Home » Woodstock » Essential Woodstock Books

The post Essential Woodstock Books appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

With five number-one singles and six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s in North America.

Founding members Glenn Frey (guitars, vocals), Don Henley (drums, vocals), Bernie Leadon (guitars, vocals), and Randy Meisner (bass guitar, vocals) were recruited by Linda Ronstadt as band members, some touring with her, and all playing on her third solo album, before venturing out on their own on David Geffen’s new Asylum Records label.

Their debut, Eagles (1972), spawned two top-20 singles in the US and Canada: “Take It Easy” and “Witchy Woman”. The next year’s follow-up, Desperado, peaked at only number 41 in the US, although “Desperado” became a popular track.

In 1974, guitarist Don Felder joined, and On the Border produced the top 40 hit “Already Gone” and the Eagles’ first number-one song in the US and Canada, “Best of My Love”, which made the top 15 in Australia, their first hit overseas. In 1975, the album One of These Nights became their first number-one album in the US and a top-10 album in many countries. It included the US number-one hit “One of These Nights”, which was their first top-10 hit outside of North America, and US top-five songs “Lyin’ Eyes” and “Take It to the Limit”. Also in 1975, guitarist and vocalist Joe Walsh replaced Leadon.

Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) (1976) is the best-selling album in the United States, with 38 million sold, and primed the public for the late 1976 release of Hotel California, which would sell more than 26 million copies in the US (ranking 3rd all-time for US sales), and more than 32 million copies worldwide. The album yielded two number-one singles in the US and Canada, “New Kid in Town” and “Hotel California”, the latter of which became their only top-10 hit in the United Kingdom, while also reaching the top 10 in New Zealand and many European countries, including number two in France.

Meisner was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit in 1977. The Eagles released their last studio album for nearly 28 years in 1979 with The Long Run, spawning the North American number-one song “Heartache Tonight”, which became their biggest hit in Australia (number 13), and the North American top-10 hits “The Long Run” and “I Can’t Tell You Why”.

The Eagles broke up in 1980 but reunited in 1994 for the album Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and new studio tracks, and toured consistently. In 2007, the Eagles released Long Road Out of Eden, their sixth number-one album in the US, and in 2008 launched the Long Road Out of Eden Tour. In 2013, they began the extended History of the Eagles Tour in conjunction with the documentary release, History of the Eagles.

Following Frey’s death in January 2016, the Eagles re-formed in 2017, with Glenn’s son Deacon Frey and Vince Gill sharing lead vocals for Frey’s songs.

Please visit the Eagles Website: https://eagles.com/

The post The Eagles appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

[metaslider id=”48667″]

1) Tom Petty who was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. He was the lead vocalist and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976.

He previously led the band Mudcrutch, and was also a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty recorded a number of hit singles with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist.

His hit singles with the Heartbreakers include:

• “Don’t Do Me Like That” (1979)
• “Refugee” (1980)
• “The Waiting” (1981)
• “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985)
• “Learning to Fly” (1991).

Petty’s hit singles as a solo act include:

• “I Won’t Back Down” (1989)
• “Free Fallin'” (1989)
• “You Don’t Know How It Feels” (1994).

Tom Petty sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

2) Todd Rundgren, who’s on his tour and is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Utopia.

He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive entertainment. He also produced music videos and was an early adopter and promoter of various computer technologies, such as using the Internet as a means of music distribution in the late 1990s.

A native of Philadelphia, Rundgren began his professional career in the mid 1960s, forming the psychedelic band Nazz in 1967. Two years later, he left Nazz to pursue a solo career and immediately scored his first US top 40 hit with “We Gotta Get You a Woman” (1970).

His best-known songs include:

• “Hello It’s Me
• “I Saw the Light” from Something/Anything? (1972)

And get frequent air time on classic rock radio stations, and the 1983 single “Bang the Drum All Day”, which is featured in many sports arenas, commercials, and movie trailers. Although lesser known, “Couldn’t I Just Tell You” (1972) was influential to many artists in the power pop genre.

His 1973 album A Wizard, a True Star remains an influence on later generations of bedroom musicians.

