Frank Beacham's Journal

Bringing It All Back Home, the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, was released by Columbia Records on March 22, 1965 — 58 years ago today

Bringing It All Back Home, the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, was released by Columbia Records on March 22, 1965 — 58 years ago today.

The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band — a move that further alienated him from some of his former peers in the folk song community.

Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest songs with which he had become closely identified (such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.

The album reached #6 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan's LPs to break into the U.S. Top 10. The lead-off track, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," became Dylan's first single to chart in the U.S., peaking at #39.

One of Dylan's most celebrated albums, Bringing It All Back Home, was soon hailed as one of the greatest albums in rock history. In the 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Dave Marsh wrote a glowing appraisal:

"By fusing the Chuck Berry beat of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles with the leftist, folk tradition of the folk revival, Dylan really had brought it back home, creating a new kind of rock & roll [...] that made every type of artistic tradition available to rock."

Clinton Heylin later wrote that Bringing It All Back Home was possibly "the most influential album of its era. Almost everything to come in contemporary popular song can be found therein."

Before the year was over, Dylan would record and release the album, Highway 61 Revisited, which would take his new lyrical and musical direction even further.

Here is Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

The Recording of Bob Dylan’s album, Bringing It All Back Home

Bob Dylan spent much of the summer of 1964 in Woodstock, New York. He was already familiar with the area, but his visits were becoming longer and more frequent. His manager, Albert Grossman, also had a place in Woodstock, and when Joan Baez went to see Dylan that August, they stayed at Grossman's house.

Baez recalls that "most of the month or so we were there, Bob stood at the typewriter in the corner of his room, drinking red wine and smoking and tapping away relentlessly for hours. And in the dead of night, he would wake up, grunt, grab a cigarette and stumble over to the typewriter again."

Dylan already had one song ready for his next album. "Mr. Tambourine Man" was written in February, 1964, but omitted from Another Side of Bob Dylan.

Another song, "Gates of Eden," was also written earlier that year, appearing in the original manuscripts to Another Side of Bob Dylan. A few lyrical changes were eventually made, but it's unclear if these were made that August in Woodstock.

At least two songs were written that month: "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."

During this time, Dylan's lyrics became increasingly surreal. His prose grew more stylistic as well, often resembling stream-of-consciousness writing with published letters dating from 1964 becoming increasingly intense and dreamlike as the year wore on.

Dylan eventually returned to the city, and on August 28, he met with The Beatles for the very first time in their New York hotel (during which Dylan reportedly turned the band on to marijuana), a meeting which would bring about the radical transformation of the Beatles' writing to a more introspective style. Dylan would remain on good terms with The Beatles.

Dylan and producer, Tom Wilson, were soon experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, acoustic recording of "House of the Rising Sun," according to Wilson.

This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in December, 1964. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence."

In the meantime, Dylan turned his attention to another folk-rock experiment conducted by John P. Hammond, an old friend and musician whose father, John H. Hammond, originally signed Dylan to Columbia.

Hammond was planning an electric album around the blues songs that framed his acoustic live performances of the time. To do this, Hammond recruited three members of an American bar band he met sometime in 1963: guitarist Robbie Robertson, drummer Levon Helm and organist Garth Hudson (members of The Hawks, who would go on to become The Band).

Dylan was very aware of Hammond’s resulting album, So Many Roads, according to his friend, Danny Kalb. "Bob was really excited about what John Hammond was doing with electric blues,” Kalb recalled. “I talked to him in the Figaro in 1964 and he was telling me about John and his going to Chicago and playing with a band and so on..."

However, when Dylan and Wilson began work on the next album, they temporarily refrained from their own electric experimentation. The first session, held on January 13, 1965 in Columbia's Studio A in New York, was recorded solo, with Dylan playing piano or acoustic guitar.

