Speaker 1: Hudsonriverradio dot com. It's boring, You're boring.
Speaker 2: Everybody. Quit boring everyone?
Speaker 3: How does sassa? Jonathan Leasberry juice?
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Tom Chapin. Hello, this just preaching in
Rock and Roll History Show. You're listening right now.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. We have
an interesting topic tonight. We're doing musical firsts, but as always,
we're leaving the interpretation wide open, so I have no
idea what is to come, but let's find out before
we hop in. As always, allow me to introduce all
the cranbones who were joining us here tonight. First and
foremost from the Richter Observatory. He busted a mirror and
got seven years of bad luck, but his lawyer thinks
he can get it down to five. Neil Richter is here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I cop to plea. I copped the plate. Wait, Brian, Brian,
I've got one for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, bring it up.
Speaker 3: How do you open a raw oyster? How do you
open a raw oyster?
Speaker 1: A raw oyster?
Speaker 3: It's easy, You just got to use a little muscle.
Speaker 4: Oh that's actually really good.
Speaker 5: That is.
Speaker 1: Well done.
Speaker 3: And I'll say, and I'll say, if you know, you
know all I'm saying, and how you're doing? Everybody all right?
Speaker 1: And from paranormally yours. She figured out what you call
a joke with no punchline. Yal newcomers here, get it. Okay,
I'm tired. It's Monday. I worked all day. Oh I'm
right there with you. It's been a very long weekend,
our officially retired teacher. If he says, if you plan
to raise your hands in the air and wave like
you just don't care, you should put your coffee cup
down first. John Kelly is here.
Speaker 6: Hey, everybody, hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome, and last, but not least, the host of shaving cream.
She went to the doctor and said she was worried
about shrinking. Her doctor said, you have to be a
little patient. Barbar Delle is here.
Speaker 7: I am a little patient, but I still worry about shrinking.
Speaker 1: It happens to the best of us. You just tell
everyone you're far away, that's all. So you look smaller. Yeah,
I think all the cranbones are exhausted tonight.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Hit the wall, Yeah, Yeah, I did a lot of
running around and I'm on some new medication that's really
making me woozy, so I apologizing.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna have fun of everybody tonight.
Speaker 3: I missed my third nap of the day, so yeah,
I'm my god, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Fourth thing? All right, so why don't we hop in
and we'll keep things moving and everybody can squeeze in
their naptime afterwards. Right, Yeah, you're gonna have a dishes first,
all right, dishes first. Tell us what you pick is
in your backstory, and then you can go do dishes
and if you want, I can drop off some more
if you're.
Speaker 3: On a roll.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, it's worth the show, Okay. The artist
that I chose a song from is known professionally as Hosier.
His actual name is Andrew John Hosier Burn. That's hyphenated.
He was born gosh, he was born the seventeenth of
March nineteen ninety. It's crazy, I always sink nineteen ninety
ten years ago ninety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's the late.
Speaker 3: Nineteen hundreds, last century.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thirty six, I already baby, Oh my.
Speaker 3: God, I have t shirts older than that.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah, So he's an Irish singer and musician.
His music primarily draws from folk, soul and blues, often
using religious and literary themes and taking political or social
justice stances.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 8: His song that I Chose is called First Light and
it's the last track on his third album, which came
out in twenty twenty three, and the album is called
Unreal Unearth and the song serves as a thematic conclusion
to the album's journey through Dante's Circles of Hell, representing
an ascent into light, reconciliation, and renewal. The song explores
themes of emerging from darkness and finding hope in new love,
often interpreted as the morning light or a guiding force.
And his voice and the arrangement and the lyrics just
I adore Hosier. I'm envious of a friend of mine
who actually saw him in concert last year, because he's
a great musician. He writes really good stuff, and she's
easy on the eyes. I might be old, but I'm
not dead.
Speaker 7: I just like the fact that you said he was
Irish and he was born on March seventeenth.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that didn't even occur to me. Oh my gosh.
So a little more detail about first light. It's inspired
by the end of Dante's Poor Ratio, representing the return
to the light after traversing the darkness of inferno. It
focuses on finding warmth, healing, and romantic He's good at
that transformative love after a difficult period.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 8: Reddit users on the Hosier reddit thread note that the
song has relatively simple open chord progression that contributes to
its optimistic, airy feel, and the lyrics such as you
filling my cup are interpreted as finding a profound, comforting connection,
sometimes compared to the relief of the early morning light.
It acts as a final optimistic resolution to the heavier
themes that explored earlier in the album Unreal Unearth.
Speaker 1: Let's have a listen.
Speaker 3: I love this guy stuff.
Speaker 9: One brind board Man, change James or so thing Ezy,
You're free your bodies open it first A thousand miles,
but two I didn't suit the silver BULLI point landing
and I can scarce believe what.
Speaker 2: I believe in in.
Speaker 10: This beyond.
