The Electric Flag – A Long Time Comin' (1968): The Album That Defined American Music's Restless Soul
About This Episode
In this episode of Music Rewind, we shine a long-overdue spotlight on one of the most electrifying and underappreciated albums in rock history: A Long Time Comin' by The Electric Flag, released in 1968.
Formed by guitarist Mike Bloomfield following his work with Bob Dylan and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag blended blues, soul, R&B, jazz, and psychedelic rock into a loose, live-wire sound they called "American Music." It was music that refused to be categorized — and that's exactly what made it matter.
Host Steve is joined by Richard Foos, founder of Rhino Records, to unpack the album's place in rock history and why The Electric Flag deserves a much bigger seat at the table of 1960s music.
What We Cover
- The formation of The Electric Flag and Mike Bloomfield's vision for a new kind of American band
- How A Long Time Comin' fused blues, soul, R&B, jazz, and psychedelic rock into something entirely its own
- The album's place in the explosive San Francisco and late-60s rock scenes
- Why The Electric Flag remains one of rock's most overlooked and underrated acts
- Richard Foos' perspective on the album's legacy through the lens of decades in the music industry
- How Rhino Records championed artists and albums that the mainstream left behind
- What A Long Time Comin' tells us about creative risk-taking and the enduring power of American roots music
About the Guest: Richard Foos
Richard Foos is the founder of Rhino Records, one of the most influential and beloved independent record labels in music history. Since its founding in 1973, Rhino became synonymous with championing overlooked artists, lovingly curated reissues, and a deep, irreverent passion for the full spectrum of recorded music.
🔗 Learn more about Richard Foos: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0285182/ https://www.facebook.com/richard.foos/ https://laane.org/advisory_board/richard-foos/
Episode Details
🎙️ Show: Music Rewind 📅 Season 5, Episode 4 💿 Album: A Long Time Comin' 🎤 Artist: The Electric Flag 📆 Year Released: 1968 🏷️ Genre: Blues Rock, Soul, R&B, Psychedelic Rock, Jazz Rock, American Roots ⏱️ Era: Late 1960s Rock, San Francisco Scene, Blues Revival
Get the Album
🛒 Pick up A Long Time Comin' on vinyl or CD: https://ebay.us/xXq2PJ
More From Sidereal Media Group
📀 Album Archives: The Vault of Music History Every great album has a story. Counting down the Top 300 Albums of All Time — one record at a time. New episodes every Monday. 🔗 https://pod.link/1822387190
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Music]
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to Music Rewind, a podcast where we look to tell the stories behind our favorite albums.
I'm your host Steve Epley and in each episode we invite a guest on to tell us about their favorite music album.
How they discovered it and what makes it special to them.
Joining me tonight is the godfather of reissue culture himself, co-founder of Rino Records and
Shout Factory, Richard Foos. A lifelong record obsessive, Richard spent decades
(00:44):
doing what the entire entertainment industry told him was a fool's errand, digging through the
archives, rescuing forgotten music, and betting that the world wasn't done with the past.
And tonight he's brought one of the greatest records you've probably never heard to the table.
Welcome Richard and thank you for being on the show.
No, my pleasure. And what a great intro. Thank you.
One of the easier ones to write. You've had a fantastic career and I can't wait to talk about it.
(01:07):
But first let's jump right into this. What album did you bring to the table and what makes it special to you?
The Electric Flag, A Long Time Comin'.
[Music]
(01:36):
What was so amazing about it is it synthesized every great form of music that I know new into
something new and different and better. I don't think it's ever been, I think it was in accident.
I think it's ever been duplicated. We only had one legitimate album and they broke up.
They did reform for one album about six, seven years later that was not very good.
(02:00):
So it's just this magic moment that I think anybody listens to it will agree.
[Music]
(02:22):
How did you discover this album?
In those days, you know, 1967, it wasn't like there were all that many albums coming out.
If something good came out somehow through the grapevine, it wasn't like hundreds of great albums.
So I remember going to college in '67 and I had already had the album and all the people who I like
the their music case had the album. We just, you know, from different parts of the country and
(02:46):
whatever, it just, I don't know, it's some health.
I can only imagine with all the music that was dropping at the time and then about to hit the world.
Because right now you've done something that I don't think any guest has done before.
I've spent many years now with my head deep into the music history rabbit hole.
And somehow out of nowhere, you introduced me to a new top five album.
(03:07):
Okay. This was a complete first listen for me. I had no idea it existed.
Wow.
I generally enjoyed it from start to finish. It was fantastic.
Oh great. I'm so glad.
Yeah, because so many people I meet from that era agree with me that it was an incredible album.
The next generation I've never turned anybody on to it.
(03:29):
So it's great to know that.
Yeah, I went in blind. I had no idea what I was about to hear.
And it was just all over the place and I loved it because it was like the meters meets buddy guy meets
yeah holding company meets blood sweat and tears. I mean, this is right.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right. It has some blood sweat and tears and two before blood sweat.
(03:50):
I think the first blood sweat and tears album came out right about the same time.
And that's another top 10 album for me. They didn't have it. There were no hits on that record.
And then Al Cooper, the founder left and David Clayton Thomas came in and they had gigantic hits.
But I don't think it even compared to that that first album which I'll put in the top 10,
(04:10):
but not as good as let your flag on.
And you must have heard you like a flag had Mike Bloomfield.
Right.
It was with the guitars and you know, buddy Miles who had some hits on his own and own.
But he might also as part of bandage of series with you know, Jimmy Hendrix and yeah.
And that was the other side of the album that made it gave me a lot of enjoyment was pulling on
(04:35):
the threads. Because once I listened to it, you know, I had to look at the history of it, the creation
and you start pulling on those threads and you know, right off the bat, you know, you got say,
Mike Bloomfield and you knew he came from Paul Butterfield. But then you find out that he was actually
he played with Bob Dylan with Al Cooper. Right. That's true. And yeah, I never even thought about
(04:55):
that's where the two bands sort of originated. And then they come back together and super.
Yeah, the two leaders. Yeah, that's true. Right. So it was like all these fantastic threads.
Right. And then you had Mama Cast on one blind and then you had say buddy Miles goes on to do
like you mentioned with the band of Gypsies. Right. And then the other guy was part of big brother
(05:15):
the holding company that came out of nowhere. The Nick Gravenites or I'm not sure how you pronounce his name.
But Nick Gravenite is here. And he wrote the song "Bordon Chicago" that was, you know, Paul Butterfield's
signature song.
(05:45):
Classic Rock is a small town to me. There's just everybody seems to have played with everybody else
and there's so much influence in behind the scenes. I love pulling on those threads. And this
particular band fascinating in that not just where they came from, but they all went on to do
(06:06):
amazing things and play with amazing people from like Curtis Mayfield to Bob Dylan again and
does another thing. So it's quite amazing. Right. Still don't know how this went under my radar.
Oh it's just one out. It was not a hit. It got panned. I couldn't believe. I loved the album so much.
