December 15, 2025 • 38 mins
This Week in Music History: December 15-21 | John Lennon’s Final UK Show, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Nirvana MTV Unplugged & More
Join Buzz Knight and Master of Music Mayhem Harry Jacobs for an unforgettable journey through music history on the Takin’ A Walk podcast! This week’s episode covers December 15-21, packed with legendary moments that shaped rock and roll forever.
Featured Music History Highlights:
🎸 John Lennon’s Last UK Performance - December 15, 1969: Discover the historic UNICEF charity concert featuring the Plastic Ono Band with George Harrison and Eric Clapton at London’s Lyceum Ballroom
📀 Pink Floyd’s The Wall Phenomenon - The iconic double album hits #1 in 1979, spawning their only #1 single “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2”
🎤 Nirvana MTV Unplugged - Kurt Cobain’s haunting final performance aired December 16, 1993, just months before his tragic death in April 1994
🎵 Elvis Costello’s SNL Rebellion - The legendary 1977 Saturday Night Live moment when Costello stopped “Less Than Zero” mid-song to launch into the unauthorized “Radio Radio”
Plus These Essential Music Moments:
• ZZ Top’s debut album release (1971)
• Keith Richards marries Patti Hansen on his 40th birthday (1983)
• Ronnie Wood officially joins The Rolling Stones (1975)
• Carl Perkins writes rock standard “Blue Suede Shoes” (1955)
• Elvis Presley receives draft notice at Graceland (1957)
• Michael Jackson’s Thriller becomes first 30-million-selling album (2015)
• Bob Dylan’s movie debut in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
• Billy Gibbons birthday celebration and Dusty Hill’s bizarre accident
• Creedence Clearwater Revival’s massive certification day - 5 singles and 5 albums go gold simultaneously (1967)
• Elvis meets Nixon at the White House seeking narcotics agent badge (1970)
• Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” returns to #1 after Freddie Mercury’s death (1991)
• Paul Simon’s emotional “Sound of Silence” performance at Sandy Hook victim’s funeral
Special Guests Referenced: Rob Barnett (MTV), Danny Goldberg (Nirvana manager), Bernie Leadon (Eagles)
This episode features insights on The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin era, classic rock radio, album sales vs. streaming metrics, and how the Official Chart Company changed music charts to reflect the digital streaming age.
Perfect for music history buffs, classic rock fans, Beatles enthusiasts, Pink Floyd collectors, Nirvana fans, and anyone passionate about rock and roll legacy. Master of Music Mayhem Harry Jacobs brings research-backed storytelling with help from Claude AI to deliver fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from music’s greatest moments.
Takin’ A Walk: In-depth music interviews exploring the stories and music history behind the songs.
Support the show: https://takinawalk.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Are you ready, mister Mayhem.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh yes I am, Oh yes i am.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm Buzzsnight, the host of the Taken a Walk podcast,
and I'm so happy that you're here for another look
at this week in music history and master of music
Mayhem Harry Jacobs. What week are we looking at?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the week of December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Holy moly, you know, I distinctly remember last year we
were at this point. A year ago, we were about
a month or so into doing this. I had no
idea it would last a year right where. I think
we're both surprised by that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
By everything every day.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Is there anything that doesn't surprise you exactly? So, you know,
as we were thinking about this today, I was looking
back at the notes and I'm like, oh, buzz, maybe
we should just run a rerun or a best of
I was thinking these are really slow music weeks as
we as we get it into Christmas. But there's a
lot of information, you know, Claude dot Ai. I have
to tip my hat to them for the research help.
(01:09):
They're sponsor of the show, and they're they're a major
help in terms of researching and confirming things. And it's
just that. That's been a delight. But I've got a
lot of information. You know, the next two weeks, which
I thought were going to be slow, We've got a
lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff I
was unaware of.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So we'll we'll have to parcel it out and maybe
minimize the amount of Connie Francis references because it's Christmas time.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, here we go, Here we go. You think I'm
going Connie Francis. You're wrong, my friend. I think I
may have to leave you with a cliffhanger for the
week of the fifteenth, when we may have to break
up the week of the fifteenth to the twenty first
into two parts. Let's get it rolling. December fifteenth, John
Lennon and the Yoko the Plastic ownA band with George
Harrison and Air Clapton and others, played the UNISEF charity
(01:59):
in London. This has happened in you know, nineteen seventy three.
I think this was his last appearance in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I think about a while to think about that. Yeah, boy,
I would have loved to have been a fly in
the world for that.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh can you imagine? Do they know it's Christmas? Entered
the UK charts at number one. We've had this conversation
biggest selling single in the United Kingdom of all time,
George Michael and Sting and Bono and Phil Collins and
a host of others, and.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I still love hearing it. I mean, I don't race
towards the dial to turn the dial if I'm listening
to a Christmas station and that song comes on, like
I do with some songs.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right, I was speaking speaking at Christmas. I was watching
an interview with this guy's name Graham Norris, the guy
from London. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, it sounds like he's English, but no, I know.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think that's who he is. Anyway, he had Jennifer
Laurie song. She was on at the same time Springsteen
was on, and he asked her a question and he said,
you know, you have a favorite song that cheers you
up when you're on a movie set or you're feeling lonely,
doesn't matter what time of year it is, And it's
a Springsteen song. And and they literally were asking Bruce
(03:19):
to guess what the song might be. They use the
word jolly, Well, will it makes her feel jolly? Makes
me feel jolly every time, and I'm thinking that would
be a dead giveaway for Santa Claus's coming to town.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I think so. I think it is a dead giveaway.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I can hear that song anytime, anywhere and be.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Happy, no disrespect to when I say jolly.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But yeah, or how jolly Christmas, that's right, that's right.
So at any rate, that's that's Jennifer Lawrence's favorite, cheer
her up kind of song.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I love her.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I've seen him play that in the summer. I saw
him play that somewhere in July. It was funny if
people were throwing the Santa hats up and he said,
let's do it. Nineteen seventy nine, Pink Floyd started a
five week run at number one on the UK charts,
and this led to the band's only number one single
the album was The Wall and Another Brick in the
(04:12):
Wall Part two was the song their only song that
made it to number one. And this was such an
interesting album for so many reasons. I can tell you
that this morning, twice this morning, I listened to that
album all the way through the double album. I just
I wanted to get back into it. I knew we
(04:33):
were going to talk about it, I realized that, you know,
I knew this like we all do, that there were,
you know, three different sections of Another Brick in the Wall,
Part one, Part two, and part three, and I went
specifically to listen to those three different parts. Initially I
think my favorite is Another Brick. Part one really dark, creepy,
(04:56):
but the song ends up rocking out. Part two was
the whole how can you have any meat if you
don't have your pudding right? We don't need no education.
And number three was the darkest of the of the three.
And and it was one of those things. One of
the lyrics is I don't need no arms around me,
(05:18):
I don't need no drugs to calm me. It was
this the guy, the protagonist, the pig, three stages of
grief and trauma in his life. It's a very dark
when you look at when you get down the rabbit
hole of what the Wall was all about. It's a
very dark album. And and that song, the three different,
three different you know it takes Another Brick part are
(05:42):
the three different parts one, two, and three, all very different,
but all three really dark.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
When I put my Psychosis playlist together, that album is
at the height of it.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
There's someone that that was damaged writing writing that album.
Roger twenty one a guy we owe a tip of
the hat to his birthday Alan Freed was born. He
actually coined the phrase rock and roll. But we all
know him a little tip of the hat. We wouldn't
be doing what we're doing today without him.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
That's right, Minus the fact that he got messed up
in the Paola side of things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You know, I forgot all about that. But he was
a part of that, wasn't he, So I believe Yeah,
for those that are unaware, Paola Plugola is when record
companies or artists went to the disc jockeys who in
those days were making decisions about songs that were getting played.
