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| Segment 41 |
In the summer of 1975, Dave Mason was touring the US ahead of the release of Split Coconut while Poco was on the road promoting their new album Head Over Heels. On July 22, 1975, Poco opened a show for Dave Mason at the North Hall Auditorium in Memphis, Tennessee. And I have in my possession a ticket to that very concert. It was assigned seating and I had Seat 319 in Row B in the second tier of the auditorium. Price of the ticket? Eight bucks. At the time, I was living about three hours south of Memphis, in Jackson, Mississippi. So me and a couple of friends bought our tickets and hit the road. Now you may have noticed I said I was in possession of a ticket, not a ticket stub. The reason it’s not a stub has to do with some unfortunate business involving the Mississippi State Highway Patrol and the six hours it took to straighten out the whole mess from the inside of the jail there in Hernando, Mississippi. Well, as you might have guessed, my friends and I didn’t make it to the show that night. And I dare say I’m not the only one with a story about that show you never made it to. And if you’d like to share yours with the rest of us, send me an email with the gory details. I’m sure we’d all love to know exactly what happened.
Given that little confession, it should come as no surprise that today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is a concert mix. Imagine a big rotating stage, a veritable lazy Susan of your favorite acts. Among them, two pairs of former lovers: we’ll hear James Taylor with Carly Simon followed by Bob Dylan with Joan Baez. We’ll also hear from Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, CSN&Y, Joe Cocker, and Jonathan Edwards. But we’re gonna start with Urubamba, also known as Los Incas, the group that put the Peruvian folk flavor into Simon and Garfunkle’s “El Condor Pasa.” But here, they’re giving that same flavor to a different song. From Live Rhymin’, here’s Paul Simon and “The Boxer." |
| Paul Simon |
The Boxer |
| Jonathan Edwards |
That's What Our Life Is |
| Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young |
Find the Cost of Freedom |
| James Taylor and Carly Simon |
The Times They Are a Changing |
| Bob Dylan and Joan Baez |
Mama You Been on My Mind |
| Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen |
Oh Mama Mama |
| The Band |
Rag Mama Rag |
| Joe Cocker |
Sticks and Stones |
Not just one of the top ten live albums from the 1970’s, Mad Dogs and Englishmen holds up as one of the best live rock albums ever. Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, the Master of Space and Time, the Gentle Giant, Lunar Teacake Snakeman, and all the others right there with a rollicking version of “Sticks and Stones.” Before that we had a mama thing going on: We heard The Band’s classic “Rag Mama Rag” from Rock of Ages. Before that, “Oh Mama Mama,” Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas, that was Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen. And we heard Bob Dylan with his old flame Joan Baez doing “Mama You Been On My Mind.” That was recorded during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975, which was the first time Bob and Joan had performed together since their romantic break up many years earlier.
The other couple in that set was James Taylor and Carly Simon, from the No Nukes Concerts in 1979, with further vocal harmony provided by Graham Nash, one of my favorite versions of “The Times They Are a Changing.” Elsewhere we had Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young trying to “Find The Cost of Freedom” from Four Way Street. Before that, Jonathan Edwards recorded at the Performance Center in Cambridge, Mass backed up by his friends from the group Orphan. Song called “That’s What Our Life is,” from the 1974 album Lucky Day. And we started that concert set with Paul Simon backed up by his pals Los Incas, doing a Peruvian folk flavored version of “The Boxer.” Well, that’s it. Show’s over. They’re turning on the lights and running us out of the Way Back Studios. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl next time, and I hope you can join us. Right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 42 |
Somewhere back in the mid to the late 1970s I committed what turned out to be both a state and a federal crime when I illegally recorded a phone conversation between the general manager of a radio station where I worked and some other guy. I knew at the time the tape could be used for blackmail, but I’m not really the blackmailing type, so I just used it for entertainment purposes, playing it for friends and family. Unfortunately it turns out that’s also a crime, which means I can’t play any of it here, but if you ever make it to the Way Back Studios… Anyway, thirty some odd years later it dawned on me that I could use the tape for fictional blackmail. And that’s what led me to write the novel Radio Activity, a story about a guy who’s hired to program a classic rock radio station and is given total creative freedom, which is further proof that I write fiction. The plot revolves around the investigation into a blackmail scheme that led to a murder. And while that’s going on, the program director takes the time to muse on the true meaning and definition of classic rock. In the end, he decides it’s very simple: with a few exceptions, it’s the music made by the generation of musicians born in the 1940s. Lennon, McCartney, Page, Plant, Hendrix, those guys.
But, like I said, I write fiction. In reality, terrestrial radio plays a list of 200 songs and that’s it. As far as I know, they never put new music by old artists into regular rotation. So even when legendary artists release great new records, you might never hear them. That, of course, explains why we’re listening to Deep Tracks. Amazing satellite radio beaming you today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl which is all digital because all six tracks were released in the past ten years and only on CD. There’s one curveball in the set, so be listening for that. But first, from the Streets of New York, here is Willie Nile. |
| Willie Nile |
The Day I Saw Bo Diddley in Washington Square |
| Ian Hunter |
Soul of America |
| Graham Parker |
I Discovered America |
| Van Morrison |
Precious Time |
| Katy Melua |
Crawling Up a Hill |
| Bob Dylan |
Things Have Changed |
From the soundtrack to the film “Wonder Boys” that’s Bob Dylan with “Things Have Changed.” And that was sort of the theme for the set. You know, back in the day, we could count on rock radio to play the latest stuff by our favorite artists but since then, things have changed. Now, if you want to hear what legendary rockers have been up to lately, well, it’s as easy as tuning into the Deep Tracks. We just heard six songs recorded in the past few years by some of our favorite artists of the past few decades. Before the Dylan, the curveball I promised. “Crawling Up a Hill” was a song by John Mayall that was recorded in 1966 during sessions for The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. But it wasn’t released until 2006 on the album’s deluxe 40th anniversary edition. But instead of the original, we heard Katy Melua’s cover version from her album Call Off The Search. That came out in 2003 when she was just nineteen; the same year John Mayall turned 70.
Also in the set, Van the Man from his 1999 release, Back on Top, we heard “Precious Time.” Before the Irishman, a couple of Brits helping us to see ourselves through their eyes: Ian Hunter’s “Soul of America” from his brilliant Shrunken Heads disc and Graham Parker’s “I Discovered America” from Don’t Tell Columbus. And we started the set with the great Willie Nile. We heard one from Streets of New York, hands down, my favorite album from 2006. Well, it’s like John Mayall wrote, ‘Minute after minute, second after second, hour after hour goes by’ and the next thing you know, we’re all out of time. By the way, if you’ve got a comment or suggestion, drop by my website or track me down on Facebook and send me an email. I’d love to hear from you. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back sooner or later with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 43 |
They say the heart is a lonely hunter. They say the heart has reasons that reason cannot understand. They say, wherever you go, go with all your heart. Ah, the metaphorical heart, seat of emotion and love and longing and the subject of many a song. But no one ever writes songs about the literal heart. That muscular little organ that plays its song at seventy-two beats per minute and makes all things possible. Maybe it’s just too hard to rhyme atrioventriuclar, I don’t know, I’ve never tried. So instead of writing a song about the human heart, I wrote a book instead. It’s called ‘Heart Seizure.’ It’s a political satire about what happens when two people need the same heart for a transplant. One of them is a sweet, little old lady who has made it to the top of the transplant list. The other is the president.
Politics being what it is, the president’s people steal the heart. But the sweet little old lady’s son steals it right back, kidnaps a beautiful heart surgeon, and takes off for points unknown. I mean you’ve got to ask yourself, what would you do if it was your mom? Well, the FBI gives chase, trying to retrieve the heart. But the president’s political opponent sends a two-man team from the CIA to make sure whoever stole the heart gets away with it, thus improving her chance of moving into the White House. Obviously, there’s plenty of keen political insight but there’s also a nervous banker, a gay cop, a stoned-out skateboard champion, and a Morman basketball team, all of which probably has you asking yourself, I wonder if he’s heard from the Pulitzer Prize people yet. I tell you what, I’m going to go wait for their call. Meanwhile, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl will get straight to the heart of the matter. Eight cardiac related tracks, including one called “Heart of the Matter,” from Jon Anderson. We’ll also hear from Bruce Springsteen, Joe Cocker, Buddy Miles, the Beatles, Steve Miller, and the Yardbirds. So, from the Way Back Studios, and the bottom of my heart, here’s Tom Petty. |
| Tom Petty |
A Mind With a Heart of His Own (part 1) |
| Bruce Springsteen |
Two Hearts |
| Joe Cocker |
Unchain My Heart |
| Buddy Miles |
Heart's Delight |
| Jon Anderson |
Heart of the Matter |
| The Beatles |
Devil in Her Heart |
| The Steve Miller Band |
Can't You Hear Your Daddy's Heartbeat? |
| The Yardbirds |
Heart Full of Soul |
| Tom Petty |
A Mind With a Heart of His Own (part 2) |
Back in 1960, Connie Frances had a #1 hit with “My Heart Has a Mind of its Own.” Sadly, I don’t have a copy of that, so instead I went with Tom Petty’s variation on that theme, “A Mind With a Heart of its Own.” And, since it’s got a false ending, I used it to bookend that heartfelt set. Now, if you joined us somewhere in the middle of all that you might’ve found yourself wondering what’s with the cardio-vascular theme? Well, it’s a nod to a little book called ‘Heart Seizure,’ a novel I highly recommend for anyone with a pulmonary artery. Now, as you might imagine there’s no shortage of songs with ‘heart’ in the title so the eight tracks here hardly scratch the surface. For example, five years after Connie Frances had her heart hit, The Yardbirds had a hit of their own with “Heart Full of Soul” which was written by Graham Gouldman who went on to have a nice career with 10CC whose song, “Bridge to Your Heart” is just one that we didn’t have time for.
