THIS WEEK 20 YEARS AGO - FEBRUARY 1987

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Looking back twenty years, it seems rather obvious that the music dating from February 1987 was nearly schizophrenic in nature. The pop charts and album charts were pushing and pulling in too many directions at once, trying hard to be everything to everybody, all at once. Coupled with the lure of MTV, it was nearly impossible to avoid the biggest hits, but as usual, the real story resided away from the top 10, as today’s show makes quite evident.
We start today’s program by counting through the top 10 albums, playing excerpts here and there, and then we play a few tracks from albums that missed the top 10 – the improvement in (lasting) quality is immediately discernible. We then do more or less the same thing with the singles charts, with similar results.
Here’s a list of songs covered in today’s program;

ALBUM TRACKS
1) Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi
2) No Sleep Til Brooklyn– The Beastie Boys
3) Nobody’s Fool – Cinderella
4) The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby
5) Keep Your Hands to Yourself – Georgia Satellites
6) September Gurls – The Bangles
7) September Gurls – Big Star
8) Amanda – Boston
9) Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes – Los Lobos
10) One Time One Night – Los Lobos

SINGLE TRACKS
1) Jacob’s Ladder – Huey Lewis & the News
2) Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
3) Sign O’ the Times - Prince

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 131 - DOC POMUS AND MORT SHUMAN

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In the late ‘50s, rock and roll appeared to be falling apart at the seams. What started out as a brilliant, defiant, youthful, rebellious and energetic medium had begun to atrophy. One at a time, the artists who made this timelessly exciting music either burned out or faded away; Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry were the victims of scandal, Little Richard abandoned music for religion, Elvis joined the army, and one cold night in 1957, a plane crash caused teenagers everywhere to mourn “the day the music died”. The scandalous nature of youthful rebellion appeared to have been quashed. Even the business of rock and roll was attacked mercilessly, through the reputed ‘scandal’ of payola (something that existed long before AND long after the onset of rock and roll).
In such a state of disrepair, the imminent demise of rock and roll seemed certain. While the recording artists floundered, it fell into the hands of the songwriters to salvage the spirit of rock and roll, most notably the teams of Lieber-Stoller and Pomus-Shuman. Both teams did some fabulous work (and Lieber-Stoller are covered in another episode of “How Music Changed”), but a hero was needed to fight the good fight. Somebody needed to represent the spirit and quality of this new type of music, and survive the onslaught of negativity from a staid and stale music industry. Doc Pomus, along with his partner Mort Shuman, understood the soulful nature of rock and roll, and set about providing the world with a soundtrack that would assure rock and roll’s survival – not just for a few years, but forever.
Pomus was an unlikely hero. As a lonely, teenaged Brooklyn Jew who suffered from polio and its crippling after effects, he found solace and strength in rhythm and blues music, and felt ‘transformed’ by it. He began this transformation as a performer, and had a fair degree of success, but he lacked marquee good looks and his crutches complicated things even further. He stuck it out for nearly ten years, and eventually turned his attention to songwriting. The results speak for themselves.
By providing songs of true brilliance, Pomus and Shuman kept the spirit of rock and roll alive, while nudging it toward the timeless beauty of rhythm and blues. In his later life, when lung cancer had him confined to a bed, he would write songs with Dr. John in between nearly daily visits from Lou Reed. His suffering and subsequent passing on March 14, 1991, provided much of the inspiration for Lou Reed’s magnificent album “Magic and Loss.” We dedicate today’s show to the timeless brilliance of songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Songs featured in today’s program include;

1) Lonely Avenue – Ray Charles
2) Teenager in Love – Dion & the Belmonts
3) Hushabye – The Mystics
4) (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame – Elvis Presley
5) A Mess of Blues – Elvis Presley
6) Little Sister – Elvis Presley
7) She’s Not You – Elvis Presley
8) Surrender – Elvis Presley
9) Viva! Las Vegas – Elvis Presley
10) Suspicion – Terry Stafford
11) Young Blood – The Coasters
12) This Magic Moment – The Drifters
13) Save the Last Dance for Me – The Drifters
14) I Count the Tears – The Drifters
15) Sweets for My Sweet – The Drifters
16) Can’t Get Used to Losing You – Andy Williams
17) Just to Walk That Little Girl Home - Mink DeVille
18) There Must Be a Better World Somewhere - Irma Thomas

