Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: It's boring, You're boring everybody. Quit boring everyone.
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Jesse Carmichael from Room five. Hi, this
is Phil Margol of the Tokens.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 5: It's Nicole Atkins on the Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. This week
we're going to continue our look at the influence of
classical music on rock and roll tunes. We trust that
you did your homework and watched your Looney Tunes and
Tom and Jerry's and all that good stuff. But before
we hop in, as always, allow me to introduce all
the crambones joining us here tonight, as always, first and foremost,
from the Richter Observatory. He looks fine on the outside,
but on the inside he knows his sock is slowly
sliding down inside his shoe. Neil Richtor is back. I
hate it, and it's always when I'm wearing boots because
you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3: Keep it classy, everybody.
Speaker 2: Yet, from paranormally yours. She went into her boss's office
and said, I have three companies after me, so I'll
need a raise to stay here. So her boss gave
her a raise, and on the way out, her boss asked, well,
which companies were after you? She said, Electric Water and.
Speaker 4: Cable bing gun.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone. From the silver screen she saw two people
walking their dogs. One was a big lab and the
other was a tiny Chiwow. They decided to stop at
a bar to get a drink. The lab owner walks
in and the bartender says, hey, you can't bring your
dog in here. The owner says, well, it's my seeing
eye dog, and the bartender says, oh, I'm really sorry.
Please come in have a seat. Then the other one
walks in and the bartender says, I'm sorry, you can't
bring your dog in here, and she says, well, it's
my seeing eye dog. Partimer says a chihuahua. Give me
a break, and the owner goes, they gave me a chihuahua.
Speaker 1: Mercedes canters back higher, really good, Hey, everybody, and.
Speaker 2: Our official teacher he had a kidnapping at school, but
don't worry. The kid eventually woke up. Don Kelly is back,
but wouldn't be the first time and last, but not least.
The host of shaving Cream she was feeling kind of down.
And if Fred said a friend said cheer up, it
could be worse. You could be stuck in a deep
hole full of water. He meant. Well, Bar revealed.
Speaker 6: Hey, everyone, all right, so we're going to continue our
adventures down the classical music realm here.
Speaker 2: Like I mentioned at the beginning, Bugs, Bunny, Tom, and Jerry,
great way to kind of ease your way in. Another
great way to do it is go down the YouTube
rabbit hole of Liberaci. I don't remember we I think
a long time ago we talked about Liberaci, but he
was very popular starting in the forties, fifties, sixties, and
too the seventies. He famously said a bunch of times
something along the lines of he plays classical music with
the boring parts left out, and he's exactly right. So
he had a lot of TV specials, He had his
own TV show, he had guest artists on, he would
play all different things. So just look up Liberaci. We'll
talk about him a little bit more on a future show.
Speaker 1: And he was quite a show.
Speaker 2: He was a shameless self promoter, sparkly yes, yeah, absolutely shameless.
When critics attacked him, he said, I'm crying all the
way to the bank. Oh yeah, you would say that
over and over again. As he got older, he would
lose he was losing his hair, and he was so
afraid of somebody seeing him that you could probably tell
it's a two pay or what's a what would you
call a super two pey megatupe. But he was so
paranoid about losing his hair that he actually slept in
his two pays.
Speaker 1: That poor man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, we're gonna take a quick break
and be back with more good stuff right after this.
Hudson River Radio dot Com. Your mom likes us. This
concludes the first part of this cassette. Please turn the
cassette over and begin again on side too.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot.
Speaker 2: Com and welcome back. We're up to Barbara and I
can't wait to hear what Barbara has for us here.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the modern day song influenced by classical music
that I chose is the Show Must Go On, as
performed by Three Dog Night. It borrows from the eighteen
ninety seven military march called Entrance of the Gladiators. I
got a lot of foreign words here, so sorry. Entrance
of the Gladiators by composer Julius Fuchik born in Czechoslovakia
in eighteen seventy two, when it was part of the
Austro Hungarian Empire. The march uses chromatic scales, which are
sets of twelve pitches used in tonal music. For example,
the way I understand it, comparing like a piano to
a trombone. Trombone is capable of a continuously variable pitch
because you use your mouth to play it, which can
move on the slide in different ways, and the sliding
part of the trombone, meaning that it can produce microtones
or notes between those available on a piano, which is
just keys and it's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, chromatic is safe if you just played every key
of the piano in order, all the way up, or
every fret on a guitar all the way up right.