Before the Yardbirds, The Steve Miller Band from Brave New World, “Can’t You Hear Your Daddy’s Heartbeat.” I think it’s slightly irregular, probably just needs a pacemaker. At the top of the set, after the first part of “A Mind With a Heart of its Own” we went down to The River for Springsteen’s “Two Hearts” followed by Joe Cocker’s “Unchain My Heart” a song Ray Charles had a hit with. That was followed by the late, great Buddy Miles doing “Heart’s Delight,” and Jon Anderson doing “Heart of the Matter” from his second solo album, Song of Seven. After that it was The Beatles with George Harrison on lead vocals, covering a song that was originally titled “Devil in His Heart.” Well it’s like the man said, Once a woman has given you her heart, you can never get rid of the rest of her… but you can drop her off at the Way Back Studios and we’ll make sure she gets home. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back next time with a heartless batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 44 |
As you know, you can’t get to rock ‘n’ roll without passing through the blues first. Just ask Eric Clapton and Keith Richards about their role models. All those guys up in Chicago who plugged in and started to wail, guys like Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Dixon. All those guys who came out of the Mississippi Delta. Well, just before all that happened, there was this legendary recording session that took place at a radio station outside the small Delta town of Leland, Mississippi. The story goes that one night, three local bluesmen, Blind Buddy Cotton, Crippled Willie Jefferson, and Crazy Earl Tate made a recording under mysterious circumstances, and possibly at gunpoint. Depending on who’s telling the story, a guy named Pigfoot Morgan might have played with them that night, but no one seems to know for sure. But one thing we do know is that a man by the name of Hamp Doogan got killed that night, just like in the Bob Dylan song, right out there on Highway 61. Another thing we know for sure is that Pigfoot Morgan got hauled off to Parchman Farm for the murder, though his guilt remains in doubt.
Anyway, the tapes from the radio station disappeared and for the last sixty years, blues scholars have been looking for them. They’re known as the Blind, Crippled, and Crazy sessions, supposed to be some of the best blues ever recorded. A private detective I know, guy named Rick Shannon, got hired to find the guy who produced the sessions, a man by the name of R. Tucker Woolfolk. But the day after Rick found him, Woolfolk was murdered. And a week later, so was the engineer from that session, an old guy name of Lamar Suggs. Neither murder has been solved. It’s a mystery you might call Highway 61 Resurfaced. Well, I wish I was here to play those tapes but they’re still out there, waiting to be found. Meanwhile, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl will have to do. To quote Van Morrison, “Hearing the blues changed my life.” So, from the Way Back Studios, let’s hear some. |
| Paul Butterfield |
Shake Your Money Maker |
| B.B. King |
Caledonia |
| Eric Clapton |
I'm Tore Down |
| Buddy Guy and Junior Wells |
Dirty Mother For Ya |
| John Lee Hooker |
Dimples |
| Rolling Stones |
2120 South Michigan Avenue |
| Albert King |
Crosscut Saw |
| Howlin' Wolf |
Who's Been Talking? |
A man whose voice has been compared to the sound of heavy machinery operating on a gravel road, that was Chester Arthur Burnett, who showed good show business instincts when he decided that Howlin’ Wolf would be a better stage name. That was from the infamous London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions, which includes Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Steve Winwood, and others. The album wasn’t without its faults, but if you skip over a few rough spots, you’ll find gems like the one we just heard, “Who’s Been Talking?” That was one of three Eric Clapton-related projects in that set. In the middle of all that we heard “Dirty Mother for Ya” from the album Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Play the Blues, a record Clapton co-produced and played on. The album came about in 1970 when Buddy Guy and Junior Wells were opening for the Rolling Stones on a tour. During a three night stand in Paris, Eric dropped by, ran into Ahmet Ertegun, and told Ahmet he should sign the two. Ahmet said he would if Eric agreed to produce the first record, and the deal was struck.
Elsewhere in the set, the first all blues album Clapton released, From The Cradle, we heard “I’m Tore Down.” Speaking of the Stones, that instrumental we heard was called “2120 South Michigan Avenue” which was the address for Chess Records in Chicago where the track was recorded. Before the Stones, John Lee Hooker doing “Dimples” which we played off the original VeeJay vinyl. And after the Stones, the great Albert King did “Crosscut Saw.” We also heard B.B. King of the Blues doing “Caledonia,” and at the top, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band covered the Elmore James classic “Shake Your Money Maker” in the Way Back Studios. We’d appreciate it. By the way, if you want to see the set lists for any of the shows, drop by my website and poke around till you find what you’re looking for. And if you don’t find it, send me an email and I’ll find it for you. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, and.I’ll be back before you know it with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 45 |
Back around 1978, after working in radio for several years, I decided to sell everything I owned and move to the Virgin Islands. Figured with my years of experience behind the mic at a 100,000 watt FM rock station in a decent sized market, I’d have no problem landing a gig in the Lesser Antilles. The idea was to get an afternoon shift, maybe evenings, buy a small boat, and live some variation of Jimmy Buffett’s life. So I moved into a small place on St. John, a few miles up East End Road, above Cruz Bay. And I sent out my tapes and resumes to all the stations, then I sat back and waited for the job offers to pour in. Well, before you knew it, I was working on a squalid freight charter boat running between St. Thomas and St. John, ferrying the gas truck back and forth between Cruz Bay and Red Hook. I never did get on the radio down there, but I listened to it a lot and heard some great stuff. Local steel bands, reggae, some calypso, a little dancehall, the odd bit of rocksteady, you name it, they played it. And it’s these various island styles that inspired today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl.
But instead of the usual suspects, Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, and all those guys, we’re going to hear how they influenced the likes of Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and Manassas. We’ll hear one from Loudon Wainwright III that sounds like one from Paul Simon that we’ll also hear. Elsewhere in the set, Bonnie Raitt covering Calypso Rose, the Tabagonian Calypsonian on “Wah She Go Do.” From the album Full Sail, we’ve got Loggins and Mesinna who took the rhythms of the West Indies and applied them to Hawaii. But we’ll start with a song from the Bahamas, an old sea chanty, rearranged by Brian Wilson and performed by the Beach Boys. From the Way Back Studios, here’s “Sloop John B.” |
| Beach Boys |
Sloop John B. |
| Loggins and Messina |
Lahaina |
| Stephen Stills |
Song of Love |
| Bonnie Raitt |
Wah She Go Do? |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Forever |
| Elton John |
Jamaica Jerk Off |
| Loudon Wainwright III |
Lowly Tourist |
| Paul Simon |
Mother and Child Reunion |
Well there’s an eight-song example of how Afro-Caribbean folk music styles like calypso and reggae influenced some of our favorite pop and rock artists. We ended up with Paul Simon, famous for wondering into foreign musical fields and folding their influences into his compositions. Back in the eighties and nineties, he hooked up with South African and Brazilian artists for his albums Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, but back in ‘72 he called on reggae to help craft one of his biggest hits. Before that we heard Loudon Wainwright III’s “Lowly Tourist” which almost sounds like it’s based on “Mother and Child Reunion.” That’s from Loudon’s 1975 album Unrequited. At the top of the set, the dazzling harmonies of the Beach Boys on an old sea chanty that originated in the Bahamas. We heard “Sloop John B” from Pet Sounds. Among those who know about these things, it’s generally agreed that Brian Wilson didn’t intend the song to be on Pet Sounds but that’s where it ended up.
