Frank Beacham's Journal

Billy Joe Shaver was born 83 years ago today

Billy Jo Shaver with Willie Nelson

Billy Joe Shaver was born 83 years ago today.

A Texas country music singer and songwriter, Shaver's 1973 album, Old Five and Dimers Like Me, is a classic in the outlaw country genre.

Shaver was raised by his mother, Victory Watson Shaver, after his father Virgil left the family before he was born. Until he was 12, he spent a great deal of time with his grandmother in Corsicana, Texas so that his mother could work in Waco. He sometimes accompanied his mother to her job at a local nightclub, where he began to be exposed to country music.

Shaver joined the U.S. Navy on his 17th birthday. Upon his discharge, he worked a series of dead-end jobs, including trying to be a rodeo cowboy. About this time, Shaver met and married, Brenda Joyce Tindell. They had one son, John Edwin, known as Eddy, who was born in 1962. The two divorced.

Shaver took a job at a lumber mill to make ends meet. One day his right hand (his dominant hand) became caught in the machinery, and he lost the better part of two fingers and contracted a serious infection. He eventually recovered, and taught himself to play the guitar without those missing fingers.

Shaver decided that life was too short to do something he didn't enjoy, so he set out one day to hitchhike to L.A. He couldn't get a ride west, and ended up accompanying a man who dropped him off just outside of Memphis.

The next ride brought him to Nashville, where he found a job as a songwriter for $50/week. His work came to the attention of Waylon Jennings, who filled most of his album, Honky Tonk Heroes, with Shaver's songs.

Other artists, including Elvis Presley and Kris Kristofferson, began to record Shaver's music. This led to his own record deal.

Unfortunately for Shaver, the first few recording companies he signed with soon folded. He was never able to gain widespread recognition as a singer, although he didn’t stop recording his own music.

On his records, he has been accompanied by other major rock and country music musicians like Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith, Chuck Leavell and Dickey Betts (of the Allman Brothers), Charlie Daniels, Flaco Jiménez and Al Kooper.

After losing his wife, Brenda, and his mother to cancer in 1999, Shaver lost his son and longtime guitarist, Eddy, who died at age 38 of a heroin overdose on December 31, 2000. Shaver nearly died himself the following year when he had a heart attack on stage during an Independence Day show at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas.

After successful heart surgery, Billy Joe came back to release a new album entitled Freedom's Child in 2002. In 1999, Shaver was invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. In November 2005, he performed on the CMT Outlaws 2005.

In 2006, Shaver was inducted in the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. The Americana Music Convention awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award in Songwriting.

Shaver died on October 28, 2020 from a massive stroke at the age of 81.

Here, Shaver performs “Georgia on a Fast Train” at the Farm Aid concert in Indianapolis, 1990

On this night in 1968 — 54 years ago — the Beatles recorded 14 takes of the new George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at Abbey Road studios

On this night in 1968 — 54 years ago — the Beatles recorded 14 takes of the new George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at Abbey Road studios.

They ended up using the song from its early acoustic version, recorded on Harrison’s Gibson J-200 guitar.

On September 6, during a ride from Surrey into London, Harrison asked friend, Eric Clapton, to contribute lead guitar to the song. Clapton was reluctant, saying later, "Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records."

But Harrison convinced him, and Clapton's guitar parts, using Harrison's Gibson Les Paul electric guitar "Lucy" (a recent gift from Clapton), were recorded that evening. Harrison later said that in addition to his contribution, Clapton's presence had another effect on the band: "It made them all try a bit harder; they were all on their best behavior."

Clapton wanted a more "Beatley" sound, so the sound was run through an ADT circuit with "varispeed," with engineer Chris Thomas manually “waggling” the oscillator.

Apparently, Clapton didn't want it to sound like him. “So I was just sitting there wobbling the thing, they wanted it really extreme, so that's what I did," Thomas recalled.

Eddie Kirkland, electric blues guitarist, was born 99 years ago today

Eddie Kirkland, electric blues guitarist, was born 99 years ago today.