And Alan Freed took a bunch of money from the
(06:43):
record companies.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But we do owe him, and to your point, a
debt of gratitude.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right nineteen seventy seven, who played a surprise show for
the documentary The Kids Are All Right. There's a you know,
a scene in that movie where they're playing, you know,
in a very small venue, and that was the Shepperton
Studios that was used for the documentary, and they it
was basically an audience made up of fan club members
(07:12):
for that show. That's quite a prize, right, pretty Neat
two thousand and one, Joe Walsh received an honorary doctorate
of Music from Kent State. I was unaware that it's
doctor Joe Walsh, but it is doctor Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Walsh and Ken State too.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah. Right, the song Ohio the Violence in seventy two, No, no,
before that had to be before that.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, it would have been sixty eight. I was gonna
say sixty eight or nine.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, sixty eight or sixty nine. Song came out.
Ohio came out right away, But a long way around
for Joe Walsh getting his doctorate. I'm surprised that we
never heard that. I'm surprised he didn't take that name
and you know, or take that title and add it to,
you know, to his name. Dr wolfsh absolutely. Dr two
(08:05):
thous Presume you're not a doctor, you're a dentist. From
the Hangover two thousand and three, Courtney Love sentenced to
eighteen months in rehab after she admitted she was under
the influence of coke and various opiates. I saw her
around that time. Our friend Billy Bush was here in
(08:26):
town to do something. I remember where we were at
the UNLV the auditorium there where they have shows their arena,
and we I did something with Billy around Beyonce and
jay Z who were at that show. But I remember
seeing Courtney Love there. I was struck by how enormous
she was in high heels. I mean, she was taller
(08:48):
and I'm over six feet and she was significantly taller
than I was, as I recall, and she was just
a disaster. I think it's fair to say once she
walked by, yeah sad, you know. Yeah, I could smell
the pills coming off of her. It was it was set.
I think her life is together these days, maybe maybe not.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Luckily we haven't heard much, so I think maybe it is.
But listen, you know that deep loss, you know, never
never loves her for sure, It's get carried through her
entire life. So you know you do have to have,
you know, empathy for.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Loss, you know, get a little you know, a little
Kurt Kobain coming up to talk about as well, so
we'll touch on that. But yeah, very sad sequence of
events that led her down her road of self destruction, No,
no other way to put it. Elton John hitting number
one on the fifteenth in the UK was sorry. It
seems to be the hardest word. Really. I'm a fan
(09:49):
of those ballad the long ballads, Sorry and Tiny Dancer
and leave On. Just the softer kind of Elton from
that period of time, you know, those longer ballads. Yeah,
even I like the.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Old Yeah, the older versions. I think the Disney version
of Elton it wasn't my favorite part, by the way.
Brief sidebar relating to to Elton, uh and to Paul McCartney.
We finally saw the spinal Tap reboots.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Paul rob Reiner was on the show and Elton plays
a prominent role in it, as does Paul McCartney too,
So it's totally worth seeing. You know, I didn't know
even though I loved having Rob on. Listen, I'm calling
him Rob. Yeah, I I love having loved having them on,
(10:45):
But it's definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's fantastic. I have not seen it, and I will
take the assignment and I will watch it. Unlike you,
you don't always take the movie assignments for me, but
I guess in this arrangement, I work for you, So
I will watch it and report were Back in nineteen ninety,
Rod Stewart married Supermodel with Rachel Hunter. He was famously
quoted as saying, this is one of the most misogynistic
(11:10):
quotes ever in the history of misogynistic statements, that he
would no longer be putting his banana in anybody's fruit
bowl from then on.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They divorced. He's awful soul.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
No. Nineteen eighty eight, Summer fifteen, James Brown sentenced to
six years in prison for various offenses, including a firearms
offense and also resisting arrest. Mister Brown was uncooperative when
authority showed up. He was waving the gun around.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
He probably meant, well, I don't know. I don't know
what he meant, and I don't think he knows what
he meant at that time.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No. December sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, Hey Joe was released
by Jimmy Hendrick Jimmy Hendrick Experience. It was on Pollardor
That song. Three years later was the close out for
his set at Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Did a great version of that Oh there you go Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Nineteen eighty three Pete Towns and announced he was leaving
the WHO. It's a big deal at the time. Now,
I don't know how many farewell tours later, all due
respect to Pete and Roger.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I know it's incredible, what a what a what a.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Couple of they are, and I don't know if they're
you know, I always like to kind of get a
little bit of information and insight into what people what
the relationship was like, you know, Jagger and Richards and
Lennon and McCartney, and I think with with these guys,
you know, I just wonder, you know, what the what
(12:47):
the relationship was like between them. I never heard much
about arguing or disagreeing. I know, you know, Roger needed
to continue to tour, he wanted the wanted and needed
the money. But I never heard much in the way
of content.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, look, I have another assignment for you relating to
a band situation or you know, two partners in music situation.
It's fantastic this documentary it's called in Restless Dreams The
Music of Paul Simon. And there's two Paul Simon documentaries
(13:24):
that came out. There was the other one was Hulu
and this one we just recently watched. And boy, oh boy,
you get tremendous insight into that question. I'll just leave
it at that because you will see it in very
harsh terms with our garb uncle.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's on my list. I came across it the other night.
I had watched something musical and then in the list
of suggested shows after that the Paul Simon thing, and
I need to watch it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, fabulous, And you really gain greater appreciation for him.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And he's got a hearing issue which is preventing him,
you know, from playing and some more singing. But for both,
I mean, if you can't hear, yeah, you sing so sad.
But I'm looking forward to seeing it. I want to
try to watch it over the coming days and check
that out. In nineteen ninety three, on December sixteenth, Nirvana's
(14:21):
Unplugged concert air on MTV. This was a big deal.
This was one of Cobain's last performances. This is what
I was alluding to a few minutes ago when we
were talking about Courtney. He died on April eighth of
nineteen ninety four, and the prior week he had escaped rehab.
So I don't know if you remember the sequence of events,
(14:43):
but when you know the situation, the circumstances around his
death were very cloudy. April first, he escaped from rehab
two days after checking in and then he was found,
you know, on the eighth and in his suicide note
(15:03):
he used the words over the line, better to burn
out than fade away. Neil Young, Right, he part of
the twenty seven club. Kurt Cobain.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, and unbelievable and yeah, that MTV performance was you know,
words can't describe it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, And if folks are curious about that, you've got
a great segment where Rob Barnett joined you to talk
about that. Rob Barnett, who was, you know, one of
the big wigs for MTV for a period of time
and he was a great guest. So folks cancerts that up.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah. And Danny Goldberg too, the manager of Nirvana, actually
is part of the great great episode.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Had taken a walk. And in two thousand and five,
the remaining members of the Beatles began their legal action
against EMI on behalf of their interests in Apple. They
sued for I believe about thirty million dollars that they
thought was owed that EMI had Pilford from them.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Isn't that crazy just to think about that?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And now in this day and age, when you think
about the money that they thought they were owed and
we continue to have this discussion about streaming and album
sales and records in the record business. It's just they're
worth nothing. It would be worth nothing, you know at
this point, even though there's value in the catalog. That
what would that lawsuit have looked like today, you know,
(16:30):
twenty years twenty twenty one years later.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
It's crazy to think about it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Nineteen forty nine. Billy Gibbons, the Reverend Willie g As
he refers to himself, one of my favorite guitar players.
He was number thirty two on the twenty eleven Rolling
Stone list of best Guitar Players of all time, was born.