Ten complete songs and several song sketches were produced, nearly all of which were discarded. Three of these songs would eventually be released: "I'll Keep It With Mine" on 1985's Biograph, and "Farewell Angelina" and an acoustic version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Other songs and sketches recorded at this session: "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," "She Belongs To Me," "Sitting On A Barbed-Wire Fence," "On The Road Again,” "If You Gotta Go, Go Now," "You Don't Have To Do That" and "Outlaw Blues" — all of which were original compositions.

Dylan and Wilson held another session at Studio B the following day, this time with a full, electric band. Guitarists Al Gorgoni, Kenny Rankin and Bruce Langhorne were recruited, as were pianist Paul Griffin, bassists Joseph Macho, Jr. and William E. Lee, and drummer Bobby Gregg.

The day's work focused on eight songs, all of which had been attempted the previous day. According to Langhorne, there was no rehearsal, "we just did first takes and I remember that, for what it was, it was amazingly intuitive and successful."

Few takes were required of each song, and after three-and-a-half hours of recording (lasting from 2:30 pm to 6:00 pm), master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Outlaw Blues," "She Belongs to Me" and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were all recorded and selected for the final album.

Sometime after dinner, Dylan reportedly continued recording with a different set of musicians, including Hammond and John Sebastian (only Langhorne returned from earlier that day). They recorded six songs, but the results were deemed unsatisfactory and ultimately rejected.

Another session was held at Studio A the next day, and it would be the last one needed. Once again, Dylan kept at his disposal the musicians from the previous day (that is, those that participated in the 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. session). The one exception was pianist Paul Griffin, who was unable to attend and was replaced by Frank Owens.

Daniel Kramer recalls "the musicians were enthusiastic. They conferred with one another to work out the problems as they arose. Dylan bounced around from one man to another, explaining what he wanted, often showing them on the piano what was needed until, like a giant puzzle, the pieces would fit and the picture emerged whole. Most of the songs went down easily and needed only three or four takes.

“In some cases, the first take sounded completely different from the final one because the material was played at a different tempo, perhaps, or a different chord was chosen, or solos may have been rearranged. His method of working, the certainty of what he wanted, kept things moving."

The session began with "Maggie's Farm." Only one take was recorded, and it was the only one they'd ever need. A master take of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" was also selected, but it would not be included on the album. Instead, it was issued as a single-only release in Europe, but not in the U.S. or the UK.

Though Dylan was able to record electric versions of virtually every song included on the final album, he apparently never intended Bringing It All Back Home to be completely electric.

As a result, roughly half of the finished album would feature full electric band arrangements while the other half consisted of solo acoustic performances, sometimes accompanied by Langhorne, who would embellish Dylan's acoustic performance with a countermelody on his electric guitar.

The album's cover, photographed by Daniel Kramer with an edge-softened lens, features Sally Grossman (wife of Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman) lounging in the background. (Grossman died on the night of March 10–11, 2021, at her home in the Bearsville area of Woodstock. She was 81.)

There are also artifacts scattered around the room, including LPs by The Impressions (Keep on Pushing), Robert Johnson (King of the Delta Blues Singers), Ravi Shankar (India's Master Musician), Lotte Lenya (Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill) and Eric Von Schmidt (The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt).

Dylan had "met" Schmidt "one day in the green pastures of Harvard University" and would later mimic his album cover pose (tipping his hat) for his own Nashville Skyline four years later.

A further record, Françoise Hardy's EP J'suis D'accord, was on the floor near Dylan's feet, but can only be seen in other shots from the same photo session.

Dylan sits forward holding his cat (named “Rolling Stone”) and has an opened magazine featuring an advertisement on Jean Harlow's Life Story by the columnist Louella Parsons resting on his crossed leg. The cufflinks Dylan wore in the picture were a gift from Joan Baez, as she later referenced in her 1975 song, "Diamonds & Rust."

The black and white pamphlet lying across Time magazine with President Johnson on the cover is a publication of the Earth Society, then located on East 12th Street in the East Village. The Earth Society saw its mission as protecting earth from collisions with comets and planets.

On the back cover, the girl massaging Dylan's scalp is the filmmaker and performance artist, Barbara Rubin.