After that, we sailed out to the Pacific with Loggins and Messina for “Lahaina.” We followed that with Stephen Stills and Manassas doing “Song of Love” which doesn’t have the same island groove as the other tracks, but managed to fit into the set and give us the dandy mixes us coming out of the Loggins and Messina, and going into Bonnie Raitt’s “Wah She Go Do.” Then we heard the only Fleetwood Mac song I can think of with a reggae feel, from Mystery To Me, we heard “Forever” leading into “Jamaica Jerk Off” from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Well, I don’t want to give you false hope on this strange and mournful day, so I’ll just come right out and say it: we’re all out of time. To find out more about the show, including the set lists, and what goes on behind the scenes, drop by Facebook or my website and take a look around. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back next time with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl from the Way Back Studios and I hope you can join us, right here, in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 46 |
I’m sure you’ve heard the old expression, there’s more than one way to skin a cat? Well, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl just goes to prove that point. I was out here in the Way Back Studios one day working on a set with some very tasty segues involving Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Fleetwood Mac, and two each from Santana and Stephen Stills. I had the pieces to the puzzle and all I needed was to figure out how they all fit together, and as soon as I did, a piece of my audio gear crapped out. Had to put it in the shop for a two week stay. When I got it back, I rushed out here to do the set without taking the time to see if I remembered how to put it together, which, as it turns out, I didn’t. But that didn’t matter because like the old expression about the cat, it turns out there’s more than one way to do some of these segues.
The set features two tracks from Stephen Stills’ second solo album: “Open Secret” and “Bluebird Revisited.” Both of them start out one way but end in a completely different style and tempo which lets you segue into songs you’d never guess were coming. “Open Secret” starts like a big rock and roll track, but it ends in a smooth Latin percussion groove which allows a nice segue into Santana’s “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts.” And “Bluebird Revisited” starts as a calm acoustic piece, with Stills singing softly over a quiet organ, but it ends up with these huge horn charts that just beg for some Blood Sweat and Tears, which of course we’re happy to supply. Now, back to the Santana for a moment. “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts” segues into “Black Magic Woman” a song written by Peter Green and originally recorded by Fleetwood Mac. Not being one to leave well enough along, we’ll segue from the Santana to the Fleetwood Mac version and back again because the Santana version ends with Carlos getting some feedback out of his guitar which lets us segue into Jimi Hendrix getting some feedback out of his guitar at the start of “Izabella.” By the way, if you’ve ever wondered if I’m really using vinyl here, a couple of the albums in this set will put all doubts to rest, including this one. Here’s Mr. Stills. |
| Stephen Stills |
Bluebird Revisited |
| Blood, Sweat, and Tears |
Spinning Wheel |
| Stephen Stills |
Open Secret |
| Santana |
Singing Winds, Crying Beasts |
| Santana |
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (pt. 1) |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Black Magic Woman (pt. 2) |
| Santana |
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (pt. 3) |
| Jimi Hendrix |
Izabella |
A long way from playing the chitlin’ circuit, which he once did, there’s Jimi Hendrix from Woodstock Two, doing “Izabella.” At the top of the set, a couple of songs from Stephan Stills 2, starting with “Bluebird Revisited,” a song that ends with those huge horns that took us straight into the Blood Sweat and Tears hit, “Spinning Wheel,” a song that made it to #2 on the charts. While that was playing, we flipped to the other side of the Stills album and cued “Open Secret.” Now when that starts, the last thing you’re thinking about is how nice it’s going to segue into something by Santana, but then, toward the end of “Open Secret,” Stills segues into some smooth Latin percussion, and that lets us mix right into “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts,” off Santana’s Abraxas; we actually played the two songs simultaneously for thirty or forty seconds.
Now, as regular visitors to the Way Back Studios know, one of the things we like to do here is to play with your expectations. And Abraxas gives us a lot to work with in that regard, not just because it’s one of those records everyone has heard a thousand times, but also because all the tracks on side one segue into one another in such a way that when you hear the end of one, you’re anticipating the start of the next. So, when Carlos gets the guitar feedback going at the end of “Black Magic Woman,” you begin to anticipate the start of “Oye Como Va” the way you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But instead, we just segued over to that guitar feedback from Mr. Hendrix. We also had some fun when we mixed over to the original Fleetwood Mac version of “Black Magic Woman” and then back again to the Santana. And speaking of magic, somebody made all the time disappear. By the way, if you’ve got any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Drop me an email. You can find the address at my lovely little website. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl before you know it and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 47 |
| As you know we've got new folks jumping on the XM bus every week, and you might be one of them, so I though I should try to explain what we do here in the Way Back Studios. Main thing is we try to have some fun with the music. As we like to say, it's not just what we play, it's how we play it. This week's set is good example. The focal point is a segue created about 38 years ago, if you can believe that. A guy by the name of Bruce Owen used to do this one on WJDX-FM. It involves the Beatles and Johnny Rivers and that's all you need to know about that. I actually messed with the end a little, adding some Creedence, 'cause I like the beat, so it's not exactly the same as Bruce used to do it, but it's close. Still, it wasn't long enough for an entire show, so I grabbed another set that I had lying around that mixed into the Beatles just as nice as you please. We've got some power from the Electric Light Orchestra, and some goodies from the Bob Seger System, the Stones, and Them. Just about all you need is a drum kit, a guitar, and three chords for this week's batch of Fitzhugh's All Hand Mixed Vinyl. |
| Them |
Gloria |
| Rolling Stones |
Get Off of My Cloud |
| Bob Seger |
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man |
| Electric Light Orchestra |
Don't Bring Me Down |
| Beatles |
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| Johnny Rivers |
Summer Rain (part 1) |
| Beatles |
Sgt. Pepper (reprise) |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival |
Fortunate Son |
| Johnny Rivers |
Summer Rain (part 2) |
Back in the day when you needed an FM converter to get the stereo signal in your car, a guy named Bruce Owen in Jackson, Mississippi used to do that mix from Summer Rain into Sergeant Pepper and back. So I thought it was a cute little irony since I was doing Bruce's segue that the ELO song in the set includes the lyric, 'Don't bring me down, Bruce.' Or at least that's what I thought it was. Turns out there's some debate as to whether Jeff Lynne is saying Bruce or Groos, the German word for Greetings. Different song lyric sites say different things about it. If you know the answer (or if you think you do) send me an email and I'll share it with the rest of the class 'cause we're all dying to know. At the top we did a bit with Van Morrison's early group, Them, with the spelling bee song: G-l-o-r-i-a, the Stones insisting you Get off their Cloud, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man from the Bob Seger System, and the ELO all working that big drum riff. All summer long we spent dancin' in the sand and the jukebox just kept on playing, Fitzhugh's All Hand Mixed Vinyl. I'll be back next week with more from the Way Back Studios. I'm Bill Fitzhugh in the Deep Tracks, XM 40.
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| Segment 48 |
I started working in radio while I was in high school. One of the deejays at the station took me under his wing, showed me the ropes, and gave me a lot of good advice. I remember when he said, “Get out while you can. You’re still young. Trust me, you don’t want to work in radio.” But I did, more than anything, at least until the consultants showed up. Another bit of advice he gave me was about putting together song sets. He said the first thing you do before cueing a record is listen to the end of the song, so you know what to play after it. See if it fades or ends cold or with drums or horns or whatever. You won’t get a jaw-dropping segue every time, but you will get a set that adheres. And every now and then you’ll sit two perfect songs next to one another and someone listening will hear your voice through the music you play and the way you play it and they’ll smile and think, ‘that sounded good.’ And today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl just goes to show what sound advice that was.
It’s mostly singer-songwriters. It’s mostly songs you’re familiar with. Songs with words that glow with the gold of sunshine. Songs played on a harp unstrung. And we’ll hear their voices come through the music, and we’ll hold them near as if they were our own. Songs about life and death, longing and loneliness, lost love and hope. We’ll hear Andy Pratt and Neil Young, Randy Newman and James Taylor, The Grateful Dead and Elton John. But we’ll open with a song from one of the best albums in the Deep Tracks library. It came out in 1971. Not a bad track on the record. The tunes are deceptively simple. And the lyrics? “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes. And Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose. Here’s a little story from John Prine.
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| John Prine |
Sam Stone |
| Grateful Dead |
Ripple |
| James Taylor |
Sweet Baby James |
| Jimmy Buffett |
Come Monday |
| Randy Newman |
He Gives Us All His Love |
| Neil Young |
Journey Through the Past |
| Elton John |
This Song Has No Title |
| Andy Pratt |
Avenging Annie |
That’s Andy Pratt wrapping up an eight song set that was All Hand Mixed, but not all Vinyl. We had to play the last one off cd, despite the fact that I have three vinyl copies of that album. And believe it or not something’s wrong with all of them, so that was digital. Everything before that, however, was vinyl. Including one of the more obscure tracks from Goodbye Yellowbrick Road, a two record set with seventeen tracks, four of which became hit singles, which might explain why it sold the first 20 million copies. But I think the reason it ended up selling over 30 million is that the rest of the songs are so good. We heard the only solo performance on the entire record, a track called, “This Song Has No Title.” Just words and a tune.