Yeah I picked a Brogestone or Cramer. I was reading all those music and periodicals and they were
(06:31):
slammed the album. Derivative. Derivative. I don't forget what they said about it. I never saw a good
review of it. And unfortunately a lot of those bands, if you didn't get super star in them, they
break apart and certainly drugs had a lot to do with it. Yeah you can definitely tell there's some
(06:51):
influence behind the scenes on some of these songs. You'd like to find even though the core members
were from Chicago by the time they did the album they were living in San Francisco. We did a
doc about it about these guys called Born in Chicago. And there's interviews in there with
Jerk Garcia Bob Weir, some of the airplay saying that these guys when they came to San Francisco they
(07:18):
taught them how to be a band. So we were just like Ragtag, Garage Band and they taught us about how
you put together a set. Performing they were. We have a video of Mike Lungfield showing Jerk Garcia
various licks. And that's awesome. Yeah they somehow went from Chicago and then they
they played they backed up, Dylan a new part, moved the San Francisco and that's where the flag
(07:42):
form but they were deep into the maybe good and bad influence by the best and worst parts of
Haydashbury at the time. And you know lots of issues and Mike Bluefield unfortunately they have such
great stars, that young. Yeah I think yeah early 80s I believe. Yeah you mentioned San Francisco.
And this definitely has a lot of San Francisco feel to it but it's also a fantastic
(08:07):
representation of kind of American music at the time. Exactly. It doesn't just stay there.
It's like they took Chicago Austin and New Orleans and brought them to San Francisco and threw it
all into a pot. Yeah with maybe a little bit of Memphis because you have the soul horns on it. Yes.
That's what made it so incredible. It's a took every form of Roots music. Right.
(08:30):
It's synthesized in this something better. Maybe it was the first time I heard the song
"Killing Floor" at which it was a standard you know howling wolf song but so many people covered it
but if you listen to their arrangement it's just it's great blues but it rocks like as much as
anything you'd ever hear. Yeah I would not have known that was the howling wolf song. Yeah.
(08:53):
Hearing this person that absolutely away but there's several tracks on here that if I heard them
just individually and not in the album I would have said that's Otis Redding. That's Professor Longhaire.
That's Blood Sweat and Tears. I would not have known any of this. They sound so unique but together.
You are absolutely. I love them and playing together forever like Barry Goldburn and Mike Bloomfield.
(09:19):
I think men in high school. Oh wow. They all sort of went to they were you know from the North side of
Chicago many of them and they traveled to the south side and they met howling wolf and money waters
and it was a lot of affair they were like adopted. All these guys were very alienated from their
parents and families. Nothing in suburban Chicago and now they're they get have a new family.
(09:42):
How do you listen to the album like when you put it on do you bounce around or do you go
front to back like walk me through how you listen to the album. I like the first side a lot better
the second side so I think the last another country is like eight minutes and I don't like it.
Oh that was my favorite on the album. Oh okay.
(10:19):
That's kind of psychedelic so I don't and then Texas is on the second side. I'm doing all this for
remembering and that's good but it's just how to standard blues. Every song is amazing to me on the
first side so I would just listen to the whole side and then occasionally flip it over.
Then another country won. It was definitely all over the place and it was just like eight minutes
(10:42):
long. I enjoyed it because I love a good jam band. Not too long ago I actually did a review of
the Velvet Underground in Nico and it was the first time I listened to it all the way through
with a critical ear and I didn't enjoy it at all. It was a lot of noise to me and I was like I'm
either either I'm getting old or or I just you know didn't put myself in the mindset of that time
(11:07):
in that place during the Underground in New York. That one another country that's more my jam.
There's four or five times where really great bands went a little too far and we put a one song on
the whole second side so the stones did going home and probably almost equal to a long time coming
(11:29):
was the love album not forever changes the one before the capo because it's like a perfect
there's the six songs on side A are beyond everyone's just beyond a masterpiece to be but the B
side is one and 18 minutes on let's just try it. They probably just turned they just said okay everybody
freeform just record. Yeah we'll use the rest of our studio time just a record. Yeah so
(11:54):
but you're right another country is only eight minutes so it's a little more contained.
Right after he had easy writer it was like let under a minute like that's it. Oh here was
every review I read we're saying the only great song on the album is easy writer and what I think
it's like 40 seconds and that should have been like three minutes or four met me why wasn't that a
(12:15):
full song.
(12:35):
I mean I agree with that and that it could have been a much longer. Right. But I far from the best
on the album. I agree. Yeah I think it's perfect as a fade out but it's just kind of a standard blues
and yeah every single track has a bit of uniqueness with that San Francisco tinged to it but like the
Texas is definitely like you mentioned straight blues that's the one I said it kind of feels like
(12:57):
Austin to me. Right. So good. Yeah. I just got in from Texas Bay. You didn't even know I was around.
But then wine was interesting that's an extremely unique song in itself and that's the one that
(13:26):
to me I would have said it was professor Longhair out of New Orleans. Oh wow.
It might have been Richard at the New Orleans. It started out as I don't know how far he can trace
(13:54):
it back but it was on Atlantic in the 40s Lake 40s called Drinking Wine Spodiodi. Can't remember the
name of the six big E sick oh you know okay you know but one thing you listen to there at there's
two songs you can just see on the internet the electric flag did in moderate one of them is wine
(14:15):
and luckily in getting to be yeah I became pretty close friends with Barry Goldberg and we did that
movie together born in Chicago so I got all these back stories but he said that you know I had
Monterey Mike Lumpield was on speed. Oh no. So they start wine and he's playing it like three times
as fast as the record's already passed so it's amazing to watch it you know it's in color from Monterey
(14:43):
so it's here you shake it out and listeners should check it out. I will I absolutely will.
Might be the only uh finished live performance for the band. I can only imagine the backstage stories
from that era. Yes. How anyone made it out of it. Right and the electric flag barely did so.
(15:06):
So this album was kind of panned at the time and I assume it's got kind of a cult status these days
is that something that that kind of like influenced you to start recording or you know archiving
some of these older albums. But we found out when we had our record store basically the philosophy of
(15:27):
the record industry was only hit cell only what's new cells and everything else is old and how to
drunk after it stopped selling it's not going to sell again even when I got to we were distributed by
capital records in the late 80s you know they had a formula that if something a hit record starts only
(15:51):
selling X copies a month it goes out of print. It's not worth keeping and you know the major labels
didn't have a division that thought about reissuing anything so the only things that were still in
print that were more than a year year old were you know Led Zeppelin Beatles there's probably
Dylan albums that were out of print at the record store we could see what you know that there was
(16:14):
interest in these older artists and but so much it was out of print.