Jen Chapin is 52 years old today

Jen Chapin and her baby with Bruce Springsteen, New York City, 2007

Photo by Frank Beacham

Jen Chapin is 52 years old today.

A singer-songwriter, Chapin is the daughter of singer-songwriter Harry Chapin and his wife, Sandra Chapin.

She serves on the Board of Directors of WhyHunger, a grassroots support organization founded by Harry Chapin and the current Executive Director, Bill Ayres.

Chapin's own website describes her music as "jazz tinged urban folk soul — incorporating the funk, soul and improvisation of the city." She studied at Brown University and the Berklee College of Music.

In her recent years, Chapin has taken up the occupational role of a high school history teacher, specializing in global history and teaching at a local Brooklyn high school.

When Chapin tours, she often plays with her husband, bassist Stephen Crump, as well as guitarist Jamie Fox, a group usually billed as the "Jen Chapin Trio."

Chapin lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their sons, Maceo and Van.

Here, Chapin performs “Little Hours” at Joe’s Pub, New York City, 2012

Solomon Burke was born 83 years ago today

Solomon Burke, B.B. King’s Club, New York City, 2005

Photo by Frank Beacham

Solomon Burke was born 83 years ago today (though there is some dispute about his date of birth).

Burke was a recording artist and vocalist who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s. He was also a "key transitional figure in the development of soul music from rhythm and blues.

Burke had a string of hits including "Cry to Me,""If You Need Me," "Got to Get You Off My Mind," "Down in the Valley" and "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."

He was referred to as "King Solomon," the "King of Rock 'n' Soul," "Bishop of Soul" and the "Muhammad Ali of soul."

Due to Burke's minimal chart success in comparison to other soul music greats such as James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, Burke is often described as the genre's "most unfairly overlooked singer" of its golden age. Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler once referred to Burke as "the greatest male soul singer of all time.”

Burke's most famous recordings, which spanned five years in the early 1960s, bridged the gap between mainstream R&B and grittier R&B. Burke was "a singer whose smooth, powerful articulation and mingling of sacred and profane themes helped define soul music in the early 1960s."

He drew from his roots — gospel, jazz, country and blues — as well as developing his own style at a time when R&B, and rock were both still in their infancy.

Described as both "Rabelaisian" and also as a "spiritual enigma," perhaps more than any other artist, the ample figure of Solomon Burke symbolized the ways that spirituality and commerce, ecstasy and entertainment, sex and salvation, individualism and brotherhood, could blend in the world of 1960s soul music.

During the 55 years that he performed professionally, Burke released 38 studio albums on at least 17 record labels. He had 35 singles that charted in the U.S., including 26 singles that made the Billboard R&B charts. By 2005, Burke was credited with selling 17 million albums.

Burke's entrepreneurial activities included cooking and selling barbecued chicken sandwiches backstage, and well as sandwiches, soft drinks and fried chickens at increasingly inflated prices to other performers who were refused service at restaurants on the Chitlin' circuit in the "Jim Crow" South.

According to Sam Moore of the soul duo, Sam & Dave: "He gave me one pork chop, one scoop of macaroni and cheese and one spoonful of gravy.

I said, ‘Is that it?’ And he’d say, ‘That’s it, brother. I’m doing you a favor, so take it or leave it.’”

Burke demanded and operated the concessions at the Apollo Theater when he performed there in 1966. This was very profitable for him, but so enraged the owner, Frank Schiffman, that he was banned from performing at the Apollo for life.

Burke owned funeral parlors in California, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and two of his children have turned the mortuary business into a franchise.

Additionally, Burke owned and operated a limousine service. He continued to operate companies that supplied theaters and stadiums with his own brand of fast food — Soul Dogs and Soul Corn until at least 2004.

On Sunday October 10, 2010, Burke died at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport while on a plane from Los Angeles that had just landed.

He had been due to perform with De Dijk in Amsterdam on October 12. He was 70.