Before Sir Elton, Neil Young with “Journey Through the Past” from a great album called Time Fades Away, a record that came out a year after Harvest but which is a much darker affair. The album was never officially released on CD and the vinyl went quickly out of print. I saw one copy on a used record site, selling for $450. And if you’re interested in that, drop me a note. I bet I can undercut that price just a little. The other guy on piano in the set was Randy Newman, the master of writing with unreliable narrators, as evidenced by the one we heard, “He Gives Us All His Love.” At the top, John Prine with a narrator telling it like it was in his classic Viet Nam War era tale, “Sam Stone.” We also heard James Taylor with the title track to Sweet Baby James, “Ripple” from the Dead’s American Beauty, and Jimmy Buffet’s first hit single. Well from that brown L.A. haze that envelopes the Way Back Studios I’m Bill Fitzhugh. Thanks for listening. If you’re looking for the set lists or associated ephemera, feel free to drop by my website and poke around, maybe send an email, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be back with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl next time and I hope you can join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 49 |
They get off the bus every day, coming to Hollywood to become stars. Self gravitating spheres of plasma in hydrostatic equilibrium, with an agent, a manager, and an entertainment attorney who’ll talk about ‘em at lunch. For most people, the nearest star that’s not the sun is Proxima Centauri. But here in Los Angeles you’re just as likely to run into Dustin Hoffman at the bookstore, which happened to me one time. Seemed like a good guy. I gave him a copy of one of my books and we had a nice little chat. He told me that being a star is all about inverse beta decay, electron degeneracy pressure, and getting your hands on the right script and having a director who understands you and knows which is your good side. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a black dwarf, or a red giant. You can have your own star set in concrete on Hollywood Boulevard, people walking right over you. Or if you stick around long enough without having a hit, they’ll walk over you without benefit of the concrete.
The gravitational pull is too much for some people. They come from New Jersey, Texas, Oregon, Mississippi and everywhere else. They just want to see their names in lights. Flashy little shiny little two timin’ mamas. They want to be stars baby and they don’t care what it takes. How badly to they want it? Are they willin’ to sacrifice and be real nice? You bet they are. But stardom can be blinding. As a forgotten movie star once said: “To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After stardom, everything else is poverty.” Well, to help put stardom in perspective, we turn to the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking who said: “We’re just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.” Well. No matter how you look at it, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is star-studded: Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, Sly and the Family Stone, and others. But for starters, let’s go to One Particular Harbour with Jimmy Buffett. |
| Jimmy Buffett |
Stars on the Water |
| The Patti Smith Group |
So You Want to Be (A Rock 'n' Roll Star) |
| Deep Purple |
Highway Star |
| The Kinks |
Starmaker |
| Sly and the Family Stone |
Everybody's a Star |
| Crosby, Stills, Nash |
Dark Star |
| Bob Dylan |
Shooting Star |
Wrapping up a star-studded set with a tale of lost love and regret, that’s Bob Dylan as produced by Daniel Lanois down in New Orleans in 1989. The album, Oh Mercy. Before that, another song about relationships, but one that goes in the opposite direction of the one Bob was singing about. “Dark Star” was written by Stephen Stills. “Dark Star” is also the title of a Grateful Dead standard, which is a completely different song composed, if that’s the right word, by the entire band. And I would have included it in this starry little set except the version I have is twenty-three minutes long. By the way, the Crosby, Stills, Nash album featuring their “Dark Star” was called CSN. When it first came out, the photo of the cover showed the trio in serious-artist pose on the deck of a sailboat. After striking this pose, they started laughing and another photo was taken. They later decided they liked the laughing photo better and that’s the one that blessed the cover of all subsequent copies of the album.
And speaking of sailboats, we started the set with “Stars on the Water” from son of a son of a sailor, Jimmy Buffett’s 1983 release, One Particular Harbour. A song written by the great Rodney Crowell. After that, we heard the Patti Smith Group doing “So You Want To Be (A Rock & Roll Star), Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” the Kinks’ “Starmaker” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everybody is a Star” And that’s it. The star set from The Way Back Studios. Thanks for joining us, I’m Bill Fitzhugh and I’ll be back with a fresh batch next time. And remember, you can trust your car to the man who wears the star and listens to All Hand Mixed Vinyl right here, in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 50 |
Since I’ve never been one to shy away from oversimplifying any given subject, let me just say this about the great state of Louisiana. You can break it down into two parts: the city and the country. There’s New Orleans and then there’s the rest of it. City folk work indoors. Country folk, outdoors. City folk eat that refined Creole cooking. Country folk eat that hearty Cajun food. City folk gave us jazz and R&B. Country folk gave us zydeco. And sooner or later I’m going to do a show about the influences of zydeco, but not today. Today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is dedicated to the people, the spirit, and the music of New Orleans.
Now New Orleans is, and always has been about, if not sex exactly, then at least promiscuity. It’s always been a place of unrestrained appetites. Extravagant eaters, debauching drinkers, wanton druggies, fornicators of all stripes. And of course the politicians who screwed everything, including the pooch. Literal or figurative, sex was subtext to the whole, humid, thing. The streetcar was named Desire, after all. Drinks are served in wide mouth glasses to go, so as not to tie you down. Plates are smothered with so much rich food you can offer a bribe with the leftovers. New Orleans is a place to lick your lips and satisfy your oral urges. That’s always been the lure. The sweet bait on the hook. Hell, even the language is fattening. A patois, all butter cream and praline, every bit as French as a warm tongue in your mouth. And it isn’t just the what; it’s the how much. It’s the excess and the promise of promiscuity that defines the place, makes it the draw it is, a conventioneers’s wet dream, no matter what your proclivity. You want a wholesome vacation? Go to Disneyland. Meanwhile get ready for some of that second line back beat music. From Marcia Ball to The Meters, and right in the middle of the set, be sure to listen for Stevie Ray Vaughn on lead guitar playing with Dr. John and the great saxophonist Bennie Wallace on a tune called “All Night Dance.” This one’s for everybody down in The Big Easy.
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| Marcia Ball |
That's Enough of That Stuff |
| Taj Mahal |
Aristocracy |
| Bennie Wallace |
All Night Dance |
| The Meters |
Hey Pockey Away |
| Ron Cuccia and the Jazz Poetry Group |
Streets |
| Ron Cuccia and the Jazz Poetry Group |
My Darlin' New Orleans |
| Dr. John |
Junko Partner |
Wrapping up a set of songs that’s the aural equivalent to a big bowl of gumbo, there’s a man who came out of the hospital with the name Malcolm and eventually took to calling himself the Night Crawler, but most of us know him as Dr. John. The inimitable Mac Rebennack doing a New Orleans standard called “Junko Partner.” The liner notes on the album, Dr. John’s Gumbo, says “Junnko Partner” was the anthem of dopers, whores, pimps, and cons which is why we like it so much here in the Way Back Studios. It resonates. That’s also a song they sang at Angola, the infamous state prison farm in Louisiana. The rhythm was even known as the 'jailbird beat.’ Earlier in the set we heard Dr. John playing piano on and producing the great Bennie Wallace album, Twilight Time that came out on Blue Note records in 1985. If you can get your hands on it, by all means do. We heard the instrumental “All Night Dance” which, in addition to Bennie’s fine tenor playing, featured Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar.
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We opened the set with Marcia Ball’s “That’s Enough of That Stuff” from her 1985 Hot Tamale Baby, a record she dedicated to the great zydeco player, Clifton Chanier. After that, but recorded ten years before Marcia Ball, we heard Taj Mahal doing a song called “Aristocracy.” That was followed by the Meters with their New Orleans classic “Hey Pockey Away” and then, about as deep a track as you’ll find. Ron Cuccia and the Jazz Poetry group, a band of jazz hipsters who released an album on the Takoma label in 1980, managed to capture the essence of The Crescent City with the two tracks we played, “Streets” and “My Darlin’ New Orleans.” Well we’ve let the good time roll as long as we can and now we’re all out of time. I’m Bill Fitzhugh and I’ll see you later on Decatur with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl. And I hope you can join us, if not at the Café Du Monde, then right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 51 |
Most of Paul Simon’s album Rhymin’ Simon was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I think one track was done in London but the remaining track, a song called “Learn How to Fall” was recorded at Malaco Studios in my hometown, Jackson, MS. The drummer on the track was James Stroud who went on to produce a couple of hundred country hits in Nashville (and who generously consulted on my book, Fender Benders), and the organ player was a guy named Carson Whitsett who grew up right across the street from me. Carson played in his brother’s band, Tim Whitsett and the Imperials. I remember whenever they’d start rehearsing we’d all run across the street and press our little faces to the screened windoss of their living room like they were the Beatles or maybe the Dave Clark Five. But I swear, I don’t remember them ever rehearsing anything but Smokey Robinson’s “I’ll Be Doggone.” In any event, while today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl features a song from Rhymin’ Simon, it’s not the one recorded at Malaco, we’ll do that another time. I just wanted to tell that story.
