Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: I've seen please that we're more exciting than this, Honest
to God.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 4: This is John Fulbright. Hi, this is Jar Williams.
Speaker 5: Hi.
Speaker 6: This is Mitch Margle of the Tokens. Hi.
Speaker 3: This is Gary us bonds Man here on the Rock
and Roll History Show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the
Rock and Roll History Show in Hudson River Radio. I'm
Brian Horowitz. Tonight we're gonna be talking about songs that
give instructions or commands or tell you what to do,
so make sure you listen closely. And as always, before
we hop in, allow me to introduce all the cranbones
who are joining us tonight. First and foremost, from the
Richter Observatory. He once got arrested for stealing. Hey, he
couldn't make bail.
Speaker 7: Hey, that's a good comeback. I gotta admit that was good.
Speaker 8: Hey, ho, let's go, everybody.
Speaker 3: And from Paranormally yours. She just got over her addiction
to marshmallows, chocolate and nuts. It was a rocky road.
Speaker 9: Gawn, the goodness here, oh my goodness. And you know
I only do the coaster or the vegan morsh mellows.
Speaker 3: Right, me too. They have some pretty good ones now
that actually toast up the right way. Oh really, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: But the thing is the kosher ones. Sometimes they're made
with fish gelatin and right, yeah, I don't do that.
You can't taste it or smell it. But the boy,
my cat's certainly fan.
Speaker 3: I thought you were gonna say. You pop it in
your mouth and it swims around like crazy.
Speaker 11: Oh.
Speaker 9: If I make the mistake of leaving an open bag
on the dineymoon table, I come home from work and
it's been mangled, and my cat's looks very happy.
Speaker 3: Your cats are set around the stove holding sticks, the
marshmallows on the end everywhere.
Speaker 9: Actually, my stove is electric, so they must be making
their own fire.
Speaker 12: Which is frightening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's scary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if they can make crackers out of fish, why not?
Speaker 9: Yeah, no, thank you, all right.
Speaker 3: And from the silver screen, she saw a purple chameleon
walk into a bar and order a beer. The bartender asked,
are you supposed to be green? And the chameleon says, yeah,
I have reptile dysfunction. Oh the poor guy, he got
his beer, he's all right.
Speaker 2: I bet he was cute purple.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm getting such a visual.
Speaker 2: With I know, I know, I was avoiding that.
Speaker 3: And our retired teacher he was telling his wife how
man splainters get their water from a well. Actually, John
Kelly is here.
Speaker 7: Oh that was that was deep, Brian, that was very deep.
Speaker 3: At last, Bano Lea's the host of shaving Cream. She
just flew in from a Ravioli convention. Boyard's arms tired.
Barbara Barbara, oh.
Speaker 7: Oh oh oh that's painful.
Speaker 3: There, I'm sorry all around. So tonight's idea came courtesy
of Barbara. But since Mercedes was on a trip last week,
she has to do a makeup. So Mercedes, you get
to go first.
Speaker 2: I oh, I don't have to explain anything.
Speaker 3: You can explain whatever you want. You can explain where
you were, why you weren't here, what you brought back
with you and oh okay, or you don't have to
that's entirely but either way, you get to go first
this week.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm thrilled. Well, I was at Amsterdam. That's where
I was, and it was great and I loved it.
It's my second time there in six months.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 8: Nice.
Speaker 2: My son actually has an apartment there. So that's pretty cool,
and it was lovely good. Did not did not smoke
the weed. Okay, what can I say?
Speaker 3: Well, that's good. How was your to teach their own?
To teach their own? Yeah? So and your flight back
was okay, because we're recording a little ahead of time,
the flight disruptions around, but you were good, right, you
made it back like you're surprised.
Speaker 10: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Everybody told me not to go to sleep though, which
you know, I got on the plane and passed out immediately,
completely completely passed out. But yeah, I'm doing okay, So
that's good, welcome back. Those long those long trips are hell.
Speaker 10: Let's face it, how many hours?
Speaker 2: I mean it's only eight you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a jet lag, you know, the time
difference rushing around airports. Get on this line, get on
that line.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, we've all done those, those European trips or overseas trips.
You know, it's it could be a rough adjustment.
Speaker 3: Sometimes.
Speaker 2: My daughter had a layover and it was a two
hour layover in Copenhagen, Yeah, and it got it ended
up to be a total of five hour layover with
a ten month old baby. Oh and no stroller because
they would take the stroller out of the flight.
Speaker 7: Almost my god, that's painful.
Speaker 2: It's painful. Yeah, because she's a heavy baby.
Speaker 3: So wow.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so am I explaining the topic?
Speaker 3: No, I thought he covered it. I mean, okay, you
can do e recap if you'd like to.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just something I hear. I was listening
to the radio and they were playing songs that were commands,
and I said, oh, this is a good idea for topic.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's it. Well, it's a really good idea for a
topic because it's a song that I've been wanting to
do on the show for a really long time and
couldn't quite figure out how to get it in there.
Speaker 1: I love your song choice.
Speaker 10: I know, I love.
Speaker 2: This song so much, and maybe it's a little corny
for some people, but I love like the whole story
and how it rolls out and being a bit of
a glorified secretary myself for many years way back when
the command take a letter Maria is something I can
relate to. Seymour Stein, president of Siah Records, and my
boss used to say this to me often and actually
set me to Steno's school. If anybody remembers what that is.
Speaker 7: Wow, we'll talk about a blast in the past there.
Speaker 2: So he could dictate faster to me. But unfortunately I
failed it miserably and I ended up having to make
up my own scrawl in the end because yeah, because
he was he was a big angry guy and he
was not happy with me at all. It would take
a letter. Maria as a song written and recorded by R. B.
Greeves and released in nineteen sixty nine and produced by
the president of Atlantic Records at Urtigan, who I like
used to answer phone calls from, which is crazy Wow.
It is described in Wikipedia as having a Latin music flavor,
complete with a Mariachi style horn section.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: It was recorded at the famous Muscle Sholls sound studio.
It was using studio musicians who had left nearby fame
studios to create their own recording facility. Musicians included in
this track included Roger Hawkins on drums, Barry Beckett on
electric piano, Eddie Hinton and Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David
Hood on bass, mel Lastie on trumpet, and Donna Jean
Thatcher on vocals who later became Donna Jean Gods, I'm
sorry God, Show.
Speaker 6: Of the Grateful Dead correct.
Speaker 2: The record was certified gold three months after its release
and charted at number two on the Billboard Hot one hundred,
but was kept out of the number one slat by
Wedding Bell Blues by the Fifth Dimension. If anybody remembers
that song, I love that song. It was incidentally written
by Laura Niro. I had no idea, so take a letter.
Maria was the first hit to come out of the
newly formed Muscle Showals Sound studio.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for trying to argue with me.
