RockPopandRoll

Ep. 37: Who Is Truth And Salvage Co. and Why Their New/Old Album Rocks

A band named Truth and Salvage Co. was formed in 2005, made a couple of albums, and broke up only to return in 2022 with a lost album that was released - again - with a sound that it should have always had.
Late in 2022, the band came back, finding a nice way to revisit a career that sputtered and eventually splintered.
It was 2009 when Black Crowes Chris Robinson signed the group to his label and gave them the opening slot on his band's tour that year. The band released its debut album (produced by Robinson) on May 2010.  I loved that album.
That album captured the words, the heart, and the intelligence of a powerfully relaxed band. It is fair to say it was a band that played rock and roll with an arms-around-each other attitude and a nod to their influences while still working to forge their own sound.
Truth and Salvage Co. created uplifting, pounding, loose, build-and-release rock and roll.  This is their short story, recounted because of an album Atoms Form - that is really good.
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website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com

Ep. 36: 80s Rock Radio Hit Songs That Top 40 Missed (Mostly)

Rock hits but not Top 40 hits?  What’s that really mean? We take a listen to some great throwbacks to a time when rock radio was more than day-after-day classic rock, same song, repeat cycle that it is today.  Go back to when album rock stations (and for a brief time, Rock40 stations) made the radio a place for listeners to find a little bit of variety - and get surprised - with their rock and roll.  We hear songs that were hits on rock radio but not top 40, and one track that was a top 40 hit and oddly ignored by the rock stations.
In the process, we talk about what the Rock40 format was, how AOR made it possible to hear more than just the same two songs from Cheap Trick, and why we all should relish being able to have heard radio that took chances.
Jump into today’s podcast for a batch of songs that were on rock stations of the 1980s that were not top 40 hits but made an impact on listeners - like me - back in that decade.  Let's take a trip and rip into some of them - in a good way.
#CharlieSexton #Boston #johnkilzer #webbwilder #austin #neworleans #aor #rock40 #mitchryder #godfathers #radio
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website: rockpopandroll.com
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Ep. 35: Muscle Shoals, Bob Seger, and the Odd Story of Old Time Rock and Roll

Located alongside the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the studios there helped create some of the most important and resonant songs in rock and roll.
On this episode, we look back at bit of the history of the Muscle Shoals sound, a trio of FAME Studio house bands, including the great "Swampers", and how Detroit's Bob Seger fused their sound with his heartland rock to produce some underappreciated but great songs - and one song ("Old Time Rock and Roll") that has been played way too much, burned deeply into our music brains, but whose story - from writing to the final version - is a wild one.
We listen to a few Seger and Muscle Shoals Studios and Fame Studios tunes, hear some sublimely elegant Bob deep cuts, and have a blast rediscovering some of the famous and forgotten songs that came out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
#muscleshoals #rolling stones #otisreddiing #wilsonpickett #bobseger #cher #osmonds #sweetsoulmusic
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website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
 

Ep 34: Why Am I Just Now Discovering Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders?

Pat Todd has been called the most sincere rock and roll singer/songwriter on the planet. 
His first group, the LA-based Lazy Cowgirls, called it quits in 2004 after nearly 25 years together. Pat Todd, raised in Indiana, formed a new band, the Rankoutsiders.
In them, I hear Jason and The Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites in their prime, cowpunk, and gassed up the guitars with bang-bang-bang drums, all driven in 5th gear.
How had I not heard of Pat Todd until 2022? 
I have no idea.  But now I have and find a need to share it with my rock and roll compatriots.  So turn it up and let's rock together.  Maybe it's a new find for you too. Giving you an artist and a band that takes total inspiration in sounds and chord changes from 50 years ago - Berry riffs and Sweet Jane chord changes - and twists them enough to make them work now.
Wanna hear a band recorded in a room together and sounding alive?  Let's go. There is nothing cute about them unless you call harmonica and acoustic guitar cute. The sound of Faces and Stones, garage rock, Louie Louie messiness, and FU brashness.
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website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com

Ep. 33: Remembering the Brilliance - and the Chaos - of Jerry Lee Lewis

The passing of Jerry Lee Lewis signifies the passing of one of the few remaining architects of rock and roll. That piano and that voice, recorded in a way that sounds like dim light, beers, AM radio rock and roll, cigarette smoke, and always the underlying idea that a fight might break out.  He made music filled with gospel roots, country music, piano boogie woogie, fire, preaching, loving, sexing, and edge-of-explosion rock and roll. 
We dig into his career and find the rockabilly beginnings.  The rock and roll detonation.  The country hits.  The duets and collaborators.  And the attitude.  Always the attitude.  A flawed, brilliant, scarred, self-destructed, monumental life in music. 
That was the Killer.
 
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website: rockpopandroll.com
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Ep. 32: More of the Minneapolis Sound (part 3) - Soul Asylum, Gear Daddies, Husker Du, and More

Bar band swagger.
Like many Minneapolis artists we have been talking about, there were a number of rock and roll bands that paid lots of night-after-night dues in rock clubs and van tours.  They too recorded critically-acclaimed, small-label indie albums before eventually landing a big deal. Or not.
Artists - Just like Prince did - heard themselves on top 40 radio stations alongside other cuts from bands playing something different than their core sound, and artists took part of those sounds as their own.  Styles weaving into each. Grabbing something from another band and slipping that sound into their own music.  Just like Prince did in the 70s and early 80s, growing up on Minneapolis radio.  Just like those rock and roll kids did, hearing Prince themselves.  
This is the third (and final) part of the series that listens to the sounds of the Twin Cities and why they matter to rock and roll guys like me.
Part 1 - Prince and Minneapolis
Part 2 - The Replacements and Jayhawks
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website: rockpopandroll.com
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Ep. 31: The Other Minneapolis Sound (part 2) - Americana, Pop Punk, and Rock and Roll