Instead, we’ll hear “Loves Me Like a Rock” featuring those great background vocals by the Dixie Hummingbirds. Before and after that spiritual groove we have a set that sort of rambles from rhumba to gospel to boogie. And near the end, we’ll get to the two songs that got us started on this set in the first place. Van Morrison’s “Give Me a Kiss” and Steve Miller’s “Lovin’ Cup.” There’s something about the two songs played side by side that brings out the best in both of them. By coincidence we’ll hear from two former members of the Rising Sons, Ry Cooder, doing the traditional “Tamp ‘em Up Solid” and Taj Mahal doing Bilind Willie Johnson’s “You’re Going to Need Somebody on Your Bond.” And we’ll wrap the whole thing up with one from Elvin Bishop. But for starters, I needed something with a funny little funky beat. So first, from the Way Back Studios, “There is a Mountain.” Here’s Donovan. |
| Donovan |
There is a Mountain |
| Jesse Winchester |
Rhumba Man |
| Ry Cooder |
Tamp 'em Up Solid |
| Paul Simon |
Loves Me Like a Rock |
| Taj Mahal |
You're Going To Need Somebody On Your Bond |
| Van Morrison |
Give Me a Kiss |
| Steve Miller |
Lovin' Cup |
| Elvin Bishop |
Let It Flow |
You know, if mama ever actually catches us doing the rhumba. Mama is just gonna pitch a fit. Up near the top of the set, we heard from the “Rhumba Man” himself, Jesse Winchester. From his album Nothing But a Breeze. That came on the heels of Donovan’s “There is a Mountain” which means we can blame him for the Allman Brothers “Mountain Jam.” And speaking of the brothers Allman, Dickie Betts is just one of the guest musicians on Elvin Bishop’s album Let it Flow, from which we just heard the title track. Some of the other folks on that album include the late great Toy Caldwell of Marshall Tucker Band fame, Charlie Daniels, Vassar Clements, and Sly Stone. Before the Bishop, we had a couple of deep tracks, one from the Joker and one from His Band and the Street Choir. In fact it was the two from Van Morrison and Steve Miller that got this whole set started. “Give Me a Kiss” and “Lovin’ Cup” just rang a bell when I heard ‘em next to each other so I put ‘em together and built the rest of the set around ‘em.
Just before the Belfast Cowboy, we heard Taj Mahal doing Blind Willie Johnsons, “You’re Going to Need Somebody on Your Bond.” Ry Cooder, who was once in a band with Taj Mahal was in there somewhere doing the traditional “Tamp ‘em Up Solid” from one of his best albums, Paradise and Lunch. And right in the middle, the consecrated boy, the singer in the Sunday choir, Paul Simon with the Dixie Hummingbirds. She “Loves Me Like A Rock.” Well, it’s like Donovan said, first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then we’re all out of time. By the way, if you’re looking for the show schedule, the set lists, the show commentaries, or a behind the scenes look at the Way Back Studios, drop by my Facebook page or my website and take a look around. I’m Bill Fitzhugh and I’ll be back with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl sooner or later and I hope you’ll join us, right here, in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 52 |
For the sake of discussion let’s say this is your first trip to the Way Back Studios. You might be wondering what’s all this Hand Mixed Vinyl they’re talking about? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s about having fun with the music. Now, we don’t do it the same way every time mind you, where’s the fun in that? We like to mix it up. One day we might do a batch that’s thematic, say, songs about people. The next day we might focus on a sub-category of rock, country-rock, folk-rock, jazz-rock, you never know. And other days, we’re all about segues and mash-ups, plunderphonics and other sonic surprises. And today is one of those. As we like to say, it’s not just what we play, it’s how we play it. This time we’ve got seven songs and one comedy bit played in fourteen parts for your listening enjoyment. Here’s what happened...
It was after midnight. I was in some legal trouble and I found myself thrashing around in bed, on the threshold of a dream, but not quite able to get there, like I needed a better travel agent or something. Flying seemed like the best way out of the problem. But she’d put up the bail and I couldn’t do that to her, so I got to thinking, which, after all, is the best way to travel – at least that’s what Mike Pinder kept telling me. He said, call your attorney, tell him your plans. I said, I don’t want to go back to the city. It gets so hot there. He understood and he said, knock on my door and even the score. Yeah, okay, lovely to see you too again my friend, but what the hell is that supposed to mean? He said, walk along with me till the next bend and I thought, what do I have to lose? So off we went. Next thing I knew he had a peephole into my brain and he could see me as I really was. Then he started talking about Andy Warhol, but he pronounced the name hul instead of whole, or vice versa, and he said, thinking is the best way to travel. And I got the strangest sense of deja vu, but without the whole Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young thing. Well, you can probably figure where the story goes from here, right out to the Way Back Studios for a trippy little batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl. |
| Moody Blues |
Best Way to Travel (part 1) |
| Radio Free Comedy (simultaneous with next track) |
Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and Marx |
| The Steve Miller Band (simultaneous with Radio Free Comedy) |
(SFX intro to:) Children of the Future |
| The Steve Miller Band |
Children of the Future |
| Moody Blues |
Best Way to Travel (part 2) |
| Beatles |
Flying |
| Moody Blues |
Best Way to Travel (part 3) |
| Mark-Almond |
The City (part 1) |
| Moody Blues |
In the Beginning |
| [At one point, Mark-Almond, Moody Blues, and Bowie are playing simultaneously] |
| David Bowie |
(Intro to:) Andy Warhol |
| David Bowie |
Andy Warhol |
| Moody Blues |
Lovely To See You |
| Mark-Almond |
The City (part 2) |
| Mark-Almond |
Return to The City |
That’s Jon Mark and the late Johnny Almond, collectively known as Mark-Almond. They never had any big hits but they got some FM airplay with their tracks “What Am I Living For” and “The City” which came out on their debut album in 1971. In 1976 they released To the Heart which featured “Return to the City” which we just used to wrap up that set.
Now, at some point in the production of that breathless exercise in plunder-phonics, it dawned on me that if you don’t know the precise details of song sequencing for In Search of the Lost Chord and On the Threshold of a Dream as well as those of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, you may actually have a life. Downside is you probably missed some of the nuance in that set. We just did seven songs in fourteen parts, one of which was the Moody Blues’ “Best Way to Travel,” a song we broke into three parts. Between parts two and three we inserted the only true instrumental the Beatles ever did, a song called “Flying.”
Between parts one and two, we inserted Steve Miller’s “Children of the Future.” And not only that, but during the cacophony that is the minute-long intro to “Children of the Future,” we mixed in a spot for the law firm Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and Marx. That’s from Radio Free Comedy, a show I wrote and produced with some pals in Seattle in 1983. In the middle of the set, we were playing three albums simultaneously; that’s right, at the same time: We had The Moody Blues “In the Beginning” and David Bowie’s preamble to “Andy Warhol” playing over the first part of Mark Almond’s “The City.” And just as it could have gone either way, we opted for “Andy Warhol” before coming back to say “Lovely To See You.”
If that doesn’t make any sense to you, then you understand what I meant when I said you might have missed some of the nuance in that set. But like Van said, it’s too late to stop now. Although we have to because we’re all out of time. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl sooner or later, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 53 |
We have a rule about songs here in the Way Back Studios that says if you find a hole in one, stick something in it. And today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is built around a song with more holes than ethics legislation, just the way we like it. It’s a Fleetwood Mac track from 1969 when Peter Green was driving the bus. According to the survey I conducted for today’s show a lot of people know the song but they don’t know the title. They recognize the opening guitar lick and the lyrics about the guy who can’t help about the shape he’s in. Can’t sing. Ain’t pretty. And his legs are thin. “Oh well.” The song’s nine minutes long, starting as a furious Delta blues rock workout before making a transition into a gentle acoustic Spanish guitar piece. When released as a single, the record company split the song into parts one and two, roughly between the electric and acoustic. But the song has several false endings within each half, and that allows us to have some fun.
I took those two parts and broke them into five. During the first break, Joe Jackson jumps in with his cover version of the electric half of the song. During the second break, you’ll hear the first great cowbell segue in All Hand Mixed Vinyl history. It’s a beauty, so you’ll want to be paying attention for that. Tucked away in the middle, after the song slips into the subdued Spanish style, we’ll hear Jose Feliciano covering Lennon and McCartney, then it’s back to the Mac for a minute before we get to the Bridge over Troubled Water with Simon and Garfunkel’s Peruvian excursion, “El Condor Pasa.” That takes us back to Fleetwood Mac before we get to the Streets of New York, with your guide Willie Nile, armed with a Spanish guitar and a cell phone. This is one of our all time favorite sets, we get a lot of email about it, so stick around. I think you’re going to enjoy this one. And having said all that, don’t ask me what I think of you ... I might not give the answer you want me to.