So a prime example we talked about last week Phantom
of the Opera, Bop up, bump up. That's chromatic.
Speaker 1: If you listening to that, I was going to ask
you to weigh in, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, micro zones and stuff. I don't think we'll ever
get to touch on that here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was reading the explanation and I read it like
four times and every time I went.
Speaker 2: Huh, yeah, and making it way more complicated than it
needs to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then when I read the part comparing the
trombone of the piano, I kind of understood it a
little bit. So thank you. So Future wrote the March
on October seventeenth, eighteen ninety seven, and Sarajevo, as he
had been stationed there as the Austro Hungarian Army's bandmaster.
And I have to tell you, every time I typed
Austro Hungarian at autocorrect, tried to change it to something else,
wouldn't let me tape it. The original title of the piece.
Now here's where we get into the chromatic and things.
The original title of the piece was called Grand March Chromatique,
but Future later changed it after having read the eighteen
ninety five novel Quovadis, which described a gladiator appearance which
really really impressed him. So let's hear a bit of it.
The first portion of the piece has been used in
many modern day songs, including nineteen sixty one's Goodbye Cruel
World by James Darren, nineteen sixty two's Palisades Park by
Freddy Cannon. That we've talked about and played nineteen sixty
threes yackety Sacks by Boots Randolph, nineteen eighty nine's Esther
by Fish, and twenty twenty two's Freak by Demi Lovado.
In the nineteen seventy three film version of God's Spell,
it is hummed by Judas as he betrays and crucifies Christ.
And also in this film, Christ and his disciples are
dressed and made up as clowns.
Speaker 2: I hear it in the back of my head when
I walk into a party where I don't know anybody.
Speaker 1: Okay, then yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe that might be a bigger problem.
Speaker 1: Now, So do I thank you? The modern day song
influenced by this classical piece that I've chosen. It's called
The Show Must Go On, released in nineteen seventy three
by Leo Sayer, who had performed it made up as
a clown. However, we're going to hear nineteen seventy four's
three Dog Night cover, which I remember fondly from my childhood.
So let's hear it now and we'll talk a bit
about Redog Night afterwards.
Speaker 5: All the wild Man basic God Jack can't act. There
are a.
Speaker 4: When you I've been a fool, A fool room a
second show.
Speaker 2: Baby there the nooma is.
Speaker 7: Trying to be bulling around.
Speaker 4: After block, I wish maybe in ten the walls then
let me out, let me out. After l.
Speaker 5: I wasted time, waste and waste and wasted time wild wild,
I said.
Speaker 4: The show go blas last also and blast, I wisted down.
We still waited after the time.
Speaker 5: Coming on the while, what's that?
Speaker 4: The show go long?
Speaker 2: I wish your host help me get away, leave me out.
Speaker 4: I all away from the show. The show.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Three Dog Night is an American rock band
formed in nineteen sixty seven, and they had numerous lineup
changes over the years. They're famous for songs like Joy
to the World and Mama Told Me Not to Come.
They started out with a different name. Vocalists Stanny Hutton,
Chuck Negron, and Corey Wells had formed the band Wood
in nineteen sixty seven and had made some recordings with
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, and were on the
verge of being one of the first artists to sign
to the Beach Boy's label, Brother Records. However, when they
were in studio with Wilson, they did not meet Wilson's expectations. Furthermore,
Wilson's bandmates encouraged him to concentrate instead on the Beach
Boys and their contractual obligations. So without Wilson's support, Redwood
changed their name to Three Dog Knight and in nineteen
sixty eight made their debut at Hollywood's Whiskey Yegogo. They
had been in the process of recording their first album
and were pleased to hear some good reactions on their
performance coming from the Whiskey Ygogo audience. In nineteen seventy two,
they hosted the very first Dick Clark's New Year's Rock
and Eve. The Show Must Go On as the eighth
and final track on the nineteen seventy four album Hard Labor.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about this before, so if anybody
wants to weigh in, please do. The name three Dog
Knights suposedly comes from a magazine article about Aboriginal Australians,
where it was explained that on cold nights they would
sleep with a dingo for warmth, on very cold nights
too dingoes, and on freezing nights it would be a
three dog night.