Speaker 11: Every day.
Speaker 2: Scared sends the time.
Speaker 9: God, come.
Speaker 2: You see it back, come.
Speaker 10: The star c.
Speaker 2: I gotta live before the first life, I.
Speaker 9: Gotta live mod.
Speaker 11: H so.
Speaker 9: Heasyness or.
Speaker 11: Facesy.
Speaker 9: He the creeps into the corners is the moment Saint
Fice your body jumps to corner AT's inn.
Speaker 2: But after this, I never gone to be saying.
Speaker 11: I never going back.
Speaker 10: Scary said it.
Speaker 9: Go come you set the stupid can.
Speaker 10: I gotta live the life.
Speaker 2: Saw the first life. I'm gonna look.
Speaker 10: So I gotta look at.
Speaker 1: Said now.
Speaker 8: I usually am not a fan of what I refer
to as mellow music, but to me, that song is
very much a feel good song, very joyous, and it
just to me, it's kind of a grounding, comforting.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on to pay attention to, too,
with the harmonies and.
Speaker 8: The oh yeah, the orchestra and the everything and the yes.
Speaker 3: At first, I was going to say, oh, it's sort
of emo. It's sort of goth at first, but it's
but it's more positive. It's it's you know, it's more uplifting.
Goth and emo are quite the opposite, actually, right, So yeah,
it was. It was It was interesting that you know that. Yeah,
the orchestration was was wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just really really like it.
Speaker 8: Posier wrote this album during the COVID nineteen pandemic and
said that it was his way of making sense of
the experience of the last two years. It was, as
I mentioned before, inspired by Dante's Inferno, which he began
reading at the time. He framed the album around Dante's
concept of the nine circles of Hell, Unreal Unearth as
a whole signifies the journey through Dante's nine circles of
Hell and coming out at the other side with each song,
and I need to listen to the rest of this album,
apparently because each song refers to a specific universal theme
or feeling. Sam Eke out of Paste stated that the
album is packed full of poetic, poetic lyricism, heavy hearted remorse,
hopeful anticipation, and an honest expression of the joys and
sorrow of being a human, and has a sharp balance
that makes it never top heavy nor ever stagnant. Mojo
wrote that Hoosier's audacity can feel outsized and overbearing, but
his tandem of earnestness and eccentricity there is more winning
than not, and I tend to agree.
Speaker 7: I like that phrase, tandem of.
Speaker 8: What did it say, tandem of earnestness and eccentricity.
Speaker 7: I like that phrase me too, very interesting, Gil.
Speaker 1: Nice song, all right, good pick? Yeah, thanks, all right, Neil,
you're up.
Speaker 3: All right. Well, I'm going to go second. But first
things first. My song about it. First, it's called Got
to Get the First Plane Home by The Kinks, who
are a little older than Hosier. Is because because.
Speaker 8: The Kings crop they probably have grandchildren Hosier's age.
Speaker 3: Well, that's because they were a British rock band. They
formed in London in nineteen sixty two. Yes, the band's.
Speaker 1: Original lineup the mid nineteen hundreds. Yeah, the late nineteen hundred. Yeah,
I was two.
Speaker 3: That's sixty two, I was. I don't remember, I was
young then.
Speaker 8: They're probably like seven something like that.
Speaker 3: Anyway, the band's original lineup consisted of brothers Ray and
Dave Davies, with Ray on lead vocals and rhythm guitar,
and he was the band's main songwriter as well, known
for his unique witty and observational writing style, and Dave
was on lead guitar and backing vocals. The quartet, as
they were then filled out with Pete kwaf on bass
and Mick Avery on drums. Now, this is the era
of the band's decades long career that we're going to
focus on for now. Their breakthrough single You Really Got
Me in nineteen sixty four became an international hit, and
it was followed by a string of other chart topping hits,
including All Day and All the Night, Till the End
of the Day and Set Me Free, and all of
them placed them at the forefront of the British invasion
going on in the US at that time. That is
until some problems occurred during their nineteen sixty five American
tour which led them to being banned from the United
States for a number of years. Now this band, incidentally
would be lifted in nineteen sixty nine. But that brings
us to our song for today. The first top it
got to get the First Plane Home. It comes from
the band's third studio LP, called The Kink Controversy Controversy spelled,
of course, with a K. The album's titled Not So
Veiled reference to their dubious reputation that for on stage
fighting and concert riots, which is what led them to
their band on US concerts in the first place. The
record was released in the UK in November of nineteen
sixty five and here in the States in March of
sixty six, and it's a transitional album stylistically for the band,
containing the familiar Kink's powerchored driven sound, but also indications
of the future direction that Ray Davies' songwriting style would
be going forward. The song and the LP were produced
by Shell Tell me, the legendary American producer who probably
deserves a story of his own right here on the
Rock and Roll History Show, but that's for another day.
