Getting Knocked Out by Wanda Jackson (Part 2 of 2) – the Wanda Jackson interview [Listen 24:04] S03 Ep01
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S03 Ep01 (Part2 of 2)- Getting knocked out by Wanda Jackson
Interview Date: August 23, 2012 @1pm EDT
Special Guest: Wanda Jackson - has been called "The Queen of Rockabilly" and is by all accounts a Rock'n'Roll legend - she has a distinct style in both Rockabilly and Country (often bouncing between both styles on the same record). Credited as being the first women to record a Rock'n'Roll single; Wanda Jackson is a crucial figure in the Rock genre and the feminist movement. In this podcast we talk about the songs “Mean Mean Man,” “Let’s have a party” “Fujiyama Mama”, Ken Nelson, Buddy Holly, Joe Maphis,and Roy Clark.
Wanda Jackson has some "Unfinished Business" coming out a week from today; her new album is out October 9 and is produced by Justin Towns Earle (Steve Earle's Son) from Suger Hill Records. Check out more at: http://www.wandajackson.com/
Tribute to Joe Maphis
Joe Maphis, born Otis W. Maphis, known as "the King of the Strings," and his playing lived up to the title. His custom built double necked Mosrite guitar had one shorter, and strung to an octave higher. He could play between the two seamlessly. He could play multiple stringed instruments equally well, as he displayed for audiences shifting through banjos, mandolins, and guitars. He played with some of the greats including Wanda Jackson, and his influence spread further to Merle Travis, Jimmy Bryant, and Chet Atkins.
To those in the know, he's a respected guitarist, and one who's skill earned him recognition in the Country Music Hall of Fame, where his double necked guitar can be seen on display; to those who don't know him, he deserves a moment of your attention, where, he'll easily capture and hold it for the duration. He was known for having a bit of flair and absolute ease of application. What is strange, in that I've never seen it mentioned, is that you can see it in his smile. It's often there captured in his pictures; it's not arrogant, it's not cocky, but it's a little sly and knowing.
You can see that he to
Parting Thoughts:
I thought I might put a link to Joe Maphis knockin' everyone out!
Wanda Jackson Interview (Part 1 of 2) – Playing records for Wanda Jackson [Listen 20:45] (S03 Ep01)
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S03 Ep01 - Playing records for Wanda Jackson
Interview Date: August 23, 2012 @1pm EDT
Special Guest: Wanda Jackson - has been called "The Queen of Rockabilly" and is by all accounts a Rock'n'Roll legend - she has a distinct style in both Rockabilly and Country (often bouncing between both styles on the same record). Credited as being the first women to record a Rock'n'Roll single; Wanda Jackson is a crucial figure in the Rock genre and the feminist movement. In this podcast we talk about her first radio show, playing Bob Neals 8th Anniversary Jamboree on August 5, 1955 in Overton Park Shell, Memphis, Tennessee, and the day Elvis and her talked about switching her style to Rockabilly to fit the new demographics coming of age (teenage kids with enough money to buy their own music).
Wanda Jackson has some "Unfinished Business" she needs to get off her chest; her new album is out October 9 and is produced by Justin Towns Earle (Steve Earle's Son) on Suger Hill Records. Check out more at: http://www.wandajackson.com/
The Royalty of Rockabilly
Bill Haley, of course. Out of Detroit, and spearheaded the popularity of rock with Shake, Rattle and Roll, and Rock Around the Clock. He didn't look the part, but he had a wild history. More rock than rock. If you're not familiar with him, you should do that, and quickly, if you like music. He didn't just come out of nowhere, he had a successful thing with western swing.
Elvis Presley. Sam Phillips of Sun Records struck gold releasing "That's Alright Mama". Elvis fit the mold of what Phillips was looking for in a white boy who could sing black. They changed everything again in music. Too good looking and talented to stay working as a truck driver, plus it's hard to shake your hips driving a truck.
Little Richard. Unbelievable energy, and the inspiration for several legends after him Including Bob Dylan, James Brown, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson. "Tutti Frutti" started it all off, and wasn't even intended to be recorded during the session. He did what he wanted and quit rock and roll to pursue his calling into the priesthood. He came back into music to sing gospel, for a while . . .
Chuck Berry. Influenced by T-Bone Walker, Berry played blues and some ballads, but his country playing got him labeled as the black hillbilly. His hybrid style launched him to one of the top acts of 1956.
