R&B and jazz of the time. The mix is all American. As an 8 year old in 1963, these eclectic vibes would not be appreciated until I got older, but they were absorbed instantly and are forever in my soul. Hearing these songs sixty years later, I easily slip into my childhood Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star sneakers and Sony transistor radio.
In listening to the albums of February, 1963 I got a sense that the songs of that time have a door opening with one foot in the 1950's and one stepping into the 1960's.
In 2018, I finally got to see Paul Simon and it was an exceptional evening. One song that I will always remember from that concert was Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War. The song gives tribute to some of Simon's 1950's heroes of R&B harmony-
So in listening to music of February 1963, this Paul Simon song came rushing up to me. It may seem a bit out of place to put this video here, but maybe you'll get my connection after hearing this song, maybe not. From my experience, the song's a link to 1950's R&B and the appreciation of the sweet harmonies that so greatly influenced a young Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Enjoy the playlist my friends, it will take you back.
This post just kind of came together in my head after hearing about a father's illness, and then my thoughts about family love.
After hearing about this illness, three songs appeared to me in a clear sequence. I'm not a scriptwriter, but I saw these songs as three connected themes that could provide a treatment or outline for a story or movie.
The first song is Father and Daughter by Paul Simon. It's song is about Simon's hopes and dreams for his daughter Lulu who was seven years old at the time he wrote it. I'm a father of two daughters, two step-daughters, a daughter in law and four granddaughters. The song is an ongoing favorite of mine that keeps its relevance to me from Simon's first recording of it in 2002 for the animated film, The Wild Thornberrys Movie.
Father and Daughter
If you ever awake
In the mirror of a bad dream
And for a fraction of a second,
You can't remember where you are
Just open your window
And follow your memories
Upstream
To the meadow in the mountain
Where we counted every falling star
I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
(Forever)
And though I can't guarantee there's nothing scary
Hidin' under your bed
I'm gonna
Stand guard
Like the postcard
Of the golden retriever
And never leave
'Til I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head
I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you always know
As long as one and one is two
Ooh ooh
There could never be a father
Love his daughter more than I love you
Trust your intuition
It's just like going fishin'
You cast your line and
Hope you get a bite
But you don't need to waste your time
Worryin' about the marketplace
Trying to help the human race
Struggling to survive
It's as harsh as night
I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you always know
As long as one and one is two
Ooh ooh
There could never be a father
Love his daughter more than I love you
I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you always know
As long as one and one is two
Ooh ooh
There could never be a father
Love his daughter more than I love you
I picked this live version because it's done so wonderfully, but also was recorded with Paul having a few less hairs and a few more gray hairs on his head.
The second song is Blue Heron by Sarah Jarosz written in 2021 for the album, Blue Heron Suite. This album and song struck a chord with me as Sarah reflects on the many walks with her mother on the southern coast line and their sightings of blue herons. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 (now in full remission in 2021).
In a 2021 interview in Paste magazine Sarah states, “I’m very symbol-oriented, and a lot of that comes from my mom. She’s the one who believes in good omens and bad omens and all these personal things. And the blue heron has always been a good-omen symbol for her and for our family, so I kind of gravitated toward that symbol pretty naturally.”
In 2021, my wife had a new medical condition for a short time. Coincidentally, One day on a walk together through our neighborhood I spotted an actual size 3D replica of a blue heron in a front bay window of a house. I thought, "Now that's a very interesting display." I told my wife, Mary Kit that this random walk-by was a sign of fantastic good luck for her and told her about Sarah Jarosz and her mother. For the next several weeks on our walks, we made it a habit to walk by that bay window and feel the blue heron's positive vibe. Several months later, Mary Kit's condition was gone.