FEBRUARY 1967 - THE ALBUMS

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Last week, we took a look at a few of the best singles from February 1967. If time allowed, we also would have covered a few album tracks as well. It so happens that most of 1967 is so fascinating from a musical perspective that we could never cover both of these perspectives in one hour. Therefore, we also dedicate today’s program to February 1967, but this time we take a look at album tracks.
Five significant albums made their debut or first appeared on the charts at this time. We feature a few tracks from each, as follows;
1) She – The Monkees (More of the Monkees)
2) Mary Mary – “ “
3) Hungry Freaks, Daddy – The Mothers of Invention (Freak Out!!)
4) Trouble Every Day - “ “
5) Connection – The Rolling Stones (Between the Buttons)
6) Cool, Calm, Collected - “ “
7) Que Vida! – Love (Da Capo)
8) She Comes in Colors - “ “
9) The End - The Doors (The Doors)

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 6c - THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES

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Well, here it is, our third and final episode discussing “The Birth of the Blues.” This has been a difficult and convoluted story and it required an awful lot of hard work, but it has also been very rewarding and a lot of fun. With today’s show, we attempt to bring together the various elements that we discussed in the first two episodes and show how they all began to coalesce, and were eventually popularized. In order for the blues to be spread beyond their original geographic boundaries, it took someone with the foresight to ‘formalize’ this music, put it into written form, and then have it published. W.C. Handy was in the right place at the right time. His own experience had exposed him to both the rural, countrified folk blues, and also to the formalized nature of European-based musical styles. By applying one to the other, he published a few ‘blues’ compositions that changed music as it had previously been experienced.
Here is a list of the songs covered in today’s program;

1) Fast Train – John Lee Thomas
2) Shortnin’/Henduck – Othar Turner & the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band
3) Coon Ci’nt (Coon Jine) – Sidney Strapling
4) Savassafool (Sebastapol) – Gus Gibson & Sidney Stripling
5) Mister Crump – W.C. Handy
6) Memphis Blues – Lieut. Jim Europe’s 39th Infantry band
7) Yellow Dog Blues – W.C. Handy
8) St. Louis Blues – W.C. Handy
9) St. Louis Blues – Bessie Smith
10) Long John – Lightning & Group
11) Long Gone – Louis Armstrong
12) Beale Street Blues – Nat King Cole
13) St. Louis Blues – Louis Armstrong

FEBRUARY 1967 - THE SINGLES

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Forty years have passed since February 1967, but the music holds up better than most stuff from twenty years ago – or even ten years ago. No doubt about it, 1967 was an incredible year. Month by month, the songs on the pop charts offered a barrage of innovation, and the burgeoning market for albums raised the ante even higher. The month of February 1967 saw so much great music debut that it would be well nigh impossible to cover all of it in a one-hour program. Rather than shortchange one of the most creative eras of our musical history, we will spend two weeks looking at the music from this remarkable era. For today’s show, we will focus on the pop songs that debuted during the month of February 1967. Next week, we will take a look at some of the most interesting album tracks of this same month.
Here’s a list of songs featured in today’s program;
1) I’m a Believer – The Monkees (#1 song for week of 2/11/1967)
2) Georgy Girl - the Seekers
3) The Beat Goes On - Sonny & Cher
4) We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet - Blues Magoos
5) 98.6 - Keith
6) Ruby Tuesday – The Rolling Stones
7) For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield
8) It Takes Two – Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
9) Pretty Ballerina – The Left Banke
10) Darling Be Home Soon – The Lovin’ Spoonful
11) I’ve Been Lonely Too Long – The Young Rascals
12) So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star - The Byrds

The Grammy Awards

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The Grammy Awards are once again upon us, and once again, I don’t have a clue what they are thinking. I’ve been through this dozens of times before, so this year, I’ve simply resigned myself to it. In the course of today’s show, Heidy, Mike and I review the top four major categories - Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist – then conclude with the ‘Best Rock Song’ category, simply because we couldn’t take it anymore.
Listen up, and let’s see which one of made the most correct picks!

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 6b - THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES

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This week, we continue our look at the “birth” of the blues with the second of our three-part series. To simplify a very complex subject, it could be said that the blues resulted by the combination of five distinct ingredients. Last week, we discussed two of them. First, we took a look at the overwhelming evidence indicating Islamic roots for the most basic of blues forms, the ‘field holler’. We then covered religious “shouts”, and jubilee singing, and their eventual use for secular purposes. Today, we look at two more elements – work songs and folk music. The influence of the work song is quite obvious, and we hope that the examples included herein will make that point quite plainly. European influence on the formation of the blues is not so readily acknowledged, but numerous pieces of evidence proves that it is almost equally difficult to deny. To make our point, we conclude today’s show by tracing the path of a European folk song originally entitled “The Maid Freed from the Gallows” as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean and is given a fierce, intensely revitalized performance by Leadbelly. Next week, we will cover the fifth element, dance music, and conclude with W.C. Handy and the first publication of blues-based material.
Here’s a list of material covered in today’s program;
1) Jump Down, Spin Around – Harry Belafonte
2) Pick a Bale of Cotton – Unknown Axe-Cutting Group
3) Poor Little Johnny – Harriet McClintock
4) One Morning at the Break of Day – S’crap Ir’n
5) I Got ‘Em (Street Cry) – Valentine Pringle (directed by Harry Belafonte)
6) Mississippi Sounding Calls – Joe Shores
7) Steamboat Days – John “Black Samson” Gibson
8) Steel-Laying Holler – Will Roseborough
9) The Dallas Railway – Augustus “Track Horse” Haggerty
10) Long John – Lightnin’ Washington & Group
11) Black Betty – James “Iron Head” baker
12) Black Betty – Ram Jam
13) Little Girl, Little Girl – Ora Dell Graham
14) Pullin’ the Skiff – Oira Dell Graham
15) Go To Sleep – Harriet McClintock
16) The Fox Hnter’s Song – Will Starks
17) The Maid Freed from the Gallows – John Jacob Niles
18) Mama Did You Bring Me any Silver – Leadbelly
19) Gallows Pole – Led Zeppelin

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 6a – THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES

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Of all the shows that we have planned for the “How Music Changed” series, we anticipate that none of them will pose as many challenges as “The Birth of the Blues.” There are two rather obvious reasons for this. The first and most blatant reason is that there is virtually no recorded evidence, because a) most of the timeframe we cover pre-dates the invention of sound recording, and b) few recordings exist afterward because ‘field’ recordings were deemed to have no commercial value. The second reason this show has been so difficult to produce is due to the enormity of the subject. The “Blues” managed to infiltrate virtually every music form in existence today, and the ingredients that caused the blues to gel into something definable are incredibly varied.
Since none of this was documented properly at the time, it is virtually impossible to speak with absolute authority about the birth of the blues. Most of what we understand is based mostly on conjecture, and on evidence that has since been provided. For clarity and perspective, it would be impossible to overstate the importance of the field recording work of John and Alan Lomax. Special thanks should also be directed to Harry Belafonte, whose own recreations of early African-American music styles provide incredible insight and clarity to a subject that has remained murky for more than 100 years.
I have dedicated a large portion of the past few months wading through endless field recordings, learning textual relationships, noting similarities and deriving conclusions based on what little authentic music actually exists. In essence, I have given myself quite an education on this subject. Now, I hope to share much of what I learned, over the course of this program. Because the subject matter is so important, and it warrants a reasonable amount of depth, “The Birth of the Blues” will be spread out over multiple segments. We will begin with the African and European roots that most likely spurred the blues into existence, and we will conclude with the first recognized blues artist, W.C. Handy. Here is the first part of “How Music Changed - Part 6a – The Birth of the Blues.”

Here are tracks featured in today’s show (the absence of artist names is due mostly to their obscurity);
1) The Birth of the Blues – Frank Sinatra
2) Muslim Call to Prayer
3) Levee Camp Holler
4) I Don’t Mind the Weather
5) It’s Better to Be Born Lucky
6) Ose Yie (Ashanti War Chant)
7) Ake (Yoruba Work Chant)
8) Hallie Rock
10) Amazing Grace, with ‘Prayer’
11) Amazing Grace – Mahalia Jackson
12) Rock Daniel, with Interview
15) Another Man Done Gone – Vera Ward Hall
16) Baby Please Don’t Go – Them, featuring Van Morrison
17) Trouble So Hard - Vera Ward Hall
18) Natural Blues - Moby