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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 18, 2017 17:46:24 GMT -5
Burnt Biscuits by The Triumphs.
This song wasn't a hit and The Triumphs never really amounted to anything. But the record is historically important in two ways. It's the first release for the Volt imprint. And it's the record that caused Chips Moman and Stax to part ways. Chips had been the producer on most of the Stax recordings up to that point. Legend has it that Chips thought Burnt Biscuits was a hit and that money was being withheld from him. He also was claiming a 1/3 interest in the company as a whole. The chips hit the fan over Burnt Biscuits and Chips hit the road.
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Post by berkley on Jul 18, 2017 20:03:31 GMT -5
Chips was almost right, it should have been a hit even if it wasn't.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 18, 2017 22:56:04 GMT -5
Chips was almost right, it should have been a hit even if it wasn't. It's a good song. And it did hit the Hot 100 in the mid 90s. So it sold okay. The way things all worked out, Chips may have been better off. After leaving Stax and a short stint in Nashville he went back to Memphis and founded American Sound Studio which was one of the most successful recording studios in the country in the late 60s and into the 70s. Man knew how to make hit records. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 20, 2017 16:45:03 GMT -5
It was spring 1962. Billy Lee Riley, who had been a minor rockabilly success at Sun came in to record at Stax. He was drunk and the session went nowhere and eventually he left, leaving the house band hanging out with studio time. They started playing a song that members had been playing with in the Memphis clubs. Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Lewie Steinberg and Al Jackson, Jr. were the band. Booker was 17. Jim Stewart liked what he was hearing and recorded it without the band knowing. Everyone agreed it was going to be a hit. But now they needed a B-Side.
The song was Behave Yourself. It wasn't actually a hit. But the B-Side would make history.
Behave Yourself by Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 20, 2017 16:55:20 GMT -5
Prior to the session that brought about Behave Yourself Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones had heard a catchy riff on an unknown song on the radio. They decided to do a play on the riff and created the song over a short period in the studio that afternoon. It was the B-side to Behave yourself and was put out on the Volt label. But everyone kept turning the record over and playing this song. Eventually Atlantic called and the record was re-released by Atlantic on the Stax Label with Behave Yourself as the B. The A-side became the signature Stax sound. It has since been named among the 500 most important songs of all time by Rolling Stone and the best song of 1962 by Acclaimed Music. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Green Onions by Booker T. & The M.G.'s.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 24, 2017 11:45:02 GMT -5
Going to post this today,a day early, because I have a huge court calendar and may not get around to it.
7/25/17 is the 90th anniversary of the beginning of The Bristol Sessions.
The Bristol Sessions are considered the Big Bang of country music. Held in Bristol, TN by Ralph Peer of the Victrola Talking Machine Co. the sessions, running from July 25 through Aug 5, 1927, put mountain/hillbilly music on record and ultimately led to what we know as country music. The first session was centered around Ernest Stoneman and various bands that he was involved with. It was later in the sessions, in early August of 1927 that Peer would strike gold with the first recordings of The Carter Family and of Jimmie Rodgers. Both acts would go on to be the cornerstones of early country music.
The first recording of the Bristol Sessions, Dying Girl's Farewell by Ernest Stoneman and Walter Mooney.
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Post by Jesse on Jul 24, 2017 16:17:04 GMT -5
There's a really interesting documentary series on HBO called The Defiant Ones about the careers of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre and how they would eventually work together. I've always been interested in Dre but had no idea how interesting Iovine's contribution to music actually is. I think the story I was most impressed with was how he went to work on Easter Sunday and ended up recording for John Lennon.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 25, 2017 16:11:19 GMT -5
Continuing the Stax story...
The label hit gold in a completely unexpected way following the success of Booker T. & the M.G.'s and Green Onions. A session was set up for Johnny Jenkins, a performer from Macon, Georgia, who had had some modest success. The session went very poorly and musicians were leaving and nothing had been put on tape. Throughout the session, Jenkins' chauffeur had lobbied to be heard as a singer. Jim Stewart relented in the face of a wasted day and the chauffeur asked Steve Cropper to play some "church chords." And MAGIC happened.
The chauffeur was Otis Redding. The song was These Arms of Mine. Stax had lucked into one of the greatest R & B singers of all time.
The record was a slow burn...taking five months to chart. But it ultimately sold over 800,000 copies and launched Otis Redding's career.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 25, 2017 16:46:27 GMT -5
Some songs are just fun. Walking the Dog by Rufus Thomas is one of them. Thomas wrote the song and came into the studio without any arrangements (which was not at all unusual at Stax). He allegedly clicked his teeth at the musicians to dictate the rhythm. The song became Thomas' signature. Steve Cropper's guitar is loose as crazy and Packy Axton, who was not a great sax player, played great on this track.
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Post by Chris on Sept 4, 2017 21:44:31 GMT -5
Walter Becker of Steely Dan passed away yesterday.
I've been a big Dan fan since I was about 19 or 20. I saw them twice in concert, years ago. It's been so long that I really can't remember them well at all, but I'm glad I had the chance to go.
Obviously, I never met either of them, and almost everyone who has worked with them describes them as "assholes," so it's not like I'm going to miss Walter personally. But I am sad that Walter and Donald will never make new music or perform together again.
Any other Dan fans here?
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Post by Jesse on Sept 8, 2017 11:31:47 GMT -5
Awhile ago I decided to create a playlist where the names of the songs and the names of the bands are the same and I thought this might be a good place to ask for help. I think this may be a phenomenon that's pretty exclusive to hard rock and heavy metal.
Some of the songs were obvious ones to me like
Bad Company
Black Sabbath
Iron Maiden
Motorhead (although I think originally a song written by Lemmy's former band Hawkwind)
but others are a bit more obscure like
Witchfinder General
Metal Church
Angel Witch
I'm assuming most of the bands wrote the songs first then adopted the names later. For example I'm pretty sure when Geezer Butler wrote the song Black Sabbath the band went by the name Earth at the time. I wasn't sure whether the song R.A.M.O.N.E.S. was written by the Ramones or Motorhead but I know it is performed by both. I'm wondering if this list may be much larger than I was anticipating.
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Post by Chris on Sept 8, 2017 19:38:51 GMT -5
Awhile ago I decided to create a playlist where the names of the songs and the names of the bands are the same and I thought this might be a good place to ask for help. There's this... A YouTube commenter noted - This should have been on their first album, that way you could listen to "They Might Be Giants" on They Might Be Giants by They Might Be Giants |
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Post by Spike-X on Sept 8, 2017 19:44:50 GMT -5
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Post by Spike-X on Sept 8, 2017 19:48:05 GMT -5
Australian band Flowers changed their name to Icehouse after their song Icehouse became very popular.
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Post by Spike-X on Sept 8, 2017 19:52:34 GMT -5
The Hold Steady namedropped themselves in pretty much every song on their first album.
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