This is his birthday. Also on this day, this is
(16:55):
I never even heard this story. Same day Billy is
celebrating his birthday, Dusty is unpacking his car, either looking
deliberately for his Darringer pistol or it just falls out
of the car, but he inadvertently shoots himself in the
(17:15):
gut with his derringer pistol, and then he drove himself
to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, oh, he obviously he can't make this, sup he
would he would go on to that way some years later.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
But yeah, that that happened to Dusty. Nineteen sixty seven
Big Day for Credence. Five singles and five albums were
certified gold literally on the same day. For Cretans, the
songs were down on a Corner looking out my back door,
traveling band Bad Moon up around the Bend, and then
(17:52):
the albums were Cosmos Factory, William, The Poor Boys, Green River,
Bayou Country, and the self titled Credence Clear Water Album.
So ten ten times the gold records in one day
for John Folgune Company, Big Day on this day in
nineteen seventh year, nineteen seventy three, seventeen seventy three, some
(18:13):
guys did a thing. Members of the Sons of Liberty
boarded three British cargo ships in Boston Harbor and they
dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into
the ocean. It's by the way, it's alleged this was
a quiet attack on the British. They actually swept up
their mess on the deck, so the British didn't even
(18:34):
know right away. It was this thing that happened under
the cover of darkness, and they cleaned their mess up
and then split.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I didn't know that about the story. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Seventeenth nineteen seventy seven, Elvis Costello was on Saturday Night Live.
I don't know if you remember the story around this,
but he was supposed to play a couple of songs.
Sex Pistols were the original guests. There was a visa
prop that I think Laurene offered it to the Ramones.
After that, the Ramones said no, and then they went
(19:05):
to Elvis, who had just released My Am Is True,
and the song that they wanted him to play, the
label wanted him to play was less than Zero. So Elvis,
during rehearsal, plays the song and then he realizes that
the song is just too somber, it's too down. It's
(19:27):
it's just a it's a downer for Saturday Night Live,
twelve o'clock at night on a Saturday night. So when
it's his time to come out and play, he plays
a couple of bars of less than zero, and then
he said he basically stops the band and announces to
the audience that that song is just too down, too somber,
and then he goes rip it into radio radio. Yeah,
(19:50):
I do recall that.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, it was a great I'm standing tools and the
story was legend would have it that he was banned
forever from Saturday Night Live, and that turned out to
not be true.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
In nineteen eighty nine, he went back on twelve twelve
years later, he went back on and play So but
you know, great musical guest. And Elvis Costello is you know,
one of the the most underrated artists and writers of
our time. Springsteen, who we talk about often, has said
(20:25):
about Elvis Costello, we can't all be Elvis Costello, right,
I mean, it's just so great. And by the way,
Elvis does a great version of She's the One.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
He's a big Springsteen fan, and I love Elvis is
agent gracefully too. I would agree. He did a tour
and they stopped here in Vegas. I remember, if you
remember that, it was like a game show where he
spun the wheel. The wheel was on stage.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Oh yeah, I saw that. I saw that.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I've never seen him. I would like to see Elvis.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Oh he's great.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Is he like a Van Morrison, like Grumpy Moody, is
like one of those guys where you just feel the
energy is just, you know, not ideal.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I think he used to be more that way. I
don't perceive it this way now.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He's still active, he's still playing, he's still out there.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, it's so creating. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
In eighty two, who played the last show of that
farewell one of many farewell tours as we talked about
at the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens And this was actually
part of a TV special called Who's Last. You keep
waiting for these things to show up on Amazon or whatever,
these little gems. I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I'm sure it'll be out there at some point. Yeah,
they will.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
December eighteenth. Zz Tops first album was released nineteen seventy one.
I'm a fan. I've always been a fan. I've got,
you know, I think a good personal history with zz Top,
just if nowhere else in my own mind centrum nineteen
eighty two on the Eliminator tour, drinking Schlitz beer backstage
with the great Paul Lemmier and three of my buddies
(22:01):
from high school, and you know, just a just you know,
three guys that make a lot of noise, that sound great.
It's just a great show. That first album, though I
don't know a thing about any of it. The songs
are shaking your Tree, Brown Sugar, I don't think I mean,
they do a version of Jailhouse Rock the Elvis, but
(22:22):
that wasn't on an album. Squank going to Mexico, old Man, Neighbor, Neighbor,
a bunch of stuff that I don't know. Backdoor Love
Affair may be the only like deep cut that I'm
aware of from that that album, But that was the
first album nineteen seventy one. December eighteenth, it Zeazy Top.
Keith Richards in nineteen eighty three, at forty years old,
(22:44):
married Patty Hanson. This is also an interesting day because
he chose to marry Patty Hanson on his birthday. Who
does that on their birthday? I believe, and he married.
He married up too, of course, but I would believe
that if there was some sort of, you know, psychological
(23:05):
examination done on this, this would be considered in this
day and age, maybe narcissistic behavior. Possibly You've got to
have your birthday on our wedding day. Like can you
imagine the what I mean, You're married for a long time.
I was married twice. I wasn't good at it, but
I can just imagine one of my ex wives saying,
why would you choose your birthday as our wedding day?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And that would be the end of that conversation we
moved it would be over yeah, oh yeah. Nineteen eighty two,
Bob Dylan made his movie debut. This was a Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid. The big song that came
out of this was Knocking on Heaven's Door part of
the soundtrack. James Coburn, so familiar. Another guy with a
great voice, right remember you know his voice big had
(23:51):
a white hair. And Chris Christofferson both in that movie
with Dylan, and the movie doesn't tickle anything in particular
inside of me. I guess I got to go back
and watch it, but I don't think it was one
of those that you know, goes down in history. Is
you know something you got to see.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Kind of a spaghetti western. Just the fact that Bob
was in it was made it cool. And Christofferson it's
but it's a spaghetti western, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah. And pop culture and nine Avatar premiered. One of
the things I just saw on social media was Matt
Damon talking about things the roles he turned down that
he should have never turned down. And he says it
like shaking his head. He said, he said no to Avatar,
No boy, he said no to that lead role for
a percentage. December nineteenth, nineteen seven. We've all done We've
(24:41):
all done shit like that. December nineteenth, nineteen seventy. Your
song by Elton John hits the Billboard Hot one hundred.
This is an interesting thing because this show at the
Troubadour earlier that year and in August, I think August
twenty fifth of nineteen seventy, Elton does the show at
(25:03):
the Troubadour. By the by Christmas time, the song goes
number one. But that show at the Troubadour is one
of those things that will live on in infamy. The
Beach Boys several members of the Beach Boys were there.
Levon Helm was their record executives. Neil Diamond was in
the crowd for that show, and that was one of
(25:25):
those where you know, the La Times said, you know,
they basically crowned him, you know, the next celebrity, the
must see artists. But a legendary show. And to watch
the clips and hear stuff, you know, a couple of
tracks from that it was, you know, it sounds great
still to this day, it sounds great. In seventy five,
(25:46):
Ronnie Wood joined the Stones. Ronnie Wood not just a
great guitar player, and musician, but also an amazing artist.
I don't know if you've seen the set list that
he draws before after the Stones show.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I'll tell you a terrible story. I got his
book that depicts his artwork from him and he doodled
and created some additional little art work. I can't find
the freaking thing. Oh that's awful. I can't find it.
(26:20):
It's one like I can find everything, but that I
can't find it for the life of me.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
M And don't you there Ask your wife because there
will be some sort of response there.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh she's she knows too, she's asked the same questions.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Oh, she's looked forward to you know. Yeah, but there's
you don't get the what did you do with it?