He was known not only for his work with The Kinks,
but also with bands like The Who as well in
the nineteen sixties. Now, as for the song itself, it's
really pretty simple, just a story of presumably a musician
on tour far from home who just wants to get
back to his girlfriend. So he's just gotta get the
first playing home.
Speaker 11: The last empty siza.
Speaker 5: Away from the.
Speaker 11: Sat from me.
Speaker 6: I gotta get the first game home.
Speaker 11: I gotta get the first grave home.
Speaker 10: I got aween wing from my own.
Speaker 11: See, isn't it a girl that's wasting for me?
Speaker 10: Love tell the.
Speaker 11: Guy in day or when I thought it would be seen.
Speaker 12: I love that gird apologize, but I gotta get a
first rain home.
Speaker 1: I gotta get the first plays.
Speaker 10: Hook got aween way from my own.
Speaker 9: See, there isn't a girl that waiting for me love
turn about day.
Speaker 10: When I thought it was, I love that.
Speaker 11: I gotta get. I gotta get the first.
Speaker 10: I gotta get the.
Speaker 3: Classic Kink sound, classic British Invasion sound, and classic sixties sound.
I love that. I love that stuff. That that's where
I live right there now. With the brothers Navies always
on board, the Kinks would rotate and expand in members
over the following decades. They pioneer the concept album and
record many more memorable hits. I can't even go on
to list them all the hits they had in great
songs they had in the seventies and eighties. But like
I said, that that's the era that that that speaks
to me. They gave their last public performance in mid
nineteen ninety six, and that was after being inducted to
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety
Now there have been rumors of a King's reunion for
a long time, but neither Ray or Dave have shown
much interest in playing together again because pretty much they've
both had successful solo careers. Now. To say the Kings
were influential would be a gross understatement. Punk rock and
new wave groups such as The Ramones, the Clash Pretenders,
and the Jam. Heavy metal acts like Van Halen and Brick.
Pop bands like Oasis and Blur all owe them a
debt of gratitude. Now the big question, did I ever
see the Kinks perform.
Speaker 2: Live at least?
Speaker 3: Well, what do you think? Yeah? Of course, probably at
least probably three times that I can remember, somewhere around
the mid late seventies, at places like the Beacon Theater
in New York and the Capitol Theater out in Passaic,
New Jersey. And oh I also got to see Dave
Davies performed solo right here in Rockland County, believe it
or not, at a small club in Suffern back in
the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: Really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah it was. I was like, you're kidding me.
I'm there, you know, and you know he's got his autograph,
got to talk to him for a minute.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: That's very cool. Wow. So in closing, just let me
say just always remember it's only Kinky the first time.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Fiks. We are going to take a quick break and
be back with more. So stick around and we will
be right back.
Speaker 6: Hudson River Radio, Your dog likes us.
Speaker 1: This concludes the first part of this cassette. Please turn
the cassette over and begin again on side too.
Speaker 7: This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 3: A Ray.
Speaker 1: And welcome back Tonight. We're talking about musical first and John,
we are up to you.
Speaker 6: Okay, this was an interesting topic. I actually struggled a
little bit with this one, but I can thank my
activities over the weekend for inspiring me to choose Ray Charles.
Speaker 3: Tonight.
Speaker 6: I was helping haul some furniture out of a New
York City apartments and was gifted a photograph of the
late great Ray Charles, which inspired tonight's selection. So, first,
did I pick a song with first in the title?
Did a band with first in the name?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: I did not. I picked Ray charles first recording actually, okay,
and that first recording was a little piece of music
called Confession Blues. It was recorded in Seattle in early
nineteen forty nine with his band the Maxon Trio and
released on the Downbeat label, which later became Swingtime Records.
It was so it was a fairly decent success at
the time. It peaked at number two on the Billboards
R and B charts. So without further ado, Let's play
Confession Blues, then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: I want to tell you, oh, me boy was watching Love.
I want to cheer you, h I A boy was
watching Love.
Speaker 11: And how the good then I loved.
Speaker 3: Bogged me up? They having his odd dream of.
Speaker 13: She called me five sweet and mellow, but that didn't
mean a thing. She called me five sweet and meadow,
but that didn't mean anything because I knew when she
was beloved that meant a watch breathe with her diamond ring.
Speaker 3: I didn't mind.
Speaker 5: My baby's watch.
Speaker 13: If she'd only believed fair with me. I didn't mind
my behavior's watch if she played fair with me. She
took advantage of my goodness and made a bit of
a food out of me.
Speaker 1: They may go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 6: Hey, that was Confession Blues by the late great Ray Charles,
you know, typical Ray Charles.
Speaker 1: It was very good.
Speaker 6: He was nineteen when he recorded that, Ladies.
Speaker 1: And gentlemen amazing.
Speaker 6: So when you hear that, I mean, granted, it's nineteen
forty nine, so the recording is it's it's, you know,
not the best, but in terms of the quality, but
you can just hear the.