Kirkland was also a singer, songwriter and harmonica player. He was known as the "Gypsy of the Blues" for his rigorous touring schedules. He played and toured with John Lee Hooker from 1949 to 1962.

After his period of working in tandem with Hooker, he pursued a successful solo career, recording for RPM Records, Fortune Records, Volt Records and King Records, sometimes under the stage name, Eddie Kirk. Kirkland continued to tour, write and record albums until his death in February, 2011.

Born in Jamaica to a mother, age 11, Kirkland first heard the blues from "field hollers.” He was raised in Dothan, Alabama. In 1935, he stowed away in the Sugar Girls Medicine Show tent truck and left town. Blind Blake was the one who influenced him the most in those early days.

He was placed on the chorus line with "Diamond Tooth Mary" McLean. When the show closed a year later, he was in Dunkirk, Indiana where he briefly returned to school. Kirkland joined the Army during World War II. Racism in the military, he said, led him to seek out the devil.

After his discharge, Kirkland traveled to Detroit where his mother had relocated. After a days work at the Ford Rouge Plant, Kirkland played his guitar at house parties. It was there he met John Lee Hooker.

Kirkland fashioned his own style of playing open chords, and transformed the rough, porch-style delta blues into the electric age by using his thumb, rather than a guitar pick. He secured his own series of recordings with Sid Nathan of King Records in 1953, at Fortune Records in 1958 and, by 1961, on his own album, It's the Blues Man, with the King Curtis Band.

Kirkland became Hooker's road manager and the two traveled from Detroit to the Deep South on many tours, the last being in 1962 when Hooker abandoned Kirkland to go overseas. Kirkland then found his way to Macon, Georgia and began performing with Otis Redding as his guitarist and band leader.

As Eddie Kirk, he released "The Hawg" as a single on Volt Records in 1963. The record was overshadowed by Rufus Thomas's recordings.

Kirkland, discouraged by the music industry and his own lack of education to change the situation, turned to his other skill and sought work as an auto mechanic to earn a living for his growing family.

In 1970, one of the revivals of the blues was taking place. Peter B. Lowry found Kirkland in Macon and convinced him to record again. His first sessions were done in a motel room, resulting in the acoustic, solo LP Front and Center. His second was a studio-recorded band album, the funky The Devil... and other blues demons. Both were released on Lowry's Trix Records label.

It was during the mid 1970s that Kirkland befriended the British blues-rock band, Foghat. Kirkland remained with Trix and was based in the Hudson Valley for twelve years. It was during this period that Kirkland appeared on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert with Muddy Waters, Honeyboy Edwards and Foghat.

By 2000, Kirkland was on his own again, always doing his own driving to concerts in his Ford County Squires, crossing the country several times a year. Well into his eighties, Kirkland continued to drive himself to gigs along the coast and in Europe.

Kirkland died in an automobile accident on the morning of February 27, 2011 in Crystal River, Florida.

Here, Kirkland, age 85, performs with the Wentus Bluesband

Bill Evans, jazz pianist and composer, was born 93 years ago today

Bill Evans, jazz pianist and composer, was born 93 years ago today.

Evans's use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists.

He was considered by some to be the most influential post-World War II jazz pianist. Unlike many other jazz musicians of his time, Evans never embraced new movements like jazz fusion or free jazz.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Evans received a classical education and studied Southeastern Louisiana University. In 1955, he moved to New York and soon began work with bandleader and theorist, George Russell.

In 1958, Evans joined Miles Davis's sextet, where he had a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz, recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time.

In late 1959, Evans left Davis and soon began his career as a trio leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, now regarded as one of the best jazz bands.

In 1961, ten days after recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and Waltz for Debby, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion, Evans reprised his work, now with bassist Chuck Israels.

In 1963, Evans recorded Conversations with Myself, an innovative solo album featuring overdubbing. In 1966, he met bassist Eddie Gomez, with whom he would work for eleven years. Several successful albums followed, like Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Alone and The Bill Evans Album.

Some of his compositions, specially "Waltz for Debby," have been recorded by many artists. During the late 1970s, Evans became addicted to cocaine. At first, it was only one gram per weekend, but later increased dramatically. His health declined.