(16:36):
We were doing you know records for five and we were writing our own novelty records and
putting out some punk records from bands we liked but we saw like what we were loved the most was
reissuing records and what really was very frustrating for when we were buying records in the 60s let's say
the kinks right a band like the kinks as they can the record companies would put out a
(17:01):
greatest hits album and then in the evening what happened is the band has three or four more hits and
then they break up well they never go back and put out another greatest hits album so to the extent
that that album's still in print and even if it isn't there's no definitive kinks you know greatest
hits album or any you can name any group the turtles whatever so even if somehow there was a
(17:25):
greatest hits album by an artist it was never done right and it was never complete complete or done
with any thought of other than the band's hits what are the other best songs you'll go on the record
and that's how we founded Rhino or genres similar genres now when you guys first open the record store
was there anything originally beyond the vision of just I want to be around records all day like
(17:49):
I'm just gonna open up a record store like you guys have every thoughts ahead of time or was the
goal just originally the store just a store I you know I'm a kid coming out of college in the 60s not
knowing what I want to do and rent is $50 a month and I just got to make a living doing something and
you know I thought I could pedal records and make it up finally just the there was no use record store
(18:13):
serving UCLA in Westwood village or anywhere near anywhere on the west side that's surprising yeah
yeah so I thought wow this is where I should be and I was living on the west side but what I didn't
realize was no one at UCLA had a car and it was you know far enough away you couldn't walk so we
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never really got any UCLA customers and even by that time it's 74 you know the UCLA students aren't
really alternative there there's a couple record stores in the village they could walk to them
that's where they were going they're buying BG's albums and whatever you know so when did the store
become the label it was a slow process store opening in the end of 73 maybe 75 we put out a
(19:01):
well the the first records pretty interesting because have you heard of a street singer name wildman
Fisher I have not he was a street person that in the 60s he'd hang out in the sunset strip and he
go up to you and say one here a song for a quarter and if she said yes he would make up a song and say
(19:26):
and he was discovered by Frank Zappa and somehow even though it was all acapella Zappa decided and
this might have been the first double album that you couldn't contain wildman and the songs were
like a minute so anyway wildman the album didn't sell wildman but double album and all the songs for
about a minute yeah or two there were probably 50 songs on it Jesus because he was just making up these
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diddies on the spot so you know it was just three four years after the record came out he would come
hang out on our store in most places they kick them out we idolize them and everybody worked in the
store had bought the album set this is an album that might as old seven or eight thousand copies
worldwide but we had all that's with our taste that we had all bought the album the personal store
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were exactly like high fidelity if you saw that moving yeah it's a favorite of many of the music
rewind regulars we talked and we joke about that movie all the time and I swear we had some
of the haters who still a close friend and later went on to be general manager were bros records
who was a spitting image of jack black and it's do the same things and mock people's musical tastes
(20:40):
right and heaven forbid and it was very eclectic so we all hated the grateful debt for no reason other
than everybody else like them so we'd make fun of you if you were a deadhead and came in the store and
wanted a grateful debt we'd make fun of you for no and heaven forbid if you if you came in and want
something like captain to Neil or how I'm ready or I felt sorry for anybody come in and ask
(21:04):
you for that so anyway wildman Fisher would hang out of the store we decided we're going to press a
45 to give away a theme song and press it on 45 to give it away to customers so we went in the
back room we had a cheap panasonic except recorder recorded you made up a theme song we pressed it
go to rino records on westwood boulevard they have nice people there they'll show you where the
(21:32):
records are where are the records they're over there they're all over the place go to rino records
on westwood boulevard go to rino records on westwood boulevard you can get her malburn and jacky
lil' bags for 40 cents the managers store my eventual partner was a rock writer and he knew John
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Peel the DJ the number one DJ and London and sentenced to John Peel who start playing it and it
made his top 50 for the year and Virgin Records was just starting and they ordered a thousand copies
so we had to go in the business we don't have to give the records away free and then from there we started
(22:22):
doing our own novelty songs we started doing some punkless starting and I said well we liked the best
was re-issuing the great music of the past it was out of print most of it was out of print how did
you then shift to it's because you guys kind of invented the box set as it's known today in that
the gathering the great reissues had you have to like jump through hoops to get the rights or to get
(22:47):
masters or to like how did you make all that happen originally well the record companies would have
these licensing divisions so we could go the record company you always have to give an advance
usually five or ten thousand unit advance okay and you get non-exclusive rights to virtually any
hits on that maybe not Beatles or Dylan or the who but anybody under that so we could do
(23:12):
compilations and if there was an artist that they didn't have in in print they would often let us
give us the right so one of the first re-issues we did was James Brown greatest hits there was if
you can believe that this is let's say 78 79 there wasn't one James Brown record in print except for
his latest album and that wasn't selling there's new records weren't selling so there was nothing
(23:38):
you could buy unless you could find it in a used record store now I think there'd ever been a James
Brown greatest hits done so maybe there'd be one or two hits on each album if you could find it so
we put out a James Brown greatest hits sold the best selling reissue we ever had and then about 82 83
CDs became bigger than albums and we got the rights on CDs sold hundreds of thousands of James
(24:06):
James Brown that was getting rediscovered by punk and new wave artists so he has a renaissance
and eventually universal music saw how much it was selling and they took the rights back you know
another artist they were able to put out a great set sold hundreds of that was the village people
because those people had all their hits then disco ends and everybody hates disco for a couple
(24:32):
years all their music goes out of print but the record companies it took them many many years
till they realize hey there's a business and we have this great catalog and we can do a lot of
business and like Sony didn't start a reissue division till Sony legacy 1990 if you can believe that so
did you ever have any moments where you'd like go to an artist or to their estate and you'd like
(24:58):
offering out what we want to do a reissue of your work and they were you know surprised or grateful
or even indifferent like no yeah many people said said screw off or we're only into new we don't care
about our our back catalog or a few artists said if you a license it to you but I want to redo it
(25:19):
and we would never do that you said I couldn't play back then those records are lousy I want to do
the purpose new versions of it so they didn't get it that uh so we had a few of that but you know artists
were usually really great because if they weren't having hits anymore at their record label we cared
about that so we became friendly with them and they realized they had a home of people who
(25:42):
appreciate what they did was go to reissue their music so they sounded and looked better than ever
before so they were very appreciative nowadays with online streaming libraries the vinyl
resurgence you know that that happens every three to five years of vinyl resurgence and
but the back catalogs are largely outselling new music today you know and a lot of that can be
(26:05):
traced back to what you guys were doing yeah how do you feel about that that feels right I've heard
now that 80% of music listed to whether it's bought physically or listen online it is a catalog and
when we were probably first started it might have been 10 to 20% and probably by the time we sold Rhino
(26:26):
it might be been 50-50 it's great because obviously everybody likes the music of the era they grew up on
[Music]
(26:53):
you went from Rhino then to Schauffactory which you know they've doing a lot of documentaries and stuff
how was that transition yeah we had sold to Warner's in 2000 Rhino still exists and is probably
better than ever I've stuck into a another vinyl podcast who said Rhino set the standard for
(27:14):
modern reissues Rhino high-fi so they're still doing great stuff but you know we left and I still
wanted to do what I love doing but the music business was starting to crash so we went into film and
video but we did a lot of what I'm most proud of is we did similar we rescued out of print Jones and
TV shows that many were couldn't be cleared in those days it was just DVD and a lot of things couldn't
(27:41):
come out on DVD because they were so music-laden that the original producers and studios hadn't cleared
for DVD which maybe wasn't even a business when the show came out so and it is jarring when you
watch a DVD of one of your favorite shows and just the music isn't the same as you remember yeah a lot
of people did replacement yeah so the show was all about the music right and amazing because they
(28:08):