Speaker 1: Old soul in his voice. Yeah, and it was in Seattle.
You can't even hear the rain.
Speaker 6: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: It was nine.
Speaker 6: He was actually born in Albany, Georgia, and he moved
up to the northwest to because he felt he could
make it better in that area. A little piece here.
I did some reading about some of the gigs he's
done over the years, and in those early years when
he would go to places in the South, he was
actually required to stay in segregated housing.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So and you mentioned he you know, the song was
on the R and B charts. R and B was
a term that replaced race music. Yes, it was black
artist because it was a separate list.
Speaker 6: And in case any one wants to know, yes, he
could read music braille. He lost his site roughly around
the age of four or five. We think it was
from glaucoma. To glaucoma for everybody out there, is very
treatable in today's modern world if gotten early enough, and
you can lead a full life with normal vision. But
if you don't take care of it and don't catch
it in time, it can cause significant damage to your eyesight,
which is what they believe happened to Ray Charles so
it's a build up of pressure in the eye, destroys
the retinas and so on. So that was my selection
as the first recording. But it just began the great
career of what a phenomenal R and B star, crossover musician,
unbelievable talent who had to be segregated in housing in
those early years.
Speaker 3: And he really predated rock and roll. But the influence
he had on early rock and roll even into the
you know, from the fifties, even into the sixties and beyond, Yeah,
you know it, you know, Oh he was you know,
like without Rachel there'd been no Joe Cocker, you know. Okay,
you know, So just for an example.
Speaker 1: He was also very into the studio side of things,
the technical side of things. Even though he was blind,
he was functioning in the studio and that had a
big influence too on the way things get recorded and
and just the sound of rock and roll later on.
Speaker 6: So yeah, he's one of the interesting things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: One thing, one other thing I could say is that
he got some of his education in Florida. In my
profession teaching blind children, he at the time he he
went to school at the Florida School for the deaf
and blind in Saint Augustine from nineteen thirty seven to
nineteen forty five. And while there he learned to play
the piano, the alto, saxophone, and the clarinet, trumpet and organ.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: So while he was going to school in Sant Augustine
at this school for the blind. Of course, back then
that was pretty much your choice. Today it's pretty much
mostly public schools for anyone out there, regardless of abilities.
And but that back in the day, he had a
wonderful education and a wonderful musical education which spiraled him
to great heights. And we lost him in two thousand
and four at the age of I believe seventy three,
so he died rather young. Another interesting fact I could
say about Ray Charles he had twelve children.
Speaker 3: Wow, so.
Speaker 4: Was a it was a big time you will, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he still had time to make you know, records
and music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So you'd mentioned Braill sheet music. Can you briefly explain
how that works?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 6: What's interesting about Brail music is the or genator of
the code. The late Great Louis Braille, hence the name
of the code, was actually a musician in life as well.
In Paris in his life in the early eighteen hundreds,
and that was before our time here on the radio.
Here we talked about how old we are, but I
could say, we don't go that that far. Louis Braill
math was a math teacher and a musician. He played
the organ, and he did not invent Braille music, but
it was invented after the fact, and essentially it uses
the same code for music that Louis Braille used for
literary braille, which is a six dot Braill cell with
two columns of three dots, and basically you would have
to read with one and what Bray Charles did is
he would sometimes literally read with one hand and play
with the other when he was reading the braille of
the braill itself, or he would read and memorize because obvious,
but that's essentially how it works, Brian. It takes that
Braille code that Louis Braille invented and it turns those
six dots into variations, become notes, and become you know,
in different aspects of music itself. What's frustrating in today's
world is Braille music is extremely difficult to find and produce,
and it is a frustration that I've had as someone
who has been teaching Brail for thirty five years, and
it has always been a challenge for me to I
can find it, and I have found it, but it
can be a real challenge to find to find brown
music out there, and to produce it as well. But
that's a little bit of the history of Brail Music's
I hope you all enjoyed what I liked about this song.
It was only nineteen and he sounds so seasoned and older,
and you know, in his delivery of the music itself,
and obviously he really took to it. So what an
amazing musician, What an amazing life.
Speaker 3: Definitely, Well, I've got something to tell you that may
shock and surprise you. Do tell Neil do tel I
I never saw Ray Charles, and no joke, he didn't
see me either, No, no, no, Joe, no, I never.
I never never got to see him perform. But a
very old friend of mine that I've known pretty much,
we've known each other all our lives. He's a drummer
and he had moved out to the West Coast back
in the seventies and all yep, and worked his way
up and through all this. But he actually he played
with Ray Charles on you know, he went on tours,
would go well, and I think he played at you know,
at Philharmonic Hall here in New York with him, and
I was, I was like, I was so proud of him.
That was that. That's awesome. And so yeah, that's my
connection to Ray Charles as my friend played with him
a lot, you know, in the early nineties, you know, like.
