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Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.

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Speaker 2: Yum yo, how does Sasa? Jonnifer Leasberry Jukes.

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Speaker 3: Hey, this is Tom Chapin. Hello, just preaching in Rock

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and Roll History Show.

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Speaker 4: You're listening right now.

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Speaker 5: Welcome to the latest installment of the Rock and Roll

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History Show. And no, I did not kidnap Brian and

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lock him in a closet. He's here, but they're going

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to torture me today, so I get to leave the show. Fun, fun, fun.

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Every so often we do an episode where it's all

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about songs with an instrument that one of us hates,

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and we've already done Barbara with the ukulele and Mercedes

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with the harp. So now it's my turn. And what

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instrument do I usually hate to hear? Harmonic? Before we

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get started, let me introduce the Corimbos. Let's start with

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our usual host Ryan. Ryan used to play bass by ear,

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but he's doing much better now because he's switched to

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using his hands. Go. Neil heard a rumor about butter,

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but he decided not to spread it.

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Speaker 2: People, lies, lies, lies, How you do everybody?

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Speaker 5: Mercedes from Silver Screen saw a skeleton walk into a

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bar and she wanted to see what happened. The skeleton

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said to the bartender, a bartender, I'll have one beer

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and a mop. Yes, hey, everybody, Barbara feel from shaving cream.

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She saw a snowman throwing a tantrum. It was a

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real meltdown.

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Speaker 6: Oh good one, Gil and should.

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Speaker 5: A retired teacher John got carded at a liquor store

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and he went to take out his license from his

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wallet and his Blockbuster card fell out by mistake. The

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cashier said, never mind.

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Speaker 4: You know, Blockbuster brings brings up a lot of good.

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Speaker 7: Running to Blockbuster to get that, uh, you know, the

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latest release before the you know, thirty other people went

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clambered to get it as well.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it was fun.

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Speaker 3: It was you know, adjacent to go into the record store. Yeah,

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all the time. Yeah, you go to block.

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Speaker 7: At a Blockbuster, go to the record store, grab a slice,

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grab some pizza.

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Speaker 4: Bring it home.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, popcorn.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, good times.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now you scroll endless screens on Netflix going nah yeah doom.

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Speaker 4: Scroll for like three hours trying to find something.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't I don't have any of the streaming channels,

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so I don't even know like how that is. But anyway,

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so before we get started with the songs, one of

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which I actually really love, so it's not going to

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be torturing me at all in spite of the harmonica. Uh,

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let's talk a little bit about harmonic, because it's considered

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a loose reed instrument, and these poor people. Loose read

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instruments not to be confused with lou reed instruments, date

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back to China around eleven hundred BC. Oh my god,

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they tortured people even back then. What we would recognize

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as a mouth organ. I'd rather have a kidney or liver,

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thank you. Dates to around eighteen twenty when it spread

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around Europe, Oh God help them, and into the US.

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Oh no, and that's when the evil began. It was fun, huh.

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That's subjective, portable, and relatively inexpensive. A German clock maker

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named Matthias Hohner started the Honer Company in eighteen fifty

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seven when he realized that custom clocks were fading in popularity. Personally,

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I think a custom clock would be really cool, much

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less annoying, sound wise.

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Speaker 3: Way more expensive.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. He started selling harmonicas in Germany, those poor people,

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and it found out.

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Speaker 3: From there they.

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Speaker 5: Are still by far the biggest selling brand. It's popularity

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soword after World War One and lasted through World War Two,

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and a lot of these old World War One movies

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you see these guys one guy is sitting around mournfully

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playing the harmonica.

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Speaker 2: A lot of Western a lot of Western movies have that. Well, yeah, guys.

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Speaker 1: Sitting cowboy by the fire.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 5: So the popularity lasted through World War II, when it

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faded a bit, thanks be to God, but came back

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in the folk music revival of the nineteen sixties, which

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is why I am mostly not a folk music.

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Speaker 3: You might want to be kind of grateful because it

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got Bob Billin to stop singing for a minute.

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Speaker 5: Oh goodness. So I believe that. First to start out

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is Neil.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, I will ask a rhetorical question before

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we start into Gail. Is that I mean, you've professed

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here on the Rock and Roll History Show your love

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of the blues and the harmonica is like, it's like

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the number one instrument in blues and and and you

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don't you don't have to answer.

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Speaker 5: I'm just like, it's no, I can explain it totally.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 5: It depends on the type of harmonica. Playing if it's

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the high pitched shrieky like some of Stevie Wonders music

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has that type the high pitched, shrieky, kind of gritty

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sounding harmonica. Hate it, absolutely hate it. It literally is

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physically disturbing to me.

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Speaker 2: Okay, now, let just you know we.

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Speaker 4: Should want you to pick Stevie wonder Then.

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Speaker 2: I want you to make sure I want you to

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that you don't have ear plugs inside your headphones. That's cheating.

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You have to listen. You have to listen.

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Speaker 5: Rats. I thought I had the situation solved.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you because when the topic of torture

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or the torture topic of the harmonica came up, when

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it was first mentioned, I immediately thought of the Jay

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Giles band. Now, not the Jay Giles band that dominated

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the early nineteen eighties MTV charts with a mainstream, semi

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new wave commercial sound. Oh no, no, no, no, I'm

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I'm talking about the Jay Giles band that I saw

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back in the early nineteen seventies as a young high

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school teenager at places like the Fillmore East and the

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Academy of Music down in Manhattan in New York City.

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A simple R and B influenced blues rock group that

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just happened to kick major ass. Okay, let's talk about them.

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The Jay Giles Band were formed in Boston or the

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Boston area in nineteen sixty seven. Original members included the

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band's namesake, John Giles but you can call him Jay

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On guitar, singer and frontman extraordinaire Peter Wolfe, keyboardist Seth Justman,

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bassist Danny Klein, drummer Stephen Joe Blad and the man

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at the center of our topic today, mister Richard Solwitz,

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but you can call him Magic Dick or as Peter

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wolf would call him, magic Dick on the licking stick.

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And I knew you'd like that, and we'll have more

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about him later. But The Jay Giles Band released their

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eponymously titled debut album in late nineteen seventy and although

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the song We're about to hear called Whammer Jammer didn't

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appear until their second album, called The Morning After, which

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was released in late nineteen seventy one, it was already

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a staple of their live shows, and it would later

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appear on a live LP called Full House in nineteen

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seventy two. Now, generally the main focus of the band

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was there flamboyant frontman Peter Wolf with his rapid fire

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between song banter and his swagger like Mick Jagger. But

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on this song an instrumental, no words, it's Whammer jammer,

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where Magic Dick took center stage.

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Speaker 8: Sometimes drinking hand time, beshrinking hand time.

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Speaker 9: Baking, baking had story.

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Speaker 8: Entire the root, the room, your cap, your can.

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Speaker 9: Sing since things seconds.

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Speaker 2: All right, gall, let's hear it. What is your reaction

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to Wamma jammer?

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Speaker 5: I'd rather not ever hear it again?

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Speaker 2: If people at home listening at home, if if you

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could see her, it looked like she was We were

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watching her, Yes, a big bite out of a lemon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're watching her face contort all through that.

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Speaker 4: It was Yes, that was a lot of fun.

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Speaker 2: You know it is it rocks? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

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Speaker 5: It was a little easier to handle when the other

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instruments came in too, so I wasn't just listening to

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shrieking air.

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Speaker 3: If we had turned down the volume on our headphones,

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we could tell the pitch of the harmonica by the

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scrunch on Gail's face.

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Speaker 5: Yes, yes, yeah, I don't even have to say anything,

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Mike gooms my face has subtitles.

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Speaker 3: If we ever played poker, Invite Gael.

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Speaker 5: At this point in my life, I wouldn't even be

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able to remember the rules of this state.

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Speaker 2: So let's get back to Magic Dick, like I said before. Okay.

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He was born in New London, Connecticut, in nineteen forty five.

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In addition to the harmonica, he also plays the trumpet

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and the saxophone, and in nineteen seventy nine, music critic

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Dave Marsh described Magic Dick as quote possibly the best

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white musician to ever play blues harmonica. Now I take

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a little lumberge, I would say simply he was the

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best musician period to play blues harmonica, or at least

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one of them. But I'll get off my soapbox. Magic

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Dick also co created a harmonica design called appropriately the

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Magic Harmonica, and he's still based in the Boston area

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and he is a member of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra. Gail,

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you want to get tickets? Oh god, I'll take that

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as a yes.