Where did you leave it?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
No, it was it was from being in Columbus running
into him and and and I can't freaking find it.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
He he sells that his beautiful artwork. They do it
through the website, but there are art galleries that that
offer it up as well. But his artwork is really
pretty fantastic, and he's he's one of the great guitar
players of our time as well.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Nineteen fifty five Carl Perkins wrote what would end up
becoming a rock and roll standard. Think about Blue Swaye Shoes,
think about you know, Elvis did a version of it,
Buddy Holly did a version of it. But if you
were in a cover band, you know, a rock band
in the sixties and seventies and even in the eighties,
you covered Blue Swaite shows, that's one of those songs
(27:23):
that like, it's like for a guitar player or a musician,
it's like, Johnny be good, you gotta know that song. Yeah,
it's a standard, a rock standard. In fifty seven, Elvis
while living at Graceland, I didn't realize how long he
has or how he long he did own Graceland. But
in fifty seven he was served with his draft papers
(27:46):
at Graceland. That's where the notice came. He ended up serving,
and he ended up in the thirty second I want
to get this right, the thirty second Tank Battalion, third
Armor Corps, based in Germany, where he served his time
in the army.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
He looked good in a uniform, now.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah he did. Yeah, he just you know, he was
a good looking guy. That sixty eight Elvius was arguably
probably the best to come back tour with the letter
suit and you know, the red guitar. It's probably the
best of Elvis. Soe twenty sixteen, this is interesting to me.
We were talking about charts and downloads and with the
(28:25):
Beatles and the money the lawsuit with the MII. The
official chart company announced that they were changing the way
that it calculated the top forty to reflect the rise
in streaming back in twenty sixteen. So we're going back
nine almost ten years. So here's the way it works. Currently,
(28:45):
one hundred streams is counted as one sale of a song.
So you know, we used to go buy music when
we were kids. You go buy a forty five or
buy an album, that counts as a sale. Now someone
has to have a song eemed one hundred times to
consider it the sale of a song.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Isn't that interesting? And then from January twenty seventeen, the
ratio would become one hundred and fifty to one, so
one hundred and fifty downloads equals the sale of a song.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Interesting to me how that's kind of we've never stopped me.
We're in this music thing here together talking about this
and it's never come up. It's very interesting to me
that that's how they thought that they would break the
bottleneck in the music industry with the charts and everything
else people, because songs were just hanging on forever.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
It'll read the fine print, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Twenty fifteen, Thriller became the first album to ever sell
thirty million copies, the runner up to this day biggest
selling album. The runner up is The Eagles' Greatest Hits
seventy one to seventy five, twenty nine million copies as
of today, Insane. In my garage, I have a sign
(30:02):
that a friend of mine gave me in Woolster in
nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, and it was an
item he found at the Brimfield Fair and it was
and is this sign for Buffalo Springfield. It's a tractor plate,
(30:24):
so it's you know, it's you know, maybe a foot
and a half by a foot tall, and it's green
with white print, and it's from a Buffalo Springfield brand tractor.
That's where they got their name. And I have one
of those tractor plates in my garage. The thing weighs
(30:45):
a ton. Bring it by sometimes. Yeah, well, yeah, it's
easy I don't know if I get through security with that.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Probably not.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Nineteen seventy five, Joe Walsh replaced Berna leadon a recent
guest on taking a Walk.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah, and by the way, he did go back to
the Eagles for a run, so they were on friendly
enough terms there. But are they still Are they still okay?
I think so. I think it's all you know, this
reconciliations or whatever. Yeah, it seems like, who knows, what
do I know?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I let's see. Just like starting Over, the John Lennon
song from the Double Fantasy added up hitting number one.
This happened at a time it was just literally right
after his death. It was less than two weeks after
he was shot in front of the Dakota. But that
(31:40):
was his first and only number one song. It's just
like starting Over.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It's a beautiful song and a heartbreaking loss, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, a couple of things for the Stones on this day.
In nineteen seventy one, they released Hot Rocks Great double
album Greatest Hits Collection. It was one of the first
albums I remember having as a kid. I think I
grabbed it from my parents, from my father. And also
in sixty nine, Let It Bleed hit the top of
the charts, so sixty nine and seventy one Big Days.
(32:11):
By the way, Let It Bleed was the last album
with Brian Jones. He was fired midway through Let It Bleed,
and if you'll excuse my crass comment, he ended up,
you know, being found face down on the pool, his pool.
(32:31):
Mick Jones joined to replace him, and that's a story
with those two Stones albums and Brian Jones Man nineteen
forty seven, two birthdays, nineteen forty seven, nineteen forty eight,
nineteen forty seven. Peter Chris, drummer from Kiss, Gene Simmons,
after the recent passing of Ace, freely has talked kind
(32:53):
of openly about how the band treated Peter and Ace,
you know, during the eighties after they were essentially sent
packing out of the band. I knew Ace had his issues,
I didn't realize Peter did as well. But there was
a time where Gene was just kind of inconsiderate in
(33:14):
terms of the way he did by his own admission,
about the way he talked about Ace and Peter. And
I think since Ace is passing, he's come out and
he said, listen, we didn't do enough as a band
to take care of these guys. We weren't as patient
as we should have been there. I mean, there was
obviously unreliability. Both Peter and Ace, you know, were late
(33:34):
or didn't show up for rehearsals. And you know, Jean
and Paul are guys that don't drink or don't do
any drugs, and I think it was probably trying on
them to have these two important members of the band
that were under in the clutches of alcohol and drugs
at the time. So Alan Parsons nineteen forty eight, famous musician,
(33:57):
probably the I would think, maybe one of the most
well known projects. He may not be well known for
it to those that don't pay attention to the weeds
kind of stuff, but a producer for Dark Side of
the Moon.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah, I mean, think about his career, you know, the
production excellence, career as a solo artist. Just a great
respect for him.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, we've talked in the past. I shared with you
that I interviewed him maybe nineteen ninety seven or ninety
eight on July fourth, and I remember the conversation specifically
because I had asked him our friend George Taylor Morris
was starting to talk about Dark Side of the Moon
(34:41):
and Wizard of Oz and I asked Alan Parsons about that,
and I can't think of another time I felt like
such an idiot where I put my foot in my mouth.
But he didn't know a thing about it. He claimed
to be unaware of the connection at that point in time.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Believe him too.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, I think there's no reason to lot, no reason exactly. No.
This is an interesting day that December twenty first, our
next day. This was a day that in nineteen seventy,
Elvis drove from Graceland to Washington. His first stop in Washington.
I want to get this right because they're no longer
(35:23):
called by this name. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous
Drugs was around at that time under Tricky Dick. So
Elvis shows up at this agency and pleads with them
that he can help with the war on drugs. Right,
this was before Nancy Reagan's War on drugs. This was,
(35:45):
you know, nineteen seventy. So they basically show them the door.
They're like, you know, what are you going to do?
We're not interested. He wanted a badge, he wanted to
be named and you know, an agent in fighting the
war on drugs. So he gets turned down by this group,
and then he goes to the White House with a
six page letter for Nixon and wants to be seen
(36:07):
by Nixon, so he asks to be named a special agent.
He asks for a badge. I never heard this, Like,
I'm reading this story this morning. I'm like, how do
we not know this? It's such good information. So it's juicy,
it really is. So the government agency, the Bureau of
(36:28):
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, takes a hard pass. Elvis is
able to talk Nixon into it. Nixon gives him a badge.