Speaker 6: Sure, sure, Well the other thing, yeah, the only thing
that I mean, there's so much I could say about
Ray Charles. I mean we'd be here all night, so
I can't say everything, but I will say this is
I read somewhere that Billy Joel found Ray Charles more
influential to the music to music than Elvis Presley. So
that's very interesting. An interesting thing.
Speaker 3: Well, like I was saying, he predated rock and roll.
I mean, he was making records in nineteen forty nine.
You know, all the originators Pressley included didn't come along
till like the mid fifties, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, but nineteen years old, and that was his
first piece, and what an old soul he was.
Speaker 1: God bless, I hope you'll enjoyed excellent, all right, Barbara
you're up.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 7: Well, I actually for the theme of today's show, I
had a song that has the word first in the title,
and the title of the song is called First. I
look at the purse and it's by the Contours. And
I'm inviting Yelled to chime in, because initially he picked
the same song and was gracious enough to pick a
different song. I know who already researched it, so chime
in whenever. So the Contours formed in nineteen fifty nine
in Detroit by founding members Joe Billingsley and Billy Gordon.
And while researching this band, I found that they have
had so many lineup changes during the years it almost
made my head spin. So I'm not gonna go into
detail about that because we'll be here for a while
if I do, and I don't want to be any
more confused than I already am. So initially the group
was called the Blenders with these founding members, but then
all the other members of the original lineup came aboard,
and then they changed their name to the Contours. In
nineteen sixty, they auditioned for Barry Gordy's Motown Records, but
We're turned down. They then turned to band member and
bass singer Herbert Johnson, whose cousin was Jackie Wilson, who
was an associate of Gordy's, and Wilson got them a
second audition with Gordy, and during the second audition they
sang the exact same songs the exact same way as before,
and this time they were signed to a seven year contract.
Speaker 1: I like that it's not what you know too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm experiencing that personally now.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Their first single was called Whole Lot of Women. It
was released in January of sixty one and it fell
to chart, as did their second single, called The Stretch.
In nineteen sixty two, they recorded do You Love Me,
which was originally meant for the Temptations but given to
the Contours after Basically they had to really really rehearse
it well and prove themselves this time. The song reached
number one on the Billboard's R and B chart and
number three on the Hot one hundred and by the
mid nineteen sixties they were receiving some radio play, and
in nineteen sixty six they recorded First I Look at
the Purse, and it was written by Smokey Robinson and
Bobby Rogers, who had written the temptations first hit single,
The Way You Do The Things You Do. So why
don't we pause here and listen to a song I
love some that I didn't know I was gonna love
it till I heard it, and then I love it.
So let's listen to first. I look at the purse.
Speaker 5: First.
Speaker 9: Some fellas look at the nose if Some fellas look
at the side.
Speaker 10: Some fellas look at the hole. I don't care if
the highs are wid.
Speaker 11: I don't care if.
Speaker 1: The nos in song.
Speaker 14: I don't care if she's underfed. I don't care if
the CoA I don't know. Go first time, look at
the purse.
Speaker 11: Some fellas look at the small lay wet.
Speaker 10: Some fellas look at the legs.
Speaker 11: That's all.
Speaker 10: Some fellas look at the style of man.
Speaker 3: Some fellas got.
Speaker 5: The waisted it's home.
Speaker 2: I don't care you please don't me.
Speaker 10: I don't care.
Speaker 2: The legs out big.
Speaker 15: I don't care the high it's a wig wide waistside.
Looking at the waistside, because first time look at.
Speaker 16: The first A woman give me at first day with
your sister has honey, But that no mean the thing
a me is she ain't.
Speaker 2: That no money, because it's the first fun.
Speaker 11: That's that's it. God.
Speaker 12: Some do the way they're wrong, the way they swing
and swear. Some do like the way they talk, the
things they say.
Speaker 2: But I don't care.
Speaker 6: What was like A.
Speaker 12: Look at the bills, quitzow, look at the purse.
Speaker 15: Us can't be sweets, but I won't miss some money.
Speaker 5: I just love that.
Speaker 7: We don't care how she looks. We care of her
purse is flat. If it's flat, it's not where it's at.
So first I look at the purse. Reach number fifty
seven on the Billboard Hot one hundred and peaked at
number twelve on Billboard's Hot R and B Singles. The
song was covered by the J Guy Band and is
the opening track on their nineteen seventy two album Live
Full House, and a side to track on their self
titled nineteen seventy album. The Contours did not achieve the
success they had with Do You Love Me, even though
they continue to receive some airplay, but they were generally
considered secondary to motown's major male vocal groups, The Miracles,
The Foe Tops, and The Temptations. In nineteen sixty seven,
the Contour's seven year Motown contract expired and they disbanded.