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Speaker 5: Okay, What an abomination road trip? How I really feel?

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Speaker 9: No?

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Speaker 3: No, no, no, no no no.

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Speaker 2: The Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra front row, all right, the Jay

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Giles band did have several top forty singles in the

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early nineteen seventies, but as I mentioned earlier, the majority

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of their success came in the nineteen eighties, with hits

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like Freeze, Frames, Centerfold and of Course Loves Things So hey,

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you know, and I'll say I like those records too,

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but I was always partial to the earlier stuff because

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that's what I heard first. So just to say, you know,

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everybody knows my eighties bias somewhat, but no, I'd like

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those songs too, so don't worry. So but what does

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a band do after striving for years to reach the

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top and they finally make it in the nineteen eighties,

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what do they do?

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Speaker 5: Stop making shrieking sounds?

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Speaker 2: No? They break up? Of course? What do you think?

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Peter Wolf left the band in nineteen eighty three to

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pursue a solo career. The band did release one more

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album without Wolf in nineteen eighty four, before breaking up

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for good in nineteen eighty five, But beginning in nineteen

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ninety nine, the band did get back together for several

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reunion tours with and without Jay Giles, the latter resulting

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in a bitter lawsuit over the use of the guitarist name,

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as you might think, being that the Jay Giles Band

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did not have a Jay Giles in them at that point. Anyway, Sadly,

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J Giles himself passed away in twenty seventeen. Now, the

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Jay Giles Band, they were nominated for induction into the

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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not once, not twice,

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five different times, but were not voted in on any

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of those attempts. So that I find that criminal. I

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find that felonious. I find that is why I don't

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really take much stock in the Rock and Roll Hall

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of Fame, because that's crazy that they and the people

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that they do induct. No, no, this is there is

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no justice. But as I also mentioned, I did get

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to see the band live a number of times throughout

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the nineteen seventies, and they always were incredible. Peter Wolf

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is out there too. I've seen him solo and he's incredible.

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And I also got to see Magic Dick perform along

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with a guitarist named Seun Eng as an acoustic duo

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and they were great. That was up at Daryl's house

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in paul in, New York, and that was back in

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twenty nineteen. So he's still out there playing too, So

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get out there and catch these people. That's all I

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can say.

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Speaker 5: And Gail, I hope you liked it well, Neil, that

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was interesting.

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Speaker 2: Nice. I can see how happy you are.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm surprised you don't have alcohol in front.

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Speaker 5: Of you right now. I do have a bottle of

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wine in the other room. I should go get it.

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So John, what do you have?

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Speaker 4: Okay?

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Speaker 3: I don't know you.

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Speaker 7: You might like this, you might not because there's a

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lot of harmonica in it, but there's also a lot

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of guitar in it as well, so.

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Speaker 4: The selection is a little long tonight. It's the work song.

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Speaker 7: By the late great Paul Butterfield and the Paul Butterfield

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Blues Band from nineteen sixty six. It was from their

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East West, their second album, East West, released in August

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of that year. And Paul Butterfield does the harmonica and

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Mike Bloomfield does the guitar, and I think this is

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a classic.

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Speaker 4: It's a bit of a long one.

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Speaker 7: So I think we're gonna do about three three and

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a half minutes and then we're gonna kind of fade

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out from there, and then I'll just.

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Speaker 4: Say tell you a little bit, a little bit of

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a teaser after that as well. So, Gail, I.

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Speaker 7: Hope you enjoy this little this little blues selection Butterfield

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Blues Band.

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Speaker 10: So enjoys.

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Speaker 1: Seven s.

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Speaker 3: The moment.

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Speaker 7: Focus, okay, And that was the work song by Paul

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Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield.

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Speaker 4: Great song. Uh, it's got a great beat.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 7: It goes on for about seven and a half minutes scales,

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so there's a lot more after that. So uh, we

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were kind enough to only give you about three and

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a half minutes.

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Speaker 5: There, but thank you. Actually I liked the guitars and

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the percussion and the keyboard.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's it's it's got a lot of bass.

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Speaker 3: Hello, sorry the bass, yes, the back all right, then,

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whether you meant it or not, you have to say it.

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It's got a lot to it.

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Speaker 2: Well, that was They were a good band.

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Speaker 7: That a really great I mean, and to think what

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they could have achieved had both Bloomfield and Butterfield not

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engaged in a lot of recreational pharmacology, which led to

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their demise. Mister Butterfield nineteen eighty seven in Bloomfield in

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eighty one, I believe. So again, it's a great piece

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of music, but gone too soon.

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Speaker 2: So but hope you know, I know this will shock you,

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But I did get to see a later version of

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the Butterfly Field Blues Band, not the one we just

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heard right, probably just a couple of years later. It

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was probably around nineteen seventy one. Yeah, but they were

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still great. Yeah, it was still the same groove going there.

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Speaker 7: That kind of music is a kind of music I

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would love to just listen to in like a smoky

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bar somewhere, you know, and just.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 5: You obviously don't have asthma like I do, well.

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Speaker 7: I could do that pretty bad lung problems, but still

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would have been a fun thing to just kind of

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just kick back and hill with a drink in hand

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and a low key kind of.

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Speaker 4: Smoky bar and just kind of take in that harmonica.

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Speaker 3: It's the kind of thing I think, even if you

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don't necessarily like it, when it's live, for some reason,

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it just hits better.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly play it, you know. No, you're right,

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You're you're right, Brian.

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Speaker 7: It's just I could see enjoying that down in Pyramont

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at what's the club down to Pyramount? We go to

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uh point yes, I would love I would love to

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hear somebody do that kind of a do a remake

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of it at the turning point. That'd be a lot

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of fun, that really would anyway, Hope you all enjoyed it, Gail,

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it was a pleasure to Uh.

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Speaker 5: All right, well I survived that one. But we need

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to take a very quick break.

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Speaker 4: What's the the River Radio? Your dog likes us.

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Speaker 5: This concludes the first part of this cassette.

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Speaker 11: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side too.

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Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.

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Speaker 8: A y.

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Speaker 5: All right, so we're back at the middle section of

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today's Rock and Roll History Show episode where my fellow

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crambones are torturing me with songs of my least favorite instrument,

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the harmonica. Up next is Barbara. What do you have

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to drive me nuts?

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Speaker 2: Barbara?

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Speaker 1: First, I want to say when you were telling us

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the story of the Harmonica, I loved your little commentary.

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That is excellent.

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Speaker 3: The poor Chinese.

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Speaker 5: Oh my gods, wait, wait till you see Sunday at church,

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I have to give a talk on St. Teresa of Avola,

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and I put little things like that in there. When

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I'm giving my talks about Saints, and I think that's

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why everybody shows up when we only have morning prayer

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and I'm the one doing it.

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Speaker 3: Gone, Jesus may have suffered, but I had to listen

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to the harmonica.

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Speaker 5: No no, I usually start out Saints, Who are they,

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what do they do? And why do we like them?

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Speaker 1: Excellent? Excellent. So besides saying that praise on your commentary,

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the second thing I wanted.

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Speaker 3: To say is more.

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Speaker 1: And the song I chose to torture Gale for today's

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00:27:01,759 --> 00:27:05,680
theme is called I Want My Mama, and it's by

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Salty Holmes. Born Floyd Holmes on March sixth, nineteen ten

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in Kentucky. He played jug and guitar, but was famous

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for his harmonica playing. He specialized in the style called

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talking harp, in which the harmonica sounds like a human voice.

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Oh joy, I'm twirling my imaginary mustache right now. Holmes

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formed the group the Kentucky Ramblers in nineteen thirty, but

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they changed their name to the Prairie Ramblers three years

341
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later and began broadcasting on WLSAM in Chicago. I Want

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00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,759
My Mama was recorded during the nineteen forties, but I

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00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:56,559
could not find an exact date. Despite searching multiple sites.

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The recording we Will Hear was included on the two

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thousand and five compilation album Harmonica Masters, which I'll be

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gifting to Gail next Christmas.

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Speaker 5: She needs another coaster, Don't waste the money.

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Speaker 1: Out of all harmonica songs, I chose this one especially

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for Gail because not only does it feature the dreaded harmonica,

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but Holmes makes it sound like a child crying.

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Speaker 5: I want my.

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Speaker 1: Let the torture begin.

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Speaker 5: Harmonica and crying children Ga Gail lame from.

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Speaker 10: No No no no.

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Speaker 8: M m m m m la La from No no

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no no no no no no no from.

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Speaker 2: A La La La.