used the original music and then they put it on DVD and they do fake reclaced music which pretty
much Ruins the show so when the first show we put out was Freaks and Gakes which has some like 60
major hit songs we cleared every single one of them we did this with Judd Abito and even to the point
we had one Van Halen song that we couldn't clear and Van Halen held us up for some unbelievable
(28:34):
large amount of money you know insane and Judd Abito he does a benefit every month for some
orchestration he said I'm doing a benefit to pay for this month to pay for the track and we did
and we gave him and Van Halen was donating all the money to their I think to a great charity at
there's Mr. Holland's Opus so it was all good but that's how Judd would not allow and we didn't
(28:58):
want to put it out but that 100% original music if you ever watch the TV show Supernatural
right prime example of great music in a series you know it's almost all classic rock laden stuff
but if you watch it on the streamers season one has all generic replacement music and
it's bad it's such a shame because they still could have made a lot of money yeah at B they would
(29:22):
have made more money if they were if it was royally based and that buyouts people would have
screamed or bought the DVD more because it had the original music and it was so like that the music
was a character in itself because it was part of the character back stories so it was very out of
place with these generic tracks season two cuts in with Boston at the very beginning like oh okay now
(29:46):
it's changed right in actual Boston oh they actually did put the boss yeah from season two through
again they fixed it but season one is just an outlier of yeah but they're getting started about the
the short-sightedness of the record companies and the publishers and on this one one question
I have to use what's one that got away from you like you were never able to actually get a reissue
(30:10):
whether that's an album band or a movie like whether that's rights or anything uh-huh we got the
rights to the uh us festival oh when we still have the rights we've never been able to clear like
clash I guess it was their final and some people say best performance and we actually licensed from
the clash a clash documentary but they went let us license the uh performance because they
(30:35):
thought they sucked oh that's a shame that's a famous moment in time yeah the us festival is
fascinating because there was just unbelievable they got the greatest bands from still playing it from
the 60s the 80s Bowie the kinks just amazing bands and as we would go to clear it the class short
(30:59):
the only one who hated their performance everybody and Steve Wozniak did it as this is going to be
Woodstock on steroids and it's gonna like bring the world together or we're going to show how
music and computing brings the world and everybody the bands somehow has hated it they were ripping
Wozniak off there's all kinds of crazy stories and I think he got this heartened you know by it so
(31:23):
we actually bought the catalog all the footage from Wozniak but he had no rights so over the years
we've cleared a few like a lesser group we got wowing Jennings, Wowie Nelson, quiet riot is all of
that available audio wise just not video no not audio either now I'm sure you can find it on the
internet a lot of it was on um showtime very early showtime yeah broadcast nine or ten out so I think
(31:49):
that it's all over the internet from people who like taped it from show signs so bad quality most
artists you can probably find even the clash and we don't take it down so it's up there for free
the a lot of it on YouTube so but that's a crazy thing and if we tried to clear it even if they
would let us they'd want lots of money the publishers would want lots of money whereas it's going to
(32:13):
be out there anyway still to this day there's numerous websites that have virtually every live recording
it you know ever made whether it was somebody with a tape recorder and still to this day it's
trying to get the record companies or bands to see the value in monetizing all these live recordings
I think there's some that are coming around to it pink Floyd is one that's uh yeah starting to
(32:38):
monetize their old bootlegs that's saying a lot of that lately yeah more and more and obviously Dylan
has done what 18 volumes of the bootleg series that's also true yeah we first at rhino you know we
worked a little bit with Frank Zappa and he was the best visionary on that and we did these box sets
called bootleg the bootleggers so we would do exact reissues of the bootlegs the friend of mine sent
(33:06):
me an article the other day of a guy who was for years he was going to concerts with a microphone in
the wheelchair his name was Mike the Mike and he had like 10,000 recordings and he started selling them
he's got his pictures of them a library of bootleg concerts would he press them or he'd sell the tapes
(33:27):
or yeah I think he pressed them into CDs yeah okay right okay yeah this is full on bootleg industry
it apparently is pretty good quality yeah all right how has that transitioned into your endeavors
today what's next for you what's on your plate I pretty much slowly and over the years have
transitioned to doing non-profit work I have done a lot with uh getting trying to get music in schools
(33:51):
with uh I was board chair of an organization called little kids rock nice a number of years but lately
I've transitioned to a board chair of a nonprofit called the narrative method that was founded by my
wife who was a former punk rock singer and then went on to become a a therapist and it's
um salons mostly on zoom where people share their creativity and kind of come together around their
(34:18):
learn empathy and friendship and come together around creativity writing that's good I like that
so I work on that and a number of other non-profits and then I'm working on a podcast called we think
called sound effects and that's going to be taking uh important historical moments or movements
(34:38):
in music and showing their progression and how they're affecting us today in an important way
now that's right up my alley when you look at a release you're probably a few months away
just starting on the first so we're going to uh probably do something on protest rock starting with like
union songs in the 1920s and they have that you know marked into topical folk songs into protest
(35:03):
music as a 16 years into rap and so on as a one-off self plug here I'm going to recommend
an episode of this show from last season called Songs of the Revolution where we had a oh I saw that
it seemed like it was of the American Revolution right my guess was a friend of mine Anthony and he
brought on a an album called Songs of the Revolution by Diane Torres and it's all colonial music from
(35:27):
colonial era America where both both American and British and the songs they were singing in the
streets and in the taverns and in the military so fascinating conversation in the music is really
interesting well from a protest perspective like you mentioned you know they they
protested in a quite a different way and something like Gianfi Joodle started out like it was a
British song right making fun of the American that Americans making fun of whatever and that was
(35:52):
something that both sides did where they would take a melody and they would both put different
lyrics on it both taking jet you know almost like a rap battle of the day so it's fat one question
before we start to wrap up a long time coming made the top of your list what's on your short list
what are you know three to five albums that you could have talked about today the first blood
sweat in tears childless father oh man love the copo any early odyssereting album and bill
(36:21):
withers first album oh bill others there you go yeah yeah yeah fantastic anything else you want to
mention regarding your you know future projects or what's down the road for you one thing I've been
thinking a lot about is somebody once mess mentioned music to me recently music as a religion
is there a chance that music could heal heal the world heal us bring us all all together if a
(36:47):
lot of smart people I think if you just made this little tidy shift and said for all of us who love
music here's how we think about the world and here's what we're gonna do to heal the world and
could that happen that's why during it's a beautiful thought and I hope it comes true
Richard I want to thank you for being on music rewind this was wonderful conversation and I really
(37:10):
do appreciate your time thank you great had a great time thank you I've never talked about a long time
coming for probably more than five minutes so that was great I love rediscovering old albums it
gives people a chance to you know be a fan again and just talk about an album they love that's why
we're here right say the last thing yesterday I found so many people love a group that everybody's
(37:33):
discovered and I didn't like their one concept album enough to put it on list but the zombies you
know it's like a favorite of my kids and their friends and whatnot anyway so yesterday you know their
second big hit was Teller No I found on the internet a recording of it from 1968 by this band called
(37:54):
Smith that had a hit with the Berk back rack song that the Beatles cover baby it's you that was a
big hit but then the follow-up was the zombies teller no and it's absolutely amazing I would urge you
and Irvisa or Solis and if you tell you with his jaw teller teller teller teller teller no no teller no now it's such a
(38:27):
fascinating time when people were all doing each other's songs like that yeah it was really
fascinating when it weren't just doing covers they were putting new arrangements in yeah you really
mean like the you know Mr. Tamberine man some people they know it as a Dylan song some people may
may know it as the birds you know it's two completely different versions of my opinion but right at
the same time true classic rock is a small town yeah I love it thank you for listening this
(38:57):
episode of Music Rwind as always we appreciate a really good review wherever you listen and go to
musicrewindpodcast.com for information on the show more extras and future episodes so as I always
say, listen to the full album, until next time. a podcast from the Sidereal Media Group Back to You Anchors
(39:23):
Thank you.