Speaker 3: Now you are correct so far.
Speaker 2: Greeves won a Grammy for a Song of the Year
in nineteen seventy for the song. It's been covered by
a handful of country artists and also Meltormee, which I
did actually listen to that version, but I'm curious. He
had one other chart topper with Always Something Near to
Remind Me, written by Burt Backrack and Hal David, originally
recorded as a demo tape by Diane Warwick in nineteen
sixty three and was a number eight hit for Naked
Eyes in nineteen eighty three. The Greaves version is really good.
And it reached the top forties in early nineteen seventy.
I would recommend he just has such a great voice.
I would highly recommend listening to that. So let's take
a listen to take a letter, Maria.
Speaker 11: Last night, as I got home about half fast in
there was a woman up on you in the arms
of another manoladging no food.
Speaker 6: Let me tell you what happened. Then I'm back some
cloves and I'm walked up in an angle. So take
a letter, Maria.
Speaker 13: I dress it to my wife, See I will be
coming home.
Speaker 6: Gotta stip under your life.
Speaker 4: You take a letter, Maria.
Speaker 13: I dressed to my wire, said I gonna be to
my lawyer. Gotta stap under your life.
Speaker 11: If you've made many things, but most I could secondary
on me, and it stands like this, say you've always
been close to me. Once I wrote to night to
trying to build the life all work, and only.
Speaker 14: Has just cussed me a while.
Speaker 6: Should take a letter, Maria.
Speaker 13: Address it to my wife, See I will be coming home.
You gotta sign under your life will go.
Speaker 4: I conser to my mother.
Speaker 6: Send a copy to my mother. YadA A new life
woman not a woman. It's hard to understand, but she could.
Speaker 15: Find more pleasure in the arms of my men.
Speaker 6: I never really knows.
Speaker 16: A speech you up to me.
Speaker 6: It just so happens.
Speaker 11: I'm free to night, Would you better have dinner with me?
Speaker 16: Don't they a letter Maria.
Speaker 4: I listen to my mother.
Speaker 6: Say I'm becoming home, got a sad A new life?
Speaker 16: Or the letter Coria.
Speaker 6: I listen to my wife send a copy to my mother,
Goda my new life.
Speaker 8: We'll take on that on.
Speaker 10: So I think it's so good, but's so good.
Speaker 2: I think the story is pretty clear. A man comes
home for work and finds his wife with another man.
He doesn't start a fight with either one of them,
but just packs a bag and leaves, later telling his
secretary Maria to write up a letter to his wife
saying he's not coming home again. I always kind of
admired the guy for not overreacting but keeping cool and
just walking out. And after going through some of something
similar to this in my family, it kind of really
hits close to home for me, and as Brian brought
up during the song as we were listening to it, yeah,
it makes me uncomfortable that he turns around as like, oh,
I never really noticed that you were like really hot,
or that you were really nice to be, Like, I've
got nothing to do tonight. I don't know that.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, suddenly my schedule is open. Yeah yeah, what
you're doing, Maria.
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes me feel weird, especially because you know,
being a secretary, you get hit on by everybody in
the damn office anyway, So I know what that's like.
Speaker 8: So RB Greaves wasn't grieving all that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: I see what you did there.
Speaker 2: So RB's actual name is Ronald Bertram Aloysius Greeves, the third.
Speaker 10: Not Awsolemn, I know, right.
Speaker 2: He was half Native American, and there's not much information
on the details of the other half. He was born
on a US Army base at Georgetown, Guyana, Guyanaana. He
grew up on a Seminole Indian reservation in California, but
he moved to England in nineteen sixty three, and he
is the nephew of Sam.
Speaker 3: Cook, which may or may not have helped him.
Speaker 2: Prior to his recordings in the US, Greaves had built
a career both in the Caribbean and the UK, where
he performed under the name Sunny Child with his group
The TNTs. It's not a lot of information out there
on that. By the way, Greaves also did a cover
of a Wiier shade of Pale. Neil, did you know that?
Speaker 8: I didn't know that?
Speaker 2: No, which is so good? I love his voice. I
went down a rabbit hole on the lyrics of that song,
and everyone has a different take on it. From nuns
trying to escape the Nazis in World War Two, a
man who visited by his long dead lover, a hodgepotch
of literary references, a parody of the deep meaning heavy
songs popular in the day, like the year twenty the
year twenty five, the Titanic Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe and
JFK And a mermaid who goes ashore for a night
and a man falls in love with her in a
dance hall. So that was mind blowing to me. I
could not find out do you know what the lyrics are, Neil?
I mean, do you know?
Speaker 8: Well? What I heard that The guy who wrote the song,
my name is Keith Reid, basically just said it was
just kind of romanticizing a wild party that had been on,
you know that they'd been to the night before. Nothing
nothing as far fetched as you know, the Mermaids and
all that. You know, it was just a wild party
and it was way you know, he just interpreted it
in a psychedelic way. Of course, I did.
Speaker 2: Forget one it was a coke to groupie or that,
or that could have been at.
Speaker 10: The wild.
Speaker 3: Could have been imagining Mermaids.
Speaker 2: I just I mean, I think it's really cool because
obviously it sparks people's imagination, righty.
Speaker 8: Well, I've always said that songs like that that have
you know, kind of ambiguous if that's the right word lyrics,
people can attach their own meaning to it and make
it like personalize it to themselves, you know, and even
if it has no connection to what the song was
actually about, they you know, they can internalize it as
their own. And that's what you know. You get enough
people to do that, you got to hit on your hands.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, for sure. So I thought that was fascinating
and I was again, I'm so glad I finally got
to do this song on the show because it is
a big fave of mine. And as I was saying earlier,
I always thought I was the only one that knew
about this song.
Speaker 3: The Giant kit.
Speaker 2: I thought it was my special song.
Speaker 3: Oh well, anything muscle shoals related is a okay with me.
I was just back down there in March again, so
it's we'll get you all down there. You can actually
see the room where they did that whole recording. Still
they set it back up the same way, so cool.
David Hood is the last remaining Swamper and he's dealing
with some Parkinson's issues, so he plays, but not as
much as he used to, but his corner is still
set up as the bass player. He's, you know, on
my short list of the role model bass players, but
his each musician kind of had the wrong corner in
the room and there was a little drum booth for
Roger Hawkins, and David picked the back door near the
control booth because he was the only one that didn't
smoke and he could be by the back door with
the door propped open and get some fresh air while
everybody else was chain smoking inside like everybody did in
the sixties, you know. And he's also the last one alive,
so maybe there's a connection there. Just going to found
that out.
Speaker 2: Now, you see, today the smoker would be the one
that would want to be by the door because they
can go.