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Speaker 12: La la la la la la la la la la

359
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,200
la la la l l l l l l l

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l l l la.

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Speaker 10: L l l l l l l l l l

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l l.

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Speaker 13: L l l l l l la la la.

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Speaker 8: La la la la la la la.

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Speaker 11: La la la la.

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Speaker 8: La La Lo Lo Lo.

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Speaker 1: Okay, before I proceed, Gail, what say you?

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Speaker 5: That was interesting?

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Speaker 1: I cringe.

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Speaker 5: I like the old timy sounds.

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Speaker 14: I do too.

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Speaker 5: I swear they don't have talent like that nowadays that

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could do the same thing. It was fascinating to me

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00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:43,920
to figure out or try to figure out how the

375
00:31:44,039 --> 00:31:50,359
performer was making those sounds the quick inhale exhale things.

376
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I could maybe do that twice and then I would

377
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need my asthma inhaler. So I'm surprised. You know, maybe

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he had an oxygen tank waiting for when he was done.

379
00:32:00,119 --> 00:32:00,559
I don't know.

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Speaker 1: My tombstone would actually say died by playing harmonica too fast.

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Speaker 13: Yeah.

382
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,359
Speaker 14: I think it's like a ditchery too, isn't it Like

383
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:10,279
you breathe in and out at the same time.

384
00:32:11,279 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 5: Yeah, you get you get different sounds.

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00:32:15,559 --> 00:32:15,839
Speaker 13: Breath.

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00:32:16,559 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's what you do when your coffee is

387
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,680
too high, pretty much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the harmonica is actually it's not an

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00:32:27,519 --> 00:32:30,440
at least to me, not an easy instrument to play.

390
00:32:30,839 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 5: It's easy to start, it's very difficult, not if you

391
00:32:33,799 --> 00:32:36,599
want to get specific sounds out of it, and you.

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Speaker 15: Have to like.

393
00:32:38,799 --> 00:32:41,759
Speaker 2: Like block certain you know, it's like a little series

394
00:32:41,839 --> 00:32:44,519
of holes. Everybody knows what they look like, believe it

395
00:32:44,599 --> 00:32:44,720
or not.

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Speaker 5: I had one as a child.

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00:32:46,279 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you had idea too.

398
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:48,079
Speaker 3: Yeah.

399
00:32:48,559 --> 00:32:51,599
Speaker 2: You have to block the ones you don't want to

400
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,240
blow through most of them.

401
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, most of them. Exhale when you inhale. It's a

402
00:32:56,359 --> 00:33:00,240
half step off. Yeah, that's it's in out and out now.

403
00:33:01,119 --> 00:33:02,799
But you have to like you're looking for you.

404
00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:04,839
Speaker 2: Got to get to the right one and block out

405
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:07,279
the other ones with your tongue. And I ended up

406
00:33:07,319 --> 00:33:13,480
having like you know, you know, blostlelia, a petite mall seizure,

407
00:33:13,559 --> 00:33:19,119
you know, like, yeah, I had epilepsy. So yeah, I

408
00:33:19,319 --> 00:33:23,440
I you know, I've tried. I said, Nope, I'm not.

409
00:33:24,079 --> 00:33:26,400
That's one instrument I can check off the list that Nope,

410
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:26,880
I am not.

411
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 3: I did figure out how to bend a note, you know. Wow,

412
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,200
I figured out how to do that. Okay, okay, now

413
00:33:34,279 --> 00:33:36,079
to do it on the right pitch at the right time.

414
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,119
Speaker 2: You no. Oh. Then then there's the chromatic ones that

415
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,160
have another little thing on the side that changes everything again.

416
00:33:44,319 --> 00:33:46,759
So it's like it's not yeah.

417
00:33:46,839 --> 00:33:48,799
Speaker 3: Most of the time. You'll see something we haven't talked

418
00:33:48,799 --> 00:33:51,960
about is most of them are keyed, so you're, you know,

419
00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:55,599
whatever key the song is in. Usually take a harmonica

420
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,480
that's a fourth hire, which is a whole music theory thing,

421
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,519
but it's for that key for that song, which is

422
00:34:01,559 --> 00:34:04,240
why you know, like John Popper from Blues Traveler as a.

423
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 5: Whole, like ten different harmonica usually.

424
00:34:06,759 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 3: Twelve yeah, depending on what you would play, Yeah, drive

425
00:34:09,039 --> 00:34:12,960
me crazy, yeah, depending and then one yeah.

426
00:34:14,519 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: One one giant harmonica and just put all the crambones

427
00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:22,480
at different stations along the giant harmonica, and we all

428
00:34:22,639 --> 00:34:24,679
play our own were.

429
00:34:25,079 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 14: Blow breath there into each other's spells.

430
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:29,639
Speaker 5: No, not a good idea.

431
00:34:30,199 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 3: You know what we'll call the song COVID two.

432
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 5: Yes, okay.

433
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: So the Prairie Ramblers produced over one hundred recordings between

434
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,920
nineteen thirty three and nineteen forty. They continued performing until

435
00:34:47,039 --> 00:34:51,880
nineteen fifty two, playing country hillbilly, which you probably figured

436
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,800
out when I mentioned that Holmes played the jug and

437
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:59,880
pop music while performing with the Prairie Ramblers. Homes before

438
00:35:00,119 --> 00:35:02,519
did Geene Autry, who invited him to go to Hollywood

439
00:35:02,559 --> 00:35:05,559
and star in westerns, which he did, and we talked

440
00:35:05,599 --> 00:35:07,880
about Cowboy by the Fire before, So there you go.

441
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:13,360
In one of his films called Arizona Days, he played

442
00:35:13,639 --> 00:35:17,840
two harmonicas at once, using both his mouth and nose.

443
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,840
Speaker 5: It could be worse. It could be worse.

444
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it could have been mouthed something else. Oh no,

445
00:35:31,559 --> 00:35:32,719
the vertical harmonica.

446
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 1: Man, oh my.

447
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 4: God nasty guys.

448
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,599
Speaker 1: So the Prairie Ramblers also backed Autrey in the nineteen

449
00:35:44,679 --> 00:35:48,199
thirties on some of his recordings. Now that's all I

450
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:52,159
have about Salty Homes. But I did want to mention

451
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:56,199
that I was driving home, not Holmes home, the other

452
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,079
night and I had serious ExM on in the car

453
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:04,519
and I heard this song that was all harmonica, and

454
00:36:04,679 --> 00:36:10,320
the they announced that the artist was called Little Walter

455
00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:13,480
and he was the only artist inducted into the Rock

456
00:36:13,519 --> 00:36:17,119
and Roll Hall of Fame specifically as a harmonica player.

457
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:19,519
So of course, by the time I got home, I

458
00:36:19,639 --> 00:36:20,519
forgot his name.

459
00:36:20,639 --> 00:36:24,119
Speaker 6: So I had a Google only artists inducted into the

460
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:26,760
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a harmonica So

461
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,280
then this came up with a little bio and I

462
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,880
found out he was actually born May first, nineteen thirty

463
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,800
and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall

464
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:36,280
of Fame in two thousand and.

465
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 5: Eight, and that that was irrelevant.

466
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 2: That answered they only have room for one harmonica player,

467
00:36:42,559 --> 00:36:44,719
and he took it. That's why Jay Giles never got in.

468
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: That's the reason be it.

469
00:36:48,639 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 3: They did take up a lot of space.

470
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,119
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, you know, you have to have like

471
00:36:53,199 --> 00:36:54,360
twelve or you know whatever.

472
00:36:54,559 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 5: I want the rock and Roll Hall of Fame to

473
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:01,239
be full of harmonica players for God's sake. Well, you

474
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:02,000
need to vote.

475
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: Remember when the rock and Roll Hall of Fame was

476
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,199
good and there were no harmonica players.

477
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,039
Speaker 2: Remember when it was when it was rock and roll?

478
00:37:15,159 --> 00:37:18,840
But yeah, exactly, And just a side note here too. Now,

479
00:37:19,599 --> 00:37:22,800
maybe I met misread this, But did MTV like go

480
00:37:23,079 --> 00:37:24,199
off the air entirely?

481
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:29,679
Speaker 3: And I heard, yeah, the music channel, not the main MTV. Okay,

482
00:37:30,599 --> 00:37:32,679
I believe it was called v H one Classics for

483
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,000
a while and then it became m t V two

484
00:37:35,199 --> 00:37:35,519
or something.

485
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:40,079
Speaker 5: I know they still had anyone with Well that's the problem.