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| Fleetwood Mac |
Oh Well (part 1) |
| Joe Jackson |
Oh Well |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Oh Well (part 2) |
| Rolling Stones |
Honky Tonk Women |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Oh Well (part 3) |
| Jose Feliciano |
And I Love Her |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Oh Well (part 4) |
| Simon and Garfunkle |
El Condor Pasa |
| Fleetwood Mac |
Oh Well (part 5) |
| Willie Nile |
Cellphones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead |
History tellin’ stories that a sailor won’t repeat, believers and infidels fighting in the heat, while bodies of the innocent are covered with a sheet. And the cell phones keep ringing in the pockets of the dead. A startling image from Willie Nile who wrote that one after the terrorist train bombings in Madrid in 2004. That’s from his brilliant Streets of New York. My hands-down favorite album from 2006. If you think about it, it makes the perfect companion piece for New York, Lou Reed’s 1989 ode to the Big Apple. If you don’t have those two, go get ‘em. You can thank me later. And that wraps up what we’ll call the “Oh Well” set. It’s what you get when you take a two-part, eleven minute Fleetwood Mac track from 1969, and break it down further into five parts and mix it with, among things, an 18th century Peruvian folk song, with original lyrics by Paul Simon. “El Condor Pasa” is one of the early examples of Paul’s cross-cultural musical samplings that led eventually to Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.
Also in there, from his most acclaimed pop album, we heard Jose Feliciano’s cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “And I Love Her,” a song we first heard on the soundtrack to A Hard Day’s Night. At the top of the set, during the electric half of “Oh Well,” we jumped from 1969 to 1991 when Joe Jackson gave us a cover of “Oh Well” from his album Laughter and Lust. And then, in the next break, we rolled into the Stones with a Honky Tonk cowbell segue the likes of which you won’t hear anywhere else. Which explains why we’re tuned into the satellites. By the way, if you’re looking for the set lists or the show commentaries or if you want to check out some photos of the Way Back Studios, you can track ‘em down on Facebook and on my website. I’m Bill Fitzhugh. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back with more Hand Mixed Vinyl next time, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 54 |
Recently I’ve noticed that whenever I play something by Taj Mahal, I also tend to play something by Ry Cooder, and vice versa. Of course that’s not really surprising, given their tendency to swim in the same musical waters, much of which flowed out of the pre-war acoustic blues styles of the Mississippi Delta. And that probably goes a long way towards explaining how the two of them ended up in a group called The Rising Sons in the mid 60’s. In any event, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl features both Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, but not in The Rising Sons. Instead we’ll hear a couple from their solo albums, Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff and Paradise and Lunch. Add to that, one each from two other artists who specialize in early Americana, and all the sudden we’ve got a four-song set of what we might call alt folk country blues or dust bowl roots music. The middle of this set consists of “Ophelia” by The Band, Taj Mahal’s “Cakewalk Into Town,” “Jesus on the Mainline” from Ry Cooder, and Bonnie Raitt doing Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy,” from her album Takin’ My Time which features a lot of great guest musicians, including Taj Mahal.
And while those four songs make a fine set, it’s a short one. So I had to add a few more tracks. And while you might expect the Van Morrison at the end of the set, what you might not expect is the British invasion at the beginning that serves as the unlikely intro for the whole alt ethnic Americana slide on the national steel-bodied guitar extravaganza that follows. But such are the pleasures of the Way Back Studios. See, the horns at the start of The Band’s “Ophelia” have always reminded me of some horns at the end of a Beatles track. So I dropped the needle until I found what I was looking for. And that’s how we ended up with the late sixties psychedelic moment that kick starts the whole thing. In any event, these artists have been going in and out of style but they’re guaranteed to turn your dial. So may I introduce to you the act you’ve known for all these years. Here’s Traffic. |
| Traffic |
Heaven is in Your Mind |
| Beatles |
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| The Band |
Ophelia |
| Taj Mahal |
Cake Walk Into Town |
| Ry Cooder |
Jesus on the Mainline |
| Bonnie Raitt |
Everybody's Cryin' Mercy |
| Van Morrison |
Purple Heather |
The way I see it, if you produce a single great album, you're an artistic success. I don't just mean something popular but something that even decades later people agreed was important, something that helped define an era, something that was original. So consider the fact that between 1968 and 1972, Van Morrison produced five albums in a row that are still considered seminal records of the period. Astral Weeks, Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir, Tupelo Honey, and Saint Dominick's Preview. You can't name many rock artists who have five great albums in their entire catalogue, let alone five in a row. The Beatles, the Stones, Dylan. After that list gets short. We just heard Purple Heather from Van's Hard Nose the Highway, the record that got lost in the wake of the five that preceeded it.
Earlier in the set we went proto alt country with Bonnie Raitt, the Band, Taj Mahal, and Ry Cooder doing the traditional Jesus on the Mainline from his album Paradise and Lunch. As it happens, Ry Cooder once formed a group called The Rising Sons with none other than Taj Mahal who we heard recycling the blues and other related stuff like Cakewalk Into Town. The Band's Ophelia came from the horns of the Lonely Hearts Club Band that itself came out of one from Traffic that was far out enough that it could have been on Magical Mystery Tour. Well like they said, heaven is in your mind when you're in the Way Back Studios. Thanks for tuning us in, I'm Bill Fitzhugh, back next week with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl in the Deep Tracks, XM 40.
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| Segment 55 |
A recent university study has shown that in the Deep Tracks library, different songs make listeners do different things. Some songs make you play air guitar, others compel you to pound out drum solos on your steering wheel, but today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is about the kind of song that makes you sing along. More specifically, it’s about two particular songs that make you sing along with the chorus. In fact there’s something about these two songs that make other singers want to sing along, which explains why they’ve been recorded so many other artists. I’m talking about Lowell George’s “Willin’” and Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight.” Two songs about travelers, as it turns out. “Willin’” is the weary trucker’s lament. Itg first appeared on Little Feat’s 1971 debut album, featuring Ry Cooder on slide guitar. The next year, they re-arranged and re-recorded it for the album Sailin’ Shoes, trading Ry Cooder’s slide for Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s pedal steel. Two years later, Linda Rondstadt recorded a version for her album Heart Like a Wheel. And four years after that Little Feat released a live version on Waiting for Columbus.
But it doesn’t matter which version you hear, when the singer gets to the part about the weed, whites, and wine, you just naturally start singing along, whether you’re in Tucson or Tucumcary. “The Weight” is about a traveler’s encounters with the characters of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the home of Crazy Chester, Carmen, Luke, and Miss Anna Lee. The original version of “The Weight” is on Music From Big Pink. As with “Willin’” you might sing along with a verse or two, but you’ll always join in with that chorus. And so it’s during the choruses of the two songs that we’ll do some fun hand mixing. Before we’re done, we’ll hear these two songs broken into eight parts and performed by six bands. And then a seventh band will do the entire song (“The Weight”) in a whole new way. But before we do any of that, we’re gonna start with a quintessential example of mystical cosmic hippie folk rock from a guy who gave guitar lessons to Joni Mitchell. From his album Collaboration, here’s Shawn Phillips. |
| Shawn Phillips |
Moonshine |
| Linda Rondstadt |
When Will I Be Loved? |
| Jesse Winchester |
Isn't That So? |
| Linda Rondstadt |
Willin' (part 1) |
| Little Feat |
Willin' (part 2) |
| Linda Rondstadt |
Willin' (part 3) |
| The Band |
The Weight (part 1) |
| Staple Singers & Marty Stuart |
The Weight (part 2) |
| Smith |
The Weight (part 3) |
| The Band & Staple Singers |
The Weight (part 4) |
| The Band |
The Weight (part 5) |
Joan Osborne |
The Weight |
Coming in at number 41 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, that’s “The Weight” written by Robbie Robertson. We just heard a sort of hip-hop reading of the song by Joan Osborne from her album How Sweet It Is. Before that, the end of the original version from The Band’s album Music From Big Pink which is also the version we started with. In between during the famous chorus parts we handed the song off to some other folks. The second and third verses came off an album called Rhythm, Country, and Blues, which paired up various country and R&B artists, in this case Marty Stuart singing with The Staple Singers. After that, the group Smith, from the soundtrack to Easy Rider. Weirdly, the film itself featured The Band’s original version of the song but some legal issues prevented it from being on the soundtrack album, so we got the Smith’s instead.
After that, The Staple Singers again, this time with The Band. That’s from The Last Waltz album, though not from the concert itself; that was recorded on a sound stage at some other point in the proceedings. And then it was back to Big Pink for the last verse of the original version. Before that, we did the same thing to Lowell George’s “Willin’.” We started with Linda Rondstadt’s version, segued over to Little Feat’s live version, and then back to Linda for the end. At the top of the set, Shawn Phillips gave us one called “Moonshine.” We followed that with two questions: “When Will I Be Loved?” and “Isn’t That So?” by Linda Rondstadt and Jesse Winchester respectively. FYI, if you’re looking for our set lists or if you want to send me an email, drop by my website or the Way Back Studio Facebook page and knock yourself out. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. And remember, if you give me weeds, whites, and wine, I’ll reserve a seat for you, right here in the Way Back Studios. I’ll be back next time with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl and I hope you’ll join us right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 56 |
Right now, I’ve got a great big, honkin’ Hohner in my hand. It’s called a Pocket Pal. Sounds like this. [Blow the harp.] My dog Ava, who is no longer with us, used to sing along whenever I played, sort of like Teddy, the dog in the intro to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Mr. Bojangles.” Remember this? [INSERT Nitty Gritty Dirt Band excerpt] Well, here’s Ava during rehearsals for the Way Back Studio theme song. [INSERT AVA.] As you can hear, Ava was a little temperamental in her old age and just tended to bark at me more than sing. Anyway, as you might have guessed by now, today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is all about the harmonica, the tin sandwich, the Mississippi saxophone. Now the harmonica showed up around 1820. There are a lot of different types: the chromatic, diatonic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and others. But the blues harp, the one with ten holes and nineteen notes? That’s what’s at the heart of today’s set.