[Music]
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to Music Rewind, a podcast where we look to tell the stories behind our favorite albums.
I'm your host Steve Epley and in each episode we invite a guest on to tell us about their favorite music album.
How they discovered it and what makes it special to them.
Joining me tonight is the godfather of reissue culture himself, co-founder of Rino Records and
Shout Factory, Richard Foos. A lifelong record obsessive, Richard spent decades
(00:44):
doing what the entire entertainment industry told him was a fool's errand, digging through the
archives, rescuing forgotten music, and betting that the world wasn't done with the past.
And tonight he's brought one of the greatest records you've probably never heard to the table.
Welcome Richard and thank you for being on the show.
No, my pleasure. And what a great intro. Thank you.
One of the easier ones to write. You've had a fantastic career and I can't wait to talk about it.
(01:07):
But first let's jump right into this. What album did you bring to the table and what makes it special to you?
The Electric Flag, A Long Time Comin'.
[Music]
(01:36):
What was so amazing about it is it synthesized every great form of music that I know new into
something new and different and better. I don't think it's ever been, I think it was in accident.
I think it's ever been duplicated. We only had one legitimate album and they broke up.
They did reform for one album about six, seven years later that was not very good.
(02:00):
So it's just this magic moment that I think anybody listens to it will agree.
[Music]
(02:22):
How did you discover this album?
In those days, you know, 1967, it wasn't like there were all that many albums coming out.
If something good came out somehow through the grapevine, it wasn't like hundreds of great albums.
So I remember going to college in '67 and I had already had the album and all the people who I like
the their music case had the album. We just, you know, from different parts of the country and
(02:46):
whatever, it just, I don't know, it's some health.
I can only imagine with all the music that was dropping at the time and then about to hit the world.
Because right now you've done something that I don't think any guest has done before.
I've spent many years now with my head deep into the music history rabbit hole.
And somehow out of nowhere, you introduced me to a new top five album.
(03:07):
Okay. This was a complete first listen for me. I had no idea it existed.
Wow.
I generally enjoyed it from start to finish. It was fantastic.
Oh great. I'm so glad.
Yeah, because so many people I meet from that era agree with me that it was an incredible album.
The next generation I've never turned anybody on to it.
(03:29):
So it's great to know that.
Yeah, I went in blind. I had no idea what I was about to hear.
And it was just all over the place and I loved it because it was like the meters meets buddy guy meets
yeah holding company meets blood sweat and tears. I mean, this is right.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right. It has some blood sweat and tears and two before blood sweat.
(03:50):
I think the first blood sweat and tears album came out right about the same time.
And that's another top 10 album for me. They didn't have it. There were no hits on that record.
And then Al Cooper, the founder left and David Clayton Thomas came in and they had gigantic hits.
But I don't think it even compared to that that first album which I'll put in the top 10,
(04:10):
but not as good as let your flag on.
And you must have heard you like a flag had Mike Bloomfield.
Right.
It was with the guitars and you know, buddy Miles who had some hits on his own and own.
But he might also as part of bandage of series with you know, Jimmy Hendrix and yeah.
And that was the other side of the album that made it gave me a lot of enjoyment was pulling on
(04:35):
the threads. Because once I listened to it, you know, I had to look at the history of it, the creation
and you start pulling on those threads and you know, right off the bat, you know, you got say,
Mike Bloomfield and you knew he came from Paul Butterfield. But then you find out that he was actually
he played with Bob Dylan with Al Cooper. Right. That's true. And yeah, I never even thought about
(04:55):
that's where the two bands sort of originated. And then they come back together and super.
Yeah, the two leaders. Yeah, that's true. Right. So it was like all these fantastic threads.
Right. And then you had Mama Cast on one blind and then you had say buddy Miles goes on to do
like you mentioned with the band of Gypsies. Right. And then the other guy was part of big brother
(05:15):
the holding company that came out of nowhere. The Nick Gravenites or I'm not sure how you pronounce his name.
But Nick Gravenite is here. And he wrote the song "Bordon Chicago" that was, you know, Paul Butterfield's
signature song.
(05:45):
Classic Rock is a small town to me. There's just everybody seems to have played with everybody else
and there's so much influence in behind the scenes. I love pulling on those threads. And this
particular band fascinating in that not just where they came from, but they all went on to do
(06:06):
amazing things and play with amazing people from like Curtis Mayfield to Bob Dylan again and
does another thing. So it's quite amazing. Right. Still don't know how this went under my radar.
Oh it's just one out. It was not a hit. It got panned. I couldn't believe. I loved the album so much.
Yeah I picked a Brogestone or Cramer. I was reading all those music and periodicals and they were
(06:31):
slammed the album. Derivative. Derivative. I don't forget what they said about it. I never saw a good
review of it. And unfortunately a lot of those bands, if you didn't get super star in them, they
break apart and certainly drugs had a lot to do with it. Yeah you can definitely tell there's some
(06:51):
influence behind the scenes on some of these songs. You'd like to find even though the core members
were from Chicago by the time they did the album they were living in San Francisco. We did a
doc about it about these guys called Born in Chicago. And there's interviews in there with
Jerk Garcia Bob Weir, some of the airplay saying that these guys when they came to San Francisco they
(07:18):
taught them how to be a band. So we were just like Ragtag, Garage Band and they taught us about how
you put together a set. Performing they were. We have a video of Mike Lungfield showing Jerk Garcia
various licks. And that's awesome. Yeah they somehow went from Chicago and then they
they played they backed up, Dylan a new part, moved the San Francisco and that's where the flag
(07:42):
form but they were deep into the maybe good and bad influence by the best and worst parts of
Haydashbury at the time. And you know lots of issues and Mike Bluefield unfortunately they have such
great stars, that young. Yeah I think yeah early 80s I believe. Yeah you mentioned San Francisco.