Elvis gives Nixon a gun, a cult forty five from
the war, like a trade. You give me a badge,
I give you a gun. And then that famous picture
was taken. It seems like I almost always see the
(36:49):
black and white version, but Elvis in that picture is
wearing this purple vlure or velvet jumpsuit, shaken Nixon's hand. Classic,
it's one of That picture is one of the most
requested photographs still to this day in the US National Archives.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Interesting, it's a classic.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
A couple more, yeah, A couple more quick ones to
wrap this up. Born in the USA passed thriller to
hit seventy nine weeks on the charts, and which Taal
lineman hit the top two hundred. Glenn Campbell's only number
one and the Billboard Charts ever, and there's an appreciation
I have for him and we all should have. And
(37:31):
we'll talk more next week about that Beahemian Raps that
he hit number one in ninety one after Freddie Mercury's death.
And Paul Simon performed Sound of Silence at the funeral
of a teacher in one of the twenty six victims
at the Sandy Hook shooting on this day. You mentioned
Paul Simon earlier, and that happened. Victorious Soto was a
first grade teacher and one of her favorite songs of
(37:53):
all time was Sound of Silence, and Paul Simon heard
about it and he sang at her funeral.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It didn't really interest you.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Wow, And that is how we end this week in
Music History. I promise you that we were going to
have to maybe cut this into two parts, but we
somehow got it all in December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's quite a whirlwind. Master of Music, Mayhem, and thank
you for another look at this week in music history,
and thank you all for checking it out on the
Taking a Walk podcast
Are you ready, mister Mayhem.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh yes I am, Oh yes i am.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm Buzzsnight, the host of the Taken a Walk podcast,
and I'm so happy that you're here for another look
at this week in music history and master of music
Mayhem Harry Jacobs. What week are we looking at?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the week of December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Holy moly, you know, I distinctly remember last year we
were at this point. A year ago, we were about
a month or so into doing this. I had no
idea it would last a year right where. I think
we're both surprised by that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
By everything every day.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Is there anything that doesn't surprise you exactly? So, you know,
as we were thinking about this today, I was looking
back at the notes and I'm like, oh, buzz, maybe
we should just run a rerun or a best of
I was thinking these are really slow music weeks as
we as we get it into Christmas. But there's a
lot of information, you know, Claude dot Ai. I have
to tip my hat to them for the research help.
(01:09):
They're sponsor of the show, and they're they're a major
help in terms of researching and confirming things. And it's
just that. That's been a delight. But I've got a
lot of information. You know, the next two weeks, which
I thought were going to be slow, We've got a
lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff I
was unaware of.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So we'll we'll have to parcel it out and maybe
minimize the amount of Connie Francis references because it's Christmas time.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, here we go, Here we go. You think I'm
going Connie Francis. You're wrong, my friend. I think I
may have to leave you with a cliffhanger for the
week of the fifteenth, when we may have to break
up the week of the fifteenth to the twenty first
into two parts. Let's get it rolling. December fifteenth, John
Lennon and the Yoko the Plastic ownA band with George
Harrison and Air Clapton and others, played the UNISEF charity
(01:59):
in London. This has happened in you know, nineteen seventy three.
I think this was his last appearance in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I think about a while to think about that. Yeah, boy,
I would have loved to have been a fly in
the world for that.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh can you imagine? Do they know it's Christmas? Entered
the UK charts at number one. We've had this conversation
biggest selling single in the United Kingdom of all time,
George Michael and Sting and Bono and Phil Collins and
a host of others, and.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I still love hearing it. I mean, I don't race
towards the dial to turn the dial if I'm listening
to a Christmas station and that song comes on, like
I do with some songs.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right, I was speaking speaking at Christmas. I was watching
an interview with this guy's name Graham Norris, the guy
from London. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, it sounds like he's English, but no, I know.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think that's who he is. Anyway, he had Jennifer
Laurie song. She was on at the same time Springsteen
was on, and he asked her a question and he said,
you know, you have a favorite song that cheers you
up when you're on a movie set or you're feeling lonely,
doesn't matter what time of year it is, And it's
a Springsteen song. And and they literally were asking Bruce
(03:19):
to guess what the song might be. They use the
word jolly, Well, will it makes her feel jolly? Makes
me feel jolly every time, and I'm thinking that would
be a dead giveaway for Santa Claus's coming to town.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I think so. I think it is a dead giveaway.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I can hear that song anytime, anywhere and be.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Happy, no disrespect to when I say jolly.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But yeah, or how jolly Christmas, that's right, that's right.
So at any rate, that's that's Jennifer Lawrence's favorite, cheer
her up kind of song.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I love her.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I've seen him play that in the summer. I saw
him play that somewhere in July. It was funny if
people were throwing the Santa hats up and he said,
let's do it. Nineteen seventy nine, Pink Floyd started a
five week run at number one on the UK charts,
and this led to the band's only number one single
the album was The Wall and Another Brick in the
(04:12):
Wall Part two was the song their only song that
made it to number one. And this was such an
interesting album for so many reasons. I can tell you
that this morning, twice this morning, I listened to that
album all the way through the double album. I just
I wanted to get back into it. I knew we
(04:33):
were going to talk about it, I realized that, you know,
I knew this like we all do, that there were,
you know, three different sections of Another Brick in the Wall,
Part one, Part two, and part three, and I went
specifically to listen to those three different parts. Initially I
think my favorite is Another Brick. Part one really dark, creepy,
(04:56):
but the song ends up rocking out. Part two was
the whole how can you have any meat if you
don't have your pudding right? We don't need no education.
And number three was the darkest of the of the three.
And and it was one of those things. One of
the lyrics is I don't need no arms around me,
(05:18):
I don't need no drugs to calm me. It was
this the guy, the protagonist, the pig, three stages of
grief and trauma in his life. It's a very dark
when you look at when you get down the rabbit
hole of what the Wall was all about. It's a
very dark album. And and that song, the three different,
three different you know it takes Another Brick part are
(05:42):
the three different parts one, two, and three, all very different,
but all three really dark.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
When I put my Psychosis playlist together, that album is
at the height of it.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
There's someone that that was damaged writing writing that album.
Roger twenty one a guy we owe a tip of
the hat to his birthday Alan Freed was born. He
actually coined the phrase rock and roll. But we all
know him a little tip of the hat. We wouldn't
be doing what we're doing today without him.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
That's right, Minus the fact that he got messed up
in the Paola side of things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You know, I forgot all about that. But he was
a part of that, wasn't he, So I believe Yeah,
for those that are unaware, Paola Plugola is when record
companies or artists went to the disc jockeys who in
those days were making decisions about songs that were getting played.
And Alan Freed took a bunch of money from the
(06:43):
record companies.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But we do owe him, and to your point, a
debt of gratitude.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right nineteen seventy seven, who played a surprise show for
the documentary The Kids Are All Right. There's a you know,
a scene in that movie where they're playing, you know,
in a very small venue, and that was the Shepperton
Studios that was used for the documentary, and they it
was basically an audience made up of fan club members
(07:12):
for that show. That's quite a prize, right, pretty Neat
two thousand and one, Joe Walsh received an honorary doctorate
of Music from Kent State. I was unaware that it's
doctor Joe Walsh, but it is doctor Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Walsh and Ken State too.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah. Right, the song Ohio the Violence in seventy two, No, no,
before that had to be before that.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, it would have been sixty eight. I was gonna
say sixty eight or nine.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, sixty eight or sixty nine. Song came out.