Speaker 3: Have to go outside. Yeah, smoke right back then, you
could smoke in airplanes and oh yeah, you walk into
a restaurant smoking or non smoking. I remember those, which
is just as like it matters. Yeah, like there's some
magic force field that stopped it at that table. That
was the last table that had smoke, you know, I
mean still you go into smoker's houses and stuff, and
it's on the walls, it's on everything.
Speaker 9: I remember all too vividly that a job that I
had in nineteen nineteen, nineteen ninety one. I was an
office worker in one of these you know, open plan offices,
and you could still smoke in the office, and I
sat next to a chain smoker.
Speaker 10: I'm surprised. I'm still alive.
Speaker 3: Surprised, I'm still alive. You didn't reach over.
Speaker 9: And I also sat between two women who despised each other,
So that was.
Speaker 10: That was interesting.
Speaker 1: I remember requesting a non smoking dormitory in college.
Speaker 2: Wow, oh yeah, and did they have them?
Speaker 10: Yeah they had them? Oh wow, yeah yeah wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Times are a little different, aren't they.
Speaker 8: Yep?
Speaker 10: Thank goodness, ye all.
Speaker 3: Right, excellent.
Speaker 2: At least at least we still have songs like that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yes, totally. So that was a good one. I
like that one, so good job A plus and welcome back,
and Gail, we're up to you.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 9: Tonight is another episode of What Gail happened to hear
on the radio on her way to or from work.
And I heard this song and I love it. I
haven't heard it in very a long time. It's epitome
of the eighties.
Speaker 8: So I'm not gonna say anything. I'll reserve my judgment.
Speaker 3: On after a week off.
Speaker 2: He just crawled under the table. Yeah, it's come back.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. I had ear plugs in. I'm sorry, let
me take them out. Okay, I'm back now.
Speaker 9: If any of you besides me know this, Barbara might,
I'll be surprised, because, yeah, it was kind of a
hit over here in this country, but not as much
as in the band's native Australia, and it wasn't one
of the more famous nineteen eighties songs that I remember.
The band that it's from is called Real Life and
they started in nineteen eighty. This song called Send Me
an Angel, was on their debut album that came out
in nineteen eighty three. Now, the members of Real Life,
because it says they're active nineteen eighty to present.
Speaker 10: Well, really, the only one left.
Speaker 9: Is David Sterry, who was the original, you know, lead vocalist,
and he and this other guy started the band, but
the band kind of drifted apart, and so now it's
just him and whatever backup band.
Speaker 10: He decides to use at the time.
Speaker 9: Apparently he still tours. The past members were Richard z Torski,
who David Sterry used to write the songs with. They
had some kind of an actual falling out at one
point and the Torski left the band. Apparently he wanted
to become more commercial so they would make more money,
and David Sterry wasn't really into that. He actually wanted
to go kind of dark and goth kind of things.
So let's have a listen to.
Speaker 17: Send you Believe in Heaven to you Believe, don't tell, lie,
don't be bus and true.
Speaker 4: It all comes back to you. By on My Burning Hot,
I've Never.
Speaker 17: Been in Love, My Offences, the Kissa Brown, the Kidsava, Oh.
Speaker 4: My Heart, I look for a WAPs and cows I'll
name in my heart.
Speaker 6: I'll turn away.
Speaker 4: Every day. The Bobby let Us Spray. So's a big
looking in it gets in your eyes, it's making you right,
doesn't know what to do, don't know what to do.
You're looking for them cot heather in the bud.
Speaker 16: Send me elage, send men age right now.
Speaker 4: Right, send me a cha, send.
Speaker 16: Me an age right right.
Speaker 17: The sea trains kind of like the sapphine in a
room behind your smile.
Speaker 4: But don't give up, don't give up.
Speaker 16: You can be looking at up.
Speaker 6: Gets in your eyes. It's making you cry.
Speaker 4: Don't you want to do?
Speaker 18: You don't know what to do, looking for up calling
the boat, sell agel, Send me to the angel, right.
Speaker 4: Right, send me send me to ride, ride again.
Speaker 3: K K.
Speaker 9: K S.
Speaker 17: S R.
Speaker 8: R S S.
Speaker 9: Not only does he want Heaven to send him an angel,
he wants it right now.
Speaker 3: Right now. With those drum machines, so you could do it.
Speaker 10: It's it's real drums and a real drummer.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, Tom sounded a little. Drum machines sounded like
yeah playing electric drums. Yeah, yeah, So he gets full
credit if that's the case.
Speaker 8: Yeah, No, that counts. If it is. You could be
banging on a pot of a pan and you're still
playing it. That exactly counts. Yeah.
Speaker 9: In the in the video, it showed real drums in
concert they used choose real drums, so I don't know.
Speaker 8: Right, but.
Speaker 9: The video for that when they actually had music videos,
and the ones in the eighties, as I've said time
and time again, were so creative and so imaginative.
Speaker 10: This one was awesome.
Speaker 9: It had to do with a misty, dark forest and
a beautiful woman all dressed in black and I couldn't
tell if she was trying to get away from somebody
or trying to get towards somebody.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 10: And then there's this guy on horseback that you see.
Speaker 9: He's dressed like medieval and then he gets off the
horse in the video and he turns his face towards
the camera and he either has a massive case of hyper.
Speaker 10: Gricosis. Did I pronounce that right, Brian? He did very good,
or he's a werewolf. Personally, I think the werewolf thing
would be much cooler. But you know me, So that's
that the video.
Speaker 9: They had another hit called catch Me I'm Falling, but
I don't remember that one quite honestly. The album was
called Heartland and what happened was in nineteen eighty six
was when Richard Zatorski left and he was replaced by
George Poppas in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 10: After a long hiatus of band activity. That sounds like
a really good name for a band long hiatus. Wow,
I have a very twisted sense of humor. You guys
know that.
Speaker 9: They re recorded this in nineteen eighty nine, and I'm
trying to find out where why, because Barbara asked me. Yeah, look,
I don't know, I just I just know they did
it again in eighty nine. Supposedly, the eighty nine version
is remastered and the drums, the drums are more you know,
faced forward.
Speaker 1: Alrightself for the purpose of remastering. Yeah, there's a lot
of songs out there like that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean this.
Speaker 9: The eighty three version peaked in early nineteen eighty four
in the US at number twenty nine on the Billboard
Hot one hundred, which isn't too bad, but it was
number one in Germany and New Zealand, and it was
top ten in other countries. Now, when they re released
it in eighty nine, it reached a peak of number
twenty six on the Billboard Hot one hundred at the
summer of nineteen eighty nine. The song is feat shirt
in the sound tracks of I haven't heard of most
of these, the American movies rad From nineteen eighty six,
teen Wolf two nineteen eighty seven, The Wizard nineteen eighty nine,
and the Brazilian telenovela I don't pronounce Portrait as well,
uh Rena does Sukata nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: Missed that one.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, considering all the stuff from the topic last
week that I found so many interesting things coming out
of Brazil lately. Ah, So that's pretty much well I've got.
