Thursday This And That

From:

Today is January 6, 2022.

Sixty-four years ago today in 1958, Chuck Berry was in the Recording Studio of Chess Records in Chicago and recorded one of his most famous and quite possibly one of the most recognizable songs in all of music history, his partly autobiographical, “Johnny B. Goode."  When the song was released a little less than three months later, it went on to chart nationally in the top ten of both the Billboard R&B and Pop charts.

Imagine what he might have thought if a Future Chuck Berry had come to him while he was in the studio that day and told him that his song would someday be included on a couple of Gold Records and launched into space on not just one, but TWO, future spaceships (the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 which were launched in 1977.)  “Johnny B. Goode” would be included as one of the 27 songs in a collection of music, images, and sounds all selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth and intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may come across them to thereby have a special aide to help them conclude what our Earthly civilization was, or is, like! 

Earth’s Greatest Hits / “The Sounds Of Earth”

How to Play The Golden Record

Here now is a Great Mashup Tribute to Chuck and Johnny I think you’ll enjoy!

CB ( which stands for “Chucky B. Buell!” )

Berry was, indeed, writing and singing about himself in “Johnny B. Goode.”  (The original lyric said “Oh My, how that little colored boy could play” before his management team convinced him to change it to “country boy”!)

It may very be the standard of rock and roll music … the definition if you will. 

Chuck Berry was the Grandfather of Rock And Roll … and his music will live on forever.  (kk)

David Lee Roth has cancelled his entire Las Vegas Farewell Residency due to Covid-related matters.  (His New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day shows were cancelled last week … but now comes word that ALL scheduled appearances have been officially cancelled.)

A post by Roth on his social media simply states:  “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Las Vegas.”  Meanwhile, Roth’s management team issued the following statement:  “Due to unforeseen circumstances related to COVID and out of an abundance of caution for those working and attending the shows, all of David Lee Roth’s scheduled farewell performances at the House of Blues Las Vegas have been officially canceled.”  (kk)

From Ultimate Classic Rock this Nirvana / Nevermind update:

A district court judge in California has dismissed a child-pornography lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden, who was photographed as a baby for the cover of Nirvana's 1991 album, Nevermind.

The lawsuit from August claimed that the band "knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so."

Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled that the case be dismissed on the grounds that Elden's legal team failed to meet a Dec. 30 deadline to file an opposition to the Nirvana estate’s request. Elden now has until Jan. 13 to file a second complaint, at which time, according to paperwork viewed by Spin, the court will “grant defendants’ motion and give plaintiff one last opportunity to amend his complaint.” The Nirvana estate then has until Jan. 27 to reply to the new filing. If Elden's team does not meet the Jan. 13 deadline, Elden will not be able to file again.

In a statement last month, the Nirvana estate maintained that not only has Elden profited from his role in the album's cover art but that the statute of limitations for a federal child-pornography lawsuit has almost certainly already expired. The suit is valid only 10 years from the point that a victim "reasonably discovers" it, and the estate claims that Elden was familiar with the photograph's notoriety before 2011, when Elden was 20 years old.

"Long before 2011, as Elden has pled, Elden knew about the photograph, and knew that he (and not someone else) was the baby in the photograph," the statement said. "He has been fully aware of the facts of both the supposed 'violation' and 'injury' for decades."

Additionally, the estate asserts that Elden's lawsuit, if successful, would then criminally implicate every owner of Nevermind. "Elden's claim that the photograph on the Nevermind album cover is 'child pornography' is, on its face, not serious," the band wrote. "A brief examination of the photograph, or Elden's own conduct (not to mention the photograph's presence in the homes of millions of Americans who, on Elden’s theory, are guilty of felony possession of child pornography), makes that clear."

To celebrate the 53rd anniversary, The Beatles' Rooftop Concert is coming to select IMax theaters across the country on Sunday, January 30th.  (It'll be one showing only beginning at 3 pm Eastern / 2 pm Central / 1 pm Mountain and Noon Pacific)

From The Fest For Beatles Fans ... 

