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Thank you Alex
We lost an American icon yesterday with the passing of Alex Chilton.
He followed his own path, emerging in the 1960s as a vocalist with the Box Tops—that’s his growl on The Letter—and moved in a different direction in the 1970s with seminal Memphis band Big Star. September Gurls still gives me the chills. He then dropped in and out of view during what some have called his “lost decade.”
I came of age in the early 1980s in dusty record stores and Salvation Army thrift shops and among our crowd Chilton was an enigma that we embraced. He was rumored to be washing dishes in New Orleans, playing gigs overseas, recording with The Cramps, or simply in voluntary seclusion. The Replacements stoked the flames and we tracked down Chilton’s vinyl—especially his messier late 1970s stuff— and passed around the rare live cassette. His EPs from this era are fantastic. You feel a river of American music flowing from them. They would stay parked on your turntable for weeks after you purchased them. The songs were pure, damp, and loose with an acidic edge at times that felt just right. Thank You John, Lost My ...
California Music Month: Celebrating Brian Wilson
In commemoration of California Music Month, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and K·Swiss pay tribute to the artists, groups, and movements that helped shape its sounds.
It’s hard to imagine California without Brian Wilson. He may not have been the one to put the state on the map, but he did much for our perception of it as a surfer’s mecca under a perpetual summer sun. Back in the ’60s, the Beach Boys’ intricate harmonies vividly evoked an endless paradise. The music they made continues to thrill generations of fans worldwide — even the ones surrounded by land, with nary a beach in sight.
Appropriately, Wilson was born in the summer, on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California, the eldest child of Murry and Audree Wilson. He was joined two years later by a brother, Dennis. The growing family then moved seven miles south, to the city of Hawthorne, where final Wilson brother, Carl, arrived in 1946.
Visitors to the house at 3701 West 119th Street would have instantly seen how important music was to the Wilson family. It went way beyond the piano in the living room. Murry was something of a composer himself, although ...
Record Store Day: Keeping Music Alive in the Community
This Saturday, April 17, is Record Store Day. It’s an international celebration of the places where many generations went to pick up new releases by their favorites, discover new artists, look in wonder at covers and artwork and generally mix with a group of strangers who had the same relationship to music as you. Trying to get people to rally for a commercial concern doesn’t, at surface, seem that noble. But record stores, particularly independent record stores, are an integral component of music in our lives.
Though the internet is a wonderful communication platform, it removed for many the tactile experience of shopping for music. I don’t want to sound like an old fart, but there was, and still is, something to a planned trip to a record store. Sure, you can click a button on iTunes or Rhapsody and get a track immediately. Where’s the adventure in that? You walk in and face the rack of new releases, you troll through the used and the import bins and then you hear a song on the stores’ PA and you ask a clerk about it. (As a former record store employee, I can tell you there ...
Rock and Roll Photographer Chuck Pulin Passes Away
Today I received the heart-breaking news that Chuck Pulin had passed away. Chuck was one of the great rock and roll photographers. He began shooting in the early Seventies, and over the years he photographed everyone from Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones, from Frank Sinatra to Elton John, from Madonna to Bon Jovi. He chronicled the history of such famous New York clubs as Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, the Bottom Line and the Mudd Club. For many years, he was one of the primary photographers for Billboard, the music-industry trade magazine. And his photos appeared on scores of album covers, including records by Simon and Garfunkel, the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Miles Davis, to name but a few. Perhaps most importantly, Chuck was one of the most well-liked people in the rock world. He had no enemies, and virtually everyone admired him and his work. His passing is a true loss to the music world and the photography world.
Rock and Roll and the Vietnam War: 40 Years After Kent State
May 4, 1970 marked the 40th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University, when four students were killed and nine wounded by the Ohio National Guard during student protests of the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. As part of the commemorations, the Rock Hall’s Education department put together a panel at KSU on rock and roll and the Vietnam war. There are, of course, rock and roll songs about the Kent State shootings—most famously, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s single “Ohio”/”Find the Cost of Freedom,” recorded just weeks after May 4th. But I wanted to tell a wider story about the role that rock and roll played in our understanding of the Vietnam war, how protestors, soldiers, and civilians made sense of the war and its aftermath through the music. It was, as Samuel Freedman wrote, the first war to be “fought to a rock and roll soundtrack.”
I spent the afternoon on the KSU campus, listening to the many speakers who came together as part of the commemoration. Speakers included Florence Schroeder, mother of slain student William Schroeder; Russ Miller, brother of slain student Jeffrey Miller; Joe Lewis, a student who was shot and wounded ...
Cleveland's Glass Harp band
Glass Harp is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative rock bands to have ever emerged from the Cleveland rock and roll scene. Formed in Youngstown in the late Sixties, the band – Phil Keaggy on guitar, Daniel Pecchio on bass and John Sferra on drums – was a power trio in the tradition of Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the James Gang. But the group – which is currently represented in the Museum’s Ohio exhibit -- went beyond the blues-based stylings of those bands to create a sound all their own. At the center of Glass Harp’s sound was Keaggy’s lyrical, inventive guitar playing. So admired was Keaggy that, when asked who his favorite guitarist was, Jimi Hendrix cited Phil Keaggy. Glass Harp released three critically acclaimed albums and was on the verge of breaking big on the national scene when, in 1972, Keaggy left the band to pusue a career in Christian music. Twenty-five years later, in January 1997, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened an exhibit called My Town, which focused on Cleveland’s rock and roll history. I contacted the band members, and they agreed to re-form the original Glass Harp for an ...
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame goes to Outerspace on the Shuttle Atlantis
Dr. Garrett Reisman, a native of New Jersey, is a veteran astronaut. He spent three months aboard the International Space Station in 2008 conducting one spacewalk lasting seven hours. Sirius XM radio host Dusty Street, who broadcasts live from the Rock Hall during the week, caught up with him during his final preparations for his flight aboard the Space shuttle Atlantis which embarked on its final planned mission on May 14, 2010. During the 12-day flight, Dr. Reisman will conduct two spacewalks.
Dusty Street: Dusty Street here talking to world famous Astronaut, do they call you Dr. Garrett?
Garrett Resiman: Well not too many people call me world famous, but you can just call me Garrett.
D: Well as you know, all of us Rock and Rollers are a bit of a space cadet, but I want to know what inspired you to come to the Rock Hall for some things to take on what I believe to be the last flight of the Atlantis?
G: Yes, well our future here at NASA is currently in transition so we are not 100% sure that it is going to be the last flight of Atlantis. Our crew has gotten into the ...
Remembering Ronnie James Dio
My heavy metal heart is hurting – Ronnie James Dio is gone. When Dio died of stomach cancer on Sunday May 16th the rock world lost one of its greatest voices. Passionate heavy metal fans love to argue about their favorite bands, but no one disagrees about Ronnie James Dio. You could claim that you liked one singer more than another, or that Maiden was better than Priest, but if you brought up Dio people would always say, “No fair, no one compares to Dio!” It’s the reason why Jack Black and Kyle Gass made Dio the ultimate rock icon for Tenacious D and even featured him as the voice of rock in The Pick of Destiny. (If you have not seen Dio play himself in the film’s song “Kickapoo” go find it now!)
Dio’s voice had ultimate power and ultimate control. It was often called operatic in much the same way that people think of Roy Orbison’s voice. While Dio’s voice came to represent heavy metal, he reached early success as a hard rock singer in the band Elf. Listen to his vocal and emotional range on “Never More” from Elf’s self titled debut ...