Buddy Holly. Also the progenitor of the rock band standard with two guitars, bass, and drums. A real rock and roll rebel, who's career and life was cut short in the plane crash memorialized as the day the music died.
Fats Domino. Ambassador of New Orleans music in the 1950's, and great inspiration to John McNally of The Searchers. Do you get it yet? These are the great influences in music overlooked by time's passing. He admitted the lyrics weren't too deep, but he landed 40 songs on Billboard's top 10 rhythm and blues between 1950 and 1961.
Jerry Lee Lewis. The Killer. The bad boy. He put everything he had into his performances. He became known nationwide in 1957 with "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" then had successive hits with "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless."
Roy Orbison. With such talent and such a dynamic voice, he could do nearly anything and any style. Almost to his detriment; it took a time and a few different labels for Orbison to find his place and start churning out the hits. But once he did, he was off. And off again in the 1980's with his resurgence.
John McNally of the Searchers interview (part 2 of 2) [Listen 25:41] – Nearly giving in to John McNally (S02 Ep15)
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S02 Ep13 (Part 2 of 2) - Nearly giving in to John McNally
Interview Date: July 20, 2012 @ 2 pm
Special Guest: John McNally of the Searchers - Known for hits like "Sweets for my Sweet," "Needles and Pins," and "Love Potion Number 9," the Searchers were one of the leading bands to come out of the Merseybeat scene out of Liverpool in the early 60's. Known for playing at the Star Club in Hamburg, the Cavern, and the Iron Door in Liverpool, the Searchers went on to become part of the first wave of the "British Invasion" with a TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and a major US tour. The Searchers have continued to entertain and tour 50 years on. In this podcast we talk about some of their hit songs, John Lennon and Brian Epstein, going on tour with the Rolling Stones and much more.
The Truncated History of the Birth of the Loud Guitar
A little research into the background of the electric guitar reveals some fascinating history. Similar to the birth of Radio, (on which Ken Burns 
has a great documentary “Empire of the Air”), the players and path of making the guitar louder has some fascinating and colourful characters. All of which, had they not been present, would have shaped the progression of the guitar very differently. Perhaps, most profoundly for the Rickenbacker electric guitar.
We'll start the story at where the desire to make the guitar louder launched the impetus to create in George Beauchamp, (pronounced Beechum) a vaudeville violinist and steel guitar player who wanted to be heard more clearly above the band. He sought John Dopyera to create a prototype of his design using a phonograph horn similar to what was used on phonographs of the time. Other inventors were trying to produce an amplified guitar using similar methods at the time. Apparently, this first attempt was nothing but a failure, but their next design involved using three aluminum resonators proved to fulfil everything that Beauchamp had hoped. It proved to impress him so much that he proposed that Dopyera go into business with him to market them. They founded the National String Instrument Corporation and thus the first National resonator guitar was born - the tricone.
Searching for investors, Beauchamp took the tricone prototype to a party his 20's millionaire playboy, cousin-
in-law, Ted Kleinmeyer, was hosting, and where hawaiian guitar virtuoso Sol Ho'opi'i and his trio were playing for Ho'opi'i to play. Apparently, having heard Ho'opi'i playing the new guitar, Kleinmeyer gave Beauchamp a $12,000 cheque that same night. Kleinmeyer's investment was great fortune for the company, but perhaps not so difficult to come by as one would think, as Kleinmeyer was trying to burn through his inheritance before he would get his next million dollars of inheritance at 30. However, the events that evening were the pivotal point which changed the lives and careers of countless people, and it's effects are still resounding. For the initial players, Sol Ho'opi'i continued to play the tricone and helped to make the guitar quite popular. It's general popularity lasted until the electric guitar came into use, but steel instruments still are mainstays in Hawaiian music, and familiar in blues, western swing, bluegrass, and country.
From their nascent factory, Beauchamp and Dopyera went to a nearby metal stamping plant owned by a Swiss born man by the name of Adolph Rickenbacher (who anglicized his name to Rickenbacker, partly because of famous relative and top WWI ace, race car driver, and automobile manufacturer, Eddie Rickenbacker) to make the metal bodies of the instruments they were making. Successful production began almost overnight.
Unfortunately, the partnership would not last, internal struggles, hardship, and disagreements with the direction of the company caused the bond of the members to fracture. John Dopyera quit to form the his own company - the Dobro Corporation. Beauchamp himself was fired. Kleinmeyer, nearly broke by then, sold out his shares to Louis Dopyera, one of the Dopyera brothers who remained involved in National. Rickenbacker himself seemed to be the only level headed one, and continued to do business with the splinter groups.