Disney has just announced this very exciting news for Beatles fans everywhere! On January 30th (exactly 53 years later to the day) a 60 minute film, The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Concert makes its Theatrical Debut exclusively in IMAX! Tickets are available now through the IMAX website.   

To celebrate the anniversary of the landmark performance, select IMAX® theaters will host the screenings with a filmmaker Q&A and give away exclusive mini-posters. The Q&A will be broadcast via satellite simultaneously to all connected IMAX locations. “I’m thrilled that the rooftop concert from ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ is going to be experienced in IMAX, on that huge screen,” says director/producer Peter Jackson. “It’s The Beatles’ last concert, and it’s the absolute perfect way to see and hear it.”  

“Ever since Peter Jackson’s beautiful and illuminating docuseries debuted, we’ve heard non-stop from fans who want to experience its unforgettable rooftop performance in IMAX,” says Megan Colligan, president of IMAX Entertainment. “We are so excited to partner with Disney to bring ‘Get Back’ to an entirely new stage and give Beatles fans everywhere a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch and hear their heroes in the unrivalled sight and sound of IMAX.”  

The concert, which features in its entirety in Peter Jackson’s original docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back,” will be optimized for IMAX screens, digitally remastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Remastering) technology. Tickets for the Exclusive IMAX Event Screening and Filmmaker Q&A on January 30, 2022, are currently on sale at: tickets.imax.com.  

Showtime is 3:00 PM EST / Noon PST. Apparently, Peter Jackson's talk will be live. If your local IMAX is not showing it, try contacting them and ask for it. If enough people contact them, they may add it. 

In other Beatles / Get Back news, it looks like the DVD and BluRay versions of the entire Disney+ "Get Back" 8 hour docuseries will be released on Tuesday, February 8th.  (kk)

More information here (as well as how you can become a Charter … or Lifetime Member) …

REGARDING KEN KOJAK RAPPAPORT 1960's JUKEBOX REVUE --

I Talk To Kojak On The Phone All The Time.

Tonight's Show = Top 20 Countdown January 4, 1964.

I Helped Him With A Few Shows.

He Wanted To Interview Me. I Told Him Nobody's Interested In Hearing What I Have To Say.

FB

Hey Kent: 

Happy New Year and many more.

A question for you ...

I saw the list of what was called “Billboard’s Official Top 20 of 1971” on FH.

In what system does “Tired Of Being Alone” by Al Green end up #12 for the year when it only peaked at #11 on Billboard?

Ken Freck

Just one of MANY anomalies we have seen on Billboard’s Year-End Charts over the years … but incredibly, it’s true.  (See Billboard’s 1971 Year-End Chart below)

It has happened FAR too many times for these year-end charts to be taken seriously.

Perhaps the worst extreme was in 1965, when they named Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’ hit “Wooly Bully” the #1 Song of the Year, despite the fact that it never even made it to #1 during the course of the entire year. 

Now I get it that if you go by accumulated points during the course of the year, some #2 records will earn more points than a record that spends only one week at #1 ... but “Wooly Bully” didn’t even spend the most weeks at #2 that year … that distinction belongs to “A Lover’s Concerto” by The Toys.  (3 weeks at #2 vs. 1 week for Sam’s Pharaohs.)

And no how, no way will you ever convince that Sam’s two weeks at #2 earned more points than The Rolling Stones’ FOUR WEEK RUN at #1 with “Satisfaction,” the song that is most universally accepted as The Biggest Record of 1965!  (Likewise for “Yesterday” by The Beatles, also a four-week #1 record.)  Other MAJOR hits from ’65 include “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by The Righteous Brothers, “Downtown” by Petula Clark” and “My Girl” by The Temptations.  Does ANYBODY out there really believe that “Wooly Bully” was a bigger chart hit than any of these tunes???