486
00:37:40,159 --> 00:37:42,159
Speaker 3: That's why it went off the airs, because nobody did.

487
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:42,519
Speaker 2: So.

488
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 3: The one channel they had that still played music videos,

489
00:37:45,079 --> 00:37:46,280
they shut that one down.

490
00:37:46,679 --> 00:37:48,639
Speaker 2: And at least they played the Buggles as they.

491
00:37:48,639 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: Signed Circle at least yeah.

492
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,119
Speaker 2: Okay, Well that that, Yeah, that clears that up. Because

493
00:37:55,119 --> 00:37:56,559
I didn't quite I have to.

494
00:37:56,599 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 3: Admit I didn't watch it either.

495
00:37:58,039 --> 00:38:02,159
Speaker 1: Now I feel guilty, but I have such good memories.

496
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,639
Speaker 14: Tommy had it, my husband had it, and I didn't

497
00:38:04,679 --> 00:38:07,480
have it yet, and I would go to his apartment

498
00:38:07,599 --> 00:38:09,599
when we first met, and like, I would just sit

499
00:38:09,679 --> 00:38:11,719
there glued to the Yeah.

500
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, high school boyfriend, same thing, he had it, and

501
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,559
my father would never let us get cable, so I

502
00:38:18,599 --> 00:38:21,920
would go to my boyfriend's house and watch it and yeah,

503
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:23,320
same thing, be glued to the TV.

504
00:38:23,599 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally totally.

505
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 5: So that was that was a gone memory now so

506
00:38:31,559 --> 00:38:35,119
that I've got. So that's all I got, Mercedes, what

507
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:40,360
song do you have? Thank you? Barbara, welcome. Okay.

508
00:38:42,039 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 1: Oh, so, as a feminist, I need to preface my

509
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:48,400
song with some thoughts.

510
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 5: The song is good.

511
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,639
Speaker 14: Girls don't by the neck, and while I love the song,

512
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,400
it does make me super uncomfortable, and it's not because

513
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:02,880
of the harmonica. You can tell me how you feel

514
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,800
about that later, Gail. The song was released in nineteen

515
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,920
seventy nine by Doug Fieger as a follow up to

516
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,639
the band's hit single My Sharona, which was about his

517
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:18,800
girlfriend Sharona Alperin, who was seventeen while he was twenty five.

518
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,920
Obviously obviously not the largest age gap we know about

519
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:25,480
in the rock and roll world, but lyrics in My

520
00:39:25,679 --> 00:39:29,599
Sharona like such a dirty mind. I always get it

521
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,559
up for the touch of the younger kind might.

522
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 1: Be an issue if it was released today.

523
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

524
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 14: And teen Sharona herself appears on the singles picture sleeve

525
00:39:40,559 --> 00:39:43,360
looking like the winner of a quote unquote wet t

526
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:47,440
shirt contest. According to Rock and Roll Globe dot Com,

527
00:39:48,599 --> 00:39:50,639
this would have been a good addition to our song

528
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,920
our show on songs that could not have been released today,

529
00:39:54,039 --> 00:39:56,639
which we did quite a long time.

530
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 3: That was a while ago.

531
00:39:57,599 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

532
00:40:00,039 --> 00:40:04,639
Speaker 14: Robert Christau chris Gow, a critic for The Village Voice,

533
00:40:04,679 --> 00:40:06,840
wrote in his review of the record, if they felt

534
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,559
this way about girls when they were unknowns, I shuddered

535
00:40:09,639 --> 00:40:11,599
to think how they're reacting to groupies.

536
00:40:13,599 --> 00:40:14,039
Speaker 13: Yikes.

537
00:40:14,559 --> 00:40:14,760
Speaker 5: Yeah.

538
00:40:16,639 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 14: A quote from Rock and Roll Globe dot Com says,

539
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,840
if you Google get the nec and misogyny, you will

540
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,280
not be lacking in search results. And by the way,

541
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,599
that's exactly what I had done. It's been observed many

542
00:40:30,679 --> 00:40:33,000
times over the years from nineteen seventy nine to the

543
00:40:33,079 --> 00:40:35,880
present that fig Figer, I keep wanting to put an

544
00:40:36,079 --> 00:40:39,400
l in there, doesn't exactly come across as a champion

545
00:40:39,519 --> 00:40:42,840
of women in some of these songs that in itself

546
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,920
would unfortunately not be newsworthy for a rock record in

547
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,880
the seventies, but even for the time, these tunes took

548
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,679
sexism to another level. The article goes on to say,

549
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,719
without getting into quotations, that it simply be said that

550
00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:03,880
at least half the album songs feature either women hating, horny, creepiness, emotional, stunted,

551
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:13,599
pre prurious, pre pruians, purians, or some combination of all

552
00:41:13,639 --> 00:41:16,880
the above. You can just guess what that word was.

553
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:23,440
Some other critics said this. Critic Grile Marcus described the

554
00:41:23,559 --> 00:41:29,239
song as a smutty like Beatles imitation. Author John Borak

555
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,880
described the song as a mean pop tune, noting two

556
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:37,159
that in the song lead singer and songwriter figure comes

557
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:42,880
off like a leering, sexist twit with hormones arraging. So

558
00:41:43,079 --> 00:41:47,880
something I learned while researching this is that there are

559
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,880
two versions of this song, a clean and an explicit version.

560
00:41:52,679 --> 00:41:55,119
My roommate and I used to sing this at all

561
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,360
the time in college at the top of our lungs,

562
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:00,519
and when I was getting ready for the show, I

563
00:42:00,639 --> 00:42:05,920
kept thinking, wheet what. I didn't have any memory of

564
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:10,000
it being that suggestive and Valerie, I hope you're listening tonight.

565
00:42:11,079 --> 00:42:13,840
I actually don't know which one we're hearing today, so

566
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,000
we're just gonna have to pray and see what happened.

567
00:42:17,519 --> 00:43:21,639
Speaker 13: Cringe, the girls do, the girls do?

568
00:43:23,760 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 15: Girls One start to say the girl's dolls, the girl's doves, the.

569
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:23,639
Speaker 12: Girl's dog.

570
00:44:28,119 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 15: Sad, that's one of the stops to taste girl's dove,

571
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:58,800
the girls dogs, the girls doll, girl's dove, the girls dogs.

572
00:45:00,599 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 11: Yeah, that was the clean version.

573
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,559
Speaker 14: I'm serious. I had never heard the explicit version, and

574
00:45:22,679 --> 00:45:25,039
I was listening to it. I guess it was today

575
00:45:25,079 --> 00:45:28,280
or maybe yesterday, and I was like, wow, oh my god.

576
00:45:28,559 --> 00:45:30,719
And then when I went back to the clean version,

577
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,320
I was like, Okay, this is how I remember.

578
00:45:35,119 --> 00:45:37,039
Speaker 2: I think that, Yeah, this is the only one that

579
00:45:37,159 --> 00:45:41,039
I remember hearing. I mean, yeah, well it's it's like,

580
00:45:41,199 --> 00:45:45,760
it's it's naughty, it's unclean. I won't say it's obscene.

581
00:45:45,639 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 5: Correct, it's yeah.

582
00:45:47,599 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 14: But go to YouTube and check out the explicit version,

583
00:45:50,679 --> 00:45:53,880
which is not it's not disgusting.

584
00:45:54,119 --> 00:45:58,320
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty six, explicit it's well, let let's let's

585
00:45:58,400 --> 00:45:59,079
let's go back.

586
00:45:59,159 --> 00:46:01,119
Speaker 2: You know, in the in the eight seventies there it

587
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,199
was not exactly the most politically correct time. I mean,

588
00:46:04,559 --> 00:46:07,880
listen to some girls by the Rolling Stones and go

589
00:46:08,079 --> 00:46:08,599
no further.

590
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 3: You know.

591
00:46:09,119 --> 00:46:12,599
Speaker 2: So, now was it right or wrong? I'll let you decide,

592
00:46:12,679 --> 00:46:15,199
But it was not. How should I say? It wasn't

593
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,239
out of character for the time, And I'm not saying

594
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,719
it was right. And I always thought that song. In fact,

595
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:24,800
let me say, I like that song much better than

596
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:32,960
my Sharona a million miles. But aside from that, if

597
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,280
you take it at face value, yeah, it's you know,

598
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:43,000
pretty male Chauvens pig, you know. But if you take

599
00:46:43,039 --> 00:46:46,679
it from the other perspective, as like a parody or statire,

600
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:50,599
that they're trying to sound like that but making fun

601
00:46:50,679 --> 00:46:52,679
of that sort of mentality.