On September 15, 1980, Evans, who had been several days in bed with stomach pains at his home in Fort Lee, was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and Laurie Verchomin to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he died that afternoon. He was 51.

The cause of death was a combination of peptic ulcer, cirrhosis, bronchial pneumonia and untreated hepatitis. Evans's friend, Gene Lees, described Evans's struggle with drugs as "the longest suicide in history."

Here, the Bill Evans Trio performs “Waltz for Debby”

Elvis Presley died at age 42 in Memphis on August 16, 1977 — 45 years ago today

Elvis Presley died at age 42 in Memphis on August 16, 1977 — 45 years ago today.

The death of the "King of Rock and Roll" brought legions of mourning fans to his mansion, Graceland. Doctors said he died of a heart attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935, Presley’s twin brother, Jesse, died during the birth. Elvis grew up dirt-poor in Tupelo and Memphis and found work as a truck driver after high school.

When he was 19, he walked into a Memphis recording studio and paid $4 to record a few songs as a present to his mother. Sam Philips, the owner of the studio, was intrigued by the rough, soulful quality of his voice and invited Presley back to practice with some local musicians.

After Philips heard Elvis sing the rhythm-and-blues song "That's All Right," which Presley imbued with an accessible country-and-western flavor, he agreed to release the rendition as a single on his Sun Records label. The recording went to the top of the local charts, and Presley's career was launched.

During the next year, Elvis attracted a growing following in the South, and in 1955 Sun Records sold his contract to a major record label, RCA, for a record $40,000. His first record for RCA was "Heartbreak Hotel," which made him a national sensation in early 1956. He followed this up with the double-sided hit record "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel."

In September, 1956, Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a national variety television show. Teenagers went into hysterics over his dynamic stage presence, good looks and simple but catchy songs. Many parents, however, were appalled by his sexually suggestive pelvic gyrations, and by his third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis was filmed from only the waist up.

From 1956 through 1958, Elvis dominated the music charts and ushered in the age of rock and roll, opening doors for both white and black rock artists. During this period, he starred in four successful motion pictures, all of which featured his soundtracks: Love Me Tender (1956), Jailhouse Rock (1957), Loving You (1957) and King Creole (1958).

In 1958, Presley was drafted into the U.S. Army and served an 18-month tour of duty in West Germany as a Jeep driver. Teenage girls were overcome with grief, but Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, kept American youth satiated with stockpiled recordings that Presley made before his departure.

All five singles released during this period eventually became million-sellers. After being discharged as a sergeant in 1960, Elvis underwent a style change, eschewing edgy, rhythm-and-blues-inspired material in favor of romantic, dramatic ballads such as "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

He retired from concerts to concentrate on his musical films, and he made 27 in the 1960s, including G.I. Blues (1960), Blue Hawaii (1961), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), Viva Las Vegas (1964) and Frankie and Johnny (1966).

In 1967, he married Priscilla Beaulieu, and the couple had a daughter, Lisa Marie, in 1968. By the end of the 1960s, rock and roll had undergone dramatic changes, and Elvis was no longer seen as relevant by American youth. A 1968 television special won back many of his fans, but hits were harder to come by. His final Top 10 entry, "Burning Love," was in 1972.

Still, he maintained his sizable fortune through lucrative concert and television appearances. By the mid 1970s, Elvis was in declining physical and mental health. He divorced his wife in 1973 and developed a dangerous dependence on prescription drugs.

He was also addicted to junk food and gained considerable weight. In the last two years of his life, he made erratic stage appearances and lived nearly as a recluse.

On this afternoon in 1977, he was found unconscious in his Graceland mansion and rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was buried on the grounds of Graceland, which continues to attract fans and has been turned into a highly successful tourist attraction.

Here, Elvis performs “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956

Thanks History.com

The Ramones gave their debut public performance at CBGBs on this day, 48 years ago

Five years to the day after half a million rain-soaked hippies grooved and swayed to the psychedelic sounds of the Grateful Dead at Woodstock, four young men from Forest Hills, Queens, took to the stage of an East Village dive bar in jeans, motorcycle jackets and Converse high-tops to launch a two-minute sonic attack on everything those 60s icons stood for.