Ohio came out right away, But a long way around
for Joe Walsh getting his doctorate. I'm surprised that we
never heard that. I'm surprised he didn't take that name
and you know, or take that title and add it to,
you know, to his name. Dr wolfsh absolutely. Dr two
(08:05):
thous Presume you're not a doctor, you're a dentist. From
the Hangover two thousand and three, Courtney Love sentenced to
eighteen months in rehab after she admitted she was under
the influence of coke and various opiates. I saw her
around that time. Our friend Billy Bush was here in
(08:26):
town to do something. I remember where we were at
the UNLV the auditorium there where they have shows their arena,
and we I did something with Billy around Beyonce and
jay Z who were at that show. But I remember
seeing Courtney Love there. I was struck by how enormous
she was in high heels. I mean, she was taller
(08:48):
and I'm over six feet and she was significantly taller
than I was, as I recall, and she was just
a disaster. I think it's fair to say once she
walked by, yeah sad, you know. Yeah, I could smell
the pills coming off of her. It was it was set.
I think her life is together these days, maybe maybe not.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Luckily we haven't heard much, so I think maybe it is.
But listen, you know that deep loss, you know, never
never loves her for sure, It's get carried through her
entire life. So you know you do have to have,
you know, empathy for.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Loss, you know, get a little you know, a little
Kurt Kobain coming up to talk about as well, so
we'll touch on that. But yeah, very sad sequence of
events that led her down her road of self destruction, No,
no other way to put it. Elton John hitting number
one on the fifteenth in the UK was sorry. It
seems to be the hardest word. Really. I'm a fan
(09:49):
of those ballad the long ballads, Sorry and Tiny Dancer
and leave On. Just the softer kind of Elton from
that period of time, you know, those longer ballads. Yeah,
even I like the.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Old Yeah, the older versions. I think the Disney version
of Elton it wasn't my favorite part, by the way.
Brief sidebar relating to to Elton, uh and to Paul McCartney.
We finally saw the spinal Tap reboots.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Paul rob Reiner was on the show and Elton plays
a prominent role in it, as does Paul McCartney too,
So it's totally worth seeing. You know, I didn't know
even though I loved having Rob on. Listen, I'm calling
him Rob. Yeah, I I love having loved having them on,
(10:45):
But it's definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's fantastic. I have not seen it, and I will
take the assignment and I will watch it. Unlike you,
you don't always take the movie assignments for me, but
I guess in this arrangement, I work for you, So
I will watch it and report were Back in nineteen ninety,
Rod Stewart married Supermodel with Rachel Hunter. He was famously
quoted as saying, this is one of the most misogynistic
(11:10):
quotes ever in the history of misogynistic statements, that he
would no longer be putting his banana in anybody's fruit
bowl from then on.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They divorced. He's awful soul.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
No. Nineteen eighty eight, Summer fifteen, James Brown sentenced to
six years in prison for various offenses, including a firearms
offense and also resisting arrest. Mister Brown was uncooperative when
authority showed up. He was waving the gun around.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
He probably meant, well, I don't know. I don't know
what he meant, and I don't think he knows what
he meant at that time.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No. December sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, Hey Joe was released
by Jimmy Hendrick Jimmy Hendrick Experience. It was on Pollardor
That song. Three years later was the close out for
his set at Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Did a great version of that Oh there you go Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Nineteen eighty three Pete Towns and announced he was leaving
the WHO. It's a big deal at the time. Now,
I don't know how many farewell tours later, all due
respect to Pete and Roger.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I know it's incredible, what a what a what a.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Couple of they are, and I don't know if they're
you know, I always like to kind of get a
little bit of information and insight into what people what
the relationship was like, you know, Jagger and Richards and
Lennon and McCartney, and I think with with these guys,
you know, I just wonder, you know, what the what
(12:47):
the relationship was like between them. I never heard much
about arguing or disagreeing. I know, you know, Roger needed
to continue to tour, he wanted the wanted and needed
the money. But I never heard much in the way
of content.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, look, I have another assignment for you relating to
a band situation or you know, two partners in music situation.
It's fantastic this documentary it's called in Restless Dreams The
Music of Paul Simon. And there's two Paul Simon documentaries
(13:24):
that came out. There was the other one was Hulu
and this one we just recently watched. And boy, oh boy,
you get tremendous insight into that question. I'll just leave
it at that because you will see it in very
harsh terms with our garb uncle.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's on my list. I came across it the other night.
I had watched something musical and then in the list
of suggested shows after that the Paul Simon thing, and
I need to watch it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, fabulous, And you really gain greater appreciation for him.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And he's got a hearing issue which is preventing him,
you know, from playing and some more singing. But for both,
I mean, if you can't hear, yeah, you sing so sad.
But I'm looking forward to seeing it. I want to
try to watch it over the coming days and check
that out. In nineteen ninety three, on December sixteenth, Nirvana's
(14:21):
Unplugged concert air on MTV. This was a big deal.
This was one of Cobain's last performances. This is what
I was alluding to a few minutes ago when we
were talking about Courtney. He died on April eighth of
nineteen ninety four, and the prior week he had escaped rehab.
So I don't know if you remember the sequence of events,
(14:43):
but when you know the situation, the circumstances around his
death were very cloudy. April first, he escaped from rehab
two days after checking in and then he was found,
you know, on the eighth and in his suicide note
(15:03):
he used the words over the line, better to burn
out than fade away. Neil Young, Right, he part of
the twenty seven club. Kurt Cobain.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, and unbelievable and yeah, that MTV performance was you know,
words can't describe it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, And if folks are curious about that, you've got
a great segment where Rob Barnett joined you to talk
about that. Rob Barnett, who was, you know, one of
the big wigs for MTV for a period of time
and he was a great guest. So folks cancerts that up.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah. And Danny Goldberg too, the manager of Nirvana, actually
is part of the great great episode.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Had taken a walk. And in two thousand and five,
the remaining members of the Beatles began their legal action
against EMI on behalf of their interests in Apple. They
sued for I believe about thirty million dollars that they
thought was owed that EMI had Pilford from them.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Isn't that crazy just to think about that?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And now in this day and age, when you think
about the money that they thought they were owed and
we continue to have this discussion about streaming and album
sales and records in the record business. It's just they're
worth nothing. It would be worth nothing, you know at
this point, even though there's value in the catalog. That
what would that lawsuit have looked like today, you know,
(16:30):
twenty years twenty twenty one years later.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
It's crazy to think about it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Nineteen forty nine. Billy Gibbons, the Reverend Willie g As
he refers to himself, one of my favorite guitar players.
He was number thirty two on the twenty eleven Rolling
Stone list of best Guitar Players of all time, was born.
This is his birthday. Also on this day, this is
(16:55):
I never even heard this story. Same day Billy is
celebrating his birthday, Dusty is unpacking his car, either looking
deliberately for his Darringer pistol or it just falls out
of the car, but he inadvertently shoots himself in the
(17:15):
gut with his derringer pistol, and then he drove himself
to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, oh, he obviously he can't make this, sup he
would he would go on to that way some years later.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
But yeah, that that happened to Dusty. Nineteen sixty seven
Big Day for Credence. Five singles and five albums were
certified gold literally on the same day. For Cretans, the
songs were down on a Corner looking out my back door,
traveling band Bad Moon up around the Bend, and then
(17:52):
the albums were Cosmos Factory, William, The Poor Boys, Green River,
Bayou Country, and the self titled Credence Clear Water Album.
So ten ten times the gold records in one day
for John Folgune Company, Big Day on this day in
nineteen seventh year, nineteen seventy three, seventeen seventy three, some
(18:13):
guys did a thing. Members of the Sons of Liberty
boarded three British cargo ships in Boston Harbor and they
dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into
the ocean. It's by the way, it's alleged this was
a quiet attack on the British. They actually swept up
their mess on the deck, so the British didn't even
(18:34):
know right away. It was this thing that happened under
the cover of darkness, and they cleaned their mess up
and then split.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I didn't know that about the story. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Seventeenth nineteen seventy seven, Elvis Costello was on Saturday Night Live.