602
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 14: But they're not.

603
00:46:54,039 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not excuse. I'm not apologizing for them. I'm

604
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:03,280
just saying that that could also be that the the

605
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,440
irony and the humor that and that was also prevalent

606
00:47:06,559 --> 00:47:09,199
back in that that time too, that it was not.

607
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,280
They weren't really saying it was a good thing. They

608
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:17,159
were making fun of it by you know, making it

609
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:19,039
sound like they liked it, but they're saying, see how

610
00:47:19,119 --> 00:47:22,360
stupid it sounds. If that makes any sense, I don't know.

611
00:47:22,639 --> 00:47:26,079
Speaker 3: I one of those It's open to interpretation, which I

612
00:47:26,159 --> 00:47:27,360
think makes for a good song.

613
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 2: He never returned my calls to find you know, I asked,

614
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:33,440
never got back to me.

615
00:47:34,119 --> 00:47:37,039
Speaker 14: Well do yourself have a favor and do check out

616
00:47:37,079 --> 00:47:38,440
the explicit version.

617
00:47:40,039 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 5: That we're all going to be googling it.

618
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:43,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, now now that I'm.

619
00:47:43,199 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 3: Going to have this huge spike, they're like, what is

620
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:46,480
going on here? Yeah?

621
00:47:47,199 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 14: So meanwhile I'm trying to google the explicit version lyrics

622
00:47:52,119 --> 00:47:54,039
and they're like blocking me.

623
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 5: So I don't know, maybe they're not old enough.

624
00:47:58,000 --> 00:47:58,639
Speaker 2: So uh.

625
00:48:00,199 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 14: So Dutge Viger Doug Viger wrote this song with Johnny

626
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:11,360
Cash's voice in mind. All right, I know, no, Like,

627
00:48:11,599 --> 00:48:12,840
how does that make sense?

628
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:14,079
Speaker 5: No? Yeah?

629
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,559
Speaker 14: So incidentally, the b side of Good Girls Don't was

630
00:48:17,599 --> 00:48:22,119
a song titled Frustrated and was again about Sharona albren.

631
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,320
It describes how he had a crush on her, but

632
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,199
she was keeping him at arm's length, although they did

633
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,840
go on to have a relationship later, so it seems

634
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,519
like he really had it bad for her. I mean

635
00:48:34,119 --> 00:48:38,079
three songs that and who knows how many more, but

636
00:48:38,559 --> 00:48:41,920
at least three songs that he wrote about her. The

637
00:48:42,079 --> 00:48:46,079
Necker an American power pop band formed in La in

638
00:48:46,159 --> 00:48:50,559
nineteen seventy eight and members were Doug Fieger, Burton, a

639
00:48:51,119 --> 00:48:56,400
Avier Prescott Niles, and Bruce gary My. Sharona reached number

640
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,280
one in several countries as it as as did its

641
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:03,440
album Get the Neck. Their next two albums were less successful,

642
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,119
and they broke up in nineteen eighty two. They did

643
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:11,320
reunite in nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty, nineteen eighty six,

644
00:49:11,519 --> 00:49:16,400
nineteen ninety four, and nineteen ninety six. They permanently disbanded

645
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:20,079
in twenty ten after the passing of Doug Figer. So

646
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:24,119
why wasn't the band more popular? There was definitely a

647
00:49:24,159 --> 00:49:28,639
few problems. Somebody on Reddit posted a pretty good explanation. One,

648
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:34,760
they were hyped by Capitol Records as the next Beatles. No, No,

649
00:49:37,559 --> 00:49:41,880
Too High, That's the Kiss of Death exactly, Like, who

650
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:46,000
thought that was a good idea their songs? Number two,

651
00:49:46,159 --> 00:49:49,159
their songs were sleazy sex songs, and number three they

652
00:49:49,199 --> 00:49:52,800
were misogynous. I'm not sure that the second two thoughts

653
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:55,199
were valid, considering it was the seventies and all the

654
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:57,920
bands had sleazy sex songs and were misogynous.

655
00:49:58,079 --> 00:50:01,280
Speaker 2: YEP, that's kind of what I was saying. Yeah, not

656
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,159
condoning it, just that's just the way it was.

657
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,039
Speaker 14: A demo was recorded at one of the reunions and

658
00:50:08,199 --> 00:50:09,440
released in twenty.

659
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,159
Speaker 5: Twelve, which was their last album.

660
00:50:11,599 --> 00:50:14,599
Speaker 14: The reviews that I read were good, and maybe they

661
00:50:14,679 --> 00:50:17,679
grew up and left their twelve year old boy selves behind.

662
00:50:18,519 --> 00:50:23,920
I don't know, that's all I got. I do like

663
00:50:24,039 --> 00:50:25,719
the harmonica in there, by the.

664
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 5: Way, there's not much so really, I like the rest

665
00:50:33,559 --> 00:50:37,119
of the instruments, so it was not traumatizing for me,

666
00:50:37,559 --> 00:50:38,599
So thank you for that.

667
00:50:39,639 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 14: You're very welcome. It was fun for me too. And

668
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:50,760
Doug Figer did play the harmonica on that, by the way. Yeah,

669
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,639
it was really shocking to me. I had no idea

670
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:55,000
there was two versions of that.

671
00:50:55,719 --> 00:51:01,119
Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, neither did I. Well, thank you, Mercedes. We're

672
00:51:01,159 --> 00:51:04,079
almost to the end. We just have one more little

673
00:51:04,119 --> 00:51:06,719
break and then we'll be back with the last song.

674
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 4: Hudson Riverradio dot com.

675
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 5: Hudson Riverradio dot com, and we're back. We're almost at

676
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:30,039
the end of the torture session where the rock and

677
00:51:30,199 --> 00:51:36,679
roll history show Crombones are torturing me with harmonica songs,

678
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:41,159
except I know the one that we're up to that

679
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:46,119
is Brian's choice, and I actually really really love this song.

680
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,119
Speaker 3: So I thought you would. I kind of had a

681
00:51:49,159 --> 00:51:53,039
feeling you would, so I picked one that has one

682
00:51:53,119 --> 00:51:57,360
of my trademark bummers at the end. So okay, yeah,

683
00:51:57,480 --> 00:51:59,719
we can bring everybody down and exit on a low No.

684
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,079
Speaker 5: Yeah, I like the song anyway, So all right, take

685
00:52:03,119 --> 00:52:04,519
it away, Brian, No thanks.

686
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:06,639
Speaker 3: Do you mind if I nerd out just a little

687
00:52:06,679 --> 00:52:08,119
bit before we hop into the song?

688
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 5: Go for it.

689
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,119
Speaker 3: So we've all seen harmonica players on stage, I think,

690
00:52:12,199 --> 00:52:16,079
whether you love them or not, the common technique you'll

691
00:52:16,079 --> 00:52:19,360
see them use two hands and cup the harmonica and

692
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:22,719
they're holding a microphone in between their two hands, and

693
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,599
they're actually using their hands, and the microphone is part

694
00:52:26,599 --> 00:52:29,079
of the instrument, like an extension to the harmonica to

695
00:52:29,199 --> 00:52:30,360
get different sounds and all that.

696
00:52:30,559 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 5: Well, that makes sense.

697
00:52:32,039 --> 00:52:34,679
Speaker 3: The nerd in me is like, well, years ago, it's like,

698
00:52:35,119 --> 00:52:38,199
all right, how do they do that? What are they using? Well,

699
00:52:38,599 --> 00:52:40,719
the microphone that most of the time you'll see them

700
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:46,199
using got nicknamed the bullet because of the shape. It's

701
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,559
kind of curved like a cone shape, like a rounded curve,

702
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,960
you know, like the nose of a bullet. That microphone

703
00:52:53,159 --> 00:52:55,960
was first made in nineteen forty nine. It was by

704
00:52:56,039 --> 00:52:58,840
the Shore Company s h U r E. They're still around.

705
00:52:59,159 --> 00:53:01,360
They're still making most of the microphones that you see

706
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:03,840
when people do podcasts and all that kind of stuff.

707
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,960
It was the Model five twenty. It was originally designed

708
00:53:08,079 --> 00:53:12,639
for radio use like ham radio, police radios, the military

709
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:16,760
public address systems. It was built specifically to be very durable.

710
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:19,039
You could bash it around, you could expose it to

711
00:53:19,119 --> 00:53:22,440
the elements, you could leave it outside, all that kind

712
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:25,400
of stuff, and it just could take that kind of abuse.