The date was August 16, 1974 — 48 years ago today. The bar was CBGB's and the band was the Ramones, giving their debut public performance.

The rapidly shouted words with which they opened that show and launched the punk-rock revolution were, as they would always be, "One! Two! Three! Four!"

One eyewitness to the scene was music journalist Legs McNeil, the future co-founder of Punk magazine. "They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song...and it was just this wall of noise," McNeil later recalled. "These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new."

Those responsible for this new sound were Douglas Colvin, John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, better known to the world as Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy and Joey Ramone. The Ramones' sound didn't even have an agreed-upon name until McNeil's magazine codified the term "punk rock" in 1975.

But the group's members knew right from the beginning that they were out to provide a bracing antidote to the tamed and bloated corporate rock and roll of the mid-1970s. "Eliminate the unnecessary and focus on the substance," was the way Tommy Ramone expressed the group's philosophy many years later.

Following their now-historic debut performance on this day in 1974, the Ramones quickly became a force on the burgeoning underground rock scene centered in the downtown Manhattan clubs CBGB and Max's Kansas City.

With the release of their self-titled debut album in 1976, the Ramones may have failed to score a true hit, but they managed to inspire a whole new movement across the Atlantic, as groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash rushed to embrace their loud, fast and unstudied approach.

When they toured England in 1976, Joey Ramone would later say, "All these kids came over to us and told us how we were responsible for turning them on, to go out and form their own bands."

As the Ramone's manager at the time, Danny Fields, put it when assessing the impact of punk's founding fathers, an entire generation of future punks looked at the Ramones and said, "Look at them. They can't play. They're terrible! They don't know more than three notes....Let's start a band!'

Thanks History.com

Russ Titelman, music producer, is 78 years old today

Russ Titelman is 78 years old today.

Titelman is record producer and songwriter. He produced the Steve Winwood song, "Higher Love,” and Eric Clapton's Journeyman and Unplugged albums. He also produced the 24 Nights live album of 1990 and the all-blues album, From The Cradle, released in 1994.

Beginning his career in the 1960s, he has worked with musicians such as The Monkees, Dion Dimucci, George Harrison, Bee Gees, Little Feat, Christine McVie, Meat Loaf, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Chaka Khan, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, Gordon Lightfoot, Eric Clapton and Gerry Goffin.

After having worked for Warner Bros. Records for 25 years, Titelman has been an independent producer since 1997. Titelman started his independent music label Walking Liberty Records in New York City.

Russ Titelman with Michael Garrett, Emmylou Harris, Jared Taylor and Mary Kay Place during the recording of Blue Alleluia, released in 2005.

It was one of Titelman’s first releases from Walking Liberty Records.

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, "An Aquarian Exposition," opened on this day in 1969 at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in upstate New York — 53 years ago

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, "An Aquarian Exposition," opened on this day in 1969 at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in upstate New York — 53 years ago.

Promoters expected the music festival, modeled after the famous Monterey Pop Festival, to attract up to 200,000 for the weekend. Instead, nearly a half a million people converged on the concert site. The promoters soon realized that they could not control access to the site and opened it up to all comers free of charge.

Because of the unexpected size of the audience, volunteers were needed to help alleviate many of the logistics problems, while helicopters were used to fly in food, doctors and medical supplies, as well as many of the musical acts that performed during the three-day festival.

Despite rain and mud, the audience enjoyed non-stop performances by singers like Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker and Joan Baez, as well as the bands Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Although different types of people attended the festival, many were members of the counterculture who rejected materialism and authority, experimented with drugs and actively protested against the Vietnam War. Much of the music had a decided anti-war flavor.

Representative of this genre was the "Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish. This song and its chorus ("And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for... Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam...And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates... There ain't no time to wonder why... Whoopie, we're all gonna die!") became an anti-war classic.

Jimi Hendrix closed the concert with a freeform solo guitar performance of "The Star Spangled Banner." Woodstock became a symbol of the 1960s American counterculture and a milestone in the history of rock music.