I don't know if you remember the story around this,
but he was supposed to play a couple of songs.
Sex Pistols were the original guests. There was a visa
prop that I think Laurene offered it to the Ramones.
After that, the Ramones said no, and then they went
(19:05):
to Elvis, who had just released My Am Is True,
and the song that they wanted him to play, the
label wanted him to play was less than Zero. So Elvis,
during rehearsal, plays the song and then he realizes that
the song is just too somber, it's too down. It's
(19:27):
it's just a it's a downer for Saturday Night Live,
twelve o'clock at night on a Saturday night. So when
it's his time to come out and play, he plays
a couple of bars of less than zero, and then
he said he basically stops the band and announces to
the audience that that song is just too down, too somber,
and then he goes rip it into radio radio. Yeah,
(19:50):
I do recall that.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, it was a great I'm standing tools and the
story was legend would have it that he was banned
forever from Saturday Night Live, and that turned out to
not be true.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
In nineteen eighty nine, he went back on twelve twelve
years later, he went back on and play So but
you know, great musical guest. And Elvis Costello is you know,
one of the the most underrated artists and writers of
our time. Springsteen, who we talk about often, has said
(20:25):
about Elvis Costello, we can't all be Elvis Costello, right,
I mean, it's just so great. And by the way,
Elvis does a great version of She's the One.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
He's a big Springsteen fan, and I love Elvis is
agent gracefully too. I would agree. He did a tour
and they stopped here in Vegas. I remember, if you
remember that, it was like a game show where he
spun the wheel. The wheel was on stage.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Oh yeah, I saw that. I saw that.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I've never seen him. I would like to see Elvis.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Oh he's great.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Is he like a Van Morrison, like Grumpy Moody, is
like one of those guys where you just feel the
energy is just, you know, not ideal.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I think he used to be more that way. I
don't perceive it this way now.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He's still active, he's still playing, he's still out there.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, it's so creating. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
In eighty two, who played the last show of that
farewell one of many farewell tours as we talked about
at the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens And this was actually
part of a TV special called Who's Last. You keep
waiting for these things to show up on Amazon or whatever,
these little gems. I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I'm sure it'll be out there at some point. Yeah,
they will.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
December eighteenth. Zz Tops first album was released nineteen seventy one.
I'm a fan. I've always been a fan. I've got,
you know, I think a good personal history with zz Top,
just if nowhere else in my own mind centrum nineteen
eighty two on the Eliminator tour, drinking Schlitz beer backstage
with the great Paul Lemmier and three of my buddies
(22:01):
from high school, and you know, just a just you know,
three guys that make a lot of noise, that sound great.
It's just a great show. That first album, though I
don't know a thing about any of it. The songs
are shaking your Tree, Brown Sugar, I don't think I mean,
they do a version of Jailhouse Rock the Elvis, but
(22:22):
that wasn't on an album. Squank going to Mexico, old Man, Neighbor, Neighbor,
a bunch of stuff that I don't know. Backdoor Love
Affair may be the only like deep cut that I'm
aware of from that that album, But that was the
first album nineteen seventy one. December eighteenth, it Zeazy Top.
Keith Richards in nineteen eighty three, at forty years old,
(22:44):
married Patty Hanson. This is also an interesting day because
he chose to marry Patty Hanson on his birthday. Who
does that on their birthday? I believe, and he married.
He married up too, of course, but I would believe
that if there was some sort of, you know, psychological
(23:05):
examination done on this, this would be considered in this
day and age, maybe narcissistic behavior. Possibly You've got to
have your birthday on our wedding day. Like can you
imagine the what I mean, You're married for a long time.
I was married twice. I wasn't good at it, but
I can just imagine one of my ex wives saying,
why would you choose your birthday as our wedding day?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And that would be the end of that conversation we
moved it would be over yeah, oh yeah. Nineteen eighty two,
Bob Dylan made his movie debut. This was a Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid. The big song that came
out of this was Knocking on Heaven's Door part of
the soundtrack. James Coburn, so familiar. Another guy with a
great voice, right remember you know his voice big had
(23:51):
a white hair. And Chris Christofferson both in that movie
with Dylan, and the movie doesn't tickle anything in particular
inside of me. I guess I got to go back
and watch it, but I don't think it was one
of those that you know, goes down in history. Is
you know something you got to see.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Kind of a spaghetti western. Just the fact that Bob
was in it was made it cool. And Christofferson it's
but it's a spaghetti western, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah. And pop culture and nine Avatar premiered. One of
the things I just saw on social media was Matt
Damon talking about things the roles he turned down that
he should have never turned down. And he says it
like shaking his head. He said, he said no to Avatar,
No boy, he said no to that lead role for
a percentage. December nineteenth, nineteen seven. We've all done We've
(24:41):
all done shit like that. December nineteenth, nineteen seventy. Your
song by Elton John hits the Billboard Hot one hundred.
This is an interesting thing because this show at the
Troubadour earlier that year and in August, I think August
twenty fifth of nineteen seventy, Elton does the show at
(25:03):
the Troubadour. By the by Christmas time, the song goes
number one. But that show at the Troubadour is one
of those things that will live on in infamy. The
Beach Boys several members of the Beach Boys were there.
Levon Helm was their record executives. Neil Diamond was in
the crowd for that show, and that was one of
(25:25):
those where you know, the La Times said, you know,
they basically crowned him, you know, the next celebrity, the
must see artists. But a legendary show. And to watch
the clips and hear stuff, you know, a couple of
tracks from that it was, you know, it sounds great
still to this day, it sounds great. In seventy five,
(25:46):
Ronnie Wood joined the Stones. Ronnie Wood not just a
great guitar player, and musician, but also an amazing artist.
I don't know if you've seen the set list that
he draws before after the Stones show.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I'll tell you a terrible story. I got his
book that depicts his artwork from him and he doodled
and created some additional little art work. I can't find
the freaking thing. Oh that's awful. I can't find it.
(26:20):
It's one like I can find everything, but that I
can't find it for the life of me.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
M And don't you there Ask your wife because there
will be some sort of response there.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh she's she knows too, she's asked the same questions.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Oh, she's looked forward to you know. Yeah, but there's
you don't get the what did you do with it?
Where did you leave it?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
No, it was it was from being in Columbus running
into him and and and I can't freaking find it.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
He he sells that his beautiful artwork. They do it
through the website, but there are art galleries that that
offer it up as well. But his artwork is really
pretty fantastic, and he's he's one of the great guitar
players of our time as well.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Nineteen fifty five Carl Perkins wrote what would end up
becoming a rock and roll standard. Think about Blue Swaye Shoes,
think about you know, Elvis did a version of it,
Buddy Holly did a version of it. But if you
were in a cover band, you know, a rock band
in the sixties and seventies and even in the eighties,
you covered Blue Swaite shows, that's one of those songs
(27:23):
that like, it's like for a guitar player or a musician,
it's like, Johnny be good, you gotta know that song. Yeah,
it's a standard, a rock standard. In fifty seven, Elvis
while living at Graceland, I didn't realize how long he
has or how he long he did own Graceland. But
in fifty seven he was served with his draft papers
(27:46):
at Graceland. That's where the notice came. He ended up serving,
and he ended up in the thirty second I want
to get this right, the thirty second Tank Battalion, third
Armor Corps, based in Germany, where he served his time
in the army.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
He looked good in a uniform, now.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah he did. Yeah, he just you know, he was
a good looking guy. That sixty eight Elvius was arguably
probably the best to come back tour with the letter
suit and you know, the red guitar. It's probably the
best of Elvis. Soe twenty sixteen, this is interesting to me.
