Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Uh uh huh uh listen, shut up for a second.
Speaker 3: This is John Fulbright. Hi, this is jar Williams.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 5: This is Mitch Margo of the Tokens.
Speaker 6: Hi.
Speaker 3: This is Gary us bonds Man here on the Rock
and Roll History Show.
Speaker 5: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. We have
a very interesting topic tonight. We might be breaking the
law just a little bit, so stick around you don't
want to miss it. But as always, before we hop in,
allow me to introduce all the crambones who were joining
us here tonight. First and foremost, from the Richter Observatory,
he says that cows shot from a cattle loog Neil
richters here.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, that sounds like a lot of bulls to me.
But doing everybody, can I get a move?
Speaker 5: No move from paranormally yours? She says. The only thing
worse than when it's raining cats and dogs is hailing taxis.
Speaker 8: Gail Muthon is here, painful, a little bit splat messy,
and talk about traffic.
Speaker 7: Yikes.
Speaker 8: Hello everyone, and.
Speaker 5: Our officially retired teacher. He says that sting rays only
swim in saltwater because pepper makes them sneeze.
Speaker 9: John Kelly is here, Oh is that even illegal?
Speaker 7: Why not?
Speaker 4: Bryan?
Speaker 3: Bryan?
Speaker 5: Only one more to go. Last, but not least, the
host of Shaving Cream. She says that fake dog poop
should really be called shampoop. Barb Reveal is here. I
will offer one blanket apology to everybody, and that's it.
So welcome back Crambones and welcome back everybody else. So
our topic tonight is actually courtesy of John. I don't
know why he started thinking about talented felons, people who
broke the law.
Speaker 9: So I don't know where that came from.
Speaker 10: It just kind of got it just I don't know,
it materialized out of the air, out of the ether
at the end of the last Joe.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So it was a good one.
Speaker 5: Because there there were a lot to choose from. Oh yeah,
a little bit scary kind of what makes you wonder
what's the uh the relationship there between you know, breaking
the law and music. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 10: It seems to be uh somewhat synonymous, not only in well,
it's just I don't know, it's just it makes.
Speaker 5: You wonder is there a higher percentage of felons in
music than other lines of work.
Speaker 9: Somebody ought to do a study.
Speaker 5: I don't know. Yeah, we may have to dig a
little deeper. So Mercedes is not with us tonight. She
actually got caught up in the spirit airlines nonsense, So
as far as I know, her plane is just dangling
midair until somebody comes and picks her up. But she
had already made her pick, and she really wanted to participate,
so she recorded her segments on a voice note and
sent it to me. So we have that because she
really wanted to participate. So we're going to lead off
with the Mercedes, and let's see what she said to us.
Here we go.
Speaker 11: Hey, everybody, sorry I couldn't be with you today, but
I really wanted to do this song, or at least
I thought I did. This was a long go round
for me. I was looking first song and came across
an article about how Kid Creole had stabbed an unhoused
man and went to jail because murder is a felony.
I was very surprised and a little upset because I
love Kid Creole and the Coconuts and have seen them
many times. And even took an acrobatics class with one
of the Coconuts way back in the day. He sat
down to do my research and discovered that it was
Kid Creole Kidd, not Kid Creole Kid, who had committed
the felony. Completely different guy, Big Relief. Kid Creole born
Nathaniel Glover was in Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
not Kid Creole on the Coconuts. Glover joined Grandmaster Flash
in nineteen seventy eight and released The Message in nineteen
eighty two. After some personnel and label changes. Later, the
group was not having much success. Glover had some disputes
with their label, sugar Hill over Royalties, and he could
no longer continue making a living as a full time musician.
He took various jobs and occasional touring. In both nineteen
eighty two and nineteen ninety five, he was arrested for
a firearm possession and in two thousand and seven for
carrying a knife. On the night of August two, twenty seventeen,
while coming home from a handyman job, he ran into
John Jolly, a local unhoused man. According to security cameras,
the two had a conversation and left the field of view.
Jolly was stabbed to death, and Glover admitted he had
stabbed Jolly. He was sentenced to sixteen years for manslaughter
plus five year supervision, which I'm assuming is probation. And
I'm sure Brian can answer that question. On that note,
let's listen to the message. Certainly not a palate cleanser
after that, but a great track if you don't think
too much about you know the message.
Speaker 7: It's like a jungle.
Speaker 12: Sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.
Speaker 1: Sophie glass.
Speaker 13: Everywhere people people don't stay, you know, they just don't care.
Speaker 3: I can't take the smells, can't take the door.
Speaker 13: I've got no money too, But boy, I guess a
guy don't charge back to the front room.
Speaker 3: Roach just in the back.
Speaker 13: Junky's in that eye they with the baseball back. I'm
trying to get the way, but I couldn't get off
because a man wouldn't. People says, my God, don't push me.
Call I'm close to the edge. I'm trying again not
to lose my.
Speaker 3: Head somebody under. Some times it makes your mounder high.
Speaker 13: Can going under standing on the front stool, hanging out
the window, watching all the cargo by roaring as the
base blow. Crazy lady living in the bag eating not
the garbage bells used to be castut that's the tangle gift,
the lack of danger with her dog Crace to see
the lost us that sit down at the future watching
all the pep so she could.
Speaker 4: Tell the stories.
Speaker 3: Took the girls back.
Speaker 13: Home to win to the city and got susles so
citty to have to get couldn't make it on the pone.
Don't push me cup something clips to the edge.
Speaker 7: I try again not.
Speaker 12: To lose my head to say what It's like a tumble.
Sometimes it makes me wonder how I came from going under.
It's like the tuble. Sometimes it makes me wonder how
I came from going under. My brother's doing dass on
my mother's TV. Says she watches too much. It's just
not healthy. All my children in the daytime Dallas and
nights can't even see the game on the sugar ray
fight the bill collect us to ring my phone, scars
my wife when I'm not home. My gotta bumps education
double digital face. You can't take the train. Did the
job there to strike at the station and meet on
King kon standing on my black kids stopped to turn around,
broke Masacarini at mid grade Mi grand cancer remembry. Sometime
I think I'm going to say.
Speaker 3: That's where I might drip a plenty on.
Speaker 12: Push me cut something close to the edge. I'm trying
again not to lose my head.
Speaker 4: Say what.
Speaker 12: It's like a tonguele. Some times it makes me wonder
how I can from going under. It's like a tingle.
Some times it makes me wonder how I came from
going under.
Speaker 13: A childish boy indoor state of mind, blind took the
ways of mankind. God the smiles dog, but he's founding too,
because only God knows what you go through. Your girl
put together on a second rate and your eyes will
save a song of ty to practice you. Where you
stay looks like one bigger alley where Julie Buyer all
the dog but book taking a dark picture that is
in the big money makes try a big toss.