Blue Heron
We were walking
On the coastline
And I wondered
If this could be the last time
Then I took your
Fragile hand into mine
And we talked of
All the good times
It was early
Morning sunrise
When we caught that
Shimmering in her eyes
And she told us
Everything would be fine
And we walked together
In the low tide
Blue heron
Flying overhead
Keeping watch over you
Blue heron
Standing on the shore
While we wandered all along
That southern coastline
We were walking
On the coastline
And you told me
It wouldn't be the last time
Then I took your strong hand into mine
And we walked together in the low tide
Blue heron
Flying overhead
Keeping watch over you
Blue heron
Standing on the shore
You never know if there'll be more
So we'll wander all along
The southern coastline
The third song is Life According to Raechel by Madison Cunningham from her 2022 album, Revealer. However, I first heard this song in January of 2021 as she put it up on YouTube as a Covid home recording. I then put it on a #NewMusicMonday post and my friend, Paul Hobbs went bonkers over this song. Needless to say, we're now both big fans of hers, but it was Paul's great ear to get me back listening to this song many times, on a much deeper level.
Life According To Raechel is a very personal song about Madison's grandmother passing. Madison has now sung this song many times on various media outlets and TV talk shows and for me, it was my favorite song of 2022.
Ever hear a song that makes you cry no matter how many times you've heard it, well Life According to Raechel does that to me. I can now get through the album recording and TV versions, but that first home demo is the take for me, it slays me everytime.
It also completes a life cycle through song of this little trilogy of love.
Life According To Raechel
Once your girl
I'm always your girl
When I'm here or when I'm there
Or on a plane headed somewhere
You were staring down the cars
Hoping it would be one of ours
Children and grandchildren writing you cards
But how long were you waiting for me
To make a left down your street?
It's not if, darling it's when
Was there something left unsaid?
Were your eyes green, were they blue?
What was it that I forgot to ask you?
Busy hands, I'll set 'em down
To say I love you right out loud
I'll bet you're making heaven laugh
But it feels like tears and memories are all we have
I love to run and have been doing it fairly consistently since I was 18 years old. Now it's a slow jog, I call it "slogging." I can't remember when I created this graphic, but it was back when I was still running half marathons. I don't do that now.
But, I still pick em up and put them down at about 4.3 miles per hour. See, I had some foresight with this Team Tortoise concept. Not that it was something I would grow (or slow) into, I was never a hare. It's more of a lifestyle thing, Team Tortoise... in the long run of life. I even still have the website I created way back when, Team Tortoise.org.
What brings me back to another Team Tortoise episode is my latest slogging gear item, something I never heard of before until I did an Amazon search... a bump cap.
A bump cap is a light-weight plastic skull cap helmet hiding inside a baseball style hat. (Here's a link on Amazon $21, I got the blue long-billed one.) It's used primarily in industry jobs where a hard hat isn't required, like this mechanic working under a car in a repair shop. Or, like when you're working in your attic with a sloped ceiling, and the language you use when you bump your head on a wooden beam. Bet you wish you had this appropriately named cap on your head in that kind of situation.
I bought one like the fellow here, but it's not for working on cars, it's what I'm calling, my "joggin noggin." See I run in a canyon trail near my house filled with embedded rocks sticking up from the dirt that every now and then act like little snipers, tripping me up and taking me down.
So now my Team Tortoise get-up is complete with a protective-like tortoise shell, just like my slow mascot friend. I've taken it out on a couple of runs and it breathes fairly well, but with a bit more sweat too. I don't care, it has an adjustable safety snug fit with a little more of a conehead look than I'd like. From the vanity perspective, it beats wearing a bicycle helmet and some wiseguy on the trail saying, "Did you lose your bike?" This weekend, with the sun at my back and my shadow ahead of me, I looked like an oversized (Laffit Pencay Jr.) in a jockey helmet riding a retired Budweiser Clydesdale.
Wait, I hear trumpets and an announcer over a PA...
"And now for the 3rd race at this year's Del Mar Boomers Cup is Dough Boy slowly lining up in the last stall... And they're off with a lively field getting a fast start... Oh and I must say, they're leaving poor Dough Boy in a cloud of dust and YouTube music videos."
In talking to buddy Ron Zieman about this a couple of weeks ago, we both agreed that our future official old man walking outfit might look something like this.
Looks like I need to play a little catch up with #NewMusicMonday as it last appeared on Monday Monday Music back in October, 2022.