As for who’s blowing the old mouth organ this time around, we’ve got one guy from England, one each from Minnesota and Louisiana, two guys from Mississippi, and who knows where Earthquake Anderson is from, but he blows a mean harp on Jesse Colin Young’s cover of the “T-Bone Shuffle.” We’ll also hear John Mayall doing one called “Play The Harp.” Jonathan Edwards gives us a take on the traditional “Morning Train.” Then it’s the great Jelly Roll Johnson playing with my pal Mississippi Fred Knobloch, followed by another guy from the Magnolia State, Steve Forbert. And we’re gonna start with yet another guy from that neck of the woods, Greg ‘Fingers’ Taylor with the great Memphis band, Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers reading off a menu that goes a little something like this.
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| Larry Raspberry & the Highsteppers |
Dixie Diner |
| Jesse Colin Young |
T-Bone Shuffle |
| John Mayall |
Play the Harp |
| Jonathan Edwards |
Morning Train |
| J. Fred Knobloch & Jellyroll Johnson |
House up on the Hill |
| Steve Forgert |
Thinkin' |
That’s Steve Forbert playing guitar and blowing the harpoon on a song called “Thinkin’” from his great debut album, Alive on Arrival. Steve is one those guys who makes me shake my head at the way things sometimes work out. He should’ve been huge but for reasons unknown he didn’t blow up the way a lot of people thought he would. But he’s still out there recording great albums and performing all over, so if he shows up in your neighborhood, get out and see him. You’ll be glad you did. Before that, Steve’s fellow Mississippian J. Fred Knobloch with his buddy Jelly Roll Johnson recorded live at the world famous Bluebird Café in Nashville on a song called “House up on the Hill.” Elsewhere in the set, we heard from the Honky-Tonk Stardust Cowboy himself, Jonathan Edwards, doing one called “Morning Train.” You know, he’s another one of those guys, like Forbert, who delivered one great record after another and still managed to remain largely unknown.
In the middle of the set, a man who is no stranger to the harmonica, John Mayall. You might have thought, how come he’s not playing “Room To Move” in this set? Well, as John once said to someone who out for that song at a show, he said, “No, there’s no more ‘Room to Move.’ Why’d you come here, to hear an old record or something?” Well, yes, that’s exactly why we’re here. But instead of “Room to Move” we heard “Play the Harp” from his album Memories. Before the Mayall, Jesse Colin Young doing the T-Bone Shuffle with Earthquake Anderson on the blow tube. And at the top of the set, “Dixie Diner” from Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers featuring Greg Fingers Taylor. Greg got the nickname ‘Fingers’ from a guy named John Buffaloe when they both played in the Buttermilk Blues Band in Jackson, MS. A few years later, when I was going on the air for my first radio shift, John Buffaloe was the deejay who handed the board over to me. And he said, sorry but we’re all out of time. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl sooner or later and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 57 |
In 1785, Robert Burns wrote a poem called “To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, with the Plough.” This, after having done just that, because, after all, even in 18th Century Scotland it was impossible to make a living as a poet, which explains why he was also a farmer. And, having destroyed the mouse’s nest, he wrote the poem with that famous line about how the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Well, the same is true for the best laid plans of deejays. See I was listening to Steely Dan’s Katy Lied one night and there was something about the guitar part of “Bad Sneakers” that brought to mind the smooth Philly-Soul sound of the Stylistics. More specifically, their 1971 hit “You Are Everything,” a song that’s very of it’s time, complete with electric sitar. So I thought, why not do a set that revolves around the sitar? You know, some late Sixties Beatles, a little Traffic, some Ravi Shankar, stuff like that.
But even as I stomped down the avenue by Radio City, with my transistor and a large sum of money to spend I just couldn’t find enough sitar solos. So much for the best laid plans. But then it hit me, breaking like the waves at Malibu. This batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl wasn’t about the sitar. It was about jazzy pop. So I found Leon Russell singing about how you like to listen to Miles Davis and Stan Kenton and all that jazz. And he might as well have been talking about Joni Mitchell when he said she should stop running around with the saxophone man. Probably talking about Tom Scott. And then Van Morrison mentioned something about the massage parlor with the classical music station playing in the background soft and low. Made me wish it was a jazz station, but you can’t stop now and change that, so we just gathered the Pointer Sisters, Maria Muldaur, and some Traffic to round things out, but I kept coming back to that Stylistics song. I couldn’t make the whole thing work, but I thought, as long as we’re in the Way Back Studios, it might be fun to do this. |
| Stylistics |
You Are Everything (excerpt) |
| Steely Dan |
Bad Sneakers |
| Joni Mitchell |
Trouble Child |
| Van Morrison |
Snow in San Anselmo |
| Joni Mitchell |
Twisted |
| Traffic |
Giving It to You |
| Leon Russell |
Stop All That Jazz |
| Pointer Sisters |
Save the Bones for Henry Jones |
| Maria Muldaur |
We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye (excerpt) |
From her 1976 release, Sweet Harmony, that’s Maria Muldaur with the second half of “We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye.” The song starts as a ballad, which didn’t fit where we were using it. But halfway through the song, there’s a pause, followed by that jazzy little romp at the end. Before that, we were “Saving The Bones for Henry Jones” from back in the day when they recorded for the Blue Thumb label, that’s The Pointer Sisters, Anita, Ruth, Bonnie, and the late June Pointer, somewhere between The Manhattan Transfer and The Andrews Sisters with soul. That’s from their 1975 album, Steppin’. Before that, Leon Russell singing about how he likes the jazz and all, but tends to get the blues when he gets home. We heard the title track from his album, Stop All That Jazz.
The snazzy instrumental before that was Traffic doing “Giving to You.” They released two versions of that song, one on the album Mr. Fantasy and the other as the B-side to the single “Paper Sun.” The single version opens with a verse sung by Steve Winwood where the album version opens and closes with that jive talkin’ hipster going on about how the song’s not where it’s at, man, and wasn’t making it because it’s, like, jazz. Cheech and Chong provided some jive talkin’ of their own on Joni Mitchell’s “Twisted.” And we slipped Van Morrison’s “Snow in San Anselmo” between that and Joni’s “Trouble Child.” And at the top of the set we had “Bad Sneakers” and a pina colada my friend, Steely Dan from Katy Lied and a guitar part that sounds like it escaped from a Stylistics recording session. You Are Everything and everything is possible in the Way Back Studios. I’m Bill Fitzhugh and my time’s up but I’ll be back sooner or later with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 58 |
You can’t swing a dead cat in the Way Back Studios without hitting a record by somebody with a connection to Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Something about their mix of gospel, country, and rock drew famous musicians into their fold like senators to a fund raiser. Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Duane Allman, George Harrison, Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, Bobby Whitlock, and so many others. The cast of characters changed so often in fact that they were referred to simply as Delaney and Bonnie and friends. Delaney and Bonnie themselves never sold a lot of records, but their friends sure did. And though the Bramletts never went platinum they and / or the band they formed would go on to be the rhythm section on several million sellers, including Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and All Things Must Pass.
Delaney and Bonnie’s biggest hit was “Never Ending Song of Love” which was on their album Motel Shot from 1971, about eight years before Bonnie either punched or slapped the crap out of Elvis Costello at a Holiday Inn bar in Columbus, Ohio after an admittedly drunk Costello made some disparaging remarks about Ray Charles. But that’s a whole nuther story. Delaney and Bonnie’s second biggest hit was their cover of Dave Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know” and that’s the song at the center of today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl, though it started while I was listening to Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard. The last track on side two, “Mainline Florida,” has a drum beat and rhythm that reminded me of “Only You Know and I Know” so we’ll do a little hand mixing between Dave’s and Delaney and Bonnie’s versions of the song along with “Mainline Florida” to see how it works. Be sure to listen to the end of “Mainline Florida” when Eric gets starts getting silly with his wah-wah pedal leading us back to All Things Must Pass. That’s later, but first, the rest of the set is just people passing by, staring in wide wonder, as the inside jukebox roars out just like thunder. Here’s Van Morrison. |
| Van Morrison |
Wild Night |
| Steve Miller |
Tokins |
| Joni Mitchell |
Free Man in Paris |
| Delaney & Bonnie |
Only You Know and I Know (part 1) |
| Dave Mason |
Only You Know and I Know (part 2) |
| Eric Clapton |
Mainline Florida (part 1) |
| Dave Mason |
Only You Know and I Know (part 3) |
| Eric Clapton |
Mainline Florida (part 2) |
| George Harrison |
Wah Wah |
Allegedly written after a fight with Paul who complained that his band mate was over using a certain guitar effect, that’s George Harrison and friends doing “Wah Wah” from All Things Must Pass. And speaking of his friends, take a look at who played on All Things Must Pass and you’ll see a list of musicians who honed their chops playing with Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Jim Gordon, Duane Allman, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock. And those are just a few of the influential friends who played with the guy from Pontotoc, MS and his wife out of east St. Louis. In 1970 alone some or all of the Bramlett camp played on Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Eric Clapton’s first solo album, and Dave Mason’s Alone Together. And somewhere in the middle of the set we hand mixed Delaney and Bonnie’s version of “Only You Know and I Know” with Dave Mason’s version and then with “Mainline Florida” off Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard.