Speaker 3: Be in the twenties and ten se You want to
grow up to be just.
Speaker 13: Like that smuggling ex doorless burpoless and gamers pick the
pocket that see the panhanding You say, I'm cool, I'm
no food within your wine dump dropping out of high
screw now your honey boy on non boy bucking brown Light,
the pretty boy boy turk stick up kids. But what
you're done?
Speaker 7: Did God said up?
Speaker 13: For the eight years now a man hood is too
You're a main taskman of Natty two the kids. That's
an undercover of being used in the certain black hell to.
One day you were found hunk Dad and the sell.
It was plain to see that your life for God,
you was colding. Your body swung back and forth. But
now the I say, with a sad, sad song, ha,
it live so fast and die so young.
Speaker 3: So talk cook.
Speaker 13: Caught high coach to dump edge. I try again that
to loose my head.
Speaker 3: It's doctor jumping to.
Speaker 6: Tires and men.
Speaker 13: One the high can go another's doctor jumbles to ties
and mention.
Speaker 3: One the high can will go another.
Speaker 11: In December nineteen eighty two, for The New York Times,
Robert Palmer hailed The Message as the year's best album
and explained that while the emerging rap genre has often
been criticized for confining itself to bragging and boasting, the
Message is different. It's a gritty, plainspoken, vividly cinematic portrait
of Black Street Life. Social realism has rarely worked well
in a pop music context, but the message is an
utterly convincing cry of frustration and despair that cannot be ignored.
And I think that's I think that's pretty good. I
think that's all I have to say, considering that I
thought I was going to be doing another song instead,
but there you go. That's the message, and I'm glad
I could do that song today anyway. Thanks.
Speaker 7: I like that one.
Speaker 5: What I like about it is you can understand it.
You can understand all the words. It's not trying to
get in as many syllables as you can. You know,
it definitely told a story and.
Speaker 8: He actually enunciates.
Speaker 5: So I'm guessing it's not going to be on Neil's
top ten.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't say so, yeah, but I mean it didn't
hurt me either. Yeah.
Speaker 5: It was you know, early as the genre was emerging,
so drum machines were coming about, the synthesizers, all that
kind of stuff, so it was a pretty cool use
of that.
Speaker 7: I thought, well, you know, I do have a thing
against you know, drum machines, but to be expected, but
that's okay. Yeah, everybody each their own you know, it's
all good.
Speaker 5: I have a problem with synth basis too, because you
know kind of takes like a keyboard bass or yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: No, no no no no.
Speaker 5: You get a real guy. Get a real guy doing that.
It's much better. So all right, well, thank you Mercedes whole.
She gets to land safely soon enough and come back
for the next show. But for now, Gail, you're up.
Speaker 8: Okay, I need to figure out how to condense five,
no four and a half pages of notes down to
a brief spot in the show because I chose a
song from Billie Holiday.
Speaker 9: And what is what is Billie Holidays rap sheet?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 6: Drugs?
Speaker 8: Drug charges. She was arrested a couple of times, the
last time being when she was in her hospital bed,
and she died soon after. So yeah, she was born
Eleanor Eleanora Fagan. She was born April seventh, nineteen fifteen,
and she passed away July seventeenth, nineteen fifty nine, so
she was only forty four.
Speaker 3: But she had.
Speaker 8: Mistreated to her system.
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 8: She was an American jazz and swing music singer, which
a lot of people probably know. She was nicknamed Lady
Day by her friend and music partner Lester Young. She
made significant contributions to jazz music and pop singing because
her vocal style, which was strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists,
inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Holiday
was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. Now,
I did not choose one of the couple of songs
that she's more well known for, but I'll talk about them.
Speaker 9: In a bit.
Speaker 8: The song that I chose is a little more upbeach,
and it's called You Go to My Head. It's from
nineteen thirty eight. It's a popular song that was composed
by someone named Jay Fred kots Coots with lyrics by
Haven Gillespie. A lot of different versions of the song
have been recorded by different people, and apparently it has
since become a pop and jazz standard. For the most part,
I am not a jazz officionada, so I don't know
what the rest of jazz is like. Anyway. You Go
to My Head is intricately constructed with plenty of harmonic movement.
It starts in a major key, but from the second
bar onward, his the composer seems intent on creating a
feverish dream quality. I love that term, feverish dream quality,
tending more to the minor code. The release builds on
the drama, and the final restatement holds some surprises as well.
This piece would be noteworthy even if it lacked such
an exquisite coda, But those last eight bars convey a
sense of resigned closure to the song that fittingly matches
the resolution of the lyrics. Let's have a listen, and
then I have a lot more notes to try and contense.
Speaker 2: You go to Mary, can you linger like a kid bread?
And I find you spinning roll.
Speaker 6: In my breed like the bubbles and a glass of
shade hand.
Speaker 7: You going to my.
Speaker 2: Like a sip of spargling burgunder Brewer.
Speaker 6: And I find the mntion of you like a kicker
and a Julie Botwo love, feel love the thought that
you might give a thought to my Please cast a
spell over me.
Speaker 2: But I said to myself, get a whole love yourself.
Speaker 6: Can't you see that it never can be?
Speaker 8: You got to mine.
Speaker 6: With a spyle that makes my temper to rise.
Speaker 2: Like a samer with a thousand July. You intoxicate my
soul with your eyes.
Speaker 6: And I'm certain that this home mine hasn't a ghost
of a chance in this as your own man, you
go too much?
Speaker 5: You too, my.
Speaker 8: Hey, what a voice, what a style.
Speaker 10: Very kind of dreamy, as we were discussing before off air,
kind of a dreamy.
Speaker 9: As Brian you said, well, kind of like a club feel,
you know, yea.
Speaker 5: Intimate feeling is you're sitting up close to the performer.
You're not in a bit that wouldn't work in an arena. No,
that's you know, sitting in a cocktail lounge.
Speaker 7: Vibe, smoke, smoke filled, you know, the whole, the whole, the.
Speaker 9: Whole vibe, the whole thing.
Speaker 5: Who framed Roger Rabbit? That's all I could think of,
which is not the message she was trying to send,
But that's what. Yes, the time frame.
Speaker 8: Well, that version and a couple of other versions by
different people all placed in the top twenty of the
music charts in nineteen thirty eight. I didn't even know
they had music charts in nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 3: The song is.