And this definitely has a lot of San Francisco feel to it but it's also a fantastic
(08:07):
representation of kind of American music at the time. Exactly. It doesn't just stay there.
It's like they took Chicago Austin and New Orleans and brought them to San Francisco and threw it
all into a pot. Yeah with maybe a little bit of Memphis because you have the soul horns on it. Yes.
That's what made it so incredible. It's a took every form of Roots music. Right.
(08:30):
It's synthesized in this something better. Maybe it was the first time I heard the song
"Killing Floor" at which it was a standard you know howling wolf song but so many people covered it
but if you listen to their arrangement it's just it's great blues but it rocks like as much as
anything you'd ever hear. Yeah I would not have known that was the howling wolf song. Yeah.
(08:53):
Hearing this person that absolutely away but there's several tracks on here that if I heard them
just individually and not in the album I would have said that's Otis Redding. That's Professor Longhaire.
That's Blood Sweat and Tears. I would not have known any of this. They sound so unique but together.
You are absolutely. I love them and playing together forever like Barry Goldburn and Mike Bloomfield.
(09:19):
I think men in high school. Oh wow. They all sort of went to they were you know from the North side of
Chicago many of them and they traveled to the south side and they met howling wolf and money waters
and it was a lot of affair they were like adopted. All these guys were very alienated from their
parents and families. Nothing in suburban Chicago and now they're they get have a new family.
(09:42):
How do you listen to the album like when you put it on do you bounce around or do you go
front to back like walk me through how you listen to the album. I like the first side a lot better
the second side so I think the last another country is like eight minutes and I don't like it.
Oh that was my favorite on the album. Oh okay.
(10:19):
That's kind of psychedelic so I don't and then Texas is on the second side. I'm doing all this for
remembering and that's good but it's just how to standard blues. Every song is amazing to me on the
first side so I would just listen to the whole side and then occasionally flip it over.
Then another country won. It was definitely all over the place and it was just like eight minutes
(10:42):
long. I enjoyed it because I love a good jam band. Not too long ago I actually did a review of
the Velvet Underground in Nico and it was the first time I listened to it all the way through
with a critical ear and I didn't enjoy it at all. It was a lot of noise to me and I was like I'm
either either I'm getting old or or I just you know didn't put myself in the mindset of that time
(11:07):
in that place during the Underground in New York. That one another country that's more my jam.
There's four or five times where really great bands went a little too far and we put a one song on
the whole second side so the stones did going home and probably almost equal to a long time coming
(11:29):
was the love album not forever changes the one before the capo because it's like a perfect
there's the six songs on side A are beyond everyone's just beyond a masterpiece to be but the B
side is one and 18 minutes on let's just try it. They probably just turned they just said okay everybody
freeform just record. Yeah we'll use the rest of our studio time just a record. Yeah so
(11:54):
but you're right another country is only eight minutes so it's a little more contained.
Right after he had easy writer it was like let under a minute like that's it. Oh here was
every review I read we're saying the only great song on the album is easy writer and what I think
it's like 40 seconds and that should have been like three minutes or four met me why wasn't that a
(12:15):
full song.
(12:35):
I mean I agree with that and that it could have been a much longer. Right. But I far from the best
on the album. I agree. Yeah I think it's perfect as a fade out but it's just kind of a standard blues
and yeah every single track has a bit of uniqueness with that San Francisco tinged to it but like the
Texas is definitely like you mentioned straight blues that's the one I said it kind of feels like
(12:57):
Austin to me. Right. So good. Yeah. I just got in from Texas Bay. You didn't even know I was around.
But then wine was interesting that's an extremely unique song in itself and that's the one that
(13:26):
to me I would have said it was professor Longhair out of New Orleans. Oh wow.
It might have been Richard at the New Orleans. It started out as I don't know how far he can trace
(13:54):
it back but it was on Atlantic in the 40s Lake 40s called Drinking Wine Spodiodi. Can't remember the
name of the six big E sick oh you know okay you know but one thing you listen to there at there's
two songs you can just see on the internet the electric flag did in moderate one of them is wine
(14:15):
and luckily in getting to be yeah I became pretty close friends with Barry Goldberg and we did that
movie together born in Chicago so I got all these back stories but he said that you know I had
Monterey Mike Lumpield was on speed. Oh no. So they start wine and he's playing it like three times
as fast as the record's already passed so it's amazing to watch it you know it's in color from Monterey
(14:43):
so it's here you shake it out and listeners should check it out. I will I absolutely will.
Might be the only uh finished live performance for the band. I can only imagine the backstage stories
from that era. Yes. How anyone made it out of it. Right and the electric flag barely did so.
(15:06):
So this album was kind of panned at the time and I assume it's got kind of a cult status these days
is that something that that kind of like influenced you to start recording or you know archiving
some of these older albums. But we found out when we had our record store basically the philosophy of
(15:27):
the record industry was only hit cell only what's new cells and everything else is old and how to
drunk after it stopped selling it's not going to sell again even when I got to we were distributed by
capital records in the late 80s you know they had a formula that if something a hit record starts only
(15:51):
selling X copies a month it goes out of print. It's not worth keeping and you know the major labels
didn't have a division that thought about reissuing anything so the only things that were still in
print that were more than a year year old were you know Led Zeppelin Beatles there's probably
Dylan albums that were out of print at the record store we could see what you know that there was
(16:14):
interest in these older artists and but so much it was out of print.
(16:36):
We were doing you know records for five and we were writing our own novelty records and
putting out some punk records from bands we liked but we saw like what we were loved the most was
reissuing records and what really was very frustrating for when we were buying records in the 60s let's say
the kinks right a band like the kinks as they can the record companies would put out a
(17:01):
greatest hits album and then in the evening what happened is the band has three or four more hits and
then they break up well they never go back and put out another greatest hits album so to the extent
that that album's still in print and even if it isn't there's no definitive kinks you know greatest
hits album or any you can name any group the turtles whatever so even if somehow there was a
(17:25):
greatest hits album by an artist it was never done right and it was never complete complete or done
with any thought of other than the band's hits what are the other best songs you'll go on the record
and that's how we founded Rhino or genres similar genres now when you guys first open the record store
was there anything originally beyond the vision of just I want to be around records all day like
(17:49):
I'm just gonna open up a record store like you guys have every thoughts ahead of time or was the
goal just originally the store just a store I you know I'm a kid coming out of college in the 60s not
knowing what I want to do and rent is $50 a month and I just got to make a living doing something and
you know I thought I could pedal records and make it up finally just the there was no use record store
(18:13):
serving UCLA in Westwood village or anywhere near anywhere on the west side that's surprising yeah
yeah so I thought wow this is where I should be and I was living on the west side but what I didn't
realize was no one at UCLA had a car and it was you know far enough away you couldn't walk so we
(18:34):
never really got any UCLA customers and even by that time it's 74 you know the UCLA students aren't
really alternative there there's a couple record stores in the village they could walk to them
that's where they were going they're buying BG's albums and whatever you know so when did the store
become the label it was a slow process store opening in the end of 73 maybe 75 we put out a
(19:01):
well the the first records pretty interesting because have you heard of a street singer name wildman
Fisher I have not he was a street person that in the 60s he'd hang out in the sunset strip and he
go up to you and say one here a song for a quarter and if she said yes he would make up a song and say
(19:26):
and he was discovered by Frank Zappa and somehow even though it was all acapella Zappa decided and
this might have been the first double album that you couldn't contain wildman and the songs were
like a minute so anyway wildman the album didn't sell wildman but double album and all the songs for
about a minute yeah or two there were probably 50 songs on it Jesus because he was just making up these
(19:52):
diddies on the spot so you know it was just three four years after the record came out he would come
hang out on our store in most places they kick them out we idolize them and everybody worked in the
store had bought the album set this is an album that might as old seven or eight thousand copies
worldwide but we had all that's with our taste that we had all bought the album the personal store
(20:17):
were exactly like high fidelity if you saw that moving yeah it's a favorite of many of the music
rewind regulars we talked and we joke about that movie all the time and I swear we had some
of the haters who still a close friend and later went on to be general manager were bros records
who was a spitting image of jack black and it's do the same things and mock people's musical tastes
(20:40):
right and heaven forbid and it was very eclectic so we all hated the grateful debt for no reason other
than everybody else like them so we'd make fun of you if you were a deadhead and came in the store and
wanted a grateful debt we'd make fun of you for no and heaven forbid if you if you came in and want
something like captain to Neil or how I'm ready or I felt sorry for anybody come in and ask
(21:04):
you for that so anyway wildman Fisher would hang out of the store we decided we're going to press a
45 to give away a theme song and press it on 45 to give it away to customers so we went in the
back room we had a cheap panasonic except recorder recorded you made up a theme song we pressed it
go to rino records on westwood boulevard they have nice people there they'll show you where the
(21:32):
records are where are the records they're over there they're all over the place go to rino records
on westwood boulevard go to rino records on westwood boulevard you can get her malburn and jacky
lil' bags for 40 cents the managers store my eventual partner was a rock writer and he knew John
(22:01):
Peel the DJ the number one DJ and London and sentenced to John Peel who start playing it and it
made his top 50 for the year and Virgin Records was just starting and they ordered a thousand copies
so we had to go in the business we don't have to give the records away free and then from there we started
(22:22):
doing our own novelty songs we started doing some punkless starting and I said well we liked the best
was re-issuing the great music of the past it was out of print most of it was out of print how did
you then shift to it's because you guys kind of invented the box set as it's known today in that
the gathering the great reissues had you have to like jump through hoops to get the rights or to get
(22:47):
masters or to like how did you make all that happen originally well the record companies would have
these licensing divisions so we could go the record company you always have to give an advance
usually five or ten thousand unit advance okay and you get non-exclusive rights to virtually any
hits on that maybe not Beatles or Dylan or the who but anybody under that so we could do
(23:12):
compilations and if there was an artist that they didn't have in in print they would often let us
give us the right so one of the first re-issues we did was James Brown greatest hits there was if
you can believe that this is let's say 78 79 there wasn't one James Brown record in print except for
his latest album and that wasn't selling there's new records weren't selling so there was nothing
(23:38):
you could buy unless you could find it in a used record store now I think there'd ever been a James
Brown greatest hits done so maybe there'd be one or two hits on each album if you could find it so
we put out a James Brown greatest hits sold the best selling reissue we ever had and then about 82 83
CDs became bigger than albums and we got the rights on CDs sold hundreds of thousands of James
(24:06):
James Brown that was getting rediscovered by punk and new wave artists so he has a renaissance
and eventually universal music saw how much it was selling and they took the rights back you know
another artist they were able to put out a great set sold hundreds of that was the village people
because those people had all their hits then disco ends and everybody hates disco for a couple
(24:32):
years all their music goes out of print but the record companies it took them many many years
till they realize hey there's a business and we have this great catalog and we can do a lot of
business and like Sony didn't start a reissue division till Sony legacy 1990 if you can believe that so
did you ever have any moments where you'd like go to an artist or to their estate and you'd like
(24:58):
offering out what we want to do a reissue of your work and they were you know surprised or grateful
or even indifferent like no yeah many people said said screw off or we're only into new we don't care
about our our back catalog or a few artists said if you a license it to you but I want to redo it
(25:19):
and we would never do that you said I couldn't play back then those records are lousy I want to do
the purpose new versions of it so they didn't get it that uh so we had a few of that but you know artists
were usually really great because if they weren't having hits anymore at their record label we cared
about that so we became friendly with them and they realized they had a home of people who
(25:42):
appreciate what they did was go to reissue their music so they sounded and looked better than ever
before so they were very appreciative nowadays with online streaming libraries the vinyl
resurgence you know that that happens every three to five years of vinyl resurgence and
but the back catalogs are largely outselling new music today you know and a lot of that can be
(26:05):
traced back to what you guys were doing yeah how do you feel about that that feels right I've heard
now that 80% of music listed to whether it's bought physically or listen online it is a catalog and
when we were probably first started it might have been 10 to 20% and probably by the time we sold Rhino
(26:26):
it might be been 50-50 it's great because obviously everybody likes the music of the era they grew up on
[Music]
(26:53):
you went from Rhino then to Schauffactory which you know they've doing a lot of documentaries and stuff
how was that transition yeah we had sold to Warner's in 2000 Rhino still exists and is probably
better than ever I've stuck into a another vinyl podcast who said Rhino set the standard for
(27:14):
modern reissues Rhino high-fi so they're still doing great stuff but you know we left and I still
wanted to do what I love doing but the music business was starting to crash so we went into film and
video but we did a lot of what I'm most proud of is we did similar we rescued out of print Jones and
TV shows that many were couldn't be cleared in those days it was just DVD and a lot of things couldn't
(27:41):
come out on DVD because they were so music-laden that the original producers and studios hadn't cleared
for DVD which maybe wasn't even a business when the show came out so and it is jarring when you
watch a DVD of one of your favorite shows and just the music isn't the same as you remember yeah a lot
of people did replacement yeah so the show was all about the music right and amazing because they
(28:08):
used the original music and then they put it on DVD and they do fake reclaced music which pretty