713
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,039
And it was geared towards the human voice, the frequency

714
00:53:28,119 --> 00:53:31,239
range of the human voice, and musicians just wound up

715
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,400
loving it. They would use it on drums, they would

716
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:36,840
specifically use it on harmonicas because it fit into your

717
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:40,679
hands so well, you know that that cup kind of shape.

718
00:53:42,119 --> 00:53:43,880
They still make it, they still make it in green.

719
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,320
It's now the Shore five twenty DX. The newer models

720
00:53:47,639 --> 00:53:51,519
they make one that instead of a stand hook up,

721
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:54,000
it's got a volume knob on it, so you can

722
00:53:54,039 --> 00:53:56,440
actually adjust the sound while you're playing it. All that

723
00:53:56,559 --> 00:53:58,719
kind of stuff. So if you are a nerd like me,

724
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:02,360
go ahead and look up the Shore X. But the

725
00:54:02,559 --> 00:54:07,000
other one that harmonica players would use when they couldn't

726
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:10,039
afford or get their hands on a shore five point twenty.

727
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,480
They would take the microphone out of an old telephone

728
00:54:13,519 --> 00:54:17,920
headset and use the mouthpiece microphone because that was a

729
00:54:18,079 --> 00:54:22,000
cheap carbon microphone that had a very gritty sound. Again,

730
00:54:22,039 --> 00:54:24,760
it was geared towards your voice and low volume, so

731
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:28,199
it was easy to distort. It was gritty again, it

732
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:31,719
was very durable. It was cheap, especially if you walk

733
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,440
by a payphone with a pair of plyers and help

734
00:54:34,519 --> 00:54:36,679
yourself to one and kept walking.

735
00:54:38,079 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 14: Su I have seen so many of them back in

736
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:42,360
the day, like open, it.

737
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:46,280
Speaker 3: Would not surprise me. Wow, yeah, yeah, So the old

738
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:49,840
telephone headset. You'll actually see some old bluesper players actually

739
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:53,880
holding that headset upside down with the mouthpiece cupping it

740
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,280
like they would the bullet microphone with the earpiece just

741
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:00,599
hanging down. So keep your eyes open. That kind of thing.

742
00:55:00,639 --> 00:55:02,320
You'll see that in pictures every once in a while.

743
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,559
But again it was about that gritty kind of distorted,

744
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:09,079
very distinctive sound and using your hands to shape the sound.

745
00:55:09,159 --> 00:55:12,000
You could shape you know, proximity effect the bass, the

746
00:55:12,039 --> 00:55:16,079
trouble get that really high whiny pitch that Gail absolutely loves.

747
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,480
There you go. You know what, when in need, you

748
00:55:20,559 --> 00:55:22,119
make deal with what you can get your hands on,

749
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:26,840
and it worked. So for my pick for a song tonight,

750
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,320
we are going to take a trip down Under and

751
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:33,360
I cannot do Australian accents, so I expect the emails

752
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,800
to come. We start off with three brothers and some

753
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:40,760
friends who formed a band. Andrew Farris played keyboards, John

754
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:45,280
Farris played drums, Tim Farriss played lead guitar, their friend

755
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:50,800
Gary Beers played bass, Kirk Pengilly played rhythm guitar and saxophone,

756
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:55,079
and their friend Michael Hutchins was on lead vocals. And

757
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:56,599
the band if Anybody.

758
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,519
Speaker 5: Wants to Guess was named in excellent excess.

759
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 3: It was called the Farris Brothers because they was three

760
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:04,679
Faris brothers.

761
00:56:05,079 --> 00:56:07,599
Speaker 5: I'm still mad at Michael Hutchins, for all.

762
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 1: He had the sexiest voice.

763
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:13,119
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.

764
00:56:13,519 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, don't worry, we'll bring everybody down. We'll make

765
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:17,480
everybody said later, no.

766
00:56:17,559 --> 00:56:18,079
Speaker 4: Where he's there.

767
00:56:19,119 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 3: So they had their high school band and a couple

768
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,320
of them were a little older than high school, and

769
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:28,039
the paris Is wound up moving to Perth in Western Australia.

770
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:30,280
The band followed. They played out there and then they

771
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,400
wound up moving back to Sydney and recording some demo

772
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:37,039
tapes and played out wherever they could. They were outside

773
00:56:37,039 --> 00:56:40,400
a pub called the Royal Antler when they were approached

774
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:42,880
by a guy named Gary Morris, who happened to be

775
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:47,079
the manager of another Australian band called Midnight Oil. You

776
00:56:47,159 --> 00:56:51,119
may have heard of them, Yeah, yep, so I talked

777
00:56:51,159 --> 00:56:53,719
about them. It's got to be years ago at this point,

778
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:57,559
it's been ages. So the Faris Brothers began opening for them,

779
00:56:57,639 --> 00:57:00,920
as well as other groups around Sydney. It was Midnight

780
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,920
Oil who came up with the much improved name for

781
00:57:04,039 --> 00:57:10,039
the band, In Excess spelled iXS for those who may

782
00:57:10,119 --> 00:57:13,079
not know. The idea came from a mashup of the

783
00:57:13,119 --> 00:57:17,519
British band XTC and the Australian jam band called IXL

784
00:57:18,239 --> 00:57:19,920
and I say okay.

785
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 5: Mus exactly EI EIO.

786
00:57:25,679 --> 00:57:33,360
Speaker 3: Anymore, that's it okay. Their first performance as in Excess

787
00:57:33,679 --> 00:57:36,440
was in September of nineteen seventy nine. They toured the

788
00:57:36,599 --> 00:57:40,599
Australian pub circuit and they wound up making a good move.

789
00:57:40,639 --> 00:57:43,760
They hired a really good manager who actually got them

790
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:47,039
a five record deal right off the bat with an

791
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:51,679
Australian label, Deluxe Records. A five record deal you would

792
00:57:51,719 --> 00:57:55,440
never get nowadays, not going to happen. The company gave

793
00:57:55,519 --> 00:57:58,320
them a budget of ten thousand dollar redues for their

794
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,760
first album, and so to stay under budget, they would

795
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:05,280
perform a scheduled gig at night and then go to

796
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:08,840
the studio where they booked overnight time, which was cheaper

797
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:13,199
than booking during the day, so they did that musician's time,

798
00:58:13,559 --> 00:58:16,760
the musicians hours, play at night, work all night, and

799
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:19,719
then go sleep During the day. They worked on a

800
00:58:19,719 --> 00:58:22,960
bunch of material which was mostly released only in Australia,

801
00:58:23,199 --> 00:58:26,480
just way too much to cover here. They worked hard,

802
00:58:26,679 --> 00:58:29,360
so I'll give them credit for that. But in Access

803
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:31,559
made their way to the United States in March of

804
00:58:31,639 --> 00:58:35,440
nineteen eighty three. They played their first performance in the

805
00:58:35,639 --> 00:58:40,440
US in San Diego to an audience of twenty four people,

806
00:58:41,679 --> 00:58:44,000
not twenty four thousand, not twenty four hundred.

807
00:58:44,599 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 5: It's like a classroom, twenty.

808
00:58:46,639 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 3: Four people, yup, yup. But they brought with them a

809
00:58:51,079 --> 00:58:54,960
solid reputation and a good performance, which got them gigs

810
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,679
opening for the Kinks. They opened for The Stray Cats,

811
00:58:58,199 --> 00:59:00,280
for Hall and Oates for Adam and the An for

812
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:03,599
Men at Work. So they brought their reputation with them

813
00:59:03,639 --> 00:59:06,119
and it served them well. By the end of nineteen

814
00:59:06,159 --> 00:59:08,079
eighty three, they were headlining their own shows in New

815
00:59:08,159 --> 00:59:11,880
York City. Their big breakthrough single was what You Need

816
00:59:12,199 --> 00:59:15,559
in nineteen eighty five. I remember that one quite well.

817
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:20,639
The nineteen eighty seven album Kick is by far their bestseller.

818
00:59:20,719 --> 00:59:22,599
That has a number of hits on it as well.

819
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:26,880
And in nineteen ninety they had another successful album titled X.

820
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,480
The album has the track that We're going to torture

821
00:59:30,519 --> 00:59:34,679
Gale with today. It's called Suicide Blonde. Hutchins and Andrew

822
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:39,199
Farriss wrote the song, and it was Hutchinson's then girlfriend

823
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,440
Kylie Minogue who did the locomotion right.

824
00:59:43,599 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 8: She did.