The individual members did continue to team up here and
there and perform in the early nineteen seventies into the
nineteen eighties, and in nineteen eighty seven, their single Do
You Love Me was featured in the film Dirty Dancing
and had a resurgence in popularity, landing at number eleven
on the Billboard Top forty the following year. This triggered
a Dirty Dancing concert tour and the recording of two
more albums. The band underwent even more like up changes
into the two thousands, and in two thousand and four,
band member Sylvester Potts teamed up with members of a
local Detroit group named Upscale and began performing together under
the name The Contours. Billingsley found out and sued, and
Potts countersued, and they ended up settling out of court,
as the name The Contours was jointly owned by both
Billingsley and Potts, and also by their manager. However, it
was ruled that their respective bands be identified as either
The Contours with Joe Billingsley or The Contours Featuring Sylvester Potts.
Both bands continued further lineup changes, and in twenty fifteen
Potts Contours featuring Sylvester Potts disbanded. Billingsley then jumped on
that reclaimed the name the Contours for himself, and two
years later Potts passed away and the Contours were inducted
into the R and B Hall of Fame in twenty
fifteen and into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall
of Fame in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: Nice, nice, very cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 6: There was a lot of I don't know that was
that was good gils. Everybody had a lot of good
choice tonight so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I came to that song through the Jay
Guiles band, as you mentioned, when I got their first album,
and it fit right into their style, you know, and
Peter Wolf just killed it on vocals. And then I
went back and you know, discovered the original.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: But it's such a cool song, and like it's very funny.
Speaker 7: It was hilarious. I was listening to the song and
I was laughing because you know, when they're singing about
how you know, they don't care if her nose is
long or she's got a big you know whatever or smallness.
And then when they started singing a out if she's
got a skinny purse. It's it's a deal breaker. I
think that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's it's I'm in the age bracket where
I was the dirty dancing group. That's how I came
across the contours and then worked too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wouldn't. I don't know if it's exactly you know,
what do you call politically correct at this point? But
it's still a very it's still a funny. It's still
a funny.
Speaker 1: Everything on credit cards, So you know that's true.
Speaker 7: I was thinking that when I wrote that up, because nowadays,
you know, you just carry plastic or or you tap
your phone and you don't really need.
Speaker 1: A lot of cash.
Speaker 3: But if you can say, you know, I don't care
if she's got herself a rash. All I want is
her pretty green cash, how can you beat that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's why I would.
Speaker 1: But I was the through the whole thing. It was
so great. Definitely. All right, good one, Thank you, Barbara.
We're gonna take our last break, and we have one
more to go, which I believe you will be quite
entertained with, so stick around.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to go a little bit different, as
I often do, So I went with the earliest time
that I could find where a curse word got recorded
into a rock and roll song and made it all
the way through to radio airplay with nobody catching it. Wow,
not that okay, all right? I have a feeling real's
going to figure this out before. Are we going to
hear the word?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: We are, So I will say everything we do with
Hudson River Radio is family friendly. This song has been
played on the radio literally millions of times. It has
millions more streams. Everybody's heard this song. It is very popular,
but very very few people know about this. Once you
hear it, you can't unhear it. But I'm gonna go
with the approach that it's been played so many times.
We're just gonna skate it through today, all right. So
I mean, if it really if you really think it's
gonna bother you, go ahead and skip ahead, but listen
first and then make your decision. We are talking about
the song Louie Louie, all right. It is the benchmark
of misinterpreted lyrics in the rock and roll world. We're
gonna be talking about the most popular version by the Kingsman.
We will get to that in a little bit. Their
version was a cover. It was originally written in nineteen
fifty five by Richard Barry, no relation to Chuck, no
relation to Marvin. It was written in the style, Well, good,
you caught that. It was written in the style in Barry. Yeah.
It was written in the style of a Jamaican ballad.
It was a simple song about a sailor returning home
to his better half. Very straightforward song, easy to understand
kind of lyrics.
Speaker 11: It was.
Speaker 1: Like, one example, a fine little girl, she wait for me,
me catch the ship across the sea. So you know
Jamaican English, if you want to call it that, I
sail the ship all alone. I never think I make
it home. Richard Berry's version was quite easy to understand
as far as lyrics go. It is a three chord
song that is very easy to play. It's easy to
transpose depend for a singer who needs to make it
higher or lower. It's the kind of song that if
you cannot play Louie Louie, then you should not be
playing whatever instrument you are trying to play. It's that
kind of song. As harsh as it is. That's the
way it is. So so many bands did covers of it.
They were doing it live. It was kind of an
underground hit. It didn't become a smash hit until the
Kingsmen did it. The Kingsmen were from Portland, Oregon. Their
version came out in nineteen sixty three. They paid about
thirty between thirty six and fifty bucks depending on who
you talked to, for a quick studio session, and they
recorded it in one take, even though they didn't know
they were going to record it in one take. And
we will get to that in a second as well.