I've been thinking about David Crosby's passing and his exceptional gift for singing harmony. I finish the playlist with his 2021 cover of Joni Mitchell's, For Free with Sarah Jarosz.
I then started stumbling across fairly new songs with harmony typically featuring a guest singer. Speaking of featured guests, it must be a new rule to have Phoebe Bridgers as a featured artist on your new song. She must be the new Michael McDonald of guest appearances on songs for the 2020's. However, I must say, Brandi Carlile is probably a close contender for the featured singer title too as she's seems to be everywhere.
It's so hard to find rock 'n' roll bands these days that bring something new with my classic jingle-jangle taste. I've been playing new Sloan songs over the past several months and decided to feature the October, 2022 release of their 13th album, Steady here. It's all right there in the title.
Enjoy the playlist my friends. If you're new to Monday Monday Music playlists, they're different than what you'll find in the sameness of the streaming services in their genre playlists like Indie and Folk.
Left to Right - Booker T. Jones, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper, and Al Jackson Jr.
I had the pleasure to see Booker T. Jones perform just last Saturday with his current band at the Edmonds Center for the Arts in Edmonds, Washington. The show is titled, Booker T: Note by Note - 60 Years of "Green Onions" and STAX Hits.
The show was fantastic! My wife and I went with her daughter Abby and husband Spencer. This is just another example of how powerful the music of the 1960's is spanning the generations and living 60 years on. Let me tell you, Booker T. never disappoints, surrounding himself with younger musicians, including his son Teddy on electric guitar, a top notch rhythm section to replicate the MG's sound, and three wonderful singers to relive the Stax records hits.
My seat, second row center. I could feel the bass and drum kit hit my chest.
I was so excited to hear Booker T. play his Hammond B3 organ with cabinet Leslie speakers (positioned left and right on stage). Many players prefer to play the Hammond through a rotating speaker cabinet known as a Leslie speaker, and named after its inventor Donald J. Leslie. The typical Leslie system is an integrated speaker/amplifier combination in which sound is emitted by a rotating horn over a stationary treble compression driver, and a rotating baffle beneath a stationary bass woofer. This creates a characteristic sound because of the constantly changing pitch shifts that result from the Doppler effect created by the moving sound sources. (Wikipedia)
Note- The godfather of the Hammond B3 is Jimmy Smith who greatly influenced Booker T. and a generation of R&B musicians as Smith is responsible for creating the link between jazz and 1960's soul music.
Note2- Friend Ron Zieman had a Hammond C3 with Leslie cabinet speaker and I just loved to hear that whirring organ sound!
Here's a little background on Booker T. & The MG's formed in 1962 by Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper.
In the early 1960's, The band is part of a group of house session musicians at Stax Records in Memphis. They would also be one of the first integrated bands to play live at gigs all over the country. These four guys are musician's musicians who would be idolized by more famous and wealthy artists all over the world.
Booker T. Jones, born November 12, 1944 (78) in Memphis, Tennessee. Jones was musically a child prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, double bass, and piano at school and organ at church. Jones attended Booker T. Washington High School.
Jones's entry into professional music came at the age of 16, when he played baritone saxophone on Satellite (soon to be Stax) Records' first hit, "Cause I Love You", by Carla and Rufus Thomas. Willie Mitchell hired Jones for his band, in which Jones started on sax and later moved to bass. It was here that he met Al Jackson Jr., whom he brought to Stax.
While hanging around the Satellite Record Shop run by Estelle Axton, co-owner of Satellite Records with her brother Jim Stewart, Jones met record clerk Steve Cropper. Besides Jones on organ and Cropper on guitar, Booker T. and the MGs featured Lewie Steinberg on bass guitar and Al Jackson Jr. on drums (Donald "Duck" Dunn eventually replacing Steinberg on bass in 1965). While still in high school, Jones co-wrote the group's classic instrumental "Green Onions", which was a massive hit in 1962. (Wikipedia)
Steve Cropper, born October 21, 1941 (age 81) in Dora Missouri, but most importantly moved to Memphis, Tennessee at age 9. In Memphis, Cropper was exposed to black church music saying it, "Blew me away" and motivated him to purchase his first guitar at 14. Rolling Stone has ranked Steve Cropper as the 36th greatest guitar player on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Players.
