Like most of us, if you were a daytime Top-40 radio listener in the summer of 1978, you couldn’t help but hear Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” ’til the night closed in, a tune out of the soft pop-rocker camp which included the likes of Ambrosia and England Dan and …
With the final financing successfully kickstarted last December, the documentary film “The Wrecking Crew” is out and screening, most recently at this years’s NAMM show in Los Angeles. The film has been over 17 years in the making and with the latest Kickstarter financing, the licensing bills got paid off, …
The man with the unmistakable vibrato, B.J. Thomas qualifies as an icon simply because he’s the singer baby-boomers remember as the voice that could out-elvis Elvis. With all due respect to Hank Williams Sr., the definitive recording of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” was cut by B.J. in 1966. …
This week BJ Thomas’ classic hit song “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. “Raindrops” was the first #1 record of 1970. Written for the film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, it also won an Academy Award for “Best Original Song” (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
Don’t know whether is was the fertile soil which ended up in the pots of the marijuana plants or the natural “Rocky Mountain High” at 5000 feet above sea level, but something in Boulder, Colorado in the early 70′s spawned successful recording artists like no other spot on the planet. …
As much as I hate to give away my age, Three Dog Night was mandatory listening material during my formative years. Founded in 1968, the band’s earliest lineup landed over twenty top-forty hits by 1974, all of which were rotated at our junior high school mixers. And I was still …
Seldom can employees boast 40 years’ company seniority. Both Rick Haynes and Terry Clements can. Not only that, bassist Rick and lead guitarist Terry have worked for the same boss – Mr. Gordon Lightfoot – for a combined 81 years’ tenure. Both were instrumental (pun intended) in polishing the legendary …
Can somebody out there please explain to us why we see artists like John Mayer showing up more often than Steve Hackett in those so-called “All-Time Greatest Guitarists” rankings regurgitated by guitar magazines, instrument manufacturers and pop music critics? We’re a lot closer to solving the ancient riddle of the …
Nurtured in the big band era and best known for his thirty-year stint behind the drum kit of the Johnny Carson Tonight Show Band, Ed Shaughnessy‘s percussion credentials can only be termed galactic. Goodman, Dorsey, Basie. How about being able to drop those names at a job interview? Shaughnessy’s work …