Speaker 8: Played in a nineteen forty four film called Laura. Nineteen
forty six film The Big Sleep. The Louis Armstrong and
Oscar Peterson version of it is played in the movie
Corrina Corrina, which I've never heard of it. Frank Sinatra
is someone who said he was very highly influenced by
Billie Holliday's style, and he was a crooner, so you
can see where that came from. She in her lifetime,
among other things, played with several different bands, Duke Ellington's
Band in nineteen thirty five, count Bassie Orchestra in nineteen
thirty seven, and Artie Shaw Big Band in nineteen thirty eight.
I believe she was the first woman of color to
perform with otherwise all white orchestra's bands that kind of thing.
Her career was active from nineteen thirty to nineteen fifty nine.
She was married three times. First husband was Jimmy Monroe,
second was Joe Guy and the third one was Lewis
Mackay and at the time of her death they were separated.
There's a website which I did not have a chance
to look at. It's called Billieholiday dot Com. So I
think I will have a look at that later. Now.
One of the songs she became very famous for was
Strange Fruit, and that was in nineteen ninety nine. Oooh, sorry, well,
my show.
Speaker 5: Is parano Le Yours.
Speaker 8: Okay, nineteen thirty nine. Strange Fruit. Holiday was in the
middle of recording for Columbia in the late nineteen thirties
when she was introduced to the song Strange Fruit, a
song by Abel Merripol based on his poem about lynching Maripol,
a Jewish school teacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym
Lewis Allen for the poem, which was set to music
and formed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard
by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Cafe Society, which was
an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, and he introduced it
to Holiday. She performed it at that club in nineteen
thirty nine with some trepidation because she was a woman
of color and she feared possible retaliation. She said that
the imagery of that song reminded her of her father's
death and that this played a role in her resistance
to wanting to perform it. For her performance at the
Cafe Society, she had waiters silenced the crowd when the
song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed
and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing,
only a small spotlight illuminating her face. On the final note,
all lights went out, and when they came back on
Holiday was gone. Billie Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday,
was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because
of racial prejudice, and that singing Strange Fruit reminded her
of the incident. She said, it reminds me of how
Pop died. But I have to keep singing it, not
only because people ask for it, but because twenty years
after Pop died, the things that killed him are still
happening in the South. She wrote that in her autobiography.
When her producers at Columbia found this subject matter too sensitive,
Mick Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records
label on April twentieth, nineteen thirty nine. The song remained
in her repertoire for twenty years. She recorded it again
for Verve, which I assume is another record company. Her
popularity increased a great deal after Strange Fruit. She received
a mention in Time magazine. I opened Cafe Society as
an unknown, she said, I left two years later as
a star. I needed the prestige and publicity. Alright, but
you can't pay rent with that, so she soon demanded
a raise from her manager, Joe Glacer. She returned to
Commodore Records in nineteen forty four, recording other songs that
she made in the nineteen thirties, including the Waterfront and
I'll Get By. She also recorded a song called I'll
Be Seeing You, which was a number one hit for
being Crosby. She also recorded her version of Embraceable You,
and that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
in two thousand and five. Now we come to where
things get difficults you mean it was easy up to
this point, Well, no, but the substance issues. On May sixteenth,
nineteen forty seven, she was arrested for possession of narcotics
in her New York apartment. On May twenty seventh, she
was in court. It was called the United States of
America versus Billie Holiday, she says, and that's just the
way it felt. During the trial, she heard that her
lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her
in plain English. That meant no one in the world
was interested in defending her. Dehydrated and unable to hold
down food, she pled guilty and asked to be sent
to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense,
which is a little weird because you don't expect the
DA to speak in the defendant's defense. He said, if
you're on her, please, this is a case of a
drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases.
This Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher
rank as far as income was concerned. She was sentenced
to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug
possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City
cabaret card, which is what artists who wanted to perform
in places that sold liquor had to have, and so
after that she could not work anywhere that sold alcohol,
so she performed in concert venues and theaters. The narcotics
police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found
heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to
indict her. Halliday was subsequently arrested, handcuffed to her bed,
and placed under police guard. She was released on March sixteenth,
nineteen forty eight, because of good behavior. Now, as she
lost her cabaret card, her earnings went downhill because you know,
I guess you make more money in these clubs. So
Ed Fishman, who had competed with Joe Glazer to be
her manager, thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall.
She hesitated, unsure that audiences would accept her. After the arrest,
she gave in and agreed. On March twenty seventh, nineteen
forty eight, she played Carnegie Hall to a sold out crowd.
Twenty seven hundred tickets were sold in advance, and that
was a record at that time for the venue. Her
popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record,
but it apparently did her, you know, boosted her career
and got her back in the running. She was arrested
again on January twenty second, nineteen forty nine, in her
room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. She
said she began using hard drugs in the early nineteen forties.
She married Trombonis Jimmy Monroe on August twenty fifth, forty one,
and while still married, she became involved with the trumpeter
Joe Guy, who was also her drug dealer. I guess,
I guess she figured to get a good deal or something.
She divorced Monroe in nineteen forty seven and also split
with Guy the drug Dealer Let's see. By the nineteen fifties,
her drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men took
a great deal of toll on her health. She did
appear on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story. I
didn't know they had reality TV in the nineteen fifties,
she discussed her attempts to overcome her addictions. She toured
Europe in nineteen fifty four in Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland.
She had a an autobiography ghost written, and she published
that in nineteen fifty six. In nineteen seventy two, the
film came out called Lady Sings the Blues, and Diana
Russ starred as Billie Holiday. I remember when that came out.
I saw that movie when I was twelve years old,
and now I understand why back then I didn't understand
a lot of what was going on in the movie,
because luckily I didn't know about these things. Oh my goodness.
Then in nineteen fifty seven, Holiday married her last husband,
Louis Mackay, a mob enforcer or she could really pick them.
Speaker 14: Oh.
Speaker 8: Health complications from her years of drug and alcohol abuse
would ultimately lead to her death. By early fifty nine,
she was diagnosed with cirrhosis. Although she'd initially stopped drinking
on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed.
By May of nineteen fifty nine, she had lost twenty pounds,
and her manager Joe Glazer, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist
Alan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in
vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On
May thirty first, nineteen fifty nine, she was finally taken
a Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of both
liver and heart disease. While in the hospital, special agents
of the FBI, NO, the FBN, the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics came to her hospital room and placed her under
house arrest. The woman is like on the edge of
death and they come and arrest her at her hospital bed.
That's really crazy, handcuffing her to the bed for narcotics possession.
On July fifteenth, she received last rites from a Catholic priest,
and two days later she died at age forty four
of pulmonary edema and heart failure. Caused by cirrhosis. And
what a sad end to such a great artist. But
you hear this a lot. Being creative and being a performer,
I guess is stressful enough that it can lead you
into all sorts of unsavory habits. And it's just sad
that she died so young. Very but she had amaze voice.