Even Billboard’s own #2 peaks offer better material:  “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, for example.

Most progressive point systems allow for a distribution of reverse points for each peak position … it’s not quite as simple as #1 = 100 points, #2 = 99 points, etc., as these points have to be weighted … hitting #1 is a much greater achievement than hitting #2 … making the Top Ten is a much greater achievement than peaking at #11 … there are also usually bonus points awarded for hitting The Top 40 … but using even the most BASIC points analysis, let’s take a look at:

WOOLY BULLY vs. SATISFACTION

Wooly Bully peaked at #2 (99 points) and stayed there for two weeks (so 99 x 2 = 198 points)

It spent 9 weeks in The Top 10 (10 points per week) = 90 points

It spent 14 weeks in The Top 40 (5 points per week) = 70 points

It spent 18 weeks in The Hot 100 (1 point per week) = 18 points …

Or 376 points overall.

Satisfaction peaked at #1 (100 points and stayed there for four weeks, so 400 points) …

That’s already more points than “Wooly Bully” earned in its entire chart run!

Now add in “Satisfaction”’s 9 weeks in The Top Ten, 12 weeks in The Top 40 and 14 weeks on the chart and that tally rises to 564 points … no contest.

Looking at “Tired Of Being Alone” (which, as you mentioned, peaked at #11 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart) … and only stayed there one week … in fact, in Joel Whitburn’s book, he lists it at #100 for the year … and it’s only the 6^th best #11 peak showing for ’71)

For the record, it finished at #32 in Cash Box for the year and did not make Record World’s Top 20 Biggest Hits of the Year list (which is all that they published in 1971.)  In Dann Isbell and Bill Carroll’s book “Ranking The ‘70’s” … which uses a much more sophisticated version of the progressive point method I mentioned earlier … it is ranked at #57 for the year.  To put that into the proper perspective, “Ranking the ‘70’s” awards it 2345 points for its #57 showing.  Their #12 Record of the year … “Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves” by Cher … earned 5737 points … or nearly 250% more points than the Al Green hit.

By absolutely NO measurement should this song have wound up as the 12^th Biggest Record Of The Year in 1971!!!  (kk)

Speaking of the charts, Paul Cashmere of Noise 11 is taking Billboard to task in much the same way WE have been for the past decade or so, indicating that the charts as they are currently compiled don’t mean much anymore in the way of accuracy.

He brings up very some good points in his latest rave out here …

The ARIA Chart, It Has Become A Joke - Noise11.com

Kent,

Thanks for posting that song by the Addrisi Brothers. Always did like that song.

I don't know if you know or remember that duo there reminded me of their record back in 1959 called CHERRYSTONE on Delfi Records. I vaguely remember them lip-syncing that one on Bandstand.

Larry Neal

“Cherrystone” was their first chart hit … it reached #62 in 1959.  And then they just seemed to disappear for ten years!!!

Their greatest claim to fame came as songwriters … most famously for writing “Never My Love,” a #1 Hit for The Association in 1967.  (The Addrisi Brothers would cut their own version ten years later … but it fizzled out at #69.)

“We’ve Got To Get It On Again” was their biggest chart hit as a duo (#15, 1972), but “Slow Dancin’ Don’t Turn Me On” (#18, 1977) was a close second.

My personal favorite of their recordings is a song called “I Can Feel You” … it was the follow-up release to “We’ve Got To Get It On Again” and only got played on WCFL here in Chicago (where it went to #20.)  Nationally, it bubbled under in both Record World and Billboard … but did reach #90 during its two week run in Cash Box.

