Just want to say Mumford & Sons hit it so far out of the park I was reminded that when you do it right, music warms your heart and eviscerates loneliness, it enshrouds you in a flannel blanket and gives you the power and inspiration to march forward. Their performance of “I’m On Fire” was the highlight of the evening. With the lights turned low and acoustic instrumentation, we were reminded in an era dominated by tech, it’s humanity that triumphs.

You should have heard Bruce Springsteen say why he was getting this honor.

It was a trade, a deal, a quid pro quo for being able to open last year’s Grammy telecast.

Ain’t that the music business. Where if you don’t scratch my back, yours is gonna lay fallow. It’s just like life, an endless series of trades. If you’re not willing to give to get, you’re never gonna make it. And that’s sad. But I guess it’s been that way since the caveman.

Jon Stewart was a fabulous host. His tales of driving his Gremlin while working at a bar in New Jersey were hilarious. Yes, the punch line was his ride insured…THAT HE’D NEVER GET LAID! And he slowly recited the lyrics of “Born To Run” and asked if they should truly be the anthem of New Jersey… After all, they depict a desperate state peopled by losers eager to emigrate. But back when we were all preoccupied with iron, where the goal was to get behind the wheel as opposed to navigate your phone with your finger, travel was the essence of young life. We were restless. Music was our soundtrack.

I’d like to tell you every performance was a winner.

But that would be untrue.

Too many acts were reading off the Teleprompter. Going through the motions.

But I have to single out Kenny Chesney’s performance of “One Step Up.” He could really play and sing. Those outside country consider him a sideshow hillbilly, but not only does Kenny have talent and skill, like Mumford he connects with his audience, he touches them on a human level, something too many of the Top Forty acts do not. Which might be why they don’t have careers. You get fame, everyone knows your name…for a minute, and then you’re a footnote. Whereas those plying the country boards do so forever. It’s because of the songs, the performances, they touch people.

And although his voice is different from its heyday, Elton can still tickle the ivories. To hear him improvise is to have your body tingle, become electric, because the notes satiate and you realize you’re in the presence of genius.

And yes, Bruce played a bunch at the end. Interestingly, the highlight was “Glory Days,” the finale, when everybody came onstage and participated.

And that’s what they were, glory days. When your goal was to create a long player that stood the test of time.

Bruce did.

But he’s still a musician. He riffed about this. How they’re bad with money. They drink too much. They do drugs. They are the people our parents warned us about.

But that’s why we love them so much.

Bruce Springsteen Named MusiCares Person Of The Year

10. “I Wish It Would Rain” The Temptations

I always think of the Faces version, from “Coast to Coat: Overture and Beginners,” an eminently forgettable live album. But that’s just how big a Rod Stewart fan I was, I had to have everything he put out. This is from Anaheim, back in ’73. I saw the band in Anaheim, a stadium show, in ’75. Opener was Fleetwood Mac, riding the initial success of the “White Album” with Buckingham and Nicks. I loved hearing “Over My Head,” but the audience was not enthusiastic, they were barely paying attention. There was a riot in the infield after Loggins & Messina, all to the soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen’s “Spirit In The Night, ” and this was before “Born To Run” made him a star, I seemed to be the only bloke who knew the track. And the string section for the Faces never arrived, and Rod couldn’t stop expressing his regret, but by that time we were hungover anyway.

But the Temptations’ take is definitive.

9. “Goin’ Out Of My Head/Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Medley)” The Lettermen

Nearly sacrilegious.

The definitive versions were done by Little Anthony & the Imperials and Frankie Valli. Both done within half a decade, the Frankie Valli track was a hit only the year before!

Meanwhile, the most famous Lettermen take is a live one. Which has enough magic to be a hit. I just can’t remember whether the live take was the one on the radio! I think it was! (And Web research is not definitive!)

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” is not Valli’s best work. For that, go to his classic early sixties stuff with the Four Seasons. But the Little Anthony vocal on “Goin’ Out Of My Head” will blow your mind. It’s as if Little Lupe sang (that’s a Howard Stern reference, in case you’re scratching your head.) He sings like he means it, like it’s the most important thing in the world.

8. “Nobody But Me” The Human Beinz

A one hit wonder which captured the zeitgeist, a cross between psychedelia and garage that was instantly addicting and we all sang along with.

Play this with a baby boomer in sight and you’ll be shocked as he or she starts to shimmy and sing every note.

Nobody can do the SHING-A-LING!

No, no, no…

Pure magic.

7. “Love Is Blue”

We sat through everything on the AM radio waiting for the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion. As a result, I know every lick of Louis Armstrong’s “Hello Dolly” and this too. But unlike Louis’s hit, I LOVE “Love Is Blue.” It sets your mind adrift, it’s life itself. We’re all individuals, our intersection with others is tenuous at best. Funny how we can connect with music more than people. This song plays and it’s like I’m disconnected from my present environment and hooked into one removed, yet more real.