Speaker 3: I love that so much.
Speaker 2: Just I used to have large dogs and I can relate,
you can relate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's a little controversy over whether that's true or not.
But I like the story, so I'm sticking with it.
Speaker 3: Let's keep it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll keep it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't ruin a good story. Exactly, exactly. A.
Speaker 1: So, how did we get from a military march to
circus clowns? No, they didn't give the soldiers big shoes
and make them march.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: It turns out that there's this Canadian bandmaster slash composer
Louis Philippe Laurendeau. Uh, Lorendeau, I don't know, really bad
with these foreign words.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: He rearranged the piece for an American wind band just
around the same time as circuses, particularly Ringling Brothers, Barnum
and Bailey Circus, were becoming popular in the US and
began using the rewritten piece to introduce clowns, and understandably,
right after, the military then dropped it as one of
their martians.
Speaker 2: You wonder why.
Speaker 1: So the rearranged version became known as Under the Big Top.
Speaker 2: And there you have it. Okay, great, yeah, I can
see that would ruin the whole mood. Yeah, yeah, it is.
It's easy to drive a tiny little car to also,
that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Hey, you can fit more clowns in a Volkswagen than
you can a jeep.
Speaker 2: True, true, it's physics. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Barb. Excellent, John, you're up. What do
you have for us? You're mute to John.
Speaker 8: My selection tonight was It's not one particular piece of music.
It was actually something that I thought was kind of
beautiful that I found in my research. My composers tonight
were two gentlemen. One born in seventeen fifty six that
would be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and one born in nineteen
forty seven that would be Ian Scott Anderson of jethro Tel.
You all know by now if you listen to this show,
Tall is pretty much one of my favorite bands, if
not my most favorite band. Of course.
Speaker 2: What do I like about jef Rotel?
Speaker 8: Obviously their music there, at least in my non you know,
musical knowledge kind of way. I like how they mix
such a variety. They have rock, they have fulk, they
have classical, they have little bits of all kinds of
genres out there. And Neil could speak to this much
better than I could. But they infuse a lot of
classical in there in the work that they do. And
in two thousand and six, on the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of Mozart's death, Ian Anderson participated in something
called a Mozart Metali and the Spirits of the Spirits
of Mozart. It was filmed and actually recorded in the
Museum Quarter in Vienna, and Jeth Throtel basically took his
own take along with a whole variety of other musicians
that I'm not going to read off the names, but
we're going to focus on I want to focus on
Ian Anderson and Mozart himself. But I love how this
man takes his flute, which is what I love about
about his musical abilities, and just kind of takes Mozart's
music and makes it his own. And I really enjoy
that about it. I would recommend everybody out there, if
you have time, to take a listen or viewing of
the entire Spirit of Mozart. It is a fifteen part
musical performance and Ian Anderson does part number ten and
it's really is kind of a beautiful take on Mozart's
music that only Ian Anderson can do. So Brian let's
play a little piece.
Speaker 4: Bet Okay.
Speaker 8: If that doesn't make you want to kind of take
another look at Mozart, I don't know what does. But
it really is a testament to the immense talent of
Ian Anderson and his colleagues there that they can take
that vibrant music that Mozart himself created and give it
a twenty first century twist. I hope you all enjoyed it,
and I strongly recommend you give that a listen. It
was recorded live in Vienna, and oh how I wish
I could have been there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been cool, the whole bit and everything. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, if we can believe the nineteen eighties film
about Mozart Ama dais he that movie, he was quite
the rock star himself for in his.
Speaker 2: Day he was the rock star. But that movie I
don't believe.
Speaker 3: It, So I had a feeling it might be able
to not. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, they first license.
Speaker 8: What's interesting the the the When I was reading about this,
they actually gave both Ian Anderson and Mozart himself top
billing on this, so I thought that was kind of
fun as well.
Speaker 2: Nice, except I'm guessing only one got paid. Yeah, yeah,
but it's it's the Mozart.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: The Vile was wonderful too. By the way, I can't
think of her name. It escaped me at the moment.
I was just kind of focusing on Mozart and and
Ian Anderson, but they were all fabulous in this performance.