Here, the Rolling Stones join Soloman Burke to perform “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” in Paris, 2003

Solomon Burke: A Remembrance

Before his death in 2011, R&B performer Jimmy Norman was my neighbor and close friend.

Jimmy, who wrote expanded lyrics for the Rolling Stone’s hit, “Time Is On My Side,” worked with a who’s who of major black performers in the day including Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Little Richard and — one of his favorites — Solomon Burke.

Of all the stories Jimmy used to tell me about his days on the road, he loved to talk about Burke — who was as great a character off-stage as he was an electrifying performer. Jimmy toured for weeks with Burke and told two stories that were quite funny.

One involved Burke’s skills as an undertaker. On one tour, band members challenged Burke that they didn’t believe he knew how to embalm a human body. As a man who owned several funeral homes, this ribbing got Burke quite upset.

The first funeral home he spotted along the road, Burke ordered his tour bus to stop. He went inside for a few minutes and returned to the bus. “Come with me,” he signaled to the band members, taking them inside the funeral home.

There, Burke, promptly began to embalm a dead body — with the band watching in horror and the owner of the funeral home amused at Burke’s audacity. Burke quickly ended any argument about his embalming skills right away.

On another occasion, Burke took Jimmy for a ride in a rented limo. Burke was dressed to kill before a concert and asked the driver to take him to a poor black neighborhood in the area.

When he found the place he was looking for, Burke got out of the vehicle with Jimmy and began with bravado to loudly tell him — so that all the black homeowners sitting on their porches could hear — his plans to tear down their homes and build an expensive hotel to replace them.

Before any of the shocked homeowners could say a word, Burke jumped back into the limo and made a quick getaway — laughing loudly as Jimmy sat in shock.

Eddie Money was born 74 years ago today

Eddie Money was born 74 years ago today.

A rock guitarist, saxophonist and singer-songwriter, Money found success in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of Top 40 hits and platinum albums.

Rock impresario Bill Graham said of Money, "Eddie Money has it all.... Not only can he sing, write and play, but he is a natural performer."

Born Edward Mahoney into a large Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn and raised in Plainedge on Long Island, his father, grandfather and brother were all New York City Police Department (NYPD) policemen, and Eddie was an NYPD trainee.

As his interest in music intensified, he eventually ended his law-enforcement career in favor of becoming a full-time musician. He moved to Berkeley, California, and became a regular at area clubs, where he secured a recording contract with Columbia Records.

Later in the 1970s, he charted with singles such as "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets to Paradise." Money continued his successes and took advantage of the MTV music video scene in the early 1980s with his humorous narrative videos for "Shakin'" and "Think I'm in Love."

However, his career began to fail him after several unsuccessful releases in the mid-1980s, accompanied by his struggles with drug addiction.

Money made a comeback in 1986 and returned to the mainstream rock spotlight with the album, Can't Hold Back. The album's Ronnie Spector duet, "Take Me Home Tonight," reached the Top 10, as did with the hit, "I Wanna Go Back."

Money followed the album with another Top 10 hit, "Walk on Water" (1988), but his Top 40 career ended following the #21 placement of "I'll Get By" in 1992.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Money continued to release numerous compilation albums along with several albums featuring new material. He joined a 12-step program in 2001 and has said of his addiction, "I came to the realization that I didn't really need [it] for my quick wit."

In July, 2019, Money — a cigarette smoker for years — underwent heart valve surgery and contracted pneumonia, causing him to cancel tour dates.

On August 24, 2019, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. Complications from the cancer resulted in his death in a Los Angeles hospital on September 13, 2019, at age 70.

Here, Money performs “Two Tickets to Paradise,” 2011

History's first major rock-and-roll show: the Moondog Coronation Ball, Cleveland, March 21, 1952

History's first major rock-and-roll show — the Moondog Coronation Ball, Cleveland, March 21, 1952

Breathless promotion on the local radio station. Tickets selling out in a single day. Thousands of teenagers, hours before show time, lining up outside the biggest venue in town.

The scene outside the Cleveland Arena on a chilly Friday night in March would look quite familiar to anyone who has ever attended a major rock concert. But no one on this particular night had ever even heard of a "rock concert."