Speaker 5: Yes, that was lovely. Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry it was long winded, but and I left
out half of my notes.
Speaker 6: I mean, oh, you a lot.
Speaker 5: What a career, you know. It's yeah, what a distinctive voice.
And she's one of those ones you hear recording and
it's her, Yeah, you know, one of those voices that's
very distinct. So yeah, and there's a lot more, like
you were saying. Yeah, there's a lot of whole history.
So it took too long for her to get her
her the recognition she deserved. But yeah, we're doing our part.
Speaker 9: Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 5: All right, thanks Gil. We're gonna take a real quick
break and we have lots more coming up, so stick around.
We'll be right back. Hudson River Radio.
Speaker 9: Your dog likes us.
Speaker 8: This concludes the first part of this cassette.
Speaker 11: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side too.
This is Hudson River.
Speaker 1: Radio dot Com.
Speaker 9: Ah Way, and welcome back.
Speaker 5: We're talking about talented felons this week, and Neil.
Speaker 9: We're up to you.
Speaker 7: Okay. My subject for today's topic is punk rocker Sid Vicious,
a talented felon. Well, let's see. First of all, ever
since its inception, rock and roll has been known for
creating controversy and questionable activity, and more often than not,
those activities were fueled by the use of drugs and alcohol.
Oftentimes that questionable activity cross the boundaries of legal limits,
and sometimes even those legal limits got a little blurred,
as we shall see. Let me set the scene. The
rock and roll in nineteen sixty were particularly known for
these excesses. That is, until the early seventies rolled around
and the infamous twenty seven Club claimed the Big Three
Jimi Hendrix, Jennis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. Now, I believe
this caused a subliminal shift in the rock world's collective
consciousness that maybe this mayhem was maybe a little too much. Now,
the use of drugs and alcohol didn't slow down at
that point, if anything, it increased, but the mayhem slowly
turned into mellow as the seventies moved forward, particularly in
the mainstream like with record deals and radio airplay, and
with a few notable exceptions, hard rock began to give
way to soft rock like Fleetwood, Mac Jackson Brown and
the Eagles. Now, that is until punk rock reared its
ugly little head around nineteen seventy six. In nineteen seventy seven.
And now, the vices and excesses of punk rock were
really not all that different from those of the nineteen sixties.
But those sixties rebels and revolutionaries, they were now in
charge and they were now wearing the suits, and they
weren't too happy about these young punks, these young upstarts
coming along and you know, honing in on their business,
sort of like meet the New Boss, same as the
old boss, right, And it definitely had a concerted bias
against punk. And no other band illustrated this point more
than England's sex Pistols. Now. The sex Pistols were conceived
by their manager, Malcolm McLaren with the sole intention of
causing controversy, oh and making money too. Now, the sex
Pistole's original lineup consisted of vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones,
drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glenn Mattlock. Now Mattlock would
soon be fired for allegedly liking the Beatles too much,
but that was just a story for the press. There
was more going on than that. But he was replaced
by Sid Vicious, the man we're going to focus on here.
John Simon Ritchie aka Sid Vicious born in May nineteen
fifty seven, joined the Sex Pistols in nineteen seventy seven.
Now here's the interesting thing. He didn't know how to
play bass. He didn't know how to play anything. He
couldn't play a note. But he wasn't there to play.
He was there to cause trouble, and he did. About
a year after that, The sex Pistols imploded in San
Francisco in nineteen seventy eight, at the end of their
short and only US tour. By that point, Sid was
a total mess from booze and drugs. In fact, on
the flight from San Francisco to New York, he was
taken off the plane in a coma. Okay, that's how bad.
Speaker 5: It's better than fighting, I think.
Speaker 7: But he did manage to record a few songs as
a singer, not as an instrumentalist, as a singer after
the band broke up, like this one here, the cover
of Eddie Cochrane's come On Everybody.
Speaker 3: Same God, Who come on nobody.
Speaker 6: Where? It's not one B that's w.
Speaker 3: A W has a be a jam of the first
never where when the Kansas still your brother.
Speaker 9: Mole riding in sist of will?
Speaker 3: Who come on everybody.
Speaker 6: Where?
Speaker 3: We gotta plan of begun We got there so the
mama still hold the gonna tell well, let me know
what we got to?
Speaker 9: Who cares?
Speaker 13: Who on?
Speaker 3: Everybody?
Speaker 7: All right? Sid Vicious covering Eddie Cochran. Eddie Cochran one
of the original punks in my estimation back from the fifties.
But anyway, back to our story now. After the demise
of the sex Pistols, Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spongeen
moved into the Chelsea Hotel in New York City and
with sponge In acting as his manager, they put together
a band and he played at Maxis Kansas City a
number of times, I think, and the gigs drew you know,
large crowds and paid pretty well, but the reviews were
less than stellar. You can actually hear there are bootlegs
of that he can hear the audience heckling sid on stage,
so talented? Okay Now. On the night of October eleventh,
nineteen seventy eight, the couple hosted a party in their
hotel room, with numerous people coming and going throughout the evening.
Now Vicious allegedly took about thirty two in all pills,
which is a depressant, and he was basically out of
a comatose for most of the party. The next morning,
hotel staff found Vicious wandering the hotel hallway and Nancy
Spongeen dead in their apartment on the bathroom floor with
a knife wound to her abdomen. The murder weapon was
identified as a hunting knife that Spongeon had bought for
Vicious a few days earlier. Now in question by police,
Vicious gave conflicting stories, first claiming to have killed her,
then saying he didn't remember anything, and then saying that
Spongent had accidentally fallen onto the knife. Vicious was arrested
and charged with second degree murder, a felony, and the
arresting officer said quote Vicious admitted killing mis Bungeon during
a dispute easy police paperwork, lazy police paperwork. Perhaps the
drug addicted punk rocker killed his girlfriend. Opened and shutcase
another punk off the streets, nice and neat right end
of story. Right wrong. On February first, nineteen seventy nine,
after completing a detox program at Riker's Island, Fisius was
released on bail. He returned to Manhattan, and he immediately
asked someone to get him some heroin. So in a
nutshell that night, Sid shot up the same amount of
heroin that he had used prior to detox, which caused
a fatal overdose, and he died before ever going to
trial for the murder of Nancy Spongeen case closed right well,
hold on. First, of all, Vicious was allegedly so out
of it the night of the murder he probably couldn't
have even swatted a fly let alone kill somebody with
a knife and stab him to death. Okay. Now, Also,
the couple were known to keep large amounts of cash
in the apartment, and from what I heard that he
had recently got a royalty check or something a fact,
so they had a lot of money laying around. Now,
this fact was supposedly known by one of the guests
at the party an actor by the name of Rocket's
Red Glare, nice stage name, and not only was he
at the party, he was also the guy who supplied
Sid allegedly with the tun All's now the money it
was missing after the murder, So therefore a possible motive.