We were talking about charts and downloads and with the
(28:25):
Beatles and the money the lawsuit with the MII. The
official chart company announced that they were changing the way
that it calculated the top forty to reflect the rise
in streaming back in twenty sixteen. So we're going back
nine almost ten years. So here's the way it works. Currently,
(28:45):
one hundred streams is counted as one sale of a song.
So you know, we used to go buy music when
we were kids. You go buy a forty five or
buy an album, that counts as a sale. Now someone
has to have a song eemed one hundred times to
consider it the sale of a song.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Isn't that interesting? And then from January twenty seventeen, the
ratio would become one hundred and fifty to one, so
one hundred and fifty downloads equals the sale of a song.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Interesting to me how that's kind of we've never stopped me.
We're in this music thing here together talking about this
and it's never come up. It's very interesting to me
that that's how they thought that they would break the
bottleneck in the music industry with the charts and everything
else people, because songs were just hanging on forever.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
It'll read the fine print, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Twenty fifteen, Thriller became the first album to ever sell
thirty million copies, the runner up to this day biggest
selling album. The runner up is The Eagles' Greatest Hits
seventy one to seventy five, twenty nine million copies as
of today, Insane. In my garage, I have a sign
(30:02):
that a friend of mine gave me in Woolster in
nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, and it was an
item he found at the Brimfield Fair and it was
and is this sign for Buffalo Springfield. It's a tractor plate,
(30:24):
so it's you know, it's you know, maybe a foot
and a half by a foot tall, and it's green
with white print, and it's from a Buffalo Springfield brand tractor.
That's where they got their name. And I have one
of those tractor plates in my garage. The thing weighs
(30:45):
a ton. Bring it by sometimes. Yeah, well, yeah, it's
easy I don't know if I get through security with that.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Probably not.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Nineteen seventy five, Joe Walsh replaced Berna leadon a recent
guest on taking a Walk.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah, and by the way, he did go back to
the Eagles for a run, so they were on friendly
enough terms there. But are they still Are they still okay?
I think so. I think it's all you know, this
reconciliations or whatever. Yeah, it seems like, who knows, what
do I know?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I let's see. Just like starting Over, the John Lennon
song from the Double Fantasy added up hitting number one.
This happened at a time it was just literally right
after his death. It was less than two weeks after
he was shot in front of the Dakota. But that
(31:40):
was his first and only number one song. It's just
like starting Over.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It's a beautiful song and a heartbreaking loss, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, a couple of things for the Stones on this day.
In nineteen seventy one, they released Hot Rocks Great double
album Greatest Hits Collection. It was one of the first
albums I remember having as a kid. I think I
grabbed it from my parents, from my father. And also
in sixty nine, Let It Bleed hit the top of
the charts, so sixty nine and seventy one Big Days.
(32:11):
By the way, Let It Bleed was the last album
with Brian Jones. He was fired midway through Let It Bleed,
and if you'll excuse my crass comment, he ended up,
you know, being found face down on the pool, his pool.
(32:31):
Mick Jones joined to replace him, and that's a story
with those two Stones albums and Brian Jones Man nineteen
forty seven, two birthdays, nineteen forty seven, nineteen forty eight,
nineteen forty seven. Peter Chris, drummer from Kiss, Gene Simmons,
after the recent passing of Ace, freely has talked kind
(32:53):
of openly about how the band treated Peter and Ace,
you know, during the eighties after they were essentially sent
packing out of the band. I knew Ace had his issues,
I didn't realize Peter did as well. But there was
a time where Gene was just kind of inconsiderate in
(33:14):
terms of the way he did by his own admission,
about the way he talked about Ace and Peter. And
I think since Ace is passing, he's come out and
he said, listen, we didn't do enough as a band
to take care of these guys. We weren't as patient
as we should have been there. I mean, there was
obviously unreliability. Both Peter and Ace, you know, were late
(33:34):
or didn't show up for rehearsals. And you know, Jean
and Paul are guys that don't drink or don't do
any drugs, and I think it was probably trying on
them to have these two important members of the band
that were under in the clutches of alcohol and drugs
at the time. So Alan Parsons nineteen forty eight, famous musician,
(33:57):
probably the I would think, maybe one of the most
well known projects. He may not be well known for
it to those that don't pay attention to the weeds
kind of stuff, but a producer for Dark Side of
the Moon.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah, I mean, think about his career, you know, the
production excellence, career as a solo artist. Just a great
respect for him.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, we've talked in the past. I shared with you
that I interviewed him maybe nineteen ninety seven or ninety
eight on July fourth, and I remember the conversation specifically
because I had asked him our friend George Taylor Morris
was starting to talk about Dark Side of the Moon
(34:41):
and Wizard of Oz and I asked Alan Parsons about that,
and I can't think of another time I felt like
such an idiot where I put my foot in my mouth.
But he didn't know a thing about it. He claimed
to be unaware of the connection at that point in time.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Believe him too.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, I think there's no reason to lot, no reason exactly. No.
This is an interesting day that December twenty first, our
next day. This was a day that in nineteen seventy,
Elvis drove from Graceland to Washington. His first stop in Washington.
I want to get this right because they're no longer
(35:23):
called by this name. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous
Drugs was around at that time under Tricky Dick. So
Elvis shows up at this agency and pleads with them
that he can help with the war on drugs. Right,
this was before Nancy Reagan's War on drugs. This was,
(35:45):
you know, nineteen seventy. So they basically show them the door.
They're like, you know, what are you going to do?
We're not interested. He wanted a badge, he wanted to
be named and you know, an agent in fighting the
war on drugs. So he gets turned down by this group,
and then he goes to the White House with a
six page letter for Nixon and wants to be seen
(36:07):
by Nixon, so he asks to be named a special agent.
He asks for a badge. I never heard this, Like,
I'm reading this story this morning. I'm like, how do
we not know this? It's such good information. So it's juicy,
it really is. So the government agency, the Bureau of
(36:28):
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, takes a hard pass. Elvis is
able to talk Nixon into it. Nixon gives him a badge.
Elvis gives Nixon a gun, a cult forty five from
the war, like a trade. You give me a badge,
I give you a gun. And then that famous picture
was taken. It seems like I almost always see the
(36:49):
black and white version, but Elvis in that picture is
wearing this purple vlure or velvet jumpsuit, shaken Nixon's hand. Classic,
it's one of That picture is one of the most
requested photographs still to this day in the US National Archives.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Interesting, it's a classic.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
A couple more, yeah, A couple more quick ones to
wrap this up. Born in the USA passed thriller to
hit seventy nine weeks on the charts, and which Taal
lineman hit the top two hundred. Glenn Campbell's only number
one and the Billboard Charts ever, and there's an appreciation
I have for him and we all should have. And
(37:31):
we'll talk more next week about that Beahemian Raps that
he hit number one in ninety one after Freddie Mercury's death.
And Paul Simon performed Sound of Silence at the funeral
of a teacher in one of the twenty six victims
at the Sandy Hook shooting on this day. You mentioned
Paul Simon earlier, and that happened. Victorious Soto was a
first grade teacher and one of her favorite songs of
(37:53):
all time was Sound of Silence, and Paul Simon heard
about it and he sang at her funeral.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It didn't really interest you.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Wow, And that is how we end this week in
Music History. I promise you that we were going to
have to maybe cut this into two parts, but we
somehow got it all in December fifteenth through the twenty first.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's quite a whirlwind. Master of Music, Mayhem, and thank
you for another look at this week in music history,
and thank you all for checking it out on the
Taking a Walk podcast
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