Rundgren is considered a pioneer in the fields of electronic music, progressive rock, music videos, computer software, and Internet music delivery. He organized the first interactive television concert in 1978, designed the first color graphics tablet in 1980, and created the first interactive album, No World Order, in 1994.

Additionally, he was one of the first acts to be prominent as both an artist and producer. His notable production credits include:

• Badfinger’s Straight Up (1971)
• Grand Funk Railroad’s We’re an American Band (1973)
• The New York Dolls’ New York Dolls (1973)
• Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell (1977)
• And XTC’s Skylarking (1986).

The post Classic Rock appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author and visual artist. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time,

Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning nearly 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963) and “The Times They Are a-Changin'” (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.

Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which mainly comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan the following year. The album features “Blowin’ in the Wind” and the thematically complex “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”. For many of these songs, he adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin’ and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). Commenting on the six-minute single “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965), Rolling Stone wrote: “No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.”

In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after a motorcycle accident. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind marked the beginning of a renaissance for his career. He has released five critically acclaimed albums of original material since then, the most recent being Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He also recorded a series of three albums in the 2010s comprising versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.

The post Bob Dylan appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

Abbey Road Studios, is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, which owned it until Universal Music took control of part of EMI in 2013.

Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s’ venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, among others. One of its earliest world-famous-artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded there in December 1931 and went on to record many of his best-known songs there.

Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the best-known resident was Maundy Gregory.

In 1929, the Gramophone Company acquired the premises and converted it into studios. The property benefited from a large garden behind the townhouse, which permitted a much larger building to be constructed to the rear; thus, the Georgian façade belies the true dimension of the building. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios in November 1931 when Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.^[5][6] In 1934, the inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Thomas Beecham at the studios.

The neighboring house is also owned by the studio and used to accommodate musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was extensively used by British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was located near the studio building.

The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) in 1931, and the studios later became known as EMI Recording Studios. In 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites No. 1 & 2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados and cellists alike. “Fats” Waller played the Compton organ there.

In 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and the Shadows) recorded “Move It” there, and later pop music material.

Abbey Road Studios is closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and hits there between 1962 and 1970 using the four-track REDD mixing console designed by Peter K. Burkowitz. The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located.

The studio was renamed Abbey Road Studios in 1970 after the Beatles album had made it famous. Iain Macmillan took the album’s cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans. It has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the building even though it is painted over every three months.

Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums.

Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Norman “Hurricane” Smith, Ken Scott, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Peter Vince, Malcolm Addey, Peter Brown, Richard Langham, Phil McDonald, John Kurlander, Richard Lush and Ken Townsend, who invented the groundbreaking studio effect known as automatic double tracking (ADT). The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris “Vinyl” Blair, who started his career as a tape deck operator.

In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britain’s first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios.

From 18 July to 11 September 1983, the public had a rare opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where the Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the studio was used to host a video presentation called The Beatles at Abbey Road. The soundtrack to the video had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.

The post Abbey Road Studios appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

Topic for the show:  The 50th Anniversary of the year 1969

Our President was Richard Nixon, Apollo 11 landed on the moon where Neil Armstrong was the first man to set his foot on the moon, the New York Mets won the World Series.

We’ll aslo talk about the many issues surrounding the Vietnam War

Movies for that era:

• Midnight Cowboy
• True Grit (starring John Wayne)
• Easy Rider
• Butch Cassidy and The Sundance
• Hello Dolly, and others, not forgetting of course The Brady Bunch debut on ABC.

In music history

• The Beatles did their last concert performance on the rooftop
• Their album Abbey Road came out
• Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman and John Lennon married  Yoko Ono where they did the Bed-In
• Elvis Presley came back to perform in Las Vegas
• The Rolling Stones came out with their album Let It Bleed
• The Who came out with Tommy
• The festival of Woodstock
• Three Dog Night
• Dusty Springfield
• the Fifth Dimension
• Jimi Hendrix
• Tthe Band
• BJ Thomas
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Led Zeppelin
• Crosby, Stills
• Nash
• Bob Dylan
• Simon and Garfunkel
• Sly and the Family Stone
• The Zombies,
• The Bee Gees and others

Articles for the show:

• 1969 (Part 1)
  
• 1969 (Part 2)

Important Scheduling News

My show is growing!