Did Nancy catch him swiping the cash and did he
stabber like in a panic? Well? Redglair, who died in
two thousand and one, denied any involvement in the case,
but privately had confessed to friends that indeed he was
the murderer. But Redglair apparently also had a bad habit
of telling outrageous stories just to get attention, like a
pathological liar. So who knows now? Another man, a punk
rocker named Neon Leon another great name, who was also
a friend of Redglare's, and he lived down the hall
from Vicious and Spongeing. He was later found to be
in possession of many of Sid's personal belongings, like his
leather jacket. So another possible suspect, you tell me. At
one last point, Nancy Spongeing, she was not well liked.
In fact, she was seriously disliked by many people, like
almost everybody maybe except for Sid. Now, did she happen
to mouth off to the wrong person at the wrong
time at that party? You know, people do bad things
under the influences of a lot of drugs. Did she
tick somebody off so bad they just picked up the knife?
Land there? And I don't know, could this have been
a motive or a reason for murder? We'll probably never know.
None of these possibilities were ever followed up on, and
as far as the law was concerned, they had their
man Sid Vicious. But in my mind, the question remains
two questions, Sid Vicious, talented, debatable, a felon in my opinion, inconclusive. Now,
you can go watch the movie Sid Nancy if you want,
like the Walt Disney version, you know, I mean, it's
a good movie, but you know, had very little to
do with reality pretty much. I watched it way back when.
I think a better film to see is called The
Filth and the Fury about the sex Pistols and their
whole thing. That's a little more it's more like a documentary.
But yeah, I don't know. To me, it could have
been he could have done it. Yeah, there's so many
what ifs, or you know, when you're when you're dealing with.
Speaker 5: You know, you have an apartment full of unsavory people
to begin with, good luck, because that's what people who
are ready to throw everybody else under the bus.
Speaker 7: These are not. Yeah, there is no honor among these thieves.
Yeah that way, that.
Speaker 5: Sounds like a good crossover for a murder in the
Hudson Valley.
Speaker 7: I was thinking that when I was putting this together.
I said, yeah, this could be a murder in the Hudson.
Speaker 5: I think you may have to make a guest appearance
with Linda and me.
Speaker 7: I'd be honored, all right.
Speaker 5: I think we're gonna have to make this happen. There's
a lot more. It makes you wonder, like, is there
any evidence left? All right now I'm in the murder mindset,
you know, is there DNA left? Do they still have
the knife somewhere? Is you know, any of his belongings
still around?
Speaker 7: I don't know. But like I said, it made just
for a night, nice neat package that you know. Okay, Yeah,
he's a junkie. He stabbed her.
Speaker 5: Yeah the surface, that makes sense, sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but you have to prove it well. Yeah, and
again with all the other variables that I mentioned, and
probably even more.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, how secure was the hotel at the time,
Like could anybody get in and out? Could you get
to his room or do you have to go past
a doorman or you know what I mean. There's so
much that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, there was a lot of questions, a lot of questions. Marks.
Speaker 5: All right, you have speaked my interest on this.
Speaker 8: I was going to say that should be on one
of those closed case funds.
Speaker 5: No, it should be on murder in the Hudson Valley.
You'd be quiet. No, that was a good one. All right, thanks, Yeah,
all right, we have a lot to think about. But meanwhile,
I don't know whether to be horrified or nervous about
what Barber's going to share with us.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 14: Well, I won't get to graphic on this one, but
the creepy felon and you'll, if you don't already know,
you'll hear a little bit about that later.
Speaker 1: Creepy Fellon.
Speaker 14: I chose for today's topic is Gary Glitter, and I'm
sure most of you have heard of him. I'm going
to talk about his a music career first and his
crimes after we hear by song choice, which I'll mention
later on. Glitter was born Paul Francis Gadd on May eighth,
nineteen forty four, and besides being notorious for his felony convictions,
he was known professionally for being an English glam rock performer.
He never knew his father and his mother never married.
She worked as a cleaning lady, and he was raised
by both his mother and maternal grandmother. And he was very,
let's put it this way, hard to control, and at
age ten, was taken into what was called at the
time local authority care, so he frequently ran away to
London hung out at local nightclubs. He began performing at
these clubs, covering popular rock songs, and he got his
break when film producer Robert Hartford Davis discovered him and
got him a recording session with Decca Records at the
age of fifteen in January nineteen sixty He released his
first single, called Alone in the Night, under the stage
name Paul Raven in nineteen sixty one before working with
the Beatles. Producer George Martin produced two singles for him,
but these did not do well and his career stalled.
He did some occasional recording and touring with other bands
during the remainder of the decade. In nineteen seventy one,
he changed his name to Gary Glitter in accordance with
the growing popularity of the glamor rock movement, and started
to perform wearing flashy, glitterally glittery outfits and a stage
persona to match. He partnered with producer Mike Leander, who
created Glitters sound and persona. In nineteen seventy two, he
released the A and B sides of a single called
Rock and Roll Parts one and two. Part two became
more popular, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart,
and became widely used at sporting events. His second studio album,
called touch Me, released in nineteen seventy three, contains my
song choice for today's topic. Let's now pause and listen
to the lead single from that album, Do you Want
to Touch Me?
Speaker 15: It's a long time and along returning mister shush Man
and changed the temperatures inside and we get so much ship.
Speaker 16: Time time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, from.
Speaker 3: Falling into said.
Speaker 16: He's plays from Stone Stone Them changes wars.
Speaker 3: Comment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, alright, So there's do you Want to
Touch Me?
Speaker 14: The song was famous, sleek, covered and better in my
opinion by Jon Jet in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: But according to me, Jon Jet can do no wrong.
Speaker 5: So that's just me.
Speaker 7: Agreed, agreed, Yeah, I have to go with that.
Speaker 14: So Touch Me went on to be Glitter's best selling album,
and the popularity of glamrock declined in the late nineteen seventies,
and Glitter's career along with it. He attempted comebacks in
the nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties, but with limited success,
and continued for a time to perform in nostalgia tours.
Ah so, just a bit about his rap sheet if
you will. In nineteen ninety seven he was arrested and
in nineteen ninety nine convicted and imprisoned for downloading child pornography.
Speaker 1: And this is just the beginning.
Speaker 14: I'm not gonna talk about everything because there's a lot,
so let's just talk a little bit about some main
points here. In two thousand and six, in Vietnam, he
was convicted and imprisoned for child sexual abuse involving miners.