825
00:59:44,119 --> 00:59:45,559
Speaker 3: Mean, She's got a lot of her own stuff, but

826
00:59:46,199 --> 00:59:47,679
she made it big in the US with I think

827
00:59:47,719 --> 00:59:50,320
it was the locomotion, wasn't it like in the late eighties.

828
00:59:51,079 --> 00:59:54,880
I don't remember, but they were going to a debut

829
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:57,400
of a movie that Kylie was in and for the

830
00:59:57,480 --> 01:00:01,480
event she wore a wig and she called the suicide Blonde,

831
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:04,559
which is apparently a joke about dyeing your own hair,

832
01:00:04,679 --> 01:00:08,960
like dying suicide. I guess you die the wig Blonde.

833
01:00:10,079 --> 01:00:12,800
So there is a blues harp intro in the song

834
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:15,440
and parts of it that were played by Charlie Musselwhite,

835
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:20,280
who is a very known Chicago blues player, and he

836
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:23,320
was also the inspiration for Elwood Blues played by dan

837
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:26,719
Aykroyd in the Blues Brothers movie and that whole act,

838
01:00:27,119 --> 01:00:29,559
so that was kind of based on him. He happened

839
01:00:29,599 --> 01:00:32,000
to be on tour in Sydney and the band asked

840
01:00:32,039 --> 01:00:34,559
him to come to their recording session and he did

841
01:00:36,079 --> 01:00:38,280
so to set you up with that trademark downer, which

842
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:42,840
you guys also mentioned. Suicide Blonde was the last song

843
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:46,280
that Michael Hutchins performed live in concert. That was on

844
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:51,199
September twenty seventh, nineteen eighty seven, in Pittsburgh. So let's

845
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:54,159
partially torture Gale even though she likes the song.

846
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:57,559
Speaker 5: I love this song. So the joke's on you, guys.

847
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:02,119
Speaker 3: Well there we go. So suicide I've blong by an excess.

848
01:01:27,719 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 2: S S S.

849
01:01:39,719 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 3: S.

850
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:47,679
Speaker 15: This is a lot of hair like she lashes.

851
01:01:50,519 --> 01:01:53,239
Speaker 2: Finish far again.

852
01:01:55,440 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 16: The last of the manors, so love the shows so wrong,

853
01:02:06,039 --> 01:02:12,800
you want to rencos so you too, shirts, Sun.

854
01:02:13,639 --> 01:02:19,559
Speaker 17: Strip to the close, stand all what the world? And

855
01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:24,840
you gets me her shirts, Squeeze my sad.

856
01:02:24,719 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 12: Moment, glor to you, Glory to you.

857
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 16: Guys, all other shirt put into your hair, sham your.

858
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:53,639
Speaker 17: Front on me to read that right across them, but

859
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:58,840
go to see the clo said shot tell your world.

860
01:03:02,039 --> 01:03:10,159
You wanta makers, the Simon, love the sessions, the Salama, you.

861
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:16,199
Speaker 16: Want to makea s the Salamon, love the pencils.

862
01:03:16,079 --> 01:03:30,519
Speaker 12: The sum you want to macas the sun, you want

863
01:03:30,559 --> 01:03:43,079
to make lets everything you want.

864
01:03:46,199 --> 01:03:47,000
Speaker 16: Love all.

865
01:04:40,119 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 3: That's a catchy one. And yeah, the harmonica is kind

866
01:04:42,519 --> 01:04:43,559
of buried in there so.

867
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:49,039
Speaker 5: I can see good thank you for the palette cleanser

868
01:04:49,199 --> 01:04:50,599
at the end of the show.

869
01:04:51,119 --> 01:04:53,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they have a pretty long history. You know.

870
01:04:53,559 --> 01:04:56,639
They crossed paths with Nile Rogers, who's known for his

871
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:58,760
chunk of chunk and guitar sounds, so they picked up

872
01:04:58,800 --> 01:05:02,159
on that and they did stuff together. So there's a

873
01:05:02,239 --> 01:05:03,880
lot more to the story, but we just don't have

874
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:06,039
time for everything. But I thought that was a cool song.

875
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:08,400
I had trouble narrowing it down how much I wanted

876
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:12,400
to torture you tonight, so I'll save the other ones

877
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:13,079
for another time.

878
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:16,559
Speaker 5: I love that song, I just love it all right, So.

879
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 3: Here's the downer. In August of nineteen ninety two, Michael

880
01:05:20,440 --> 01:05:23,960
Hutchins and his then girlfriend who was not Kylie, We're

881
01:05:24,039 --> 01:05:27,880
riding bikes in Copenhagen in Denmark, and a taxi was

882
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:30,280
trying to get around them on a narrow street because

883
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:33,079
lots of streets in Europe are super narrow, and apparently

884
01:05:33,199 --> 01:05:36,559
Hutchins didn't know that the taxi was behind him, and

885
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:39,360
the driver got out and assaulted him to the point

886
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:41,840
where Hutchins wound up falling backwards and hitting his head

887
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:45,480
on the pavement. He got a skull fracture from that

888
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:49,360
and some brain damage, and like many stupid rock stars,

889
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:52,679
he refused medical care for several days. He wouldn't go

890
01:05:52,719 --> 01:05:54,679
to the hospital for a couple of days. By the

891
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:56,719
time he did, he had lost his sense of smell,

892
01:05:57,119 --> 01:06:00,480
He lost most of the sense of taste, and that's

893
01:06:00,519 --> 01:06:04,599
when he really started to have trouble with depression and aggression.

894
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:07,239
He had some personality changes and it got to the

895
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:09,920
point where he was fighting with people. He fought with

896
01:06:10,039 --> 01:06:12,760
every single member of the band, guys who had been

897
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:15,159
his best friends for twenty something years at this point,

898
01:06:15,679 --> 01:06:18,320
and he wound up like getting into physical altercations with

899
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:22,760
him from changes which were likely attributed to that head

900
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:26,360
injury that he had. But they kept working up until

901
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:29,559
nineteen ninety three when they decided to take some well

902
01:06:29,639 --> 01:06:33,079
earned time off. Michael Hutchins would continue to work as

903
01:06:33,119 --> 01:06:35,719
an actor and a model, but he was still battling

904
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:38,639
depression and he had issues with drugs and alcohol. He

905
01:06:38,679 --> 01:06:42,159
wound up having a daughter with Bob Geldoff's estranged wife,

906
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:47,440
Paulie Yates in nineteen ninety six, and unfortunately, Hutchins was

907
01:06:47,519 --> 01:06:51,000
found dead on November twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, in

908
01:06:51,159 --> 01:06:53,960
his Rich Carlton Hotel room in Sydney. He was only

909
01:06:54,039 --> 01:06:57,280
thirty seven and Excess was back on the road to

910
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:00,280
support an album that was going to be coming out soon.

911
01:07:01,199 --> 01:07:04,000
The coroner ruled his death a suicide by hanging, but

912
01:07:04,119 --> 01:07:07,960
there was and still is, some speculations as to whether

913
01:07:08,039 --> 01:07:10,920
his death was accidental, whether he was partaking in other

914
01:07:11,000 --> 01:07:14,880
activities that one may do. We can put that to

915
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:20,000
bed now. Pauli Yates, the estrange Missus Geldoff was supposed

916
01:07:20,039 --> 01:07:22,719
to bring their daughter, along with the three daughters she

917
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:26,599
had with Bob to Australia to visit Hutchins, but Bob

918
01:07:26,679 --> 01:07:29,440
Geldoff had taken legal action to prevent that from happening,

919
01:07:29,679 --> 01:07:33,119
from preventing the girls from leaving the UK. Hutchins was

920
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:36,159
just absolutely heartbroken when he got that phone call telling

921
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:38,920
him the news at about five am in the morning

922
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:42,000
because of the time difference, and he was furious and

923
01:07:42,079 --> 01:07:45,159
he was absolutely heartbroken. He wound up calling Bob Geldoff

924
01:07:45,239 --> 01:07:49,199
himself and just had a loud argument, screaming, crying, all

925
01:07:49,239 --> 01:07:51,400
that kind of stuff on the phone, so loud that

926
01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:53,440
the neighbors in the hotel could hear what was going

927
01:07:53,519 --> 01:07:58,760
on through the walls. Hutchins then called an ex girlfriend distraught,

928
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:02,400
asked her to come over, a different ext girlfriend, not Kylie,

929
01:08:02,480 --> 01:08:05,760
not the one from the bike riding, and she did.