It’s featured here today.  (kk)

Harvey Kubernik talks about the upcoming tour featuring Micky Dolenz of The Monkees and Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals ...

http://ugly-things.com/felix-cavalieres-rascals-and-the-monkees-micky-dolenz-spring-2022-tour/  

LEFT BANKE’S STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, A 1986 RELEASE FROM THE BAROQUE POP PIONEERS, TO BE AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE ON CD  FOR THE FIRST TIME ON FEBRARY 25, 2022.  Includes six bonus tracks featuring the return of original member Michael Brown.  Package features new liner notes from Scott Schinder

The Left Banke arrived in 1966 with their hit singles “Walk Away Renee” (ranked #222 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2004) and “Pretty Ballerina,” which put them on the forefront of the genre now known as Baroque Pop. Founder Michael Brown left the band before their second album (The Left Banke Too — featuring “There’s Gonna Be a Storm,” the title of the long out-of-print and collectible anthology of their Smash Records repertoire), going on to involvement in other influential groups including Montage, Stories, and the Beckies.

In 1978, original members Steve Martin Caro, Tom Finn, and George Cameron reunited to record tracks for Finn’s new publishing deal. The tracks would emerge in 1986 in the U.S. as Strangers on a Train, and in the U.K. under the title Voices Calling. 

Flash forward to 2001. Brown, who’d remained an active songwriter, invited Caro to lay down vocals on new material he had written in hopes of sparking a Left Banke resurgence. The tracks were circulated to industry insiders, but were not heard by the public at large. Six bonus tracks from the 2001 sessions now augment the Strangers on a Train reissue, making it a cohesive document of not only the last Left Banke album, but what exists of what could have been another.

All of it is available on CD for the first time worldwide from Omnivore Recordings, due out February 25, 2022.

The new issue is produced for release by Daniel Coston, Scott Schinder, and Grammy^® Award-winner Cheryl Pawelski, with new liner notes by Schinder and restoration and mastering by Grammy^® Award-winning engineer Michael Graves at Osiris Studio. Strangers on a Train presents the culmination of this groundbreaking band, whose influence is not only still felt, but heard.

Track Listing:

            1.         Strangers On A Train

            2.         Heartbreaker

            3.         Lorraine

            4.         Yesterday’s Love

            5.         Hold On Tight

            6.         And One Day

            7.         You Say

            8.         I Can Fly

            9.         Only My Opinion

          10.        Queen Of Paradise

                       Bonus Tracks:

          11.        Airborne

          12.        I Don’t Know (2002 Version)

          13.        Until The End

          14.        Buddy Steve (Long Lost Friend)

          15.       Meet Me In The Moonlight

          16.       High Flyer

Pre-order link: www,omnivorerecordings.com/shop/the-strangers-on-a-train

Kent,

I may have mentioned this to you before, but I'll never forget when I drove by the theater where THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was playing, they had on the overhead marquee THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY BALANCE.

I did enjoy the Royal Guardmen's version that you posted. Played it twice to be exact.

Clark mentioned Landecker of putting his finger on the needle of a turntable to prove he was playing an actual record. Kent, as far as I know, no radio station here in OKC has a turntable in their studio or building. In fact, some of the young interns (meaning persons working for no money) have no idea what a turntable is. Or a cart machine for that matter.

Larry

I think I've told this story before but many years ago my then teenage daughter came into my music room where I was recording cassette tapes from my vinyl records because I had an important phone call.  I tried to hear whoever it was on the other end of the line but couldn't because the music was just too loud ... so I asked her to take the record off.  She had absolutely NO idea what I meant or how to do that.  She had never played a record before in her life ... EVERYTHING was tapes or CD's.  I said "Just pick up the arm with the needle and set it down real softly on the stand" ... again, just a blank stare, followed by a shrug of her shoulders ... and then out the room.  I had to apologize to the caller while I shut the record off myself.

It's funny how something that seems SO elementary to us today (because that's the technology we grew up with) could be so foreign to someone from the next generation.  (Kinda like Austin Powers putting the record needle down on his CD on his little portable record player!)

When you stop and think how many times our ways of listening to music has changed in our lifetimes ... from your parents' very fragile 78's to 45's (with the little plastic spindle filler) to 8-tracks and cassettes to CD's and now to streaming ... it really is quite remarkable.  (kk)