In twenty twelve in the UK, the Jimmy Seville scandal
became public, and this refers to the discoveries after the
death of British TV and radio personality Jimmy Seville. That
he had committed decades of numerous sexual assaults involving over
four hundred victims from the nineteen fifties to the two thousands,
and in twenty fifteen, Glitter's involvement in this scandal became public.
So at present Glitter is still in jail and his
music is widely banned or avoided in media. It's got
that stigma, and rightly so, and broadcasting and all royalties
are redirected or withheld. So even though you still hear
in his music sometimes on the radio, sometimes it's sporting events,
and it's got that stigma, he's not getting any money
for it, all right, which I didn't know till I
did the research.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you want to say good, but there's a lot
of bad to get to this.
Speaker 14: I know that when he was in Vietnam, they tried
to extradite him to Great Britain and he refused to go.
He evaded the police for a very long time trying
to get him, and then finally the police managed to
catch up with him and they escorted him to the airport,
through him on a plane and extradited him back to England.
Speaker 1: But he avoided it.
Speaker 5: I just think he didn't take spirit. Yeah, yeah, all right,
Well thanks Barbara. It's such a it's awkward to end.
S's one of those.
Speaker 1: It's born awkward, so have at it.
Speaker 7: Well, none of these, none of these segments, none of
these stories have like happy endings.
Speaker 5: Yeah you can't, you know, cheerfully go into your commercial break, now,
can you. So we're just gonna we're going to go
right into our break and come back with more felons.
Soick around, boy.
Speaker 9: Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 5: Hudson River Radio dot com, and welcome back, John. This
whole thing was your idea. So now's your turn. Good luck.
Speaker 9: Hey, Well my selection tonight was Marvin Berry's cousin Chuck.
Speaker 5: Excellent, So good old Chuck.
Speaker 10: Berry, who he's had a color he had excuse me,
he had a colorful career.
Speaker 9: I might add he had.
Speaker 10: Just a smidgeon of a problem with the law going
back in the day. The song I selected tonight was Mabelene,
which was one of his first hits. It was one
of his first singles in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 9: And the song itself isn't that bad. It's it's kind
of an one.
Speaker 10: You know, chasing your you know, chasing your X and
all of that, but uh, it's more of the life
of the of the uh, the creator of the song.
What was fascinating for me is Chuck Berry is widely
recognized as the founding father by of rock and roll,
according to a lot of sources, that I looked at
the founding father of rock and roll, if you really
want to think about it, I mean, who hasn't heard
Chuck Berry. I mean he was you know, all the
way back, you know, the fifties, the sixties especially, and uh,
for somebody who was so fabulously successful, he got into
a lot of trouble.
Speaker 9: And I mean a lot of trouble. I don't know
how I was to describe it. So why don't we
listen to Mabelene.
Speaker 10: I'll talk a little bit about that, and uh, we'll
list some of his offenses after the song.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's play it.
Speaker 3: Why can't you be true? Why can't you be true?
It is started doing the thing you used to do.
I said, I wasn't motiv eating over the hill. I
saw mav Lean in a Cooper Hill cardiac of rolling
on the open road. Nothing not running by phple Cadillac
doing about ninety five followed on my roll inside the side.
Why can't you beat you? Why can't you beat you?
You didn't started back doing anything you used to do.
My cadillac hold up the herd of the four before,
got a hot and wouldn't do it, don't move come,
got a cloud and started to rain. I chewed in
my arm, put a passing like a rain water flowing
all one of my hood. I knew that I was
doing my mold of good maybely.
Speaker 1: Why can't you be truth?
Speaker 3: Oh mabe, why can't you be true? You done started
back doing the thing you used to do.
Speaker 6: Why can't you beat you?
Speaker 3: Why can't you beat you? You done started back doing
the thing you used to do. I'm monna cool down.
Speaker 13: He went down, and that's when I heard that highways
down cadillacs thatting like a torn of dead hard than
ten and a half a mile ahell.
Speaker 3: Cadillac looking like sitting still. And our caught Mabel at
the top of the hill. Why can't you beat you?
Why can't you beat you? You done started back doing
anything you used to do?
Speaker 10: Okay, Mabelene nineteen fifty five. Chuck Berry, First of all,
where do you think they came up? With the title
for Mabelene. It was from somebody spotted a mascara box
on the floor of the recording studio, Are you kidding me?
Not kidding? And they just said, well, hell, let's just
leave name. Let's just name it Mabelene. So yes, So basically,
Mabelene was a rock and roll swing song by Chuck Berry,
adapted in part from the Western swing fiddle tune Ida
Red tell Us the story of a hot rod race
and broken romance.
Speaker 9: The lyrics describe a man driving a V eight Ford. Well,
those must have been awesome.
Speaker 10: Back in the day, chasing his unfaithful girlfriend in our
Cadillac coupe Deville.
Speaker 9: So there you go. Mabelene. So pretty great song. It
just I think it it It epitomizes Chuck Berry.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 10: I know everybody's thinking, Johnny be good, but no, we
wanted to go a little little bit different direction here
and talk a little bit about other things that this
man did now, his other accomplishments, you know, Maybelene. Great
song kind of established that Chuck Berry swing feel to it,
you know, clean cut, you know, V eight Ford, coop
Deville running around having a good time. Nineteen fifties, happy days,
Happy days, Thank you very much, Neil. Happy days are
here again, right? Yeah, well not so much. So let's
talk about Chuck Berry and some of his lighter side.
Speaker 9: Okay.
Speaker 10: Nineteen forty four, armed robbery. Before his music career took off,
Barry was convicted of arm robbery in Kansas City and
spent three years in a reformatory.
Speaker 9: Oops, okay, a Man Act conviction. I'm not even quite
sure what that was.
Speaker 10: Nineteen fifty nine, at the height of his early fame,
Berry was arrested and convicted for violating the Mail There
it is the Man Act, which prohibited transporting a minor
across state line for immoral purposes. The incident involved a
fourteen year old girl he brought from Mexico to work
at his Saint Louis club. After an initial conviction was
overturned and a second trial held, he served twenty months
of a three year sentence in federal prison.
Speaker 9: So we're off to a pretty good start here, folks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so far.
Speaker 10: The tax evasion. Twenty years after his first major conviction,
he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to four
months in prison in one thousand hours of community service.
Speaker 7: Now I don't know if this had anything to do
with it, but he was known later on in you know,
later in his career. Yes, two, he would ask his
rider would say he'd have to be paid in cash,
in a suitcase of cash in the back. I think
of a Lincoln town car, so we could drive himself
to and from the gig. So he's getting paid in cash.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was to avoid promoters, you know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, everything, and you don't really have to claim claim
anything actions on it. That's you know, so that could
have been part of it.