There are small towns known for a musical signature - a sound that you call the Bakersfield sound or the Muscle Shoals sound. There are sounds and bands and vibes tied to big cities like zydeco drums and street sounds of New Orleans, the funk and gloss of the Motown Sound of Detroit, and the stew of garage rock into new wave that was Boston.  Like the swampy soul of Memphis, the sound of the 90’s grunge and alternative rock in Seattle, and the 60’s and 70’s groove and soul with Philadelphia.
There is a significant Minneapolis influence of the americana roots rock sound of the 1980s and into the 90s.  
There was a sound of Minneapolis that was not just Prince. What he became was a product of the multicultural melting pot of music that may have been prevalent in other cities, midwest or not.  But by some confluence of events and karma, there was a steady flow of bands that rocked and called Minneapolis home
This rock pop and roll podcast is part two of the series on Minneapolis' unique sound and a primer of some of the best and most influential - because of commercial success or integrity  - or both.  Every city has a thousand musical stories.  This is one city and a some of those bands and stories.
Part 1 - Prince and Minneapolis
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Read Rob's current and archived writing at rockforwardmusic.com
website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod 

Ep. 30: Mixing Prince and Heartland Rock and Roll in Minnesota

This particular podcast episode found its inspiration in one of the Spotify-exclusive Rock Pop and Roll Radio Shows that we've made. They live on Spotify and were created to give me a chance to make an old-school radio show. Listen for 90 minutes to one and hear stories plus the whole song, something we don't do on the podcast. A callback to the great radio of the 70's and 80's.  
I was working on a podcast about Minneapolis roots rock/heartland rock bands and how they were oddly influential in the 1980's musical landscape.  Then I remembered this Prince Spotify radio show I produced and thought - hey - this is part of the story.  How Prince - who music listeners know is from Minnesota - and a bunch of white kids with guitars could exist and, in a sense, inspire each other.
Prince was a mashup of what he heard growing up.  That was his secret to crossover success. Filmmaker Philip Priestley, who made a 2008 documentary comparing the careers of Prince and Michael Jackson, said that growing up in Minneapolis helped Prince to create a new sound. "He grew up listening to a lot of radio which was other stuff than black soul music and rhythm and blues," Priestley said. “He was listening to rock -- white rock -- which explains why he was so unique musically. "He fused a black American tradition -- rhythm and blues, soul, funk, jazz -- with white rock." 
That's what we peel back here, trying to figure out the connection between it all.  
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EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod 

Ep. 29: The Greatness of Joan Jett and Why She Rocks Us

Take a minute to think about Joan Jett.  More than one song.  More than just "I Love Rock and Roll", as great as that radio song is.  She's called “The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “The Godmother of Punk.”  
Let's think about the rock and roll in her catalog and the influences she ultimately passed along.  In the podcast, we talk about her career and how - somehow - she's may even be a bit undervalued as one of the rock and roll greats.
Jett's self-titled solo debut was released in Europe in 1980. In the US,  the is that after the album was rejected by 23 major labels, so Jett and and manager Kenny Laguna formed Blackheart Records and released it independently -  started with Laguna's daughter's college savings -  sometimes selling the albums out of the trunk of Laguna's car after a show.  They eventually made a deal with Casablanca Records head Neil Bogart, and he signed Jett to his new label, Boardwalk Records and re-released the Joan Jett album as Bad Reputation. 
That statement and that song - what Joan Jett sang about - "I don't give a damn about…" was what she became.  That’s the image she made real.   It is her brand.  It cements her place as an integral part of the melding of punk rock and rock and roll.  
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EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod 

Ep. 28: The Continuing Echo of Tom Petty Lives Through Mike Campbell - and Many Others

The continuing story of the the echoing Influence of Tom Petty...and how Mike Campbell has taken that influence and made some magic.
I hear lots of bands than dig for that bit of Petty magic within their sound. The Wild Feathers.  American Aquarium. Turnpike Troubadours. Eddie Vedder. Cody Canada. Band of Heathens.  Petty left us too early.  His influence has stayed.  I thought it would but you never know.  Some artists just have louder echoes.  And now, Heartbeakers guitarist and his band, Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs, have an album out  - released in early 2022 called External Combustion. Petty fans should rejoice.  It rocks, in a Petty and the Heartbreakers way.  A good way - with the echoes of the sounds of Torpedoes and Wildflowers. 
People hear the Petty songs and think they're basic. Why?  Hell, Petty songs and  singles were on the radio in a time when radio was king and queen and prince. They got your soul, one hit at a time.  When I go to the radio or a Spotify playlist that a fragment of melody, line of lyrics, or chord change that will be a line back to something from Petty - his influence - from a generation of rock and pop stars that were raised on his music. 
Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs. They have a second album. It’s pretty damn good. Mike has found his voice. It is the voice that helped blend with Tom’s voice for 40 years and it is evident that he was a huge piece of that sound, and the two growing up and writing songs for all those years gave each a part of each other’s musical soul.  On External Combustion - his voice is stronger. Crisper.  Tweaked a tiny bit higher in the mix.  It works.
We listen to Petty's influence in the album, and with other music too.  It's a good sound.  A sound that deserves to live on.
Hear all the archived episodes and find our social media and email links on the website: rockpopandroll.com
Eddie Vedder interview with Bruce Springsteen - https://youtu.be/PhqKCQXI8s0
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Read Rob's current and archived writing at rockforward.wordpress.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod