New Orleans' Dr. John live at Ebbets Field music club in Denver, CO on 9/25/1974. Dr. John was on tour at this time to promote his latest album, Desitively Bonnaroo, released in April of that year. This set includes some songs from that album, as well as Dr. John's earlier catalog. This concert was recorded and broadcast by KBPI 106 FM in Denver, a freeform FM station at that time.
It’s been a long while since Tim Presley last erected White Fence. Following 2014’s For the Recently Found Innocent, Presley has collaborated with Cate Le Bon on two weird and wonderful Drinks albums. On Orange he returns to working with Ty Segall, with whom he’s released two very fine duo albums, Hair (2012) and Joy (2018). Familiarity with any of Presley’s past output will offer some clues to Orange’s sound, style, and sense of humor — this is psych-speckled garage-pop with dimensions of playful profundity laced within the layers of jangle.
Paul says: The Ebbets Field radio broadcasts keep coming, nearly one a day. Here's one starring singer-songwriter Terry Reid.
Reid, unfortunately, is best known for one bit of trivia: he passed on offers to be the lead singer for both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple! In 1968, when he was given the Led Zeppelin offer by Jimmy Page, he had extensive touring commitments he couldn't get out of. So he suggested Robert Plant for the role instead, and the rest is history. And when Richie Blackmore asked him to join Deep Purple in 1969, he said their music was too heavy and not really his style.
The fact that both bands wanted him was a sign that a lot of people thought he was going to be a big star, one way or another. Unfortunately, that never happened. Here's the intro to his Wikipedia entry:
"[Reid] was an English musician, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his emotive style of singing in appearances with high-profile musicians as vocalist, supporting act, and session musician. As a solo recording and touring artist he released six studio albums and four live albums. Described as an 'artists' artist' by Rolling Stone, Reid was recognized by his contemporaries as an eminent talent in English rock music, both as a guitarist and a vocalist. Robert Plant praised his vocal 'flexibility, power, and control' and Graham Nash was quoted as saying he should have been 'a gigantic star.'"
There are very few live recordings of Reid, and this one was hard to find. So hopefully this will get around and add to his unofficial discography. By the way, he died in 2025 at the age of 75, which is why that paragraph was written in the past tense for him.
This concert took place when Reid was promoting his third solo album, "River," released in 1973. It got a lot of critical praise, but not a lot of sales. It put him more into singer-songwriter mode compared to his earlier, more rocking records. Some people compared the style of "River" to "Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison. That style of the album can be heard here, even for the songs not from the album.
I'm not sure if this concert was actually broadcast on local radio at the time, because there were some big issues with the recording. Overall, it doesn't sound as good as most of the Ebbets Field recordings, even after some changes I made. I had to make a lot of adjustments. The biggest was that I boosted the lead vocals dramatically relative to the instruments. But I made some other changes as well. For instance, a chunk of "Things to Try" was missing. Luckily, he played that song at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, so I used that to patch in the missing section.
I couldn't find any song list for this concert, so I had to figure out the song titles myself. This was difficult since I didn't have any of his albums prior to this. I had a hard time of it, since the sound quality meant the vocals sounded somewhat muffled at any volume. I think I got most of them right. However, I was totally stumped for two of them, which I just call "Unknown Title 1" and "Unknown Title 2." If anyone knows the real names of those songs, please let me know so I can fix them.
This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.
01 Rich Kid Blues 02 Without Expression 03 Live Life 04 To Be Alone with You 05 talk 06 Avenue 07 [Unknown Title 1] 08 [Unknown Title 2] 09 talk 10 Things to Try [Edit] 11 Dean 12 River 13 talk
Jim (Morrison) his dad and his sister Anne reminisce about Jim’s character
Given he had been know to invent their death, it is interesting to hear their warm and affectionate views - they knew!
Brought a tear to my eye . . . . .Anne’s desire that he be remembered affectionately and as a songwriter and poet came true! so touching
Anne knew what Jim was at but boy Admiral Morrison also, in his own way, knew what position his son held and was clearly immensely respectful and deeply proud
For his graduating from High School he asked his parent’s for the complete works of Nietsche! “Most kids asked for a car!” Anne Morrison
He once got out of class by saying he had to go and get a brain tumour removed and went home to read [Anne]
“Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing album was the hippest record of 1981 … a reinvention of Roxy Music’s too-much-too-soon ennui, with sublime reggae and funk rhythms from the rhythm section of the era, Jamaica’s Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare … Grace Jones, an intimidatingly androgynous and Amazonian New York model – born in Jamaica … looked like a sleek, purpose-built alien, and spoke-sang her lyrics with a dominatrix-like authority, developing and transcending her early career as a gay-scene disco diva …”
/ From the 2002 book This is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco by Gary Mulholland /
Released 45 years ago today (11 May 1981) by Island Records: Nightclubbing, the fifth studio album by everyone’s favourite post-punk freak diva / Afro-Dietrich / futuristic dominatrix from outer space Miss Grace Jones! Nightclubbing is the second (and most commercially successful) entry in the fierce fashion model-turned-New Wave chanteuse’s timeless bleeding-edge trilogy of albums recorded at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas (the other two are Warm Leatherette (1980) and Living My Life (1982). All three are essential!).
The title track of course is courtesy of Iggy Pop’s 1977 The Idiot album. “Jones’ skill as a facilitator as well as pop cultural icon is exposed in the way the original song is converted from Krautrock-damaged, Suicide-aping sleaze fest into sophisticated, lightly-dub inflected, disco reggae,” criticJohn Doran argues. “The conceptual joke of the song is clear: Grace doesn’t hang around in the same horrible dives as Mr James Osterberg, but you can be sure that the experience is just as existential and soul-draining. She has just applied Pop’s lyrics to the cocaine-and-champagne instead of amphetamine-and-vodka lifestyle.”
I love the dramatic accordion-laced “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”, “Walking in the Rain” and “Demolition Man” but understandably most people remember Nightclubbing as the album featuring eternal dancefloor favourite “Pull Up to the Bumper”! I’d also argue that the confrontational cover image (a “painted photograph” entitled “Blue-Black in Black on Brown” by Jean-Paul Goude, Jones’ then-lover and artistic collaborator) is as impactful as Robert Mapplethorpe’s shot of Patti Smith on the cover of Horses.
Charles Manson knew what he was doing when he devilishly created The Manson Family and left a permanent stain on California.
Manson was many things. A murderous psychopath, a fairly shit musician, a proud Nazi, but mainly, he was a conman. Whether or not he believed his own bullshit, his status and following weren’t achieved by being a once-in-a-generation singer-songwriter or prophet or whatever he was drivelling on about in his acid-induced psychosis.
He achieved his disgusting following and status by latching onto important people and refusing to go away. Manson knew exactly who he wanted to be associated with and who he didn’t want to be associated with. Any old Charlie Brown couldn’t just waltz up to Spahn Ranch and sign up to join the cult. You had to have worth in the eyes of Manson, which meant being a particularly hot girl, a particularly hot guy, rich or connected. Preferably three of the four. Ideally, all four.
Case in point, one of Manson’s followers gets picked up by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Within days, the family had moved into Wilson’s house, got into the drummer’s ear, and earned access to the entire Los Angeles celebrity scene. It’s how he tried to charm Terry Melcher into giving him a record deal. It’s how he tried to put Neil Young and Mama Cass under his spell, and it’s the reason that they tried to crack onto a number of different Hollywood celebrities like Steve McQueen.
If they couldn’t work their magic on the celebrities themselves, rather than back down, they’d instead go for their children.
Credit: Fitzgerald Whitney, Los Angeles Times
After all, that was the obvious target, wasn’t it? At the time, Hollywood celebrities were largely adults who’d been through the celebrity ringer and knew a conman when they saw one. Hollywood does tend to swallow up people who can’t see when people will use them and discard them and for many people, Manson was a walking, talking red flag. Why do you think Neil Young never spent more than an hour in his presence?
Their kids, though? These are often privileged, pampered LA natives who’ve never met someone who didn’t fawn over them and had no reason to believe anyone meant them ill. They were sitting ducks for Manson’s promises of free love, free drugs and a utopian future under his control. One of the celebrity young’uns who was nearly swayed by the family was Deirdre Shaw, daughter of national treasure Angela Lansbury, who spoke of her daughter’s troubles in an interview with MailOnline.
When asked about Shaw’s drug problems, Lansbury talked frankly about how a dalliance with weed moved on to full-blown heroin use. She harrowingly shared, “It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson. She was one of many youngsters who knew him – and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.”
However, one way or another, Lansbury found out about this association and wanted no part of any of it.
“We upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork,” Lansbury said. “I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother, and it was also somewhere my children wouldn’t be exposed to any more bad influences.”
There, Shaw was able to kick her bad habits (though Lansbury mentions that “it took a little longer”) and eventually moved back to Los Angeles with her husband to run a restaurant.
Here’s hoping that all of LA’s nepo babies have parents who care about their well-being as much as Lansbury did.
Having read pretty much everything Manson and the ‘Family’ I hadn’t remembered the reference to Angela Lansbury’s children but Will make s good fist of the tale here
Hermann Landshoff 📸: Leonora Carrington, Andre Breton, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, New York, with Morris Hirshfield’s painting Nude at the Window (1941) at Peggy Guggenheim’s town-house, 1942
N.B check out Leonora here the understated sitting position belying her physical statement! The surrealists steeped in the new psychological work of Freud and embraced the symbolism and Oedipal myths
Breton for me was a rather risible figure and less of an artist than the rest, Dali, Duchamp, Ray, Carrington, Ernst, etc rather he would try to control and lead the loose group by writing the Surrealist Manifesto which most and Dali in particular rebelled against - poor Andre didn’t quite GET it! The actions and explorations of all the artists WERE surrealism they didn’t need a Manifesto!
“The music had cultural value,” Taj insists, “not just something that was going to be on the Hit Parade on radio Friday nights. Back then, the songs I was hearing might not have had value for everybody, but they were important to me. The records back then were like relatives talking to you. It wasn’t Top of the Pops or Top 20 Countdown or anything like that.
“That all changed in the ’60s, when the record industry started feeding us only music they were making money off of. We were being programmed, and I was much more interested in being programmed by my own culture.”
One day, he was down in the basement when he discovered his stepfather’s six-string and started to teach himself how to play using a broken comb for a pick.
“At some point, I became fascinated with Jimmy Reed. I liked his tempo, what he had to say. And then I got lucky enough to run into a neighbor next door, Lynwood Perry. I was 14 or 15, and he was a little older – and he could play. He came right out of the tradition in North Carolina. He could play a whole bunch of stuff…Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Blind Boy Fuller.
Marty Gunther / Blues Blast Interview
Photo source: Amy Richmond / Taj Mahal on FB
For his Birthday where it all began for me!
From Rock Machine Turns You On came this I was 15!
Taj Mahal flashes a peace sign at his Topanga Canyon home, 1968.