6. “Woman, Woman” The Union Gap

The first hit, but not the best. Tolerable, but schmaltzy. But what came next… YOUNG GIRL! An utterly fantastic concoction that they opened their show with at Fordham University and closed it with too. It had just been released. This was in March ’68. We went to see the headliner, Arlo Guthrie, do one of his three versions of “Alice’s Restaurant.” But we stood on our chairs and sang along with “Young Girl,” it’s just that good.

5. “Bend Me, Shape Me” The American Breed

My favorite song on this playlist. I first heard it on the jukebox in the Bromley base lodge, I had to buy the single, and by this point I only bought albums.

There was just something about the sound. I played it incessantly, to the point where my father, who was anything but a fan of rock, would sing it with a smile on his face to tease me.

It’s the way the singer almost whispers, sings nearly sotto voce. And then there’s a bridge with balls that leads to the exuberant chorus…and then the drums start to beat, the horns start to wail, the hands start to clap and we’re back in the verse, we’re doing it all over again.

To think such magic could be encapsulated in barely two minutes.

My memories are embedded and triggered by this.

4. “Spooky” Classics IV

And if you want to lose some time online, you can research the intersection between this original hit version and the one done years later by the Atlanta Rhythm Section. Still, this is the definitive take. It’s the pauses that hook you, but then there’s the vocal, everybody was such a stylist back then. But how can I not mention that guitar riff and the sax solo? This is the soundtrack to house parties in the basement, where you first kissed and danced close.

3. “Chain Of Fools” Aretha Franklin

“Respect” gets all the kudos, but I prefer this. Because of the intro, which most people would eliminate, and the groove, like rocking in a boat. You just can’t help but have your body move. And Aretha dances atop the track in a way that blows your mind without showing off.

Give Jerry Wexler props.

And to this day, Aretha knocks it out of the park. When I saw her a few years back, “Chain Of Fools” was the highlight of the show.

2. “Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)” John Fred & His Playboy Band

Also on that Bromley jukebox. My sister bought the single and I came to love it by osmosis.

Yes, we all had our own record players. You know, those cheap boxes with the lift top. We all had our own records. And we didn’t swap them. But we heard them coming out of each other’s rooms.

This was one of those songs where the lyrics were debated.

Was he singing “kite,” or was he being anti-Semitic?

There was never another John Fred hit, but after fading, this became an oldies staple.

1. “Green Tambourine” The Lemon Pipers

Even though there was no Internet, no cell phones, music moved faster in ’68 than it does today. Songs didn’t last as long on the chart. Influences were consumed and spit out fast. Even though the Beatles had only broken in ’64, psychedelia had penetrated the hipster circuits and we ended up with “Green Tambourine,” a bizarre concoction of underground and mainstream, of psychedelia and bubble gum.

Yes, if you just listen to the instrumentation, the track seems almost cutting edge. But then you listen to the lyrics…

Still, the sounds are so entrancing.

And it was cowritten and produced by Paul Leka, from Bridgeport, the city next to the suburb I grew up in, Fairfield!

But we didn’t know that back then.

Trivia has come to the fore as a result of the Internet.

But back then, we only had the radio.

And these were the hits forty five years ago.

Seems like yesterday.

Rhinofy-This Week In 1968

Previous Rhinofy playlists

 

From: David Geffen
Subject: Eagles

They did not have a bad deal at all…..no way.

They were so young.

And so were we!

The Eagles are one of the most hated bands in history.

Why?

Because they were successful, and they took themselves and their music really seriously. That’s not how you’re supposed to do it in rock and roll. You’re supposed to be on a lark, you’re not supposed to care, it’s all just supposed to happen. You luck into hits, blow all your money and thrust your arms in the air when it’s all done, in an expression that says “What the hell!”

But it don’t really happen that way at all. It’s really hard to make it. Not only does it require patience and perseverance, talent and dedication, it demands mental energy. Can you handle it? All the scrutiny, all the expectations?

Randy Meisner couldn’t. He just wanted to be one of the guys. He didn’t always feel like singing “Take It To The Limit,” he wasn’t always up to singing the high notes. But Glenn Frey demanded he perform it. Because the audience EXPECTED IT!

You’re not supposed to care about the audience. But they pay their hard-earned money. And if you don’t deliver, not only will they be disappointed, they probably won’t come back. And everybody knows the money’s in repeat business. Having enough albums to get a better deal. Enough hits and good vibes to play bigger places at a higher price.

Do you think that’s easy?

Then you probably believe money grows on trees.

The documentary starts with roots.