Donald "Duck" Dunn, born November 24, 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dunn a boyhood friend of Cropper started playing bass as Cropper started playing guitar with other friends and formed bands in high school. The two would be signed to local Stax Records and became part of the house band and helped form the "Stax sound" in the 1960's. Duck Dunn is ranked number 40 on Bass Player magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time." He died in his sleep in 2012 after playing a gig in Japan with Steve Cropper.
Albert J. Jackson Jr., born November 27, 1935 in Memphis, Tennessee. Jackson's father, Al Jackson Sr., led a jazz/swing dance band in Memphis, Tennessee. The young Jackson started drumming at an early age and began playing on stage with his father's band in 1940, at the age of five (Wikipedia). By 14, Al Jackson had established himself as an exceptional drummer and was called, "The Human Timekeeper." Sadly, Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in 1975 in a mysterious home robbery that had connections to his estranged wife at the time.
In the early 60's instrumental "surf" bands were quite popular with bands like the Chantays (Pipeline) and The Surfaris (Wipe Out) generating big hit singles. On the R&B side, Stax records started having big hits with singers like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Eddie Floyd, the Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, Delaney & Bonnie and many others. Backing many of these sessions were a tight group of young musicians that would soon create a new mainstream of cross-over instrumental R&B.
In the summer of 1962, 17-year-old keyboardist Booker T. Jones, 20-year-old guitarist Steve Cropper, and two seasoned players, bassist Lewie Steinberg and drummer Al Jackson Jr. (the latter making his debut with the company) were in the Memphis studio to back the former Sun Records star Billy Lee Riley. During downtime, the four started playing around with a bluesy organ riff. Jim Stewart, the president of Stax Records, was in the control booth. He liked what he heard, and he recorded it. Cropper remembered a riff that Jones had come up with weeks earlier, and before long they had a second track.
Stewart wanted to release the single with the first track, "Behave Yourself", as the A-side and the second track as the B-side. Cropper and radio disc jockeys thought otherwise; soon, Stax released Booker T. & the M.G.'s' "Green Onions" backed with "Behave Yourself". In conversation with BBC Radio 2's Johnnie Walker, on his show broadcast on September 7, 2008, Cropper recalled that the record became an instant success when DJ Reuben Washington, at Memphis radio station WLOK, played it four times in succession, before the track or even the band had a name. For the rest of the day, people were calling in to the station, asking if the record was out yet.
The single went to number 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart and number 3 on the pop chart. It sold over one million copies and was certified a gold disc.
Now in all the years since I first heard Green Onions as a seven year old on AM radio, I have never heard anyone say they didn't like Booker T. & The MG's. Everybody loves Booker T. & The MG's. Like instrumental surfer music, The MG's R&B instrumentals never seem to tire with the public.
I've also never purchased a instrumental surfer album, or Booker T. & The MG's album. Why? I'm not the first to say that their songs are so strong individually but seem a little boxed in an album. It seems for my taste, the individual songs work better as singles or play well within a mixtape or playlist rather than a connected album.
I hope you enjoy this playlist of 60+ songs of the group going back to that first big hit in 1962. Once I put the playlist together, I found myself going to a song and then skipping down to something else. In any event, I now have a playlist of their tunes that I will tap into for years to come as songs I will use in future playlists. BTW, my favorite Booker T. & The MG's song is Time is Tight.
Enjoy this wonderful band and their timeless instrumentals my friends.
In my Fifty Years of Music series I'm beginning to encounter months like January, 1973 where bands like Aerosmith emerge onto the scene and my jingle-jangle rock 'n' roll bands are fading.
