Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

Today, LIVE, Thaao Penghlis, who at first meeting took my breath away. He continues to. Three Emmy-nominated for Days of Our Lives, I well remember him from my soap-addicted daze. I’ve been thrilled to discover that aside from being ridiculously easy on the eyes, with a velvet voice, and that sexy accent, he’s also deeply spiritual, widely wise, passionate, talented in so many ways, and fun! A del...

Cindy Bullens Sang With Elton, But Cidny Bullens Got The Moves Like Jagger There are more facets to Cidney Bullens than there are to the Hope Diamond… and they’re all fascinating! The two-time Grammy nominee, who sang with Elton John and Bob Dylan, tells how and why he chose to tour with Elton and pass on Dylan. What a choice for a young rocker from Massachusetts to have to make. How he met Sir El...

It just doesn’t get better than this. I knew, and have known since I was 10, that Peter Noone is easy on the eyes and the ears. Meeting him recently after his show at The Canyon Club in LA, I also knew he was funny, crazy talented, nice to a fault, and charismatic as hell. What I didn’t know was that Mr. Herman’s Hermits, a name chosen for hysterical reasons (he ‘spains), would regale us with stor...

The Yardbird’s Godfrey Townsend is Living a Rock ’n Roll Wet Dream Fourth time IS the charm. After way too many reschedulings, as with all things, this conversation with the Yardbirds’ Godfrey Townsend happened exactly when it was intended. Lightning doesn’t strike the same spot twice, and this was an electric circus of talk and music perfection. From jumping in at the opening with The Who’s Won’t...

Getting kissed by Sean Connery, whilst he was James Bond, fanned repeatedly by Bob Dylan when she sang, plucked for a film by Frank Sinatra, bagels and the part of a lifetime from Tom Hanks, gaslit and insulted by Jerry Lewis, adored and showcased by Dean Martin, wildly successful club proprietor with Hugh Hefner, best friends with Connie Stevens, and Diane Ladd, taught a golden secret by Shelley...

With a gazillion-dollar smile, easy, absolutely effortless charm, Tony Award-winning Cady Huffman took this adoring fan and turned me into an even bigger one (who knew that was possible), and dare I say (she said), a friend. *Sigh* A masterful storyteller, without even trying, I was delightfully mesmerized, hanging on her every word. Her remembrances of Bob Fosse, auditioning for him, being cast b...

I’ve known comedian/writer/animal activist Elayne Boosler for a couple of decades, but there’s so much I didn’t know! We got loads of juicy bits from the woman who pioneered stand-up comedy for all who followed in her wake. From her earliest days at The Improv in New York, a waitress/hostess, who needed Andy Kaufman’s help to differentiate the brown drinks, to her love/hate relationship with propr...

Emmy-winning screenwriter, the divine Ken Levine, was today’s guilty, not guilty pleasure. Rushing off for a next-to-last dress rehearsal before tomorrow’s sole preview, we got a good, healthy dose of the funny, as Ken is wont to do. Guilty Pleasures, his 10th published full-length play, opens this Friday at the Westchester Theatre in Los Angeles for a four-week run. An adult entertainment, no, no...

Nobu was the brainchild of Drew Nieprorent by Vicki Abelson

Despite his decades-long fantastical work in Trapper John, MD, Falcon Crest, Razorback, Logan's Run, Sisters, One Tree Hill, The M Word (the film we did together), recurring roles in 9-1 -1, and General Hospital, as well as scores more, we talked pretty much NONE of that. We talked REAL talk, the hard stuff. The very hard stuff. His sexual molestation at the age of 9 by Johnny Cortes, YES, he name...

Live With Danny Kortchmar - Don Henley, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt Kootch tells the story of how his and Don Henley’s monster hit, Dirty Laundry was born, how his and Jackson Browne’s, Somebody’s Baby was birthed, and how Running On Empty was recorded Live. This legendary guitar hero, songwriter, and producer, who’s been integral to more hits with more iconic artists...

Following his triumphant return to Dancing With The Stars and this week’s Hollywood Squares, this marks Tom Bergeron’s return to Game Changers. One of our first and most oft-recurring guests, Tom, remains one of my favorite humans. What a joy to spend time in his good company. We got the moment-to-moment behind the scenes of Tom’s return to DWTS, with Tom and me, and I’m guessing most watching, ge...