John Dopyera, sought to make a resonator that would be less costly to produce and therefore priced more appropriately for a larger scope of 
players, one that implemented a single cone instead of three. Something he tried to produce at National, but wasn't able, contributing to his frustration with the company. With his new company, he set to building his plan, but despite being one of the creators of the resonator, National owned the patent for the single cone and he had to come up with another design to work around the patent. This brought him to found the Dobro company with four of his brothers. He designed plans to invert the aluminum cone and have the strings transmit their sound through an eight-way branching cast aluminum frame called a spider. While the name Dobro is used to refer to many resonators, the inverted cone spider type is the true dobro. Gibson guitars purchased the rights to the Dobro name now.
The single cone resonator proving, as Dopyera figured, to be cheaper, and producing more volume, became popular and took sales. National didn't want to be left behind and had to come out with their own single cone using what they call a biscuit to transmit the sound to the cone -known as the National biscuit, or simply the National.
Beauchamp, still investing his time in experimentation, decided to pursue the concept of amplifying the guitar by use of electronics, and educated himself by enrolling in night school. After night school and through several months of experimentation, finally he had developed a way of concentrating the magnetic field under each string. Beauchamp went back to Rickenbacker to found a new company to produce the instrument. They began making the electric guitar, “the Rickenbacker” a.k.a. “the frying pan.”
To show what great products blossomed out of that seminal moment when Beauchamp had Ho'opi'i play his prototype that night, one need only
pick a few more examples; the effects really seem to be endless the more one looks into it. All events concerning electric guitars can trace their way back to that night. Rickenbacker, producing amplifiers for their guitars had many of them making their way into Leo Fender's radio repair shop sparking his interest in electric instruments (who later formed Fender with Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, another former worker for Rickenbacker). And further events brought the National String Instrument Company, and Dobro to merge for a time, forming the National Dobro Company which, in turn led three former owners of that company to spin-off and form another company,Valco. Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera, founded the short lived company, but produced a highly sought after guitar. Simply, the history of the electric guitar goes back to that evening at Kleinmeyer's party.
Rickenbacker continues to develop guitars, and the basis of their electromagnetic pickups are still the standard for amplifying the sound from the strings. Rickenbackers, although a different company than from the formative years, still are known by their distinct, clear sound and original style. Paul McCartney and George Harrison were known to use them, plus Tom Petty and many more, but to list them would only serve an example of leaving notable names out, plus make this a much longer article, and that's not the point. What was meant to show and that the history of the loud guitar isn't so hard to trace back to that one evening, and to Beauchamp, who had a little ingenuity, and the wish to play loud, so to end this history here with a quote from Bob Dylan; “Play fucking loud!”
Parting Thoughts:
A Message from Leafcutter John
I’d like you to help me make a massive morse code chorus.
I’m making a piece of music for BBC radio 3′s the Verb show and I’d like to assemble a large chorus of people speaking in morse code. I need your help – All you have to do is record yourself speaking the letter ‘Q’ followed by the words:
Dot.
Dash.
Dit.
Dah.
if you like you can then follow that with your favourite word beginning with the letter Q.
Or you can email me the recording & tell me how you’d like to be credited.
morsecodechorus@gmail.com
Or record it via your mobile phone or computer directly to soundcloud and share it withleafcutterjohn. Cleck HERE to do it. And please remember to make it DOWNLOADABLE!
I think the show goes out on 24th October.
Many thanks!
J x.
The Kinks - Have a cool contest for people wanting to re-interpret one of their songs. You can find out more here: http://www.talenthouse.com/collaborate-with-the-kinks
Tom Waits News:
Links:
http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/electricguitar/invention.htm
http://www.rickenbacker.com/history_early.asp
http://www.kwch.com/kwch-rew-photos-80-years-of-the-electric-guitar-20120712,0,4320825.photogallery
John McNally of the Searchers interview (Part 1 of 2) – Getting it partly right with John McNally
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S02 Ep13 (Part 1 of 2) - Getting it partly right with John McNally of the Searchers
Interview Date: July 20, 2012 @ 2 pm
Special Guest: John McNally of the Searchers - Known for hits like "Sweets for my Sweet", "Needles and Pins" and "Love Potion Number 9" the Searchers were one of the leading bands to come out of the Merseybeat scene out of Liverpool in the early 60's. Known for playing at the Star Club in Hamburg, the Cavern, and the Iron Door in Liverpool, the Searchers went on to become part of the first wave of the "British Invasion" with a TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and a major US tour. The Searchers have continued to entertain and tour 50 years on. In this podcast we talk about what the Mersey sound is, Skiffle, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Fats Domino, the Cavern, The Star Club and more.