From humble beginnings of one show a week, I am so very happy that we know have two weekly shows:

Monday  and Friday.

Listening hours are the same: 12:30 to 3 PM.

Make sure you mark your calendar!

The Rock and Roll Dance Show.

Don’t forget to save or print our new History of Rock and Roll flyer!

Missed a show?

We’ve recorded a bunch for you. Choose from the list below, hit play, relax and enjoy.

[gmedia id=3]

Some of my favorite songs!

We’re on Facebook!!!

And we would love it if you would take a second of your time to like us there.

 

[fts_facebook type=page id=1248166651982757 access_token=EAAP9hArvboQBAGYub6JFZARdfSLC9HT1gSWemKsx9lwojZAlHarQJp56JTxa8sIgpvW6ZCm04ZCBTreHGZBkaXwHz7MoqLxQPaObu3BiMMlOCwmlc7RVnNm5SkWsloZCFJee8I8DJ75CWVo51W3JkhFDfFDQrgn0Rn1qfyZCojTmLcPruDklKqz posts=6 description=yes posts_displayed=page_only images_align=left]

The post Show March 18, 2019 appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

is the eleventh studio album by English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band’s dissolution in April 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. A two-sided hit single from the album, “Something” backed with “Come Together”, released in October, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US.

Abbey Road is a rock album that incorporates genres such as blues, pop, and progressive rock, and it makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer and the Leslie speaker. Side two contains a medley of song fragments edited together to form a single piece. The album was recorded amid a more enjoyable atmosphere than the Get Back/Let It Be sessions earlier in the year, but there were still frequent disagreements within the band. John Lennon had privately left the group by the time the album was released, and McCartney publicly quit the following year.

Although Abbey Road was an immediate commercial success and reached  No. 1 in the UK and US, it initially received mixed reviews, some critics describing its music as inauthentic and bemoaning the production’s artificial effects. Over time, the album became viewed as among the Beatles’ best and many critics have ranked it as one of the greatest albums of all time. In particular, George Harrison’s contributions, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, are considered to be among the best songs he wrote for the group. The album’s cover, which features the four band members walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios, has become one of the most famous and imitated images in the history of popular music.

The Band

was a Canadian-American roots rock group including Rick Danko (bass guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), and Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar). The members of the Band first came together as rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’s Toronto, Ontario-based backing group, The Hawks, which they joined one by one between 1958 and 1963.

In 1964, they separated from Hawkins (and subsequently The Hawks), after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966. Following the 1966 tour, the group moved with help from Bob Dylan and his manager, Albert Grossman, to Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, the basis for their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. Because they were always “the band” to various frontmen and the locals in Woodstock, Helm said the name “the Band” worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as the Band in 1968 and went on to release ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with the Band over the course of their career, including a joint 1974 tour.

The original configuration of The Band ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate performance at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, California that featured numerous musical celebrities of the era. This performance was filmed for Martin Scorsese’s 1978 documentary The Last Waltz. Although the members of the group intended to continue working on studio projects, they drifted apart after the release of Islands in March 1977.

The Band resumed touring in 1983 without Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. As a result of their diminished popularity, they performed in theaters and clubs as headliners and took support slots in larger venues for onetime peers such as the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Following a 1986 concert, Manuel committed suicide in his hotel room. The remaining three members continued to tour and record albums with a succession of musicians filling Manuel’s and Robertson’s roles; the final configuration of the group included Richard Bell (piano), Randy Ciarlante (drums), and Jim Weider (guitar). Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years, but he eventually regained the use of his voice. He continued to perform and released several successful albums until he died in 2012

Chappaquiddick Incident

was a single-vehicle car accident that occurred on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts on Friday, July 18, 1969. The late-night accident was caused by Senator Ted Kennedy’s negligence and resulted in the death of his 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped inside the vehicle.

According to Kennedy’s testimony, he accidentally drove his car off the one-lane bridge and into the tide-swept Poucha Pond. He swam free, left the scene, and did not report the accident to the police for ten hours; Kopechne died inside the fully submerged car. The car with Kopechne’s body inside was recovered by a diver the next day, minutes before Kennedy reported the accident to the police. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury and later received a two-month suspended jail sentence

Easy Rider

is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper played two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.