This, after all, was the night of an event now recognized as history's first major rock-and-roll show: the Moondog Coronation Ball, held in Cleveland on March 21, 1952 — 71 years ago today.

The "Moondog" in question was the legendary disk jockey Alan Freed, the self-styled "father of rock and roll" who was then the host of the popular "Moondog Show" on WJW, a Cleveland AM radio station.

Freed had joined WJW in 1951 as the host of a classical-music program, but he took up a different kind of music at the suggestion of Cleveland record-store owner, Leo Mintz. Mintz had noted with great interest the growing popularity, among young customers of all races, of rhythm-and-blues records by black musicians. As a result, Mintz decided to sponsor three hours of late-night programming on WJW to showcase rhythm-and-blues music, and Alan Freed was installed as host.

Freed quickly took to the task, adopting a new, hip persona and vocabulary that included liberal use of the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music he was now promoting. As the program grew in popularity, Mintz and Freed decided to do something that had never been done: hold a live dance event featuring some of the artists whose records were appearing on Freed's show.

Dubbed "The Moondog Coronation Ball," the event was to feature headliners Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers and Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders (a black instrumental group that performed in Scottish kilts). In the end, however, the incredible popular demand for tickets proved to be the event's undoing.

Helped along by massive ticket counterfeiting and possibly by overbooking on the part of the event's sponsors, an estimated 20,000-25,000 fans turned out for an event being held in an arena with a capacity of only 10,000.

Less than an hour into the show, the massive overflow crowd broke through the gates that were keeping them outside, and police quickly moved in to stop the show almost as soon as it began.

On the radio the very next evening, Alan Freed offered an apology to listeners who had tried to attend the canceled event. "If anyone...had told us that some 20,000 to 25,000 people would try to get into a dance — I suppose you would have been just like me. You would have laughed and said they were crazy," Freed told his radio audience.

Thanks History.com

Alan Freed on the radio

Son House was born 121 years ago today

D.K. Wilgus records Son House at the third annual UCLA Folk Festival, 1965

Photo from the UCLA Digital Library, L.A. Times Collection

Son House was born 121 years ago today.

Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi, House was a blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing. After years of hostility to secular music, as a preacher, and for a few years also as a church pastor, he turned to performing the blues at the age of 25.

He quickly developed a unique style by applying the rhythmic drive, vocal power and emotional intensity of his preaching to the newly learned idiom.

In a short career interrupted by a time in Parchman Farm penitentiary, he developed to the point that Charley Patton, the foremost blues artist of the Mississippi Delta region, invited him to share engagements, and to accompany him to a 1930 recording session for Paramount Records.

Issued at the start of The Great Depression, the records did not sell and did not lead to national recognition. Locally, House remained popular, and in the 1930s, together with Patton's associate, Willie Brown, he was the leading musician of Coahoma County. There he was a formative influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.

In 1941 and 1942, House and the members of his band were recorded by Alan Lomax and John W. Work for Library of Congress and Fisk University. The following year, he left the Delta for Rochester, New York and gave up music.

In 1964, a group of young white record collectors discovered House, who they knew of from his records issued by Paramount and by the Library of Congress.

With their encouragement, he relearned his style and repertoire and enjoyed a career as an entertainer to young white audiences in the coffee houses, folk festivals and concert tours of the American folk music revival billed as a "folk blues" singer.

He recorded several albums, and some informally taped concerts have also been issued as albums.

House died in 1988 at age 86.

House was the primary influence on Muddy Waters, Rory Gallagher and also an important influence on Robert Johnson. It was House who, speaking to awe-struck young blues fans in the 1960s, spread the legend that Johnson had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical powers.

In addition to his early influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, he became an inspiration to John Hammond, Alan Wilson (of Canned Heat), Bonnie Raitt, The White Stripes and John Mooney.