I hope you enjoyed the song. I certainly did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember that song. I couldn't tell you if
I remember it, but now I don't know if it
was the original or the eighty nine, right, Yeah, because
I would have been in high school for the eighty nine.
It might be that one i'm remembering.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I might surprise no one that I didn't recognize
it at all. Yeah, I think eighty three. I was
in a blackout, you know.
Speaker 2: So okay, so you's not your time period, so.
Speaker 10: You've never heard it before?
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 8: It was? Very generic eighties to me. You could have
put any any band of that era. You could have
put their name on it and I would have gone, oh, yeah, okay,
you know, yeah, I just I just love.
Speaker 10: That sound, I really do. And I guess.
Speaker 9: I guess because part of the nineteen eighties was just
a very very fun, positive time in my life. A
lot of the eighties music when I hear it just
brings back a lot of good memories for me.
Speaker 3: So agreed, I'm kind of in that same boat.
Speaker 8: That's what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything came together cool. Yeah, So Neil, you you
skipped the right decade for you, it seems.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I felt the same way about the seventies you
felt about the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. Well, all right, thank you, Gail. We're gonna
take a real quick break and we're going to be
back with lots more. So stick around Hudson River Radio
dot Com. Your dad likes us.
Speaker 19: This concludes the first part of this cassette. Please turn
the cassette over and begin again on side too, Hudson
River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 3: And welcome back. Neil is up. So Neil skipped last
week as well, but prerecorded, but he's actually back in
person tonight, so welcome back as well.
Speaker 8: Well, and thank you. Yeah, I spent the week with
a Transylvanian messuse.
Speaker 3: So and We're gonna pause everything because this is a
good story that we must.
Speaker 8: We'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 3: But I didn't have something to do with Gail's werewolf.
Speaker 8: I'm not talking anyway.
Speaker 9: It reminds me of a really funny conversation, believe it
or not, that I had at church some years ago.
Speaker 10: You haven't lived until you've been talking to somebody. Okay.
Speaker 9: It was a family from Hungary and the wife was
who I was talking to, and she started the conversation
with one time when I was hiking in Transylvania, and
I'm like, you had me at Transylvania.
Speaker 8: Nice. Anyway, your wish is my command, or your command
is my wish, or my song is your anyway. The
song I picked is called Don't Do It, and it's
by the band Now. The song was penned by the
songwriting team of Holland Dozier Holland, consisting of brothers Brian
and Eddie Holland and Lamont. That team was responsible for
many of the songs that shaped the Motown sound in
the nineteen sixties. Now. The song was originally intended for
the Supremes, but it was later given to singer Marvin
Gay who recorded and released it in nineteen sixty four. Now,
the song has been recorded many times by many artists
over the years, but it's the version by the band
that we're going to focus on here right now, and
for reasons that will become more apparent as we go
along now. The Band were a Canadian American rock band
that formed in Toronto, starting out back in the late
nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties under the name The Hawks.
They later gained recognition as Bob Dylan's backing band in
nineteen sixty six after Dylan went Electric. Now, after leaving Dylan,
they changed their name to simply the Band because he
had been Bob Dylan and is Bob Dylan and they
were the band, so there you go. And after that
they went on to release a number of best selling albums.
They played at Mammoth concert festivals like Watkins Glend along
with The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers. They made
a movie with Martin Scorsese, and as they say, the
rest is pretty much history. So the classic lineup of
the band consisted of Levon Helm on drums, Robbie Robertson
on guitar, Rick Danko on bass, Richard Manuel on piano,
and Garth Hudson on oregon. Now that was their primary instruments.
All five members were actually all multi instrumentalists, so there
was a lot of talent going on there. Now the
band recorded Don't Do It several times actually, both live
and in the studio, and the cut we're going to
hear comes from there nineteen seventy to live double LP
called Rock of Ages. So right now, let's do it.
Let's hear don't do It by the band.
Speaker 6: A baby, don't you do it? Don't do it.
Speaker 16: Don't want to break my heart.
Speaker 6: Don't do it.
Speaker 4: Don't to break myth?
Speaker 6: I said required by heavy You know myself.
Speaker 16: Now you don't believe me. No, no, someone I'm crying.
I'm not gonn to mean you won't me you know
you don't understand against the best, I'm channing again.
Speaker 6: Don't do it. Don't you break my hide? Don't do it.
Don't you break my heart? Making of the pain, but
going YouTube nne.
Speaker 10: You didn't you know?
Speaker 16: And you can be way you want me and you
want in to do in my heart of me abs
give your service.
Speaker 8: Hid.
Speaker 16: Causing me and I didn't spy against my best.
Speaker 6: But I'm sang, don't do it, don't.
Speaker 16: You break my heart?
Speaker 6: Going to break my.
Speaker 10: I go down to the river.
Speaker 6: And then I'll be. I'm you be, But you don't
care at me.
Speaker 16: On the dost.
Speaker 7: Take to see.
Speaker 16: See. Don't dan to break my.
Speaker 6: Not to break my.
Speaker 16: Than I think it's the same.
Speaker 6: There's nothing you need to But then you know, now
you find your way.
Speaker 9: You won't me and you don't do him the.
Speaker 3: Chance. You dispos me.
Speaker 16: Best, you know how, try the best.
Speaker 6: Don't do it.
Speaker 16: Don't you break my heart?
Speaker 6: I don't don't you break mom?
Speaker 8: All right, don't do it? All right? I admit I
did do it, but that's not important right now. Rock
of Age is the band in concert. That's the official
title of the album, and the recording comes from a
series of shows that compiled it from a series of
shows that were played at New York's city's legendary Academy
of Music over four nights, like a four night stand
or a four night residency if you will, from December
twenty eighth through December thirty first seventy one.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 8: Incidentally, the Academy of Music pretty much took over as
the New York rock venue after the closure of Bill
Graham's Fillmore East. Now somewhere along the line they changed
it from the Academy of Music to the Palladium, But
that's really all that changed. It was the same place,
and I've got some stories for a later time about that.
But anyway, me too, I do not doubt that we
were probably there at the same time at some point,
I'm sure. Anyway, here's where the story gets a little interesting.
The shows were originally scheduled actually from the twenty seventh
through the thirtieth, now emitting New Year's Eve. And okay,
I think you can see where this is going. Now.