much Ruins the show so when the first show we put out was Freaks and Gakes which has some like 60
major hit songs we cleared every single one of them we did this with Judd Abito and even to the point
we had one Van Halen song that we couldn't clear and Van Halen held us up for some unbelievable
(28:34):
large amount of money you know insane and Judd Abito he does a benefit every month for some
orchestration he said I'm doing a benefit to pay for this month to pay for the track and we did
and we gave him and Van Halen was donating all the money to their I think to a great charity at
there's Mr. Holland's Opus so it was all good but that's how Judd would not allow and we didn't
(28:58):
want to put it out but that 100% original music if you ever watch the TV show Supernatural
right prime example of great music in a series you know it's almost all classic rock laden stuff
but if you watch it on the streamers season one has all generic replacement music and
it's bad it's such a shame because they still could have made a lot of money yeah at B they would
(29:22):
have made more money if they were if it was royally based and that buyouts people would have
screamed or bought the DVD more because it had the original music and it was so like that the music
was a character in itself because it was part of the character back stories so it was very out of
place with these generic tracks season two cuts in with Boston at the very beginning like oh okay now
(29:46):
it's changed right in actual Boston oh they actually did put the boss yeah from season two through
again they fixed it but season one is just an outlier of yeah but they're getting started about the
the short-sightedness of the record companies and the publishers and on this one one question
I have to use what's one that got away from you like you were never able to actually get a reissue
(30:10):
whether that's an album band or a movie like whether that's rights or anything uh-huh we got the
rights to the uh us festival oh when we still have the rights we've never been able to clear like
clash I guess it was their final and some people say best performance and we actually licensed from
the clash a clash documentary but they went let us license the uh performance because they
(30:35):
thought they sucked oh that's a shame that's a famous moment in time yeah the us festival is
fascinating because there was just unbelievable they got the greatest bands from still playing it from
the 60s the 80s Bowie the kinks just amazing bands and as we would go to clear it the class short
(30:59):
the only one who hated their performance everybody and Steve Wozniak did it as this is going to be
Woodstock on steroids and it's gonna like bring the world together or we're going to show how
music and computing brings the world and everybody the bands somehow has hated it they were ripping
Wozniak off there's all kinds of crazy stories and I think he got this heartened you know by it so
(31:23):
we actually bought the catalog all the footage from Wozniak but he had no rights so over the years
we've cleared a few like a lesser group we got wowing Jennings, Wowie Nelson, quiet riot is all of
that available audio wise just not video no not audio either now I'm sure you can find it on the
internet a lot of it was on um showtime very early showtime yeah broadcast nine or ten out so I think
(31:49):
that it's all over the internet from people who like taped it from show signs so bad quality most
artists you can probably find even the clash and we don't take it down so it's up there for free
the a lot of it on YouTube so but that's a crazy thing and if we tried to clear it even if they
would let us they'd want lots of money the publishers would want lots of money whereas it's going to
(32:13):
be out there anyway still to this day there's numerous websites that have virtually every live recording
it you know ever made whether it was somebody with a tape recorder and still to this day it's
trying to get the record companies or bands to see the value in monetizing all these live recordings
I think there's some that are coming around to it pink Floyd is one that's uh yeah starting to
(32:38):
monetize their old bootlegs that's saying a lot of that lately yeah more and more and obviously Dylan
has done what 18 volumes of the bootleg series that's also true yeah we first at rhino you know we
worked a little bit with Frank Zappa and he was the best visionary on that and we did these box sets
called bootleg the bootleggers so we would do exact reissues of the bootlegs the friend of mine sent
(33:06):
me an article the other day of a guy who was for years he was going to concerts with a microphone in
the wheelchair his name was Mike the Mike and he had like 10,000 recordings and he started selling them
he's got his pictures of them a library of bootleg concerts would he press them or he'd sell the tapes
(33:27):
or yeah I think he pressed them into CDs yeah okay right okay yeah this is full on bootleg industry
it apparently is pretty good quality yeah all right how has that transitioned into your endeavors
today what's next for you what's on your plate I pretty much slowly and over the years have
transitioned to doing non-profit work I have done a lot with uh getting trying to get music in schools
(33:51):
with uh I was board chair of an organization called little kids rock nice a number of years but lately
I've transitioned to a board chair of a nonprofit called the narrative method that was founded by my
wife who was a former punk rock singer and then went on to become a a therapist and it's
um salons mostly on zoom where people share their creativity and kind of come together around their
(34:18):
learn empathy and friendship and come together around creativity writing that's good I like that
so I work on that and a number of other non-profits and then I'm working on a podcast called we think
called sound effects and that's going to be taking uh important historical moments or movements
(34:38):
in music and showing their progression and how they're affecting us today in an important way
now that's right up my alley when you look at a release you're probably a few months away
just starting on the first so we're going to uh probably do something on protest rock starting with like
union songs in the 1920s and they have that you know marked into topical folk songs into protest
(35:03):
music as a 16 years into rap and so on as a one-off self plug here I'm going to recommend
an episode of this show from last season called Songs of the Revolution where we had a oh I saw that
it seemed like it was of the American Revolution right my guess was a friend of mine Anthony and he
brought on a an album called Songs of the Revolution by Diane Torres and it's all colonial music from
(35:27):
colonial era America where both both American and British and the songs they were singing in the
streets and in the taverns and in the military so fascinating conversation in the music is really
interesting well from a protest perspective like you mentioned you know they they
protested in a quite a different way and something like Gianfi Joodle started out like it was a
British song right making fun of the American that Americans making fun of whatever and that was
(35:52):
something that both sides did where they would take a melody and they would both put different
lyrics on it both taking jet you know almost like a rap battle of the day so it's fat one question
before we start to wrap up a long time coming made the top of your list what's on your short list
what are you know three to five albums that you could have talked about today the first blood
sweat in tears childless father oh man love the copo any early odyssereting album and bill
(36:21):
withers first album oh bill others there you go yeah yeah yeah fantastic anything else you want to
mention regarding your you know future projects or what's down the road for you one thing I've been
thinking a lot about is somebody once mess mentioned music to me recently music as a religion
is there a chance that music could heal heal the world heal us bring us all all together if a
(36:47):
lot of smart people I think if you just made this little tidy shift and said for all of us who love
music here's how we think about the world and here's what we're gonna do to heal the world and
could that happen that's why during it's a beautiful thought and I hope it comes true
Richard I want to thank you for being on music rewind this was wonderful conversation and I really
(37:10):
do appreciate your time thank you great had a great time thank you I've never talked about a long time
coming for probably more than five minutes so that was great I love rediscovering old albums it
gives people a chance to you know be a fan again and just talk about an album they love that's why
we're here right say the last thing yesterday I found so many people love a group that everybody's
(37:33):
discovered and I didn't like their one concept album enough to put it on list but the zombies you
know it's like a favorite of my kids and their friends and whatnot anyway so yesterday you know their
second big hit was Teller No I found on the internet a recording of it from 1968 by this band called
(37:54):
Smith that had a hit with the Berk back rack song that the Beatles cover baby it's you that was a
big hit but then the follow-up was the zombies teller no and it's absolutely amazing I would urge you
and Irvisa or Solis and if you tell you with his jaw teller teller teller teller teller no no teller no now it's such a
(38:27):
fascinating time when people were all doing each other's songs like that yeah it was really
fascinating when it weren't just doing covers they were putting new arrangements in yeah you really
mean like the you know Mr. Tamberine man some people they know it as a Dylan song some people may
may know it as the birds you know it's two completely different versions of my opinion but right at
the same time true classic rock is a small town yeah I love it thank you for listening this
(38:57):
episode of Music Rwind as always we appreciate a really good review wherever you listen and go to
musicrewindpodcast.com for information on the show more extras and future episodes so as I always
say, listen to the full album, until next time. a podcast from the Sidereal Media Group Back to You Anchors
(39:23):
Thank you.
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