In going over all the albums released in January, 1973 and only the three above stick out. The Kinks album is basically a compilation of mostly unreleased songs so I added it because I'm such a Kinks fan. Since I'm talking about the Kinks first, I'll point out one song that is actually one of my favorite Kinks songs, the B-side to their 1966 hit single, Sunny Afternoon. So on the '73 compilation album, The Great Lost Kinks Album isa throw away The Kinks provided to Reprise Records to fulfill their contract before they moved over to RCA, Ray Davies includes that B-side single, I'm Not Like Everybody Else. Now instead of playing that version here, I'm going to play you a wonderful live version of the song recorded in 1996 and part of the 2 CD release in the U.S. called To The Bone. I guess this paragraph makes my point, in looking for songs...
In January 1973, I'm back from Christmas break and ready to knock out four and a half months of my senior year in high school and get out of that place as soon as possible.
I won't know who Gram Parson is at that time, but his 1973 debut solo album is one of those harbinger albums that introduces Emmy Lou Harris on the scene and beats most of the Country music albums made at that time. Merle Haggard was going to produce this album, but backed out at the last minute, maybe he knew this was a change he couldn't be part of for whatever reason. Gram's flame would end up burning out way too fast with his death from an overdose of morphine and alcohol in September of 1973 at the tender age of 26.
Let me just say, thank god for Elton John to emerge in the 1970's. His sixth album, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player is his second straight Number 1 album. I have included the entire album here, but feel free to skip his big hits Daniel and Crocodile Rock if you suffer from their overplay or as I say, "Ruined by Radio." There's a lot of great songwriting here as Bernie and Reg are at the top of their game!
Also, as a departure from my usual mix of mixing all the songs from all the albums together, I'll play these first three featured albums here, and then add some other songs from January 1973 you may remember when rock was becoming not so young.
Friends, have I got a solution to help in these cold winter days (says the guy from San Diego) to keep you warm and help your lower back stay loose and seizing up in pain.
It's a mix of something old with a little technology thrown in there too.
Introducing my new little friend, the Sunbeam GO HEAT, USB Powered Heating Pad.What's nice about this heating pad is its portability, I can take it anywhere! Lately, I've been working long hours in front of my computer and my lower back has been paying the price. I have an electric sit/stand desk that's a tremendous help but not enough to prevent my old lower back pain from roaring back to say, "Ha Ha, I'm still here!"
It has a male USB plug to plug in a variety of power sources. It comes with a 4ft. USB male/female extension cable, but I bought another 10ft. male/female extension cable so I can stand up and move around a little bit without unplugging.
Note- Woman not included
I also have several USB portable power banks for my phone, so I've even worn it on walks outside too.
I shopped around on Amazon and found this Sunbeam heating pad to be the most affordable solution for my situation ($27.99).
The music this week is still mostly from my trail runs. But it's funny, sometimes I come home from a run to review and pick what's going to be in the playlist, and it doesn't play like I heard it on the trail? Not that it's so different, just that it doesn't move me like when I was running. Must be the "endolphin rush" (old mispronunciation joke from Postcards From The Edge), I mean endorphins kicking in. Anyway, I'll go to YouTube, be unimpressed with the song I think is going to make the playlist and get pointed to something else... Squirrel!
January 2 – Mary Kit Smith celebrates her seventh birthday.
January 3 – The Beatles begin their first tour of 1963 with a five-day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single, "Love Me Do", beginning with a performance in Elgin. January 7 – Gary U.S. Bonds files a $100,000 lawsuit against Chubby Checker, claiming that Checker stole "Quarter to Three" and turned it into "Dancin' Party." The lawsuit is later settled out of court. January 11 – "Please Please Me" is released in the United Kingdom by the Beatles, with "Ask Me Why" as the B-side. January 12 – Bob Dylan portrays a folk singer in The Madhouse of Castle Street, a radio play for the BBC in London. February 16 - The Beatles achieve their first No. 1 hit single, when "Please Please Me" tops the charts in the UK. February 22 – The Beatles form Northern Songs Publishing Company. March 5 – 1963 Camden PA-24 crash: Patsy Cline is killed in small plane crash near Camden, Tennessee, while on her way to Nashville, Tennessee, from Kansas City, Missouri, at the height of her career, together with Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins. March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the UK.