And speaking of friends, the rest of the set wouldn’t have been the same without Ronnie Montrose who played guitar on a couple of Van Morrison albums. At the top of the set we heard him on “Wild Night” from Tupelo Honey. Joni Mitchell employed her friends from the LA Express and several of the Crusaders on her album Court and Spark. And on “Free Man in Paris,” she got extra help from her pals Jose Feliciano, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. And that was Steve Miller sitting, getting higher in the back of a limousine with his friends Boz Scaggs, Ben Sidren, and Nicky Hopkins. From the album Number Five. A song called “Tokin’s.” That’s all the time we’ve got for stoking the star making machinery behind the popular song here in the Way Back Studios. Thanks for tuning in and by the way, if you’re looking for the set lists or the show commentaries, drop by my website or track me down using your favorite form of social media. I’m Bill Fitzhugh and only you know and I know when I’ll be back with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl, and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 59 |
Let’s say you’re standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona and you stopped the first ten people who came along. I bet most of them could name a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player. Some could name drummers and piano players too, but how many do you think could name a pedal steel player? Not too many is my bet, and that’s a shame because the Deep Tracks wouldn’t be the same without them. For some groups, the pedal steel was part of the band, like Toy Caldwell with Marshall Tucker and Rusty Young with Poco. But most bands didn’t have anybody in-house, so they brought in a session player, and it’s their work that’s at the heart of today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl.
Sometimes they were called in just to add a grace note here, or a little touch there, but other times, the pedal steel made the whole song. Take Pete Drake’s four note riff that opens and repeats throughout Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay.” That’s what makes the song work. And if you don’t believe me, listen to Duran Duran’s or Ministry’s cover versions of the song. Another of the great session players was Sneaky Pete Kleinow. After playing with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Sneaky Pete worked with just about everybody, from Little Feat to Frank Zappa. In the middle of this set we’ll hear him with Linda Rondstadt. Now this set is built around one of my favorite song-to-song segues where the last chord of the first song is an exact match for the opening chord of the second as we go from Jonathan Edward’s “Have A Good Time For Me” into Dave Mason’s “Every Woman,” featuring Bill Keith and Richard Bennett respectively on pedal steel. We’ll also hear Al Perkins playing with Manassas. But the guy who gets the most air time in this set is the late, great Red Rhodes. He’ll bring the liquid yearning to James Taylor’s “Anywhere Like Heaven” and the heartache to Willis Alan Ramsey’s “Goodbye Old Missoula.” But we’re going to start with one from the group he played with the most. Michael Nesmith’s First National Band. Here’s Red Rhodes on “Mama Nantucket.’
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| Michael Nesmith |
Mama Nantucket |
| Jonathan Edwards |
Have a Good Time For Me |
| Dave Mason |
Every Woman |
| Bob Dylan |
Lay Lady Lay |
| Linda Rondstadt |
It Doesn't Matter Any More |
| Manassas |
Colorado |
| James Taylor |
Anywhere Like Heaven |
| Willis Alan Ramsey |
Goodbye Old Missoula |
From his one and only album so far, that’s Willis Alan Ramsey from 1972 doing “Goodbye Old Missoula.” That was on Shelter Records and playing with Mr. Ramsey on that one is Leon Russell on piano, Carl Radle on bass, Jim Keltner on drums and the late, great Red Rhodes on pedal steel. Before that, from Sweet Baby James, that was Red Rhodes again playing pedal steel on James Taylor’s “Anywhere Like Heaven.” Like all the pedal steel players in the set, Red did session work with an impressive list of artists: The Byrds, The Rolling Stones, Carole King, and others. But at the top of the set, we heard Red as a member of a group. Michael Nesmith’s First National Band. We heard “Mama Nantucket” from a fine album called Magnetic South. After that, it was the title track to Jonathan Edwards’ “Have a Good Time For Me.” That was Bill Keith playing pedal steel and giving us a great segue into Dave Mason’s second version of “Every Woman” featuring Richard Bennett on the instrument in question.
We followed that with the two Petes. Pete Drake playing with Bob Dylan on “Lay Lady Lay” and Sneaky Pete Kleinow playing with Linda Rondstadt on “It Doesn’t Matter Any More,” a song written by Paul Anka. After that, we heard Al Perkins with Stills and Manassas doing “Colorado.” Al’s resume includes time with the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Eagles, the James Gang, and a host of others. By the way, if you want to take a look at the set lists or the show commentaries, you can find them at my website, billfitzhugh.com. And, due to popular demand, I’ve also posted some photos of the Way Back Studios on our Facebook page, so check ‘em out. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl before you know it and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.
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| Segment 60 |
People come up to me all the time and say, Bill, why can’t you just leave well enough alone? The answer’s simple. I say, because you can get well enough alone the rest of the time. Why not a little something different now and then? No reason to be afraid. I mean, it’s the reason we say that in the Way Back Studios it’s not just what we play, it’s how we play it. The whole point is to have some fun with the music, and today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl is a perfect example. So, are you sitting comfortably? Do you have a beverage? Good. Take another sip and see what you’ll see because with the help of The Moody Blues, Al Stewart, and Mike Oldfield, we’re going to take a look at the days of future past through the eyes of a 16th Century prognosticator, a provincial doctor by the name of Nostradamus who published something called The Centuries in 15 and 55. Inarguable as a horoscope, necessarily vague, and prone to misinterpretation, the doctor suggested that he saw a lot of things that would come to pass, but -- in all his wisdom -- he didn’t include a single quatrain about his book being turned into a song by Al Stewart in 19 and 74. Let alone did he shed any light on Year of the Cat.
Be that as it may, we took the Al Stewart track from Past, Present, and Future, diced it into three parts and filled in the blanks with two from the Moody Blues, also chopped in three. There’s one about standing alone on the threshold of a dream and seeing the golden galleons on the crystal sea. And not only that, but they’ll pose epistemological questions like: Are you real? And have you heard Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” lately? Okay, that’s not really epistemological but it applies nonetheless. Somewhere in the middle, we hear from that band Pete Best and Stu Sutcliff used to be in. And at the very end, we’ll hear a Joni Mitchell classic covered by Randy Scruggs. But here’s the best part: the whole thing unfolds right before your ears.
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| Al Stewart |
Nostradamus (part 1) |
| Moody Blues |
Are You Sitting Comfortably? |
| Beatles |
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away |
| Al Stewart |
Nostradamus (part 2) |
| Moody Blues |
Have You Heard (part 1) |
| Al Stewart |
Nostradamus (part 3) |
| Moody Blues |
Have You Heard (part 2) |
| Michael Oldfield |
Tubular Bells (excerpt) |
| Nitty Gritty Dirt Band |
Both Sides Now |
From the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s three record set, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, an album brimming with over 30 musicians and singers, that one stands out as the only solo performance. Just Randy Scruggs and his guitar covering Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Before that, a stereo record that cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it in to the nearest police station. That’s the liner note written on the back sleeve of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells from which we just sampled the last third of side one. The story goes that Oldfield got some free studio time from a friend of his who had a studio associated with a small mail-order record business. Oldfield then shopped the tapes and was rejected by all the major record companies who said it was unmarketable. So his friend formed a record label and ended up selling around 16 million copies of the record. The label was called Virgin and his friend was a guy named Richard Branson who went on to do about two and a half billion dollars worth of other things.
Before the “Tubular Bells” we had a six part mash up of Al Stewart’s “Nostradamus” and the Moody Blues asking questions like “Are You Sitting Comfortably” and “Have you heard?” In the middle of that, a brief reminder that you’ve got to hide your love away, from the soundtrack to the film starring Leo McKern and Eleanor Bron. The same film that answered the questions: Will John live to sleep in his pit again? Will Paul ever get back to his electric organ? Will George be reunited with his ticker-tape machine? And Ringo -- will he ever play the drums again? Tune in again next time for the answers to these and other burning questions, same Way Back Time, Same Way Back station. I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll have another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl before you know it and I hope you’ll join us right here, in the Deep Tracks.
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