So the singer Jack Ellie, was a piano prodigy at
a young age. He started playing guitar after seeing Elvis Presley.
He and drummer Lynn Easton put together a band with
Mike Mitchell on guitar Bob Norby on bass. They stole
the name the Kingsman from another group that had disbanded.
They just liked the name, so they took it. They
wound up becoming the house band at a popular club,
and they decided to do their own version of Louie Louie,
as many other groups had been doing. With good reason.
It always got people up on the dance floor. It
was easily recognizable. Like I said, it was very easy.
People could sing along even though they didn't know what
the lyrics were. They could chant and jump up and down,
all that good kind of stuff. So the night before
they recorded it, they wound up doing a ninety minute
straight version all the way through, which would drive me insane.
Ninety minutes of the same three chords over and over
and over again. But that's how well it worked at
getting people up onto the dance floor.
Speaker 3: I draw the line at an hour in fifteen.
Speaker 1: I would say that's more. If you don't get the
point after seventy five minutes, that's on you. I would
agree with you there. So the next day they were
in the studio to record it. This was April fifth,
nineteen sixty three, at Northwestern Inc.
Speaker 3: Studio.
Speaker 1: They had one hour, and that hour includes bringing in
all your stuff to load in, set up, record, pack up,
and load out, so there is no time to waste
when you were renting studio time. Jack Ellie sounds like
like he is yelling and screaming in the Kingsman's version,
because he is yelling and screaming. The story goes that
he had just gotten embraces, and the recording engineer just
bought a very fancy, very expensive microphone and did not
want Jack spitting all over his new fancy expensive microphone,
so he put it high up where he could not
spit onto this microphone. So Jack was actually singing up
into the air, up into this mic that was suspended
over his head. Part of yeah, part of the result,
you know, it gave the vibe of having everybody in
the room kind of like a jam session feel, which
was part of the intent was that everybody was altogether,
because that's the kind of song it is. But one
of the other results is that you can't understand the
lyrics because Jack is yelling trying to be heard over
the music, and of course people are just stupid, so
if they can't understand it, some people just assume it
was obscene, because why else could you not understand it.
Actually made complaints to the FBI about obscene music, and
the FBI did actually launch an investigation into the song.
I'm gonna guess they didn't work very hard at this
investigation because nobody at the FBI bothered to ask Jack
Ellie what he was singing, and nobody at the FBI
bothered to ask Richard Berry what he wrote. He was
still around the guy who wrote the song. Nobody asked,
So I think the FBI handled it appropriately. It's okay, yes, ma'am,
no problem.
Speaker 3: Some thing's never change. I guess yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: Not touching that tonight. So Jack Ellie wound up leaving
the band shortly after they recorded Louis. Louis, the drummer.
Easton wound up taking over the band and pushed him out.
He wanted to become the front man after he saw
the success of what was going on, and it just
turned into a nasty mess going back and forth. Jack
drafted into the army during Vietnam. He wound up struggling
with drugs and alcohol after his discharge, like a lot
of Vietnam vets did. Unfortunately, he was able to get
sober and he was active in a group called Rockers
Against Drugs. He was also a supporter of the proposed
Performance Rights Act, which would ensure that performers who actually
performed on these records would get their share of the
royalties due to them when their songs were played, which
is the way it's supposed to work, but musicians got
ripped off, especially back then, all the time as popular
as their version of Louis Louie is. He made a
grand total of about six thousand dollars on that song,
and that's it. That's it, after those millions of airplays
and all that kind of stuff. Six grand. Unfortunately, he
passed away in twenty fifteen at age seventy one. So
when we listened to the song, there's a guitar solo.
Right after the guitar solo, you'll hear Jack start to
sing a few notes and then he stops, and then
he starts again. When the phrase starts over again. That
was a mistake. He caught himself making the mistake and
he stopped and then he started over again. But people
have heard the song so much that they thought they
think it's on purpose. So even nowadays when you hear
cover bands.
Speaker 3: Do it, they do that.
Speaker 1: You know it was a mistake. They didn't know it
was a mistake.
Speaker 3: They copy the mistake. They copy the.
Speaker 1: Mistake, right, But that's not what we're talking about. What
we're going to talk about now is at the fifty
four second mark, the drummer Lynn Easton drops a drumstick
and then drops an f bomb because he dropped his drumstick.
It just blends into the music, and if you don't
know it's there, it just sails on by fifty four
seconds in. We don't worry. I'll count it down for you,
and then we're going to back it up and I'll
count it down for you, so we'll make sure that
nobody misses it. Once you hear it, you cannot unhear it.
And like I said, if this really may offend you,
feel free to skip ahead a little bit. But we're
going to listen to Louie Louis by the King Man.
I'm going to keep the mics open and I will
count down when it's coming fifty four seconds. So here
we go.
Speaker 17: Oh, here we go, three two one, here yep, alright
back up, Just in case you didn't hear it.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna back up a couple of seconds. Here
we go again, three two one, got it?