A young sixteen year old me would have loved to
have gone to a show on New Year's Eve, but
opted for the closest thing, December thirtieth, because but uh huh,
after I had already bought my ticket, they switched the
twenty seventh the first night, switched it to the thirty first,
So there was a New Year's Eve show after all,
only I didn't have a ticket for it because I
thought I was getting close. Now, first of all, there
was no such thing as like stub Hub or anything.
You couldn't you go sell and get you know, no, yeah,
if you wanted to buy another ticket, there was a
guy in a trench coat outside you went scalping and
yeah yeah, and believe me, one five or six dollars
ticket for a sixteen year old. That was a lot
of bread back then, you know. So I was like, oh, well, okay,
Now to add insult to injury. On the thirty first,
their old pal Bob Dylan showed up as a surprise
guest and made an appearance and played a whole set
with them, and I missed it. Now, if there is
any consolation, if there is any salvation and redemption, I
found a list of the recording dates for the track,
so each the nights that each track was recorded on.
And as it turns out, I discovered that I was
in the audience for the track we just heard, don't
Do It. So that applause you heard at the end,
that's me. So yeah, I was at that show. So
that that that was cool. That and that's why I
picked this, this particular version of this song excellent. One
thing I almost forgot about I remember hearing about it
is you probably heard the horn section in the background. Yeah,
so they had hired you know, a horn section to
come in I believe, probably from New Orleans, because the
legendary songwriter and producer Alan Tussaint wrote the charts for
all the horn parts, and back then charts were in
these like big folders, you know, sheet music big no PDFs,
no thumb drives, no big pieces of paper. So the
horn section packed them up in their luggage, got on
the plane, got to New York, and the luggage had
been lost in the meantime the charts were gone, so
they had to scramble and I guess, you know, from memory,
and wrote up new ones, and what they couldn't remember,
they just, I guess, you know, winging it. But I
thought that was pretty interesting that she was.
Speaker 3: How professional they were too to be able to pull.
Speaker 8: Off exactly exactly now now. This version of Don't Do
It from RockA As was also issued as a single.
It reached number thirty four on the Billboard Hot one
hundred in the fall of nineteen seventy two. The band
they were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in nineteen ninety four. In two thousand and four,
Rolling Stone Magazine ranked them as number fifty on their
list of the one hundred Greatest Artists of all time,
and they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in two
thousand and eight. Now, of course, sadly all five original
members of the band are now gone, but you know what,
we're not, so get out there and go to a concert.
Speaker 3: Definitely, that's awesome. Like that swamp rock sound. What what
always drew me to that was that it's so on point,
but it sounds so loose and relaxed. Yeah, but it's tight.
You could put a metrome to it and it's it's
on point. You know, I don't know. That's just hard
to do. So excellent choice there, Thank you. I did
hear you clapping. I've heard you clap separately, so I could.
I was able to pick it out.
Speaker 8: The sound of the sound of one hand clapping.
Speaker 3: Excellent choice. All right, Thank you Neil, and welcome back.
Thank you John. We're up to you, okay.
Speaker 7: Tonight I have a selection from the late great James
Joseph Brown, the godfather of soul himself. Tonight we're going
to listen to get up, get into it, and get involved.
Now what the heck does he mean by that? I
think it's just pretty much a self explanatory. It's get up,
get into it, get involved. Whatever you want to do.
You want to protest, you want to get involved in
your community, do what you gotta do to get up
and get involved. And this is what it is, and
it's done in classic James Brown signature style. There's no
other way to put it. He was it was just
a beautiful piece of funk and.
Speaker 3: Simply put. Let's just play it. We'll talk a little
bit afterwards.
Speaker 9: And do it.
Speaker 20: Everybody around down, set everybody else, come come older, come on,
come on god we can trumble. Come come on, have
a ride, old down, hold nobody a run down.
Speaker 6: Then do it. I only have them get it mom,
there is marm happening.
Speaker 3: No, don't wanna commele.
Speaker 20: Everybody hold down, you get olderviody around there, turn it
to it.
Speaker 6: I only have there is firm turn it up there
it worth way.
Speaker 8: Way.
Speaker 6: Don't pay the hang going nothing. It's back man, Now
you do it's something. Gon pray your hands sending me
to call you my mind. Don't pay her head lee
to say that on my man's everybody.
Speaker 16: On down, hold up dy run down.
Speaker 20: Doesn't do it right on my hand, don't fun don
mom the mom.
Speaker 6: Wait wait wait wait the back of the trun on
the ball. You gotta have the danger. You want to
be caught.
Speaker 3: You gotta have to.
Speaker 6: Change so you have the ball.
Speaker 16: Throw it right.
Speaker 6: You got cop to the banks and do it and
nothing do it one time. They get a right got
the world, got the bank. Everybody on down, hold up, nobody,
run down, then st everybody on him don don mom
then song wait wait wait wait wait, go home, go home.
Speaker 3: Go home.
Speaker 6: You can't do it on.
Speaker 18: Abody on that?
Speaker 6: Tell hold up? Get nobody right there?
Speaker 16: Telln't do it right on the tesn't work?
Speaker 6: Can't right and wrong? That was more time about it?
Speaker 4: What wasn't doing?
Speaker 6: Telling arm? Tell it from? Can it rock? Wait? Ibody?
Don't aw tell hod up? Ride a right down, turn
into it, not only tell it from get it wrong?
Let it rom Wait wait wait, wait.
Speaker 3: Wait, okay.
Speaker 7: That was James Brown, Get up, get into it and
get involved. It was the radio edit because that can
go on for about what seven or eight minutes. I
think is the original yep so, but it's pretty much
after the first three minutes. I think that's the song,
but we were talking off air. What do I think
is special about this. I'll be honest with you, I
don't think it's really special. It's just kind of like
cool James ground funk, you know.
Speaker 3: It's that's kind of what I putting in the least
amount of effort of everybody's a band on this particular.
Speaker 7: Song, basically stating it giving you a command to go
out there and get involved.
Speaker 8: However that is.
Speaker 7: You know, Brian, if I tried to do that, they'd
be calling nine to one one. I can tell you
right now.
Speaker 3: You just walk around the room and stub your toe
on different things. Yeah, on the night.
Speaker 7: Table man, just make sure I hit record the whole time.
Speaker 3: That's it nowadays and pro tools. You just line it
up with the beat and you're good. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 7: It's pretty easy, pretty easy with modern tech, I should say.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 7: That was released in nineteen seventy as a two part
single on the King label, features James Brown as lead
vocals if you can call it that, with back with
backing vocals and co writing by Bobby Bird, and it
reached number four on the R and B charts and
thirty four on the Pop charts. There were live versions
recorded on two different albums they had on the Revolution
of the Mind in nineteen seventy one and the Love,
Power and Peace, also recorded in nineteen seventy one. So
you wanted a command song, that's James Brown, the late
great gentleman there. If you want to see that, commanding
you to get out there and do your thing. You
want to protest, you want to join a group, do whatever,
you know, go out there, get out there and do it.
Speaker 3: I hope you all.
Speaker 8: Enjoyed your funk is my command?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, I could.
Speaker 7: Just if you can imagine, you know, when I first
time I listened to this, I just imagine nineteen seventy
James Brown recording this, you know, in the studio.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there was a little.
Speaker 7: Smoking going on and got no sweaty. Yeah, what a
scene that must have been. So yeah, absolutely so. I
hope you all enjoyed that little walk down James Brown Lane.
Speaker 8: There.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. All right, thanks John. Yep, we're
all going to relax a little bit now, take a breather,
and we're gonna come back with two more. So stick around.
Speaker 12: Let'son riverradio dot com, hunchonriverradio dot.
Speaker 3: Com, and welcome back, Barbara. It was your topic and
we're up to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, hey, they're cool cats. My song choice
for this topic is Put Your Cat Clothes On by
Carl Perkins. And there's quite a bit of info out
there on Carl Perkins, enough pretty much to dedicate an
entire show and then some. So I try to balance
the inclusion of important facts without making my segment too long.
But I found his bio fascinating, and I hope you
will too. He was born on April ninth, nineteen thirty two,
in Tiptonville, Tennessee, and was nicknamed the King of Rockabilly,
but he started out as the son of poor sharecroppers.
He had two brothers, Jay and Clayton, and talk a
little bit more about them later on. From the age
of six, Perkins worked in the cotton fields whether school
was in session or not. He and his brothers grew
up hearing Southern gospel in church and also sung out
in the fields by other sharecroppers. And every Saturday, now
this paints a picture. Every Saturday night the family would
gather around the radio and listen to the Grand Old
Loppry broadcasts, and this inspired a young Perkins to ask
his parents for a guitar, but guess what, couldn't afford one,
So his father made one from a cigar box and
a broomstick, and every time a string broke they could
afford to replace it, so Perkins simply retied them, causing
the notts to cut into his fingers. So he started
to bend the notes when sliding from one note to another,
causing what is known as a blue note sound, meaning
just simply meaning a slightly different pitch. And Perkins taught
himself to play songs he heard on the opry. In
nineteen forty seven, at the age of fourteen, Perkins wrote
the song let Me Take You to the Movie Meg,
which prompted Sun Records founder Sam Phillips to sign Perkins
to the label. At the time, Perkins and his brothers
were playing at local taverns at night and were often
given free beer as payment.
Speaker 6: Mind you, Carl was fourteen oh, and the problem is he.
Speaker 1: Sounds a lot like my teenage years, But I digress.
He later began performing on WTJS in Jackson during the
late nineteen forties and was becoming very well known, but
not yet enough to quit his day job of either
cotton picking, pan greasing, or factory work. This round the
clock schedule took a turn in nineteen fifty five when
Perkins wrote Blue Swede Shoes, which became massively successful and
I think we all know that. Elvis Presley later performed
it on cbstv's Stage Show in February nineteen fifty six
and ABC's ABCTV's Ozark Jubilee. The song charted in the
UK as well, and the Beatles famously covered the B side,
Honey Don't. In nineteen fifty six, the Perkins brothers were
involved in a car accident while traveling to New York
City to appear on nbctv's Perry Como Show. Carl was
unconscious for an entire day. While recuperating, Perkins watched Elvis
perform Blue Swede Shoes on The Milton Burl Show. When
he rec it enough, he finally did appear on the
Perry Como Show, and he was still wearing his neck
brace from the accident. And I did find pictures of
that online.
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 8: Yes.
Speaker 1: Before resuming touring, Perkins had a recording session at SUN
which resulted in some new releases, including my song Choice,
Put Your Clothes On, Cat Clothes On, Sorry, put your
cat clothes on.
Speaker 15: It took my food shoes down the old wheel, got
the rock up with the rhythm.
Speaker 10: Run them over at the heel.
Speaker 7: Don't put your.
Speaker 6: Cat food go then rock.
Speaker 2: Katie.
Speaker 6: Put your cat close, go for.
Speaker 3: Wee s of a black.
Speaker 4: Get my.
Speaker 6: Cat too good?
Speaker 14: Let it rock on ride kitty.
Speaker 6: Put your cat pose goes and I do really rides.
Speaker 8: On.
Speaker 14: Can't with it in your hand?
Speaker 15: Off that brute John the bombing river put the whole
els of tomorrow. But your cattle goes on, canoodle, let
him rock on ride.
Speaker 6: Didn't put your cat pose? Ho goes not to let
it ride real lines.
Speaker 4: Where my gas room was easy?
Speaker 7: But all if cat's nose she gets that rocking beat.
Speaker 6: She knocked the polish off her hole.
Speaker 14: Put your cat goes on, cous and I let it
rock on ride. Can't you put your cat pose on?
Cause and I look, let it rise.
Speaker 4: Can't pot cat?
Speaker 6: Cat can't coot cat, cat, can't poot cat captain cast frow, cat.
Speaker 14: Pulls on con on, Let it rock and ride?
Speaker 3: Lot of stuff did stuff a great?
Speaker 8: Oh yeah?
Speaker 1: So what is meant by cat clothes? In nineteen fifty
slang cat meant a cool hit person, and the song
famously mentions blue Swede shoes. Now, I had a pair
of blue Swede shoes as a kid, but in no
way did that make me cool. I was and am
far from it, no matter how much cool music I
listened to or how many cool people I associate with.
So on December fourth, nineteen fifty six, Perkins, along with
Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis, got together
for a spontaneous collaboration at Sun Records, and this became
known as the Million Dollar Quartet Session. Perkins left Sun
Records and signed with Columbia in nineteen fifty eight, and
sons Sam Phillips and Perkins were involved in a legal
battle over royalties. Perkins meanwhile continued recording and touring. He
toured Great Britain in nineteen sixty four along with Chuck
Berry and the Animals and It's a Party where he
entertained the guests by playing guitar and telling stories which
could have been there for that. The party was also
attended by members of the Beatles, who asked Perkins if
they could cover some of his songs, and they ended up,
as I said, covering Honey Don't and also Everybody's Trying
to Be My Baby and Matchbox. The resulting royalties enabled
Perkins to purchase for his parents their very own farm.
He toured with Johnny Cash in nineteen sixty eight, and
they famously supported each other's sobriety for as long as
that lasted, as Perkins had a drinking problem at the time.
Perkins played lead guitar on Cash as a boy named Sue.