930
01:08:06,159 --> 01:08:08,239
She got there at about ten thirty in the morning,

931
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:10,920
but he didn't answer the door, so she assumed he

932
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:13,440
had finally fallen asleep. She left a note for him

933
01:08:13,559 --> 01:08:17,279
and then left. Shortly before noon. It was housekeeping that

934
01:08:17,359 --> 01:08:19,680
went into his room to clean up and do the

935
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,439
room and the housekeeper is the one who found him dead.

936
01:08:23,439 --> 01:08:25,479
He had tied a belt around his neck and then

937
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:27,399
he tied the other end of the belt to the

938
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:29,760
door closer, the automatic door closer at the top of

939
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:33,800
the door, and he was on his knees facing the door.

940
01:08:34,760 --> 01:08:38,840
So given all the circumstances of everything going on, it

941
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:41,560
was not the happy time that he was trying to have.

942
01:08:42,399 --> 01:08:45,760
It was suicide. So we can kind of put that

943
01:08:45,880 --> 01:08:48,640
to bed. I say it as it is. The now

944
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:51,880
former Missus Geldoff herself died of a heroin overdose in

945
01:08:52,039 --> 01:08:56,079
two thousand and To his credit, Bob Geldoff took in

946
01:08:56,319 --> 01:08:59,840
the now four year old daughter that Hutchinson Yates had

947
01:08:59,840 --> 01:09:01,960
had together, and he would later adopt her so she

948
01:09:02,079 --> 01:09:05,279
could continue living with the three half sisters that she

949
01:09:05,359 --> 01:09:07,760
grew up living with, So I give him credit for that.

950
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:12,479
The band continued to work without Michael. They worked with

951
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:14,640
a series of different singers. They even had a TV

952
01:09:14,800 --> 01:09:17,640
show for a period of time where they were auditioning

953
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:20,079
singers to try to make a reality show to find

954
01:09:20,119 --> 01:09:24,279
a permanent replacement front man. As of now, they have

955
01:09:24,399 --> 01:09:26,560
nothing on their calendar as a band, but each member

956
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:31,000
is keeping busy they each have their own projects. Gary Beers,

957
01:09:31,000 --> 01:09:34,199
the bass player, actually makes guitars and basses on his own.

958
01:09:34,239 --> 01:09:36,039
He does electronics and all that kind of stuff. And

959
01:09:36,560 --> 01:09:39,920
most of them are doing independent music projects, so they're

960
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:42,880
not bored, but they don't seem to be on the

961
01:09:42,920 --> 01:09:46,000
calendar for going out as in excess anytime soon. So

962
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:50,079
we got what we got, and there you go. There's

963
01:09:50,119 --> 01:09:51,720
the downer And now I give it back to.

964
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:56,920
Speaker 5: Gail as I said, Brian, thank you for the Palette

965
01:09:56,920 --> 01:10:03,199
Cleanser song, because I really you really liked that song, Mercedes,

966
01:10:03,239 --> 01:10:06,239
didn't you have something you wanted to note?

967
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 1: Yes, I have a little addition to my song.

968
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:13,760
Speaker 14: I finally did get find the lyrics and it was,

969
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:16,079
in fact the explicit version that.

970
01:10:16,199 --> 01:10:18,319
Speaker 5: We heard, so very explicit.

971
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:19,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't that bad.

972
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:22,399
Speaker 14: It wasn't that bad. But the clean version the radio

973
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:26,600
editors is the one that my roommate and I used

974
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:28,760
to sing at the top of our lung. So we

975
01:10:28,920 --> 01:10:32,680
were not sitting. We were not sitting Writian slip.

976
01:10:33,039 --> 01:10:33,640
Speaker 5: We were not.

977
01:10:34,119 --> 01:10:37,079
Speaker 1: Saying some of the lyrics that were in what we

978
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:37,960
just hurt.

979
01:10:39,319 --> 01:10:42,439
Speaker 14: So I apologize for that, but I'm glad I could

980
01:10:42,520 --> 01:10:44,560
figure that out and clear it up for everybody.

981
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:52,800
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, everybody's songs were interesting. I seem to have

982
01:10:53,119 --> 01:10:58,840
survived in about the same mental sanity I was when

983
01:10:58,920 --> 01:11:01,199
I started, which isn't saying much.

984
01:11:01,560 --> 01:11:04,359
Speaker 2: We should have tried harder. What you said, We're.

985
01:11:04,239 --> 01:11:05,600
Speaker 3: Gonna have to do this again next week?

986
01:11:06,079 --> 01:11:09,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, no, no, no, no, once once is enough.

987
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:12,640
Speaker 3: I think we should each get a harmonica and all

988
01:11:13,199 --> 01:11:15,359
pick a different song, but we should all play our

989
01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:17,000
song at the same time.

990
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:21,199
Speaker 5: Great love, but you'd all be in a different key

991
01:11:21,399 --> 01:11:22,600
exactly exactly.

992
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:25,840
Speaker 3: That doesn't push you over the edge. And nothing.

993
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:32,960
Speaker 2: Well, we could join the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra, no charter members.

994
01:11:33,239 --> 01:11:38,680
Speaker 5: It's so funny because Neil's wife, who is also a

995
01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:43,039
friend of mine, the look she would when a few

996
01:11:43,119 --> 01:11:47,279
of us would go out sometimes, and this one lead

997
01:11:47,399 --> 01:11:50,720
vocalist had this habit of going off key once in

998
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:54,199
a while, and it was fairly predictable as to when

999
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:58,439
he would go off key, and when that time was approaching.

1000
01:11:59,119 --> 01:12:02,880
Neil's lovely life would be watching my face because she

1001
01:12:03,119 --> 01:12:07,159
would first into laughter when she saw the look on

1002
01:12:07,279 --> 01:12:10,720
my face when this guy would hit a wrong note.

1003
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:14,800
Speaker 2: This is the caliber of people I used to play with.

1004
01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:18,640
By the way, this is why I wore ear plug.

1005
01:12:21,319 --> 01:12:25,319
Speaker 14: We're talking about a band that you might have been in, yeah.

1006
01:12:25,560 --> 01:12:34,039
Speaker 18: Possibly allegedly, yes, yes, And it was just so great

1007
01:12:34,239 --> 01:12:36,520
that I was so amusing for Dawn.

1008
01:12:36,640 --> 01:12:41,880
Speaker 5: I good memories, guys, and.

1009
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:44,239
Speaker 2: All the dogs in the neighborhood would start howling.

1010
01:12:44,359 --> 01:12:48,239
Speaker 3: That's yeah, that's how you know you made it.

1011
01:12:50,279 --> 01:12:54,920
Speaker 5: Or something. Well, I will give it back to you, Brian,

1012
01:12:56,159 --> 01:12:57,239
to take us out.

1013
01:12:57,479 --> 01:13:00,760
Speaker 3: All right, Well, good job, thank you for It's nice

1014
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:02,680
to sit back and watch every once in a while.

1015
01:13:03,359 --> 01:13:05,720
I do appreciate it. And those were good selections. They

1016
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:08,760
were really interesting across the board. And there's so much

1017
01:13:08,800 --> 01:13:11,079
more you can do on the topic and the blues

1018
01:13:11,119 --> 01:13:13,479
and all that. It's so many rabbit holes we can

1019
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:16,880
go down, and we will at some point there and

1020
01:13:17,239 --> 01:13:19,119
we'll find new ways to torture Gale. A lot of.

1021
01:13:21,279 --> 01:13:24,000
Speaker 5: You guys need you guys need better hobbies.

1022
01:13:26,119 --> 01:13:29,560
Speaker 3: I think we can enjoy this for a little while.

1023
01:13:30,439 --> 01:13:32,159
All right, Thank you cram Bones, and thank you all

1024
01:13:32,199 --> 01:13:33,960
for joining us for the Rock and Roll History Show.

1025
01:13:34,199 --> 01:13:35,880
Don't forget to check out all the other shows we

1026
01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:38,159
do here at Hudson River Radio because there is something

1027
01:13:38,239 --> 01:13:40,840
for everybody. We'll be back next week with another brand

1028
01:13:40,880 --> 01:13:44,840
new episode. Until then, blow until your heart's content and

1029
01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:50,119
peace out everybody, rock.

1030
01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:51,399
Speaker 12: Cop Bottom and Rum.

1031
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:59,720
Speaker 5: Okay, Bye bye. Pudson River Radio dot Com a Subsidiaria

1032
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:04,880
Asher Entertainment LLC, potentially successful the multi hundred dollars Corporation

