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Episodes
Monday Oct 31, 2022
Monday Oct 31, 2022
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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Read Rob's current and archived writing at rockforwardmusic.com
website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
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
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
Tuesday Sep 20, 2022
Tuesday Sep 20, 2022
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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website: rockpopandroll.com
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod
Monday Jul 25, 2022
Monday Jul 25, 2022
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
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INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod
Sunday Jun 12, 2022
Sunday Jun 12, 2022
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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TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod
Tuesday Apr 12, 2022
Tuesday Apr 12, 2022
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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EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @rockpopandroll
INSTAGRAM: @rockpopandroll
TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod
Sunday Mar 27, 2022
Sunday Mar 27, 2022
On the weekend we recorded this, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died. He was 50.
People are fans. We aren’t friends. If it feels awful or heart wrenching to fans, know his friends feel it harder and bigger and sadder.
I'm a superfan of what the Foo Fighters represent. The fervor of how they play rock and roll. The satisfaction and pride they seem to feel when they are doing what they do. The Spirit of the Foo Fighters. What he brought to them. The fun. The wow. The fanboy love of rock and roll, played in the pocket and as the engine to the band.
They’ve played all the Queen covers and Rush covers and all the covers tackled from all the bands. The Foos love music and are students of the hazy 70s and rock and pop MTV 80s. They remember where they were when the rock and roll hit the radio the first time. It would come out in a show.
The spirit of the Foo Fighters. It’s different now. Even though they say it’s only rock and roll, it’s not.
We remember a bit of the spirit of Taylor Hawkins and what he brought to the band.
Foo Fighters final show with Taylor Hawkins / Argentina / watch
Hear all the archived episodes and find our social media and email links on the website: rockpopandroll.com
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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
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Georgia Satellites are owners of one fluke hit from their self-titled debut album - a Chuck Berry-ish throwback-for-the-80s radio. One song amidst their bucket of barroom rockers. Those songs don’t come around Top 40 too often anymore. The “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” or “Jealous Again” type of songs are outliers. So is "Keep Your Hands to Yourself". It rocketed all the way to #2 on the top 40 singles chart in early 1987. Bon Jovi kept them out of the top spot with "Livin' on a Prayer".
And why do I still think about the band? They really weren't anything new. But they did put together a flash of a career - though the band name lives on with guitarist Rick Richards - with some of the best dueling guitars of the 1980's. Again, we go back to the bar band label. It was an easy label to paste on them – to call the band an 80’s version of the great 70s rockers, The Faces. Hell, they even covered "Every Picture Tells a Story".
They played rock and roll that was a blast of scraping guitars, big drums and a vibe that bridged the decades before the Black Crowes would make a similar move around 1990. The Crowes ended up making a career last - off and on – for 25 years. For the Georgia Satellites? They opened on a couple big tours, played a whole lot of bars and then splintered right around 1990.
What is their legacy? Why a podcast about a retro band than was not around long enough to have a second big hit? That's what we dive into. How the Georgia Satellites predated country radio rock that would come just a bit after their time, and end up as an influence for lots of bands - or at least make those bands believe there was a path to a crunching rock and roll career. Bands like Cross Canadian Ragweed. The Bottle Rockets. Blackberry Smoke. Singer Dan Baird went on to a solo career and formed a couple really good bands, including Dan Baird and Homemade Sin.
One of their best tours was a triple bill in 1987 with Del Fuegos and Tom Petty. They also opened for Bob Seger in 1986 on his American Storm Tour for their first time on arena stage. Dan Baird has said that Bob made sure they had full house lights, house sound, everything the headliner would get. He knew what an opener needed. He was one for years.
Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis talks about living in Atlanta in the early 1980s, “The Satellites were like the city's house band.” They made it into America's consciousness, at least for one song and a few years more for fans of the band. They brought it live. Loud. Righteous. I say worth remembering one more time.
They have a new - recorded in 1988 - live album out now that gives us a taste of what made them so good. Lightnin' In A Bottle. Seems like a good time now to rewind and salute a band that was better than they ever got credit for. Of course, if you saw them live, you knew.
I did, and I do.
Hear all the archived episodes and find our social media and email links on the website: rockpopandroll.com
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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
Monday Feb 21, 2022
Monday Feb 21, 2022
Huey Lewis and the News were a bar band that was better than a bar band. That’s such a lazy way to describe a band anyway. A bar band is a good thing anyway, right? That means they cut their chops live and can make a crowd - big or small - happy. Lewis and the band just happened to have the songs, the performance chops, and the talent to take that bar band moniker and make it huge.
There’s a long history of bar bands who had some fame and a hit or three and have a bit of a legacy. The J. Geils Band comes to mind. Southside Johnny and the Jukes. Georgia Satellites. John Cafferty. I might say the greatest bar bands of all time may be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Springsteen with the E St. Band. So there is no shame there. Lewis and the News where a glossier,-pop-leaning bar band than who had nine top 10 hits over the space of about four years. Later in their career, they turned deeper to soul and Stax and to a version a band leaning into a bit of R&B later in their career, to pretty good results.
After that glorious run from about 1982 through 1987, they began that journey, beginning with Small World album. Though it reached #11 on the album chart -and the song "Perfect World" went to #3 on Hot 100, the white-hot radio magic was on it's way out for the band.
What happened after the 80’s to Huey Lewis and the News? They continued to release albums. They continued to play live. Hard at Play was the first of those post-80's albums to be released. Though they weren't burning at the levels of the mid 80's any longer, the record produced two top 40 singles with "Couple Days Off" and "It Hit Me Like a Hammer". What came after these? How did they age? What is worth hearing hat we might have missed. That's the podcast. Dig in.
Hear all the archived episodes and find our social media and email links on the website: rockpopandroll.com
SUBSCRIBE:
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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
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
Let's do a little Jackson Browne history: Browne wrote several songs for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band early on - he was briefly a member in 1966 before they were signed. He co-wrote the first Billboard Top 40 hit for the Eagles in 1972 with "Take It Easy". Browne released his debut album in 1972, which had one Top 40 hit, "Doctor, My Eyes" (#8) and another that should have been "Rock Me on the Water" (#48)
With his third album, Late for the Sky, he reached number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. It was his fourth album, The Pretender – produced by Jon Landau - that cracked the top 5 on the album chart with singles "Here Come Those Tears Again" (#23) and "The Pretender" (an FM radio hit). By the time he got to the 1980's, he was ready for some radio hits and some MTV love.
Browne was one of the singer songwriters that bridged the late 60s/early 70 socially conscious singer songwriter with the days of AOR and guitars, loud drums and the rock and roll that ruled a lot of radio in the 80s. His 70s output is underrated and the classic rock stations of today only skim the same few, forgetting a lot of his catalog.
Jackson is one of those musicians who we take for granted a bit, and maybe dismiss when his thoughts, actions, and causes don’t match up politically and socially with with our own. But that doesn’t make him any less great. He is a rock guy who makes an effort to be an artist. And has done it for more than 50 years. Followed his heart. His beliefs. His art. Jackson Browne is important in the telling the story of rock’s history. We talk about his 70s output, what happened in the 90s and beyond, but focus this podcast on Jackson Browne in the 1980's, his golden years of getting played on the radio.
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CONTACT:
EMAIL: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com TWITTER: @80srockpopandroll FACEBOOK: @rockpopandrollROB'S INSTAGRAM: @rockrob
WEBSITE: rockpopandroll.com