He also collaborated with Bob Dylan in nineteen sixty nine
when Dylan appeared on The Johnny Cash Show. The nineteen
eighties rockabilly movement helped revive Perkins' career, and he also
collaborated with Paul McCartney in nineteen eighty one and recorded
the song Get It. In nineteen eighty five, he re
recorded Blue Swede Shoes with Lee Rocker and Slim Jim
Phantom of Stray Cats, and also appeared on the television
concert called Blue Swede Shoes, a rockabilly session featuring George Harrison, Ringo, Starr,
Rose and Cash and others and Stray Cats. Brian Setzer
would go on to cover Put Your Cat Clothes On.
Perkins was inducted into the Nashville Hall of Fame in
nineteen eighty five and the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame for the Songwriters category in nineteen eighty seven. Blue
Swage Shoes won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in
nineteen eighty six, after which Perkins returned to Sun Records
for further collaborations with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee, Lewis, Roy Orbison,
and continued through the nineteen eighties with more artists such
as the Judds, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Bono and John Fogerty,
Tom Petty and Paul Simon. Perkins suffered several strokes in
December nineteen ninety seven and passed away on January tenth,
nineteen ninety eight, at the age of only sixty five.
In two thousand and three, perkins widow gained ownership of
his music catalog and contracted with Paul McCartney's MLP Communications,
one of the world's largest music publishers. And I'm going
to conclude by saying that Carl Perkins was not just
an extraordinary musician. He was a major influence on the
British invasion country rockabilly and continues to remain relevant today.
Speaker 3: Agreed, you're here, agreed, I just aim it. You know,
the later the two pays later on. Really all they're
distracting when you watch videos of him performing when as
he was getting older. Just listen, don't look.
Speaker 10: That should be the worst of somebody's probably.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, and I know it sounds so
petty to say it, but it's like, it's like people
who mess up their faces as they get older. It
never goes well.
Speaker 1: Yesh, It's better than that awful face lifts that these
women get where they and men look weird. Yeah, men
get them to, but sometimes they just look weird more.
Speaker 10: Yeah, look at the pictures.
Speaker 3: And you're not fooling anybody. You're not turning the clock back.
You're turning the clock sideways, we know, right, Like, if
you're losing your hair, I get it, all right. And
if medication doesn't wear a hat, just do what I do.
Speaker 8: Yeah, wear a hat, you know, wear a cool hat,
and you know nobody cares.
Speaker 3: Nobody cares. Everybody knows you're getting you know all right.
You were big in the fifties and sixties. It's now
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: We know, real your real friends and your real family
will love and accept you as you are. It doesn't
naturally mean I am ugly. I'm never going to get prettier.
Speaker 2: My friends and family love me, Barbara.
Speaker 8: But listen, if you've got the Beatles looking up to you,
I don't care. Yeah, have to worry about what the
Beatles looked up to you?
Speaker 3: Right, your songs many you can wear your two pays
a loincloth and you'd be just as good. Then you'll
be fine. And the size of those two pays you
nothing showing. All right, Well, thank you, Barbara. That I
was hoping somebody would follow up, But I guess we're
gonna end on that, all right. One more to go.
So my story starts with a tenor singer named Rick
Lewis who was in the US Army in the early
nineteen fifties. He was discharged, came back home, took a
little downtime. He lived in Philadelphia with his mom. Everybody
deserves a little downtime after serving in in the military,
I agree, But his downtime seemed to go on a
little bit longer than his mom thought it should. He
wanted to sing and he was working on putting groups together.
But you know, his mom finally hit the wall and
told Rick get a job, and that was the influence
first song that Rick Lewis would go on to write,
even before he put his singing group together. So one
of the groups that he put together was a duop
group called the Thunderbirds. They first focused on church related material,
but then they started drifting towards the mainstream because that's
where the audience really was.
Speaker 8: In the group.
Speaker 3: The lead vocalist was Bill Horton. He was from North
Carolina born in nineteen twenty nine. Rick Lewis the tenor.
He sang the tenor part. He was the youngest member,
born in Pennsylvania in nineteen thirty three. Earl Beal sang baritone.
He was born in nineteen twenty four in Pennsylvania, one
hundred and two years ago go, which is just boggling
my mind. Raymond Edwards was the base voice. He was
born in nineteen twenty two in Virginia, one hundred and
four years ago. The group shared writing credit for the
song Get a Job, as they did with all their tracks,
because even though Lewis wrote the lyrics, they all contributed
elements that made it what many people would consider the
defining do wop song. And I think it still is today.
We'll see if you guys agree with me. You mentioned duop,
this is the song that comes up. They auditioned get
a job around, but nobody was interested until they played
it for a popular local DJ named Kay Williams. Kay
Williams was an influential radio personality. He was a black
DJ and exposed his audience to new black artists, including
giving bb King his first exposure on radio, so we
have him to thank for that. Kay also managed local bands,
He owned a record store, He wrote a newspaper, Colum.
He would later host a TV show, and he would
serve on the board of the Wharton School of Business
at the University of Pennsylvania, among other things. So I
would say he did pretty well all things considered. One
of the other things that he did was own a
small record label named Junior. He signed the Thunderbirds, but
insisted that they changed their name. He didn't like the
name Thunderbirds. It was Earl Beale who suggested the Silhouettes
after the song Silhouettes on the Shade by the Rays,
which had come out earlier the same year, nineteen fifty seven.
You may remember that song. One of my favorites from
the fifties, Silhouettes on the.
Speaker 2: Shade love it that Harmons Hermits did right.
Speaker 3: Harmon's Hermits did a cover of it later. Yeah, yeah,
you are correct, yep. They all liked the name of
the Silhouettes. So it was the Silhouettes who were signed
to the Junior label and they recorded two songs at
the Robinson Recording Laboratories in Philadelphia in October nineteen fifty seven.
One was a ballad called I Am Lone, which is
the track that Kay was more interested in and thought
would be the hit, and they did get a job,
which was supposed to be the B side in nineteen.
In November nineteen fifty seven, the records made their way
to local radio stations, who flipped them over and played
the B side back when DJ's actually picked their own tracks.
Because the DJs liked the B side better and get
a job caught on immediately. Junior Records did additional pressings,
but they just couldn't keep up with the demand. The
Silhouettes themselves actually loaded boxes of forty fives into their
own cars and were delivering them to record stores to
try to keep up with the demand. I wish I
knew if they introduced themselves to these record stores and
said that's actually me on the record, or if they
just quietly were dropping boxes off. I don't know, but
how cool would it be to have that, you know?
So Kay Williams wound up licensing the song to Ember
Records in New York City, who had a u a
larger manufacturing and distribution capability than he co do just
to keep up with the demands. In January nineteen fifty eight,
Dick Clark heard Get a Job and had the Silhouettes
on his show American Bandstand a bunch of times to
perform the song, and that national exposure shot the record
to number one on both the Billboard Pop Charts and
the R and B Charts for thirteen weeks. It held
the spot for thirteen weeks, which is awesome. And remember
this is the nineteen fifties, segregation was still in full swing.