Thanks History.com

Here’s Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock, 1969

On the Road to Woodstock, 1969

Photo by Baron Wolman

Oscar Peterson was born 97 years ago today

Oscar Peterson was born 97 years ago today.

A Canadian jazz pianist and composer, Peterson was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington. He was known as "O.P." by his friends.

Peterson released over 200 recordings. He was one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.

Born to immigrants from the West Indies, Peterson’s father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. He grew up in the neighborhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighborhood that Peterson found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century.

At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills with the trumpet and piano. However, a bout of tuberculosis when he was seven stopped him playing trumpet again, and so he directed all his attention to the piano.

His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers, and his sister, Daisy, taught Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practicing scales and classical etudes daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his astonishing virtuosity.

As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist, Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt. So young Peterson’s training was predominantly based on classical piano.

Meanwhile, he was captivated by traditional jazz and learned several ragtime pieces and especially the boogie-woogie. At that time, Peterson was called "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie." At the age of nine, he played piano with control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of practice daily. Only in his later years did he decrease his daily practice to just one or two hours.

In 1940, at fourteen years of age, Peterson won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that victory, he dropped out of school and became a professional pianist working for a weekly radio show, and playing at hotels and music halls.

Some of the artists who influenced Peterson's music during the earlier type of years were Teddy Wilson, Nat "King" Cole, James P. Johnson and Art Tatum, to whom many have tried to compare Peterson in later years.

Peterson wrote pieces for piano, trio, quartet and big band. He also wrote several songs and made recordings as a singer. Probably his best-known compositions are "Canadiana Suite" and "Hymn to Freedom," the latter composed in the 1960s and inspired by the U.S. civil rights movement.

On December 23, 2007, Peterson died of kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Ontario.

Here, Peterson, featuring Joe Pass, performs “Cakewalk” in Tokyo, 1987

Jimmy Webb is 76 years old today

Jimmy Webb is 76 years old today.

A songwriter, composer and singer, Webb wrote numerous platinum-selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away,” "By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” "Wichita Lineman,” "Galveston,” The Worst That Could Happen,” "All I Know” and "MacArthur Park.”

Born in Elk City, Oklahoma, Webb’s father, Robert Lee Webb, was a Baptist minister and former member of the United States Marine Corps who presided over rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and West Texas.

With his mother's encouragement, Webb learned piano and organ, and by the age of 12 was playing in the choir of his father's churches, accompanied by his father on guitar and his mother on accordion. Webb grew up in a conservative religious home where his father restricted radio listening to country music and white gospel music.

During the late 1950s, Webb began applying his creativity to the music he was playing at his father's church, frequently improvising and rearranging the hymns. He began to write religious songs at this time, but his musical direction was soon influenced by the new music being played on the radio, including the music of Elvis Presley.

In 1961, at the age of 14, he bought his first record, "Turn Around, Look at Me" by Glen Campbell. Webb was drawn to the singer's distinctive voice.

In 1964, Webb and his family moved to Southern California, where he attended San Bernardino Valley College studying music. Following the death of his mother in 1965, his father made plans to return to Oklahoma.

Webb decided to stay in California to continue his music studies and to pursue a career as a songwriter in Los Angeles. Webb would later recall his father warning him about his musical aspirations, saying, "This songwriting thing is going to break your heart."

Seeing that his son was determined, however, he gave him $40, saying, "It's not much, but it's all I have."

After transcribing other people's music for a small music publisher in Hollywood, Webb was signed to a songwriting contract with Jobete Music, the publishing arm of Motown Records. The first commercial recording of a Jimmy Webb song was "My Christmas Tree" by The Supremes, which appeared on their 1965 Merry Christmas album.

Since, his songs have been performed by many popular contemporary singers, including Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, Donna Summer and Carly Simon.

According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 to 1990.

Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics and orchestration.

Here, Webb performs “MacArthur Park”

Paul Shaffer, Jimmy Webb, Will Lee and the CBS Orchestra perform "MacArthur Park" on the David Letterman Show, 2014