RockPopandRoll

Ep. 39: The Rock and Roll Gospel of Henry Lee Summer

Henry Lee Summer latched on to the sound of pop and rock radio in the 80s and rode that bad boy to a couple of late-decade hits, and a handful of good, heartland rock and roll albums. 
But in his home state - Indiana - Summer was more than couple nice radio hits and a handful of albums. Weird that he could be, maybe? Really not. His story is like a lot of local-but-more-music heroes. Cleveland and Providence and Pittsburgh and Toronto. Artists like Donnie Iris, Kim Mitchell, John Cafferty, and Joe Grushecky.  
Henry Lee Summer mined the sound of late 80’s rock and roll with his own little twist, influenced by Top 40 AM radio hooks, and, in the best way, a product of live sets in the smoke and noise and chaos of a live rock and roll club. His is the sound of the Midwest. The studio recordings - most of them - shined up for presentation to the masses, and the live shows greased and gritted for the faithful.
And he played great shows. Evenings that turned revival-ish. A shared act of live, loud, shakin' crowd-into-it rock and roll.  Henry Lee, well beyond most of his hit-making days, brought the goods, man. His last hit was the early 90s.  I saw him making it rock in a live setting be fantastic ten years past that.  
And then he wasn't.  And now he is again.
I loved seeing Henry Lee live. Here's an episode driven by a hope to share how great that act was without overselling it.  Because in the end, Henry Lee Summer had a handful of hits on the radio. Nothing more than that - unless you saw him live. Then it makes more sense: the straining-to-be-loose studio albums that never quite were roughed up enough (other than the second major label release  - "I've Got Everything") as he chased the right mix of hanging on and totally in the groove. That balance was what he harnessed on stage.  
So these are my stories of discovery and the way one musician nothing much to most music fans, found a way to mean something more where he was and when he could.  Maybe this one is a little more personal than usual. I'm OK with that. I hope you are too. Enjoy the listen.  
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Ep. 38: 80’s Roots Rock and Roll - What We Were Hearing

I thought it might be simple.  Who were some of my favorite roots rock bands from the 1980’s and 90’s?  And why?  This episode turned into a deep dive into what still feels like it was only skimming along the surface of a genre that was hot for about five years and before fading back into where it was before, into a mostly forgotten sub-genre that I still love.
"Roots Rock" was a name that was branded on a sound that came of age in the mid-'80s. Some guitar rawness.  Some harmonies. Roots rock had twang and guitars and drums. Garage-ish rock. There was definitely a crossover with the sound called heartland rock.  There was, however, a rawness that made it more roots than heartland.
Heartland rock was a name used in the 1970s to describe Midwestern arena rock. The Mount Rushmore of 80s heartland rock? Arguably - but correctly  - Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and Tom Petty, John Mellencamp.  Could also include bands like REO if you wanted. Maybe Cheap Trick?  Michael Stanley Band for sure. How was it all the same?  How not?
We listen to bands that made an impact both on the roots rock genre and on me.  It is not an all-inclusive list of everyone and every band that fit or that I listened to. Instead, it is a selection of music that was on the radio, or maybe not, and we talk about why it was or wasn't.  But these are certainly bands and music that slid into my cassette player in the 1979 Buick Skylark a whole lot of times.
Band like:CrackerDel FuegosBodeansRainmakersJohn HiattSteve EarleV-RoysLong Ryders
It is an epic podcast.  More than an hour’s worth of bands and artists and tracks for listeners to dig into more deeply. Turn it up.
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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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website: rockpopandroll.com
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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
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TWITTER: @rockpoprollpod