A landmark counterculture film, and a “touchstone for a generation” that “captured the national imagination,” Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. Real drugs were used in scenes showing the use of marijuana and other substances.

Easy Rider was released by Columbia Pictures on July 14, 1969, grossing $60 million worldwide from a filming budget of no more than $400,000.

Elvis Presley returns to live performances in Las Vegas. The engagement ends on August 28.

New York Mets

The 1969 World Series was played between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles, with the Mets prevailing in five games to accomplish one of the greatest upsets in Series history, as that particular Orioles squad was considered to be one of the finest ever. The World Series win earned the team the sobriquet “Miracle Mets”, as they had risen from the depths of mediocrity (the 1969 team had the first winning record in Mets history).

The Mets became the first expansion team to win a division title, a pennant, and the World Series, winning in their eighth year of existence.

Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed

is the eighth British and tenth American studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones, released in December 1969 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. Released shortly after the band’s 1969 American Tour, it is the follow-up to 1968’s Beggars Banquet.

The album was recorded during a period of turmoil in the band, as Brian Jones, the band’s founder and original leader, had become increasingly unreliable in the studio due to heavy drug use, and during most recording sessions was either absent, or so incapacitated that he was unable to contribute meaningfully. He was fired in the midst of recording sessions for this album, and replaced by Mick Taylor. Jones only appeared on this album on two songs, playing backing instruments, and would die within a month of being fired. Taylor had only been hired after principal recording was complete on many of the tracks, as such he only appears on two of the tracks as well, having recorded some guitar overdubs. As such, Keith Richards was the band’s only full-time guitarist during most of the recording sessions, and nearly all of the rhythm and lead parts are recorded by him. The rest of the Stones, Mick Jagger (lead vocals), Bill Wyman (bass guitar), and Charlie Watts (drums) appear on nearly every track, and significant additional contributions were made by percussionist Jimmy Miller (who also produced the album), keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart, and numerous other guest musicians.

The album charted as a top-ten album in several markets, including reaching number one in the UK and number three in the US. While no highly-charting singles were released from the album, many of the album’s songs became staples in Rolling Stones shows and on rock radio stations for decades to come, including two gospel-infused songs “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

Woodstock

was a music festival held on a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains, northwest of New York City, between August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000.

Billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music”, it was held at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm near White Lake in Bethel, New York, 43 miles (70 km) southwest of Woodstock.

Over the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation.

The Who: Tommy

is the fourth studio album by the English rock band The Who. It was first released as a double album on 23 May 1969 by Decca Records. The album was mostly composed by guitarist Pete Townshend as a rock opera that tells the story about a “deaf, dumb and blind” boy, including his experiences with life and his relationship with his family.

Townshend came up with the concept of Tommy after being introduced to the work of Meher Baba, and attempted to translate Baba’s teachings into music. Recording on the album began in September 1968 but took six months to complete as material needed to be arranged and re-recorded in the studio. Tommy was acclaimed upon its release by critics, who hailed it as the Who’s breakthrough. Its critical standing diminished slightly in later years; nonetheless, several writers view it as an important and influential album in the history of rock music. The Who promoted the album’s release with an extensive tour, including a live version of Tommy, which lasted throughout 1969 and 1970. Key gigs from the tour included appearances at Woodstock, the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, the University of Leeds, the Metropolitan Opera House and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The live performances of Tommy drew critical praise and rejuvenated the band’s career.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman (who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film). Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the “Sundance Kid” (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance’s lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia in search of a more successful criminal career.

True Grit

s a 1969 American western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Kim Darby as Mattie Ross and John Wayne as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn. It is the first film adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Marguerite Roberts. Wayne won his only Academy Award for his performance in the film and reprised his role for the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn.

Historians believe Cogburn was based on Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas, who brought in some of the toughest outlaws. The cast also features Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Corey and Strother Martin. The title song, sung by Campbell, was also Oscar-nominated.

The post 1969 (Part 2) appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

The post Show March 15, 2019 appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

The post Show March 11, 2019 appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

The post Show March 8, 2019 appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.