The Path to Becoming Recognized as a God and Gaining Ecstatic Joy and Unfathomable Riches (Through Rebellion, Grief, and Failure)
It's a topic that's been plunged into several times over, but we're going to breech it here again: John Lennon. He had tough beginnings. An absent father, and brought up by a strict Aunt, his free-spirited mother encouraged him and probably aided to his “corruption.” Later traumatized by her early death, which left unresolved issues (somewhat revealed in his song “Mother”). Lennon was an outsider. He was troubled, 
and obviously didn't fit in. In school days (in the staid and restrictive British education system), he was disruptive and deemed unteachable. He failed all his O levels, but was accepted into Liverpool Art School. In those days, he put his energy into his passion - Rock & Roll. He bought a guitar before he even know how to string one and played it banjo style.1(31)
Despite his lack of knowledge, he was driven, and he was persistent and persuasive; he enticed his friends to join along with him to form a skiffle group. He emulated his rock & roll idols in style and attitude, Elvis being one of his biggest. And, apparently, he didn't temper his attitude for anyone. He had numerous fights with his Aunt. While most kids adopt a rebellious style for posturing, Lennon must have had a better understanding of the alienation and frustration and the need for creative expression and release like the original artists of the music he was identifying with, having a depth gained through sorrow and estrangement. The driving rock & roll beat must have led to both fueling and allowing him to vent his frustration and anger. But obviously, it was not enough; he was known to get into fights and beat his women. (Listen to "Jealous Guy")
Spurred on by the excitement, emotion, encouragement from his mother, plus the attention it gained from girls, Lennon kept up with playing the heavy beat rock & roll that came from the United States. Although not as musically talented, John recognized well enough to cater to it, even if it bruised his ego, and begrudgingly accepted Paul McCartney into the group and later took in George Harrison in a similar fashion. The band grew, others left for other interests, or were forced out.
But it’s not just John's leadership, recognition of talent, or even the idea about the whole of the Beatles being greater than the sum of it's parts that led to Lennon's success; more than that it's the few people that stepped in and helped immeasurably, sometimes unknowingly, like the schoolmaster who wrote a letter encouraging enough to get him into art school despite failing the O levels where he met his first bandmates, and Allan Williams, owner of the Jacaranda Club, who was the one who got them the contract to play in Hamburg, Germany where really, it all came together, and of course, Brian Epstein. Although the Beatles later became critical of Epstein's management (save for Ringo Starr), without Epstein, the Beatles most likely would never have been so widely known. He persuaded the band to clean up their image, and did so at a time when John was still hurling insults to the audience and for behaviour that nowdays leads to a quick path of getting institutionalized and medicated. John was reluctant to change, but through Epstein's insistence, John complied,
although, he didn't temper his attitude and behaviour off-stage. A tough transition, though it worked. The tough, leather-clad band simply wouldn't have been marketable to such a wide audience as Epstien made them. Success made it too rewarding not to comply for appearances. And they were gaining success in torrents.
But it was John's pain, wit, attitude, intellect, collegiality and ability to collaborate which contributed most of all to his success. It was not by controlling, conforming, and pigeonholing, but more through guidance and encouragement that John was allowed to tap into his inspiration and creativity and it was this that allowed the inspiration to flow and to be received and appreciated by the greater western world. This was only the start. The God status came later, but he carried his grief and trouble with him throughout it all.
More of the story to come later.
S01 Ep06 – (1 of 3) Seeing Ray Price as a Human Being.
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S01 Ep06 - (1 of 3) - Seeing Ray Price as a Human Being
Interview Date: July 8, 2011 @11am EDT
Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys
I don’t know where to begin, or how to explain the gravity and cultural significance of my next guest. Ray Price is a Country honky-tonk legend who, by all accounts, kept the Hard Country torch alive as the rest of the world was turning its back and jumping on the Rock ’n ’Roll bandwagon.1 He is a man whose “music” and “message”, I would argue, is more relevant today than any other time in history. To listen to him is to listen to over a hundred years of American history all boiled down into one well crafted tune; a man so important that Hank Williams