Speaker 5: Got it?
Speaker 1: Third Times of Charm, just for anybody who may have
missed it. And then we're just going to let the
song play out and you can listen for when Jack
comes in by a mistake. So here we go, last time.
I'm just gonna let it play out they go three
two one, but.
Speaker 3: It blends right in. You think he's going out, yeah,
like a regular rock and roll Yeah, you.
Speaker 18: Know, okay, lot, I'm gonna block out.
Speaker 3: Got ten seconds.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that they did it in one take, and
that wasn't the intent. The band didn't know they were
doing that. They thought this was a rehearsal. But because
of the time constraints of paying for time, this was it.
And that's the copy, you know, that's the version they got,
And that was it.
Speaker 3: That's happened more than more than a couple of times too,
not you know, that may be the first, but whether
they were just doing to run through and the band
didn't realize that the tapes were rolling and that ended
up being the keeper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they were also a lot of hits which we
could do as a future show where they had extra
time at the end. Oh so why don't we do
cover this? Why don't we do this? Why don't we
try this? And that becomes the hit the tag along,
you know, just because they had the extra time that
they already paid for. So there's a bunch of songs
like that that the accidental hit, you could call it.
That wasn't even intended, so well, there you go, very cool,
right cool. So that was the earliest I could find now.
Of course, you know, if you go back to the twenties,
there was risk a language and all that, but nothing
like that. In the sixties. Then lyrics got a little
bit more profane as you went along intentionally, but those
never got radio airplay like Louis Louis.
Speaker 3: Did, No, some of them did. It was a Pink
Floyd song that got through, and it was sold by
the Who that got through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: It's time and it was not Yeah, it was not
veiled or you know in the background. No, it's straight up.
You know. I'm not going to say what well, but
if you know, you know, And somehow I guess the
more popular you are, the more people look the other way.
I suppose, you know, dance like Pink Floyd and the Who,
they could get away with it.
Speaker 8: But the thing is, though, now that I know that
that's there, I've always liked the song.
Speaker 1: I'm Those of you who.
Speaker 8: Know me fairly well know that I'm a very visual person,
so I could just picture this happening totally absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know what, people make mistakes and rehearsals all the time,
and you do that and you move on and you
do it again. But there was no doing it again.
Speaker 3: Having having having dropped a few drumsticks in my time,
I totally understand.
Speaker 8: But did you But did you yell anything when it happened?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Possibly, but there were no microphones, no recordings on.
Speaker 1: You can't prove anything. Well, never know.
Speaker 7: I just googled lyrics the lyrics to the song, and
it's there. It's the lyrics has put it in there
play day.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, now now you can do that, yeah now yeah, yeah,
so but yeah, they didn't. They didn't have the Internet
and all that.
Speaker 1: That's true and fairness, that's not in the original lyrics
sheet either.
Speaker 11: That was.
Speaker 1: It's a it's.
Speaker 7: A it's a source called lyric Find, lyric find one word,
lyric Find. It's the first thing that came up in Google.
Speaker 3: I'm like, there you go.
Speaker 1: Now it's going to be stuck in your head every
time you hear it.
Speaker 4: You will not be able to It's a good it's
a good song to add to the the Sunday service
line up there?
Speaker 6: What do you say, gil?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 8: I think I think the rest of the congregation might object.
I'm not entirely sure. The clergy would object because most
of the clergy that I know have the almost the
same twisted sense of humor that I do, so I'm
not sure.
Speaker 3: What that means. Well, that was the song I walked
down the aisle to. You know, Yeah, no, not really.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to take the queue that it
is time to pull the plug because we are so
far off the light. All right, interesting topic, interesting selections.
As always. I like when the topic is just vague
enough where we don't know which direction it's going to go.
Speaker 8: Oh, me too, because then I can pick what I
want and not get stuck.
Speaker 1: There you go, all right, good choice is grand bones.
Thanks for all the effort as always, and thank you
for joining us for the Rock and Roll History Show.
Don't forget to check out all the other shows we
do here, because there is something for everybody. We are
actually off next week. I don't know if we'll be
back in the week after that. We're gonna have to
wait and see. I don't know, we'll find out.
Speaker 8: But you know it sounds ominous, it does.
Speaker 1: It's Yeah, sometimes you're at the mercy of other people's schedules.
Speaker 3: But if the FCC and the FBI. Hear what we
just played. They might come in, and that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they might come in. All right, Well, start pulling
the bail money. We'll see how it goes, all right,
all right, guys, Well, thank you, I have a great
weekend and we'll see you next time. So until then,
peace out, everybody.
Speaker 11: Rock cop bottomed ram.
Speaker 2: Okay, Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Pudsonriver Radio dot Com, a subsidiary of Glacier Entertainment LLC,
potentially successful its multi hundred dollars corporation