In 1963, music singles are king. In looking at the singles recorded in 1963 it was amazing to see that many were released just a month later. The mentality was, get it out there, and then, get another one out there. Kids were buying 45's with the marketed 'hit' on the A side, and then typically a deeper cut on the B side that would eventually be part of a released album coming soon. (The Beatles would later buck that trend, but that's a story for another day.)
In January 1963, I'm seven years old and mostly unaware of the pop music around me other than hearing songs on the radio. My parents were not listening or buying any kind of records and the only music I heard live was the singing of 1850's white hymns in church. I loved that part of the service because you got to get up and stretch your legs, fidget about and do something besides sit and listen to some old man talking. My mom said to me when I was in my 30's, "Why didn't any of you kids continue to go to church?" Yeah mom, I wonder why? Now maybe if I'd gone to a black church where they were singing and moving to gospel music...
Another memory. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass were big on the radio in the early and mid-sixties. Hearing The Lonely Bull this past week hit me like a lightning bolt where I'm in a downtown shop with my mom probably W. A. Haslam's and that song is playing through their sound system.
This past week, I watched on Hulu, If These Walls Could Sing - Mary McCartney's 2022 documentary on Abbey Road Studios' 90 year history with a big chunk involving her father. I highly recommend it as it will get you thinking about the Brian Epstein and George Martin connection, and the rest as they say is history.
This is my last blog post of 2022 and I'm happy to say I will be back next year with a new music post every Monday morning if the fates and YouTube allow. In fact, I'm on a bit of a streak. For the last two years, I've posted a blog every Monday! Take a look at my Blog Archive on the right sidebar here and you will see I've been pretty steady since 2019 at getting a blog post out for almost all 52 weeks.
In January 2023, I start a new monthly series, 60 Years of Music • (Month), 1963. I discovered in my use of Wikipedia that in 1963 rock 'n' roll and folk music were growing so fast that Wikipedia starts to curate new album releases on a monthly basis. I'll be using 1963 in Music as my guide to return to my childhood at eight years of age, and maybe just a few years up or down from your age at that time, or if you're much younger and like the vibe here. I'm excited to chronicle the 1960's in music and bridge my blog posts and series leading up to 1963.
In the right sidebar, you will also see my Under The Influence series that covers songs from 1949-1962.
I'll still cover Fifty Years of Music on a monthly basis continuing with January, 1973 and leading up to my graduation from high school that year.
And still, I will cover #NewMusicMonday every month where I attempt to capture new rock 'n' roll and Americana (Folk) albums, song, covers, and YouTube videos.
So just like last week where I poured over all my monthly Fifty Years of Music from 1972 and presented My Favorite Songs of 1972, I've done the same right here for all my #NewMusicMonday(s) in 2022.
I've also taken a look at some other music magazines 'Best of 2022' in music and I must say, my 2022 playlist is just as worthy. If you like folk-Americana-indie and some good ol' rock 'n' roll here's a playlist to take you through the end of the year.
Enjoy my friends! Happy New Year and catch a whole new year of Monday Monday Music posts, starting January 2nd.
I'm keeping the streak alive, look out Cal Ripken Jr....
The Class of 1972 is a special group of people to me. I was a year younger and it seemed miles behind from the grade just in front of me. From my first neighborhood chums on West Sunset Street, my first girlfriend, and then the best life-long friends a fellow could ever have, mostly born in 1953-1954.
I remember being a lowly 7th grader at Fesler Junior High School, the 8th graders were so much cooler, the girls cuter. My next door neighbor was in 8th grade and before I knew it, I was hanging out with his pals.
In high school, the class of 72 was way cooler than my class of 73. I quit their redneck football and baseball after my freshman year and started hanging with the longer-haired sophomores. When they all graduated in the summer of 72, I missed seeing them my senior year around campus.
After school we would connect and continue our now religious practice of listening to music together. The mantra of "Drugs, Sex and Rock 'n' Roll" was a bit out of my league at that time. Well, one out of three ain't bad.