Speaker 9: I don't know, but I think you're probably that's probably
kind of true there, Neil. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: He was a predecessor for no tax on tips.
Speaker 9: There you go.
Speaker 3: So let's go on.
Speaker 9: What else did this young fella do here?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 10: We got drugs and weapons charges in nineteen ninety following
a raid on his home, authorities found marijuana and firearms,
which were illegal for him to possess.
Speaker 9: Of the felon he faced.
Speaker 10: He faced the charges, but in a nineteen ninety plea deal,
he agreed to two years of unsupervised probation on a
reduced marijuana misdemeanor charge. Okay, you think he would kind
of round it out. He's getting a little up there
in years. We're talking about nineteen ninety man born with
nineteen twenty seven sexual misconduct allegations. In the nineteen nineties,
he was soon for allegedly secretly filming women in the
bathrooms of his restaurant, Southern Air in Missouri, ew Yes.
He reached a multimillion dollar settlement with some of the plaintiffs,
though he denied the allegations. According to the Los Angeles Times,
all right, so, despite his criminal record, Barry's musical influence
remained massive, and the industry largely overlooked his legal troubles
during his lifetime, with peers often focusing on his artistic genius.
You know, drugs, firearms, you know, immoral behavior. In twenty eleven,
his hometown of Saint Louis approved an eight foot statue
in his honor, despite protests from residents who objected to
honoring a convicted felon. There you go, the lighter side
of Marvin's cousin, Chuck Chuck Berry.
Speaker 9: Hope you all enjoyed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's quite the rap sheet.
Speaker 9: Really Yeah, well, you know it was a good one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that is a good one. My pick is probably
the least severe out of everybody's felony tonight.
Speaker 1: So you have the palate cleanser so unusual?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really do so, But I want to give
you the earworm. So picture a few notes lower than
if I go, hey, baby, who do you think of immediately?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I can't go as low. The one and
only Barry White. One of the most distinctive voices I
would say of modern music belongs to Barry White. The
deep baritone voice that helped him become one of the
best selling artists of all time. He had twenty two
zero studio albums, plus who knows how many compilations and
different versions and blah blah. He wound up with sixty
five gold albums, forty one platinum albums, along with twenty
gold singles and ten plats them singles. His worldwide record
sales exceed one hundred million records. Wow, not too bad, right,
not too bad. He was born Barry Eugene Carter in Galveston, Texas,
in nineteen forty four. His father's name was Melvin White
and his mother was Sadie Carter. Sadie then found out
that Melvin already had another wife. They were not married,
but Melvin was, so when Barry was born, she gave
Barry her last name Carter. Well, Melvin saw Barry Carter
on the birth certificate and didn't like it, so he
took a pen and scratched out Carter and hand wrote white,
which is the nineteen forty four equivalent of putting liquid
paper on your computer screen because it doesn't change anything.
But as Barry grew up, he used the name White,
so there you go. Barry also had a younger brother
named Darryl.
Speaker 9: His family.
Speaker 5: They were in Texas because his his family was there,
so when she gave birth, the family was there to help.
They moved back to the Watts neighborhood in south central LA.
His mom was an actor turned piano teacher, so he
grew up listening to his mom's classical records. She gave
him piano lessons, so he started young, and his signature
bass voice pretty much popped up overnight when he was
around fourteen. He said in a few interviews that one
morning when he was thirteen fourteen, he woke up, walked
into the kitchen where his mom was and started to talk,
and his voice scared the.
Speaker 9: Both of them.
Speaker 5: At the same time, because it went from high pitch
and squeaky to Barry White overnight, which I can kind
of believe. As he grew up, he unfortunately found himself
involved in some gang activity. His younger brother Daryl was
killed during a gang related incident, and Barry himself was
arrested for stealing thirty thousand dollars worth of tires in
nineteen sixty Cadillac tires. Specifically, today those tires would be
worth in the neighborhood of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars,
so that would be a felony level offense there, grand larceny.
Barry was seventeen when he stole the tires. He only
went to jail for four months, even though it was
a felony. I'm guessing his age had something to do
with it, and it was probably a first not necessarily
first defense, but first defense. He got caught at maybe,
so he did his four months, and while he was
in jail, that's when he first heard Elvis Presley, which
he said changed the course of his life, specifically the
song It's Now or Never, which I happened to talk
about a few months ago. He spoke of another inspirational moment.
After he got out of jail, he skipped high school
on his eighteenth birthday and he hung out at the
Capitol Records building in Hollywood and watched all the activity
going on and saw like the business side of things,
and that was it. He was reformed. He left both
jail and gang life behind him. He was a one
and done, which good for him, and he managed to
start a musical career at several small record labels, both
as a singer and behind the scenes as a producer
and an A and R man. In the nineteen seventies,
he was persuaded to step out on his own. He
created a forty piece band called the Love Unlimited Orchestra,
which remember that yep. So that helped usher in the
disco era by combining R and B with classical style
of music. The orchestra actually had string sections and all that,
so it was a legit orchestra. He wrote a song
titled Love's Theme in nineteen sixty five remember that, yeah Yeah.
It wasn't recorded until nineteen seventy three with the Love
Unlimited Orchestra that went to number one. So he had
put together the Love Unlimited Orchestra to be the backing
band for a girl group he produced and wrote for
called Love Unlimited. The girls group had some success, but
then they broke up, but he kept the orchestra for himself,
which smart He wrote instrumentals for them, which also became
hits in the nineteen seventies. So I note one of
the saxophonists in the Love Unlimited Orchestra was a guy
named Kenny Gorlic, who KENNYG would later go by Kenny G.
Speaker 9: There you go, So any Gorlic was his name?
Speaker 5: Can you understand why he went by Kenny G? Yes? Yes?
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 5: By the early nineteen eighties, the orchestra stopped recording albums
on their own, but again Barry kept them as his
backing band moving forward, they did you know. Members would
go in and out, but the orchestra still existed. Barry
White was well established as the songwriter and producer at
this point, and he was a respected singer in the
inner circles. At this point, he wanted to find a
new solo mail artist to produce and work with, so
he wrote some songs and he recorded the demos him
self in order to play the demos to pitch the
songs to other artists. But his business associate, who was
bankrolling all of this, heard the demos and said, no, no,
you're gonna do these yourself. Good call. That decision led
to all the hit singles that we know, all the
Barry White songs that I don't think we even need
to cover. Just they're all hits. You've heard them. I
know you've heard them. Equally well known. Barry was a
bit overweight, up to three hundred and seventy five pounds,
give or take. At one point. He had the beard,
he had a deep voice, and all of that earned
him the nickname the Walrus of Love. In the UK somehow,
Walrus of the Walrus of Love. That was more of
a UK thing, not so much in the US. He
did not appreciate it at first, but he later leaned
into it and actually would use it himself. Yeah, that's
a tough one. That's a tough one. I don't know
if I'd want to go with that, but it is
what it is. What can I say? In the US
he picked up nicknames like Doctor Love, the King of Disco,
and others. But nothing beats Walrus. You can't top wal.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Walverses are kind of ruined for me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I'll never hear I am the Walrus.