Here, House performs “Death Letter Blues”

Singer Billie Holiday with Bernie Weissman, owner and manager of Sugar Hill, on Broad Street, Newark, 1957

Jimmie Vaughan is 72 years old today

Jimmie Vaughan, New York City, Dec. 3, 2017

Photo by Frank Beacham

Jimmie Vaughan is 72 years old today.

A blues rock guitarist and singer based in Austin, Vaughan is the older brother of the late, Texas blues guitar legend, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Several notable blues guitarists have had a significant influence on Vaughan's playing style including Freddie King, Albert King, B.B. King and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

Born in Dallas County, Texas, to Jimmie Lee Vaughan and Martha Jean Cook, Vaughan was raised in Dallas. He moved to Austin in the late 1960s and began playing with such musicians as Paul Ray and W.C. Clark.

In 1969, Vaughan's group opened for The Jimi Hendrix Experience in Fort Worth. It was at this show that Vaughan lent Jimi Hendrix his Vox Wah-wah pedal which Hendrix ending up breaking. In turn, Hendrix gave Vaughan his own touring Wah-wah pedal.

Vaughan developed his own easily recognized personal style. He formed the band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, with singer and harpist Kim Wilson, bassist Keith Ferguson and drummer Mike Buck. The original Fabulous Thunderbirds were all protégés of Austin blues club owner, Clifford Antone.

The band's first four albums, released between 1979 and 1983, are ranked among the most important “white blues” recordings. These early albums did not sell well, so the band was left without a recording contract for a couple of years (during the time when Vaughan's younger brother achieved commercial success).

The Fabulous Thunderbirds got a new contract in 1986, and made several albums with a more commercially popular sound and production style.

Vaughan left the band in 1989, and made his only "duo album," Family Style, with his younger brother, Stevie Ray. Before the album's release, Stevie Ray died in a helicopter crash along with other band members in East Troy, Wisconsin, on August 27, 1990.

The album was released a few days after the tragic accident. The artist listed on the album was "The Vaughan Brothers." The album was light, blues-influenced rock, with Jimmie Vaughan singing on several tracks.

Vaughan released his first solo album, Strange Pleasure, in 1994. The album contained a song "Six Strings Down" that was dedicated to the memory of his brother. He has continued his solo career since then. Vaughan's solo albums contain mostly blues-rock material that he writes himself.

He made a special guest appearance on Bo Diddley's 1996 album, A Man Amongst Men, playing guitar on the tracks "He's Got A Key" and "Coatimundi."

In 2001, Vaughan paid an installment on his (and the Fabulous Thunderbirds') debt to harmonica swamp blues when he contributed guitar to the Lazy Lester album, Blues Stop Knockin.'

Since 1997, Fender has produced a Jimmie Vaughan Tex-Mex Stratocaster.

Vaughan appeared in the 1998 released film, Blues Brothers 2000, as a member of the fictional "Louisiana Gator Boys" blues band led by B.B. King. Vaughan is close friends with Dennis Quaid. They worked together on the film, Great Balls of Fire.

Vaughan was the third opening act for most of the dates of Bob Dylan's summer 2006 tour, preceded by Elana James and the Continental Two and Junior Brown.

Vaughan loves classic and custom cars, and is an avid car collector. He has had many of his customs and hot rods displayed in museums, as well as featured in rodding and custom magazines.

Here, Vaughan performs a live set…

Jerry Reed was born 86 years ago today

Jerry Reed, 1976

Jerry Reed was born 86 years ago today.

Jerry Reed Hubbard, his real name, was a country music singer, guitarist and songwriter, as well as an actor who appeared in more than a dozen films.

His signature songs included "Guitar Man," "A Thing Called Love," "Alabama Wild Man," "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot,” "Ko-Ko Joe," "Lord, Mr. Ford," "East Bound and Down" (the theme song for the 1977 blockbuster, Smokey and the Bandit, in which Reed co-starred), "The Bird" and "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)."

Born in Atlanta, Reed was the second child of Robert and Cynthia Hubbard. His grandparents lived in Rockmart and he would visit them from time to time. He was quoted as saying as a small child, while running around strumming his guitar, "I am gonna be a star. I'm gonna go to Nashville and be a star."