Here's a bunch (191) of my favorite songs from 1972 from even cooler people born in the 1940's singing to us younger wannabees born in the 1950's.
I love Christine McVie.Most people only know of Christine McVie from the most famous years of Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham starting in 1975 and through the 80's.
Before the mega-rock-star years, Christine Perfect had burst onto the music scene in 1967 joining the British Blues band, Chicken Shack. As fortune would have it, another British Blues band called Fleetwood Mac often played the same gigs as Chicken Shack. In time, Perfect started playing with Fleetwood Mac as a contract session player in 1968.
That all changed in 1970 when Christine married bass player John McVie and joined Fleetwood Mac full-time that same year.
As a side note- The founder of Fleetwood Mac was guitarist Peter Green. Green named the band Fleetwood Mac after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie by simply combining their two names together. In the annals of rock and roll history, I find this to be one of the most generous offerings ever by a leader of a rock 'n' roll band. Sadly, Peter Green would leave Fleetwood Mac in 1970 with a steady decline in his mental health.
I became a fan of Fleetwood Mac in 1971 with the arrival of their 5th album, Future Games. The album includes several songs written by Christine, but the one that kind of got me attracted to her as a singer-songwriter is Show Me A Smile. The song's indicative of what would become McVie's writing style of tight pop classics always surrounded by the wonderful guitar playing of Danny Kirwan, Bob Welch, and later of course with Lindsey Buckingham.
In 1972, Fleetwood Mac released, Bare Trees one of my all-time favorite albums, the cover is even exquisite. Christine would contribute Homeward Bound, basically her dislike of touring, and the song that send me over the moon with my love for this woman, Spare Me A Little Of Your Love. Such a wonderful song that I never get tired of listening to, a complete gem by the band. Christine's voice is so understated and evenly beautiful and I became a big fan of her and the band. To have this woman in your band would be like having Lou Gehrig in your baseball lineup. Christine McVie simply took a 60's British Blues band to another level, a more popular level.
The enduring thing I want to say about Christine McVie is her great ability to be a team player. In 1975, how many lead women would openly accept another beautiful woman and the dynamo of Stevie Nicks in their band? I would say, not many. Christine's openness to accept Stevie and let her fly in Fleetwood Mac is just another reason to love Christine McVie.
Christine McVie stayed with Fleetwood Mac through thick and thin from 1968-1998. She then took a 15 year retirement and came back rested and strong in 2013 for even more band drama. Now that's rock 'n' roll stamina and a testament to my unwavering admiration for the greatest generation of musicians born in the 1940's.
In August of 1975, I saw Fleetwood Mac for the first time with my girlfriend, Mary Kit Smith and what would be a lifelong friendship with dorm mate, Mark Hunter. It was their first tour of the NEW Fleetwood Mac with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Mick Fleetwood needed a new guitarist and wanted Buckingham alone. Lindsey insisted that his girlfriend Stevie join the band or he wouldn't. Fleetwood Mac played at the old Balboa Stadium in San Diego. They played songs from their newly released, self-titled album, Fleetwood Mac (almost like telling the public it was their first album). That album would be the soundtrack of my 1975-76 dorm year at San Diego State. At Balboa Stadium, on a clear summer day, Christine McVie and her band were making history and I will never forget seeing her singing at her station at the electric keyboard.
Mary Kit and I saw Fleetwood Mac several more times over the years and on December 8, 2018 we saw them for the last time with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn in the band. That was a great show with the band still rolling after all the their changes. I end the playlist with a fan's video in Pittsburgh on that same tour with Chris and Stevie closing the show with a duet of a Christine McVie song, All Over Again.
The playlist is mostly a chronological order starting with Christine in Chicken Shack, her first solo album in 1970, and then through her songs in Fleetwood Mac. In the end, I added a few solo album hits, and her wonderful 2017 duo album with Lindsey Buckingham including, and not to ever forget, the rock solid percussion section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie always driving the band.
Enjoy this selection of this truly gifted woman's songs to the world, as I'm sure, you love her too. Rest in peace Chris.
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