Speaker 14: I agree, being being like happy and revolted at the
same time.
Speaker 5: Anytime you see a Walrush, you're gonna in your mind,
you're gonna go hey, baby.
Speaker 7: The Walls wasn't Paul, it was it was It was
very well marry Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Well. By the nineteen eighties, disco had fallen out of favor.
Just ask doctor Johnny Fever on WKRP. He kept recording
new material, it just didn't have the same success. But
then in the nineteen nineties, disco had a resurgence and
his popularity went back up. One of the tracks he
recorded in the nineties was a song in Your Wildest
Dreams with Tina Turner, which got him back on the charts.
The highlight of his career, I would imagine would be
his two appearances on The Simpsons. He was in the
episode Whacking Day, which was a fake holiday in Springfield
where they would gather up and beat snakes to death
with a stick, and Barry was against it, so they
used his deep voice to attract snakes into the Simpsons
house to save them from being literally whacked to death,
And he was on the episode Krusty gets canceled. Both
of those were in nineteen ninety three. Totally worth watching.
Barry was married twice. He had a total of nine kids,
eight within the marriage and then one outside. At least
two of them so far have sued the estate for money.
Good luck with that. I already suffered from some health
problems because of his weight and his ridiculously heavy smoking.
One estimate was in the neighborhood of one hundred and
fifty cigarettes per day, per day, which I don't even
know how you could do that, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, that's enough to kill a walrus.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you have to have like three in your mouth
at one time.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think it averaged out to one every seven
minutes around the clock, which I can't I can't imagine.
I cannot imagine. But on top of that, he was diabetic,
and the diabetes caused kidney failure, excuse me. On top
of that, he battled high blood pressure for years. He
was not the picture of health. He was on dialysis
while waiting for a kidney transplant, and in May of
two thousand and three, he suffered a major stroke, which
forced him into retirement, and the stroke also caused him
to start having seizures and all these health issues unfortunately
took him off of the transplant list, so he couldn't
had a kidney transplant. He wound up passing away on
July fourth, two thousand and three, and he was only
fifty eight years old.
Speaker 9: Excuse me.
Speaker 5: When you see pictures of him, it looks a little older.
But yeah, fifty eight. I did fifty eight.
Speaker 9: He always seemed much older.
Speaker 5: He looked like he was born older when you see
pictures of him. Yeah, he never looked young. He looked
like he started in his late forties and not so much.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so smoking's bad for you if you didn't get
the message it, Yeah, so I thought, excuse me, I
thought we would go back to the beginning and listen
to his first single as a solo artist. It came
out in nineteen sixty six, and he used the stage
name Lee Barry for some reason, no explanation why. But
the song is called man Ain't Nothing, So let's give.
Speaker 6: It a listen.
Speaker 4: Amad is nothing, I don't woman, that's you and every reway. Yeah,
I just want to tell you about this girl a man,
and I want you to listen everywhere that I say,
she's everything always that'll please.
Speaker 6: God.
Speaker 7: Weason that you'll.
Speaker 4: Tex says, we made.
Speaker 13: Me so much.
Speaker 4: She knows just what you do.
Speaker 17: Whatever I'm feeling, sady, no matter if I'm able that
she'll always be around. I don't need nobody else. She's
enough all by her fair other me almost father, measiblest to.
Speaker 7: Me to the mom, No mother, no moms.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to fin.
Speaker 13: I dot faster.
Speaker 4: Abody long time.
Speaker 6: But now that I found it, I'll tell you what
I'm calling it.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna hold on to it.
Speaker 4: Aren't you my life?
Speaker 6: Oh nothing?
Speaker 3: You ain't tell you Here's.
Speaker 5: She's always that understand.
Speaker 3: What's FSA wa to be head way.
Speaker 6: My girl?
Speaker 3: Excuse me happy nine.
Speaker 9: And lay this kind of hell?
Speaker 3: Every man, you really really really worm.
Speaker 7: This conor little You've got the ad.
Speaker 5: Met a woman, and Lord, it ain't a.
Speaker 3: Woman that cares.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: No, I've got the d world not ha to lock.
Speaker 17: And its old white.
Speaker 12: And that.
Speaker 5: Don't love me?
Speaker 13: You don't know for me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 7: What's the thing.
Speaker 3: I don't say.
Speaker 6: What are the wis I said I love? I said
I love.
Speaker 5: I would say anybody in the music business back then
who heard Barry White would have been nuts to let
him go, because I mean, talk about distinctive. Another one
of those that you know it's him. Yeah, whether you
may like the music or not, you know it's Barry White,
and you're going to spend the rest of the night
walking around going oh yeah, and I'm not sorry about it.
What else can I say?
Speaker 6: So that's it.
Speaker 5: He stole tires at the felony level, which I think
from from all our selections, tonight was probably the least serious.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, yeah, stole tires.
Speaker 5: Tires. Yeah, well they're worth a lot of They're worth
how much more now?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Oh my god, they're ridiculous.
Speaker 7: Gary glitters are going.
Speaker 5: Exactly. Yeah, So that's it, right, Yeah, lots of felons
out there. It was hard to narrow it down that
it was a good topic.
Speaker 9: It was, yeah, thank you, it was. It was a
tough one. It was a good one, but a tough one.
Speaker 5: Yes, we're gonna have them because there was so many choices.
We'll circle back and find some more in the new KA.
Speaker 9: I think there's a few more out there to select.
Speaker 5: There's a lot, there's definitely a lot. All right, let's
pull the plug. This was a good one, so thank
you Crambones. Excellent selections across the board, and we wish
Mercedes the best of luck getting back on Earth, so
hopefully she'll be back for the next show. So all right,
thank you all for joining us here for the Rock
and Roll History Show. Don't forget to subscribe in your
favorite podcast app and check out all the other shows
we do at Hudson River Radio because there is something
for everybody. We'll see you next time with another brand
new episode. Until then, have a great weekend and peace
out everybody.
Speaker 8: A rock cop bottom. Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 5: Hudsonriverradio dot com a subsidiary of Glacier Entertainment LLC. Potentially successful.
It's multi one hundred dollars corporation on the