Reed's parents separated four months after his birth, and he and his sister spent seven years in foster homes or orphanages. Reed was reunited with his mother and stepfather in 1944. Music and impromptu performances helped ease the stressful times the new family was under. By high school, Reed was already writing and singing music, having picked up the guitar as a child.

At age 18, he was signed by publisher and record producer Bill Lowery to cut his first record, "If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creek Don't Rise." At Capitol Records, he recorded both country and rockabilly singles to little notice, until his label mate, Gene Vincent, covered his "Crazy Legs" in 1958.

By 1958, Lowery signed Reed to his National Recording Corporation, and he recorded for NRC as both artist and as a member of the staff band, which included other NRC artists, Joe South and Ray Stevens.

In 1959, Reed hit the Billboard "Bubbling Under The Top 100" and Cashbox Country chart with the single, "Soldier's Joy."

After serving two years in the military, Reed moved to Nashville in 1961 to continue his songwriting career, which had continued to gather steam while he was in the armed forces, thanks to Brenda Lee's 1960 cover of his "That's All You Got to Do." He also became a popular session and tour guitarist.

In 1962, he scored some success with two singles "Goodnight Irene" (as by Jerry Reed and the Hully Girlies, featuring a female vocal group) and "Hully Gully Guitar," which found their way to Chet Atkins at RCA Victor, who produced Reed's "If I Don't Live Up to It" in 1965.

In July, 1967, Reed had his best showing so far on the country charts (#53) with his self-penned, "Guitar Man," which Elvis Presley soon covered. Reed's next single was, "Tupelo Mississippi Flash," a comic tribute to Presley. The song became his first Top 20 hit, going to #15 on the chart.

In a remarkable twist of fate, Elvis came to Nashville to record nine days later on September 10, 1967, and one of the songs he became especially excited about was "Guitar Man."

Reed recalled how he was tracked down to play on the Elvis session. "I was out on the Cumberland River fishing, and I got a call from Felton Jarvis (then Presley's producer at RCA). He said, 'Elvis is down here. We've been trying to cut 'Guitar Man' all day long. He wants it to sound like it sounded on your album.'

“I finally told him, 'Well, if you want it to sound like that, you're going have to get me in there to play guitar, because these guys (you're using in the studio) are straight pickers. I pick with my fingers and tune that guitar up all weird kind of ways.'"

Jarvis hired Reed to play on the session. "I hit that intro, and [Elvis'] face lit up and here we went. Then after he got through that, he cut [my] "U.S. Male" at the same session. I was toppin' cotton, son."

Reed also played the guitar for Elvis Presley's "Big Boss Man" (1967), recorded in the same session.

Bass singer Ray Walker of The Jordanaires remembered that memorable session more vividly, remarking that Reed flubbed the intro to "Guitar Man" repeatedly as a result of being extremely nervous.

Walker also remembered the guitarist telling Presley, "God, you're handsome!"

On January 15 and 16th, 1968, Reed worked on a second Presley session, during which he played guitar on a cover of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business," "Stay Away" and "Goin' Home" (two songs revolving around Elvis' film, Stay Away, Joe), as well as another Reed composition, "U.S. Male."

Elvis also recorded two other Reed compositions: "A Thing Called Love" in May, 1971 for his He Touched Me album, and "Talk About The Good Times" in December, 1973, for a total of four.

Johnny Cash would also release "A Thing Called Love" as a single in 1971, which would reach #2 on the Billboard Country Singles Chart for North America. It was also successful in Europe. It would become the title track for a studio album that he released the following spring.

In the mid-1970s, Reed's recording career began to take a back seat to his acting aspirations. In 1974, he co-starred with his close friend, Burt Reynolds, in the film W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings.