They held the number one spot on both charts. The
R and B charts was the black chart. That was
just another name for it, so they it was one
of those songs that just ignored the color barrier. So
I think that's fantastic. They sold an estimated three million
copies and guess how much money the band got from
these three million copies?
Speaker 8: Oh boy, probably about as much as you make today
on downads, which is pretty much about three dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, somewhere around there. They made just about nothing
on the show. Somehow. I still have no idea how
this happened. Dick Clark's programming director wound up with half
of the publishing rights to get a job. I don't
know how. I don't know what the connections were, but
he wound up skimming that right off the top.
Speaker 8: Are you saying that the music business is a little.
Speaker 3: Sketchy, Yeah, just a little bit. Mercedes could certainly go
on about that. Yeah, but yes, yes, My understanding is
it's quite corrupt in many many aspects. Everybody made money
on get a job except the band and Kay Williams,
the guy who actually recorded it, produced it, made it
the hit.
Speaker 8: They needed to get a job after the recording, Yeah.
Speaker 3: They did. Actually, funny should mention that because lead singer
Bill Horton and bass singer Raymond Edwards quit because they
had to. They had to go and make a living.
They had families. They left on good terms. There were
no hard feelings. Everybody understood you have to, you know,
make money to live. Rick Lewis and Earl Beal recruited
two new members. They kept touring as the Silhouettes, and
they did well enough they made a living at it. All.
The original members wound up reuniting in nineteen eighty for
a one off TV special, and they had so much
fun doing it that they continued to perform regularly, mostly
in the Pennsylvania New Jersey areas. They would go up
into Massachusetts, New England every once in a while. And
while all of this was going on, rick Lewis fought
the good fight to regain the royalties that they never
got for their song, and in nineteen eighty seven he
was finally successful. He finally got his first publishing check
thirty years after the song came out, which boggles my mind,
and good for him for putting up that fight for
thirty years before he finally got something that he was
supposed to get. The Silhouettes were inducted into the Duop
Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of nineteen eighty nine.
By nineteen ninety, they had decided to slow down a
little bit. They were getting older. They back on gigs
Their last performance together was on November sixth, nineteen ninety three,
in Beverly, Massachusetts, where they did a four song set
that ended with get a job. Bill Horton passed away
in nineteen ninety five, Raymond Edwards in nineteen ninety seven,
Earl Beal in two thousand and one, and Richard Lewis
was the last survivor. He passed away in two thousand
and five. But this song lives on and will continue
to live on. It's been used countless times in movies
and compilation albums, on soundtracks, all that kind of stuff.
I growing up never really understood all the lyrics because
the way it was recorded. I always thought it was
a little bit mushy and all that. So I thought
I would read some of the lyrics to you, because
maybe you don't know them either. Starts with well, every
morning about this time she gets me out of bed
a cry, and get a job. After breakfast, every day
she throws the want ads my way and never fails
to say get a job. Then it goes to the
chorus later on Lord, And when I get the paper,
I read it through and through. I my girl never
failed to see if there is any work for me,
I got to go back to the house. Hear that
woman's mouth preaching at a crying tell me that I'm
lying about getting a lying about a job that I
never could find.
Speaker 8: Love it.
Speaker 3: So feel free to sing along with the silhouettes and
get a job.
Speaker 5: Shut because you know the wanted shut up sh Pardo
Channah Shah part can.
Speaker 8: Get get back cap kept on the kid, John.
Speaker 5: China China, who of me?
Speaker 6: And I ain't getting the army in through.
Speaker 18: My girl, Tamavil says anywhere by.
Speaker 6: Then go back to the house.
Speaker 18: There the Bama's mouth may fine till it had a
lot about the job.
Speaker 12: Put fine Shanna Shanna.
Speaker 5: Dam Channa, Shanna, Hanna Pardo, Shana Tard Channel Chana Na
Party the kept yet kept get on the kill Shanada San.
Speaker 6: Give him.
Speaker 3: M in.
Speaker 21: My saying there is anywhere for me. I mean, go
back to the house and you're the worm's mountain.
Speaker 6: Richard Brin down.
Speaker 5: A shout ouna.
Speaker 6: Shout on, shout on Don con Shanna Lad.
Speaker 15: Shout John Combo.
Speaker 16: Sha House.
Speaker 3: Classic. Growing up, that was one of the first songs
where like the bass voice to me really jumped out
and I was like, oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, any rock and roller worth his salt,
whether you're playing or just as a fan, how many
times did you hear someone tell you to get a job?
I mean all you wanted to do is kind of
be a bum and listen to rock and roll music. Yeah,
it's like universal and it transcends all the genres and
all the decades and all that. To me, that's why
that song resonated more than when it was a B
side than the original A side did. It's like everybody
gets it. Everybody who anybody who has a rock and
roll hert gets it.
Speaker 3: I've had conversations with some people, but you know, somebody
wants to be a professional musician. That's a job. It
takes a lot of work, It takes a lot of dedication.
You have to promote yourself. But what's the difference between
that and starting your own plumbing business or contract or
business or You still have to hustle, You still have
to promote yourself, you still have to get your name
out in front of it. So what's the difference. Why
is one considered an honorable profession and the other one
you considered a bum?
Speaker 8: Because it's rock and roll yeah, yeah, or any kind
of music, and that's what makes it great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree, I would agree. So that's something
we haven't talked about in a while. In the middle,
there was the saxophone solo, because for years, especially in
the early rock and roll, it was the saxophone that
would take the front and center position for solos. If
you did that later on, that would have been a
guitar solo, maybe a piano solo. But so that was
played by Rollie McGill, who played saxophone on a bunch
of other different recordings as too, but a great example
of that as well. I thought, so love that song.
It just doesn't get old. What can I say? Yeah,
it's great, yep, all right, good, Well I'm done. You
guys done. Yeah, we're good. Everybody's gonna go follow instructions
or write their own or ignore I guess rock and
Roman you have to ignore them. What can I say? Hey, yeah,
all right, so let's pull the plug, let's move on
and uh see the rest of the week takes us right, son,
it's good, all right. Thank you cram Bones for excellent
choices 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 we do at Hudson River Radio because
there is something for everybody. We already actually picked our
topic for next week while songs were playing because we
were just bouncing ideas, so we know what we're doing,
which is so rare. So we'll see you next week
with another brand new episode of the Rock and Roll
History Show. Till then, be safe and peace out, everybody.
Speaker 6: Rock cop bottom it.
Speaker 16: Okay, Bye bye.
Speaker 3: Hudson River Radio dot com a subsidiaria of Placier Entertainment LLC.
Speaker 9: Potentially successful it multi high underd dollar corporation US