The Dylan Whisperer Rob Stoner and I have been in the same city, on the same street, in the same club where I was promoting and he was playing, at the same time, over and over, and somehow we never met. Until tonight. He was worth waiting for. What a fun edutainment! We talked about his heroes, Chuck Berry to Jerry Lee Lewis, Rob’s famous photographer father, who, like Rob’s later boss, Bob Dylan,...

Eddie Bayers-First Drummer EVER in the Country Music Hall of Fame by Vicki Abelson

Jerry Douglas - King of the Dobro- 16 Grammys, 3 CMAs, 3 AMAs, a Million Stories! 16-time Grammy Winner, three-time CMA Musician of the Year award recipient, Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship award winner, Artist in Residence for the Country Music Hall of Fame, Jerry Douglas, is such an underachiever! What...

Tommy James & The Shondells have sold over 110 million records, had 32 Billboard Hot 100 hits, 23 Gold Singles, 9 Platinum Albums, and been awarded a BMI Five Million-Air Award! Their music has been featured in over 200 films, TV shows (like Breaking Bad & The Simpsons), and commercials. To date, over 300 musicians have recorded covers of their music, including Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Prince, R.E.M...

Jeff Bridges, her boyfriend, Jeff Beck, a fan boy, Roger Daltrey, the boy next door, and OJ & Nicole, her party guests. She can prove it. She’s got Polaroids of all of them, and so many more. They’re all in her new book, Tight Heads, available here at allnight-menu.com just in time for the holidays. It was great to sit down and catch up with my pal, Candy Clark. We used to run around BC (before CO...

Tim Pierce cracked the YouTube code and is such a masterful teacher, after 15 years, I finally get it! So what if he’s a world renowned session guitarist who’s played on the Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris, which has over 5 billion streams, on Michael Jackson’s Black or White and his work was left intact, did 5 albums with Joe Cocker, Bon Jovi’s first hit single, toured with Rick Springfield for four years wh...

Billy Joel, John Fogerty, Bassist David Santos Kills Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson I was so looking forward to catching up with bassist David Santos after almost 40 years. Insane in itself! The sit-down stunningly exceeded my expectations. What crazy fun! David regaled us with story after story… starting with gigging for me on Bleecker Street, doing weddings, The Ringo AllStar Band, san...

Nestor Carbonell Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Nestor Carbonell has it all. A beautiful wife, great kids, a wildly successful career spanning three plus decades, which is hotter than ever, with two hit shows streaming (The Morning Show on Apple TV, and Pulse on Netflix), a brand new film in theatres (Motherland), a sparkling Emmy award (for Shōgun), his first feature about to be cast, a...

The Blues Magoos Peppy Castro Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson There’s fun, and then there’s spending two hours with The Blues Magoos Peppy Castro! He’s lived a rockers’ life to covet and then some! The Who, Hendrix, Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, JOHN LENNON for Gd’s sake! Stories, stories, stories, one better than the next. He drove a Beatle in a Beetle! Who can say that? Skipping school and...

Bette Sussman Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Keyboardist, composer, musical director, Emmy winner, Bette Sussman, is a dear friend, a Scorpio almost twin sista, crazy talented, grows her food, cooks delectably, rocks hard, leans left, which is right, cares about humans and other living things… what more could you want in a person? What fun to talk about life, the day to day, how it’s cha...

Liberty DeVitto Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Sitting down with iconic Billy Joel drummer, Liberty DeVitto, after a too-long three-year hiatus was fantastical! Friends since the 80s, I never get enough of Lib’s stories and his spectacular storytelling. Hot off the heels of being a major player in the current HBO/MAX Billy Joel doc, And So It Goes, Lib caught us up and filled in the blan...

The Cowsills Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson What’s better than sitting down with your old friend and childhood hero, Bob Cowsill? Being surprised when Paul and Susan Cowsill join him. Us. What fun! The Cowsills (Hair, The Rain, The Park, and Other Things, We Can Fly), currently out on The Happy Together Tour, are the real-life Partridge Family, upon whom the show was based. A fan since t...

Bradley Whitford Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson It was a sweet reunion when 3 x Emmy-winner Bradley Whitford of The West Wing was surprised and serenaded by composer Snuffy Walden, with the show’s Emmy-winning theme. They share quite a bit of history, having also done Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Last night Snuff and I binged the pilot episodes of both shows and were astounded...