And again I was two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
Mozart's death in two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Well back when you know Jethro tell no, I won't
say getting started, but in the early seventies. Yeah, a
lot of that Jethro tell Emerson, Lincoln Palmer, who I
talked about a little bit in the previous show, all
those bands like Yes and all. It wasn't called Prague
rock or you know that that's the label now. It
was called classical rock, not classic rock because it hadn't
become classic yet. Classical rock. Yeah, so you know it
was oh yeah, there was no you know, there was
no mystery that was It was definitely you know, directly
with all the different time signatures, particularly going on in
that one, I was like, yeah, I was, I was.
Speaker 2: Going back for where it was everywhere.
Speaker 3: It was everywhere, yeah, and that's that's not easy to play.
Speaker 8: So no, it's it's interesting because the the band accused me.
The orchestra was the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra that played
alongside Ian Anderson and his band in addition to the
other performers. But they have a history of collaboration, meaning
Jethro Tull, Andy and Anderson in particular. I have an
album that I absolutely love that where the London Symphony Orchestra.
Actually it was an interesting twist. Instead of rock beating
off of classical, the London Symphony Orchestra took a whole
selection of tall tunes and basically turned them into classical
masterpieces and it was called a classic case. The London
Symphony Orchestra plays the music of Jethro Tull. So there
are a lot of fun that band. I've I've seen them,
you know, a couple of times, as you all know,
and I just love their music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's another good way to get into the
classic world if you want to look are pops orchestras,
because that's what they do. They take popular songs and
do what they did with Jethro Tull, So you can
go in knowing the songs and just hearing a new
arrangement and how it's done by an orchestra, So not
a bad way to start.
Speaker 3: And I believe Ian Anderson. I don't know if it's
under the Jethro Toll banner or not, but it has
a new album just came out recently.
Speaker 2: I did not know that.
Speaker 3: I have to.
Speaker 2: I have to do a little investment.
Speaker 3: Check that out. And on a side note, O Jethrow
Toll in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I
don't think so.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: They're not.
Speaker 3: I don't believe so.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I don't know. Yeah, I'd have to
look that up myself.
Speaker 8: That would be, in my humble opinion, appalling if it was.
You know, if that is indeed correct.
Speaker 1: We're really upsetting.
Speaker 6: John m h.
Speaker 3: Just listen to It's not true, but will.
Speaker 2: John, Yeah, listen to Entry of the Gladiators. It'll make
you feel better. Yes, all right, thanks John. We're gonna
take a quick break and be back with one more
right after this. Hudson Riverradio dot Com. Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
All right, one more classically influenced rock song coming up
right now. We're going to talk about a group called
The Toys, who were a girl group from Jamaica. Queens
in New York City, made up of Barbara Harris who
was born in nineteen forty five from North Carolina, Barbara
Parrott born in nineteen forty four, also from North Carolina,
and June Monteiro born in nineteen forty six who was
from Queens. Who is from Queens, I should say she's
still around. Formed a vocal group in high school. A
friend of theirs became their manager and named them the
Charlotte's because that, as we've heard in recent shows, it
was like the way to go for everything. Everything was
an it get famous. Yep, apparently we should bring that back.
Speaker 3: Cram Bonnettes, cram Bonnette.
Speaker 1: I want that on a T shirt.
Speaker 2: I like it. Okay, sounds good to me. Uh So,
this friend got them work doing backup vocals. They shamelessly
kind of walked up and down near the Brill building
and sang outside and all that, and it worked. They
performed at a bunch of talent shows, but one in
particular in Brooklyn got them hooked up with a better
manager named Vince Mark and a record executive named Bob Crewe.
We mentioned Crew in the past. Crew wrote a bunch
of hits, including Big girls, don't cry, can't take my
eyes off you, he wrote Lady Marmalade. They renamed the
group the Toys and gave them a contract with his company,
Dinah Voice Records. They just happen to be in the
right place at the right time. Not the Toyottes, not
the Toylettes, just the Toys. They were, I guess, trendsetters
exiting the era, the era of there you go.
Speaker 3: As long as it wasn't the toilets, then we're all right.