While he continued to record throughout the decade, his greatest visibility was as a motion picture star, almost always in tandem with headliner Reynolds. After 1976's Gator, Reed appeared in 1978's High Ballin’ and 1979's Hot Stuff. He also co-starred in all three of the Smokey and the Bandit films. The first, which premiered in 1977, landed Reed a #2 hit with the soundtrack's "East Bound and Down."

Reed died in Nashville on September 1, 2008 of complications from emphysema. He was 71.

In a tribute in Vintage Guitar Magazine, Rich Kienzle wrote that "Reed set a standard that inspires finger-style players the way Merle and Chet inspired him.

Here, Reed joins Dolly Parton to perform “She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft)”

Ozzie Nelson was born 117 years ago today

Ozzie Nelson was born 117 years ago today.

A band leader, actor, television director and producer, Nelson originated and starred in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, a radio and long-running television series with his wife, Harriet, and two sons, David and Ricky.

Nelson started his entertainment career as a band leader. He formed and led the Ozzie Nelson Band, and had some initial limited success.

He made his own "big break" in 1930. The New York Daily Mirror ran a poll of its readers to determine their favorite band. He knew that news vendors got credit from the newspaper for unsold copies by returning the front page and discarding the rest of the issue. Gathering hundreds of discarded newspapers, the band filled out ballots in their favor. They edged out Paul Whiteman and were pronounced the winners.

From 1930 through the 1940s, Nelson's band recorded prolifically — first on Brunswick (1930–1933), then Vocalion (1933–1934) then back to Brunswick (1934–1936), Bluebird (1937–1941), Victor (1941) and finally back to Bluebird (1941-through the 1940s).

Nelson's records were consistently popular. In 1934, he enjoyed success with his hit song, "Over Somebody Else's Shoulder," which he introduced. He was their primary vocalist and (from August, 1932) featured in duets with his other star vocalist, Harriet Hilliard.

Nelson's calm, easy vocal style was popular on records and radio and quite similar to son Rick's voice and Harriet's perky vocals added to the band's popularity.

In 1935, Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra had a #1 hit with "And Then Some" on the U.S. pop singles chart. Nelson composed several songs, including "Wave the Stick Blues," "Subway," "Jersey Jive," "Swingin' on the Golden Gate" and "Central Avenue Shuffle."

In October, 1935, he married the band's vocalist, Harriet Hilliard. The couple had two children. David (1936–2011) became an actor and director. Eric ("Ricky") (1940–1985) became an actor and singer.

Ozzie Nelson appeared with his band in feature films and short subjects of the 1940s, and often played speaking parts, displaying a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor (as in the 1942 musical, Strictly in the Groove). He shrewdly promoted the band by agreeing to appear in soundies, three-minute musical movies shown in "film jukeboxes" of the 1940s.

In 1952, when he and his family were established as radio and TV favorites, they starred in a feature film, Here Come the Nelsons, (which actually doubled as a "pilot" for the TV series).

In the 1940s, Nelson began to look for a way to spend more time with his family, especially his growing sons. Besides band appearances, he and Harriet had been regulars on Red Skelton's radio show.

He developed and produced his own radio series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. The show went on the air in 1944, with their sons played by actors until 1949, and in 1952 it moved over to television (the radio version continued for another two years).

The show starred the entire family — and America watched Ozzie and Harriet raise their boys. Nelson was producer and co-writer of the entire series. He was very hands-on and involved with every aspect of the radio and then TV program.

Cultural historians have noted that the on-screen character was very different from the real-life Ozzie Nelson, who has been characterized as an authoritarian figure who monitored every aspect of his children's lives.

In 1998, A&E broadcast a documentary entitled Ozzie and Harriet: The Adventures of America's Favorite Family, which depicted Ozzie Nelson as a dictatorial personality who "thwarted his sons, preventing them from attending college and reminding them that they were obliged to work on television."

Author David Halberstam has written, "the Nelsons arguably were a dysfunctional family. In real life, Ozzie was a workaholic who stole his sons' childhood (by having them grow up in show business)."

Nelson died at his home in the San Fernando Valley on June 3, 1975, with his wife and sons at his bedside. He was 69.