We all come from somewhere, it defines who we are. And in the pre-Internet era, we were all extremely localized. You could be popular in your own high school, but in the next town over, you were unknown. The road to stardom was strewn with potholes and blind turns. You just had to get behind the wheel of the car and keep driving.

To California.

Where the American Dream reaches its zenith. Today in Silicon Valley. Yesterday in Los Angeles. Prior to the sixties in the movie business. But for fifteen years thereafter, from ’65 to ’80, the music business ruled. Musicians made more money than actors. They followed their own muse. And the audience paid attention, their only desire to go to the show and get backstage.

Yes, do you think twentysomething boys played their music and went home to watch TV and read books? OF COURSE NOT! The first night Irving Azoff spent with the band on the road they didn’t even bother checking into the hotel. They went straight from the gig to the party. In this pre-AIDS era sex was rampant, as were the drugs. The life of a rock star was the apotheosis.

And no one lived it to the fullest like the Eagles.

Of course we had Led Zeppelin. But they weren’t American. They were dark and introverted. Whereas Glenn Frey was all about fun. Let’s RAGE!

So the film begins with the band onstage.

You’ve just got to see them walk, with their guitars over their shoulders. This is deadly serious work. And they’re up to the task.

I feel sorry for those of you who grew up in the era of MTV. If you want to know what it was like before television taught us how to behave, see this movie. There’s no dancing, no production, no special effects. Just music. AND THE AUDIENCE IS LOSING ITS MIND! The music was enough. MORE THAN ENOUGH!

If you were there you’ll tingle.

If you weren’t, you’ll lament you were born too late.

So Don Henley is a drummer in Texas with chutzpah. He implores Kenny Rogers to come see his band and the singer ends up producing their album for Amos Records. Hell, just the footage of Kenny singing ” Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” will thrill you.

This was not only the soundtrack to our life, this music WAS OUR LIFE!

The Beatles started it. In one fell swoop they made every baby boomer music crazy, everyone picked up a guitar, everyone played, music was all we talked about. Steve Jobs started Apple Computer, but it was Bob Dylan who he put atop a pedestal.

Glenn hooks up with J.D. Souther and they form Longbranch Pennywhistle. They end up befriending Jackson Browne and move in above him in Echo Park. Where at nine every morning Jackson makes tea and starts to write. Playing the same riffs twenty times in a row. THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT! You don’t see the hard work at home, only the result, but the dues being paid are hefty.

And they’re hanging at the Troubadour. Henley saw Elton’s debut. You see back then, we were all fans. We didn’t want to hang out with bankers, we wanted to get closer to the music.

And Glenn and Don get gigs backing up Linda Ronstadt.

You should see her in this flick. She’s eloquent and sexy…she’s a STAR! And she plays the guitar! Today our females are too often pinups, Linda was all about the music.

And then the band signs a bad deal with David Geffen and moves to Aspen to rehearse. And try to get Glyn Johns to produce their record.

Whew! We never see the behind the scenes people. We certainly never see the tension. Glyn was a martinet, he thought the Eagles didn’t rock, it took three albums for the band to stand up to him. Hell, today most acts don’t even get three albums!

And they end up switching to Joe Walsh’s producer, Bill Szymczyk and they mic every drum and suddenly…they’re the biggest band in the land.

But then they push it further. They record “Hotel California.”

And it wasn’t only that track. “Life In The Fast Lane” became an anthem, an aphorism heard all over the country. Before we quoted rap lyrics, everybody was referencing the Southern California lifestyle evidenced in Eagles records.

And Bernie Leadon goes his own way.

And Don Felder pisses off Glenn Frey, they just about come to blows and the band is done. Just like that.

Oh, they eked out “The Long Run.” But they were running on fumes. They’d given it their all. You can run the factory 24/7, do a bit of maintenance and it’ll run forever. But not people. They get fried, their creative juices run out. They burn out.

But the music remains.

The Eagles have the best-selling album of all time.

And people hate them for it.

Like a college dropout hates a banker, a tech titan.

But do you want a college dropout performing surgery on you?

NO! You want the most qualified doctor available. Not only an M.D. with a long CV, but the one who never makes a mistake, who operates on the famous people, the first call.

And that’s what we want in our music.

Denigrate the Eagles all you want. But the proof is in the grooves. And the attendance decades on. Hell, you don’t have to like the music, but if you don’t give them respect you probably think Obama was born in Kenya and didn’t graduate from Harvard.

Ain’t that America, the land of sour grapes.

But also the land of hopes and dreams.

Two sons of factory workers emigrate to California and live the American Dream. Right or left, Republican or Democrat, that’s what we’re all looking for. A better life than our parents, the fulfillment of our dreams.

Want to know how it’s done?

Watch this documentary.