Speaker 1: Not the Toyotas either, Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: Most of the songs they recorded were written by Sandy
Lindzer and Denny Randell, who also worked with Crewe. Their
initial album wound up selling over two million copies, which
is phenomenal.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: They went on tour with Geene Pitney, who was huge
at the time and a name that probably kind of
faded more than it should. But Jean Pitney was such
a big name that the Toys wound up jumping over
to his label after the tour, his labels Music Core Records.
But unfortunately they couldn't replicate their initial success. They wound
up bumping heads and they split up. But while they
were on tour, something I think we've touched basically in
the past that these artists were making most of their
money performing, not as much on the record deal. The
record companies make the money on the records, so Dina
Voice was very angry that they were going all over
the UK touring with Gene Pitney and not making new
records for the record company. So the group was making
the money and the record company wasn't, so there was
kind of friction all the way around. By the time
that they split up, Barbara Harris is still performing. She
has a bunch of shows listed in the New York
City area. The two the other two went on to
do session work. They are still around, but I don't
know what they're up to now and I couldn't find
anything about them unfortunately, So if anybody knows, let us know.
The Toy's biggest hit was a song called A Lover's Concerto.
Lindser and Randell took a piano practice piece called Minuet
in G Major and reworked it. The minuet was first
published in manuscript by Johann Sebastian Bach, who we've talked
about several times, even in last week's show. He was
born sixteen eighty five, died in seventeen fifty. The book
was titled Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, his second wife.
He and his wife put the book together. It was
put out in seventeen twenty five. For a long time
it was assumed that Bach wrote the piece, but we
now know his notebook contained pieces by other composers that
Bach and his wife had compiled and put together. The
minuet was written by a contemporary of his, named Christian
Petsold born in sixteen seventy seven died in seventeen thirty three.
Minuet is a French style dance, and the song that
will go with it was also known as a minuet.
So they took the minuet, which is originally written in
a three four time like a waltz one two three
one two three. They reworked it into a four to
four time, added a motown sounding baseline to it, and
then added the lyrics which followed the melody. It was
a huge hit in the US and the UK when
it was released in August of nineteen sixty five. So
let's listen to the toys of Lover's Concerto, and then
we'll come back and talk about.
Speaker 7: How Gentles arret that ball work high up in the tree,
Sarah laid the cloud with.
Speaker 2: The melody fat in the other hill, the barbel that
thing from a ball.
Speaker 4: They just stayed for us.
Speaker 1: Jumps to thought, I.
Speaker 3: Do not.
Speaker 7: Lost love me, send me and as you every time
means cough ever make.
Speaker 1: You time.
Speaker 7: Nothing, I pur ascome please.
Speaker 4: All ways to me.
Speaker 2: You just stay in your hearty.
Speaker 4: Because you shall.
Speaker 7: Read I thought said, will walk out in the race
either the singing.
Speaker 4: Women.
Speaker 2: How can you not love that song? It's so good,
it's really good, and Neil was counting key changes his favorite.
Speaker 3: Part modulations gets me right here.
Speaker 2: Yep, awesome. So let's take a look at what that
was based on the minuet from all those many many
years ago. You're going to hear the similarity. Let me
play it for you, instantly recognizable. Right yeah, yeah, so
you go. It pays to take your music lessons. Go
practice piano, even though it's been years. Go try anyway.
So there you go. Two episodes of the influence of
classical music on rock. I thought that was pretty absolutely fascinating, Brian, right, yep.
So now yes, we have to get Mercedes to come
check out a symphony. We have to ease you and
we'll get you to check out a pop's orchestra. We'll
go nice and slow. All right, okay, very cool? All right,
any final thoughts before we pull the plug. It was fun,
I thought, so I learned a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: So it's worth going down the rabbit hole. Find something
that interests you and and go explore. So open your mind,
open your mind, Mercedes, open your mind, and come your mind. Man.
All right, thank you Crambones for excellent selections as always,
and thank you all for joining us for the Rock
and Roll History Show. Don't forget to subscribe in your
favorite podcast app and check out all the other shows
that many of the Crambones do here at Hudson River
Radio because there is something for everybody. We'll be back
next week with another brand new episode. Until then, have
a great weekend everybody, and peace.
Speaker 4: Out a rock cop bottom.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye bye. Hudson River Radio dot com a subsidiary
of Glacier Entertainment LLC, potentially successful the multi hundred dollars
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