DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bob-dylan-favourite-john-prine-song/# Bob Dylan is one hell of a wordsmith. His ability to capture the mood of the times in just a handful of well-honed phrases once earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he initially turned down only to begrudgingly accept later down the line. One wonders if he rejected the honour out of fellow feeling for the great John Pri...

b. Timotea Aurro (a.k.a. Timi Yuro & Mrs Selnick), 4th August 1940, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. d. 30th March 2004, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. Timi Yuro moved to Los Angeles as a child (she was given the name Rosemary at birth, by her mother Edith). In the late 50's she was singing in her mother's Italian restaurant. Timi worked with Johnnie Ray , Phil Spector and Willie Nelson during h...

LET ME OFF UPTOWN by GENE KRUPA WITH ANITA O’DAY AND ROY ELDRIDGE (OKEH, 1941) This interpretation of this artifact can be as simple, or as complicated as one cares to make it. You can frame it as an anthem of solidarity, or as just another example of cultural appropriation. I choose the former.  Granted, here you have an all white swing band, led by the theatrically energetic trapster Gene Krupa,...

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/marsha-hunt-muse-mick-jagger-marc-bolan/ Although both Marc Bolan and Mick Jagger were philanderers in their own respect, there was one person, in particular, that seemed to captivate them: Marsha Hunt. Hunt is a 1960s icon, a model, singer, actress and novelist, and she had relationships with both the singers of the Rolling Stones and T-Rex. Hunt had been born in Phil...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/26/phil-ochs-the-doomed-folk-singer-who-woke-up-from-the-american-dream#:~:text=He%20died%20by%20suicide.,of%20his%20conviction%20came%20from. As a kid in the 1950s, Phil Ochs cut class and spent afternoons at the local movie house. The Searchers and Rebel Without a Cause were two of his favourites. Always a dreamer, Ochs fantasised that one day he could...

I WILL BE THERE by VAN MORRISON (Warner Bros., 1972) Van is a serious man. Frivolity is not his usual mode. His musical lexicon is expansive, but through every variety of expression, be it blues, jazz, country, or even skiffle, there is a bred in the bone seriousness of purpose that tells you that this gentleman means business. He can make me cry, dream, bop, stomp and shout, but rarely laugh. I w...

SHE’S A LATIN FROM MANHATTAN by Al Jolson,  ( From the film: “Go into Your Dance”, 1935) This song operates on a couple of levels: there is the theme of authenticity - someone pretending to be something they’re not, and then there is the encoded message of theatrical professionalism - a portrait of a denizen of Broadway, that golden place where exotic dreams become real, a meritocracy wherein an e...

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2022/films/personality-crisis-one-night-only/ ON SHOWTIME: MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS PERSONALITY CRISIS: ONE NIGHT ONLY Continuing his vibrant and invaluable documentaries about iconic American artists and musicians such as George Harrison: Living in the Material World, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, and the Fran Lebowitz portrait Public Speaking , Martin Scorsese turns...

I AIN’T GONNA MARRY by Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band with Maria Muldaur (From GARDEN OF JOY, Reprise 1967) I’ve always adored Maria Muldaur - we did a podcast on her previously - and, as an adolescent I would study her braided image on the cover of “Garden of Joy” with relish. She is mostly remembered for her radio hit “Midnight at the Oasis”, but her time with JIm Kweskin and the Jug Band was an u...

CBS Studio Nashville, TN,  May 3, 1969 CBS Studio B, NYC  May 1, 1970 The 1969 material includes: Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Billy Wotten (guitars) Marshall Grant (bass) W.S. Holland (drums). The 1970 sessions include: George Harrison (guitar) Charlie Daniels (bass & backing vocals) Billy Mundi (drums) *Bob Johnson (piano) Produced by Bob Johnson, this session was conducted three days afte...

This one gets a little contentious. Rich, never one to shy away from challenging conventional wisdom, puts up a strict gauntlet for me to defend my love of this admittedly middle-of-the spectrum Dylan classic.  But, I hold my ground valiantly because, since the age of 13, after first hearing this cut off my Columbia record club copy of "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits", I have pursued my...

PICK YOURSELF UP by Mel Torme (DCC Jazz, 1998) Life is a series of ups and downs - a continuous challenge to renew and reinvent yourself. You can be rolling along, on top of the world, then the next day become lost in a fog of turmoil. I have experienced this several times in my life, most bitterly in recent years. But, I am not alone in this - I believe it is a universally shared phenomenon - and...

Jackie "The K" Zeman, ex wife of the late and ultra great New York DJ Murray "The K"  Kaufman, AKA "The Fifth Beatle", has boarded The Mystery Train at 70 years of age. Jackie had been known over the past decades as Bobbi Spencer of "General Hospital" fame where she performed in 800 episodes. Murray left us in February of 1982. There's going to be a Dan...

BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN  BY BURL IVES (DECCA, 1956) I had a record when I was a kid called “Burl Ives Sings For Fun”, and it made such an impression on me that I can still recall all the songs. In fact, twenty years later, I won my first professional, New York acting job by auditioning with one of the tunes from that collection: The Fox….”The fox went out on the prowl one night, begged to the moon...

RING A DING DING TIME COME FLY WITH ME by Frank Sinatra (Capitol, 1958) This is my 100th episode, and it seems appropriate to end the Captain Billy series here with Frank Sinatra. The practice of going through my 8 track collection and luxuriating in the music of my youth has been a tonic, getting me through a season of grief and isolation. And, now, as I pack up my house of 26 years, parsing thro...

https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/gene-barge-42 Saxophonist, music producer and song writer Gene “Daddy G” Barge was born in Norfolk, Virginia on August, 9 1926. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and played clarinet in the school band. Barge then attended West Virginia State College where he first majored in architecture, but quickly switched to music because of his inter...

SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET  EPISODE 2: THE PINK PANTHER THEME by Henry Mancini (RCA, 1963) There is something irresistible about the creeping sax signature (swung by Plas Johnson), that gets me every time. Maybe it’s the accompanying cute image of that hapless, animated feline (so reminiscent of Wiley Coyote) curtesy of David DePatie and Fritz Freleng, that seals the delicious deal, but whatever the...

NO BERLIN NIGEL LIVED by Murray Head (Columbia 1973) Concept (with a capital C) album Nigel Lived was released in the same year as Lou Reed’s Berlin , and although neither one was deemed acceptable radio fare, and both are theatrically based, playing on disturbing subject matter, they are light years apart. Berlin has been recognized as a masterpiece, a gut-wrenching portrait of abuse, co-dependen...

A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY BY JACK TEAGARDEN (BRUNSWICK, 1933) I first heard the name Jack Teagarden from my junior high school bandmate, Bill Teagarden - (I can’t remember if he told me he WAS or WAS NOT related to the famous trombonist. In any case I don’t think I actually heard the man’s music until later in life when I scored a Time/LIfe 8 track collection of his work, which included this song...

JUST PLAIN BILL? JUST AS I AM by Bill Withers (Sussex, 1971) Bill Withers was uncategorizable. Was he a soul artist? A folk musician? A blues singer? He certainly was no pop star. He picked a nylon string guitar , for God’s sakes! But, even so, he was one of the most covered songwriters who ever plied the craft. His appeal was universal. There hasn’t been any aspiring singer, of any genre, who has...

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lonnie-mack-blues-rock-guitar-great-dead-at-74-178000/ LONNIE MACK , THE blues-rock pioneer who influenced an entire generation of guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, died Thursday at a medical facility near his home in Smithville, Tennessee. Mack was 74. Alligator Records confirmed the guitar great’s deat...

WHAT A CONCEPT! OGDENS’ NUT GONE FLAKE by Small Faces (1968, Immediate) You recognize the famous, round, Victorian, snuff tobacco tin cover? It was designed by Nick Twedell and Pete Brown, and announced to Acid heads everywhere that this album was going to be a trip to be reckoned with, and it did not disappoint. Thought by many to be the first Rock n Roll concept record, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake wa...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/the-gospel-according-to-mavis-staples Mavis Staples has been a gospel singer longer than Elizabeth II has worn the crown. During concerts, sometimes, she might take a seat and rest while someone in her band bangs out a solo for a chorus or two. No one minds. Her stage presence is so unfailingly joyful—her nickname is Bubbles—that you never take your ey...

NO ONE HIT WONDER FULFILLINGNESS FIRST FINALE by Stevie Wonder (Tamla, 1974) Thank the Lord for Stevie Wonder! He’s always been with me, energizing me with ecstatic revelations. His joyful music got me through adolescence and young manhood, providing spiritual sustenance and joy.  His massive cultural contribution cannot be done justice in a short essay - only obeisance. And, of course I’m hardly...

" There’s no place in this world where I’ll belong when I’m gone And I won’t know the right from the wrong when I’m gone And you won’t find me singin’ on this song when I’m gone So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here And I won’t feel the flowing of the time when I’m gone All the pleasures of love will not be mine when I’m gone My pen won’t pour out a lyric line when I’m gone So I guess...