“Your Song” wasn’t the only legendary ballad released at the end of 1970, although it took longer for “Wild World” to become a hit.

Not that Cat Stevens was new. Like Elton John he’d been kicking around a while, released music previously, but suddenly the stars aligned. To the hoi polloi they emerged fully formed, it was nearly a miracle, where did this music come from?

Now the truth is Cat Stevens had actually had a bit of success previously, it’s just that most people were unaware of it. Those who needed more bought imports of Elton’s “Empty Sky” and were disappointed. But when you went back and bought Cat Stevens’s earlier LP, “Mona Bone Jakon,” you found something darker than “Tea for the Tillerman,” more uneven, but with highlights just as good. It was kind of like “Hunky Dory” before the breakthrough of “Ziggy Stardust,” although the truth is “Ziggy” was nowhere near as big as either “Elton John” or “Tea for the Tillerman” in the U.S., Bowie had to make three more LPs before he had the giant hit “Rebel Rebel” off of “Diamond Dogs,” then again those paying attention, living for music, already knew who he was, it was only the johnny-come-latelies who were surprised, who now had to see Bowie in arenas instead of theatres.

But although the early successes, the earlier artistic peaks, of both Elton and Bowie were high, they continued to crest again and again over the years, Cat Stevens did not. Would Stevens have found the magic once again if he hadn’t retired? Possibly, but his albums kept getting worse. “Teaser and the Firecat” had three big hits, but it was a less satisfying listening experience, and a step down in quality. Then, despite making six more albums, Stevens only had two more hits, “Oh Very Young” from “Buddha and the Chocolate Box” and the non-album single “Another Saturday Night” and called it a day. It was big news, Cat’s religious conversion, because despite the internet today in the seventies music was the dominant cultural force, far exceeding television, and by the latter half of the decade the blockbuster era had flowered in film, and although there was corporate rock at the same time, there were still monumental albums, too many to list, and “Rolling Stone” had the impact and gravitas of a major newspaper.

Now the truth is Cat Stevens woke up a couple of years back and went on tour and if you didn’t see him you missed something special. And then he rerecorded “Tea for the Tillerman.” This should never be done. Artists are clueless as to what makes their albums hits, why the public gravitates towards them. Unless, of course, you’re going for a hit, but despite radio action those cuts rarely resonate throughout history, it’s the ones when you’re deep in your hole, doing your own thing, not worrying about the audience, that connect. And as Steven Wilson, the best remixer out there says, you don’t want to mess with the sound fans know. Acts are constantly telling him to tweak, to “improve” the sound. But Wilson says these remixes are for fans, and he wants them to sound identical, but clearer, that’s what they want. Despite reams of hype, nobody wanted a reimagined “Tea for the Tillerman,” but the original…

And speaking of originals, not only did “Mona Bone Jakon” precede “Tea for the Tillerman,” but “Matthew and Son” and “New Masters,” and Cat’s previous work, gained notice and at this point one must say “The First Cut Is the Deepest” is a standard, covered by many.

Also, in the seventies the film “Harold & Maude” became an art house classic and “Trouble” from “Mona Bone Jakon” played in one of the best scenes in the movie so if you look back at the era, the decade, the seventies, Cat Stevens was a big star.

But it all started with “Wild World.” That’s when most people got their first taste of his music. After all, the initial two LPs were on Deram and most people were completely unaware of them.

Now if you listen to “Elton John,” despite some raucous numbers, many of the greatest tracks are dark. With rich production from Gus Dudgeon and strings by Paul Buckmaster. But “Tea for the Tillerman” was different, the songs might have been dark at times, but the production was not, the album had a sunny tone, and as a result ultimately got played out and discarded, well relatively. People kept spinning those early Elton John albums but “Tea for the Tillerman” had been so overplayed, embraced by both casual fans and diehards, that you didn’t hear it. And now, decades later, revisiting it is jaw-dropping.

Now the truth is “Wild World” was the hit, but it’s not my favorite song on the album. I bought the album based on reviews, I was living in the hinterlands, far from commercial radio, I knew every cut on “Tea for the Tillerman” before I ever heard “Wild World” on the radio, and I remember exactly where it happened, April 21st 1971, on the way back from a gorgeous day at Stowe, in a parking lot in Burlington, a guy had the side door of his van opened, and the song was emanating. A connection was made in my brain, this song really is that big. But ultimately my favorite cut on the album was the final one, a minute five long, the title track.

“Oh lord, how they play and play

For that happy day, for that happy day”

It was just Cat and his piano. Quiet. And then the song built to a flourish, all excited, with backup vocals, and then it was done, and this was long before CD players, if you wanted to hear it again you had to get up and lift the needle. And for a one minute song you rarely did, so hearing “”Tea for the Tillerman” at the end of the LP was a treat, back when we listened to complete sides anyway.

Now strangely, fifty years on the biggest cut off of “Tea for Tillerman” is track 10, deep on the second side, “Father and Son,” now that the boomers are parents, at this point even grandparents.

And if I were going track by track, I’d have to singe out “Miles From Nowhere” and “Longer Boats,” and most especially “Hard Headed Woman,” never mind “Where Do the Children Play.”

But right there in the middle of the first side is “Wild World.”

“Now that I’ve lost everything to you

You say you want to start something new

And it’s breaking my heart that you’re leaving

Baby, I’m grieving”

This used to be the basic paradigm of songs from the blues era on. Broken relationship. Man on the losing end. How we got to this macho turnaround I’ll never know, actually I do know, but I can’t say, because of the woke police, I can’t be politically incorrect, I risk getting canceled, but whereas you could identify with the music of yore, today you often end up feeling inferior, kinda like surfing Instagram. And never forget, despite the bravura, men take breakups harder than women.

“But if you want to leave take good care

Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear

But then a lot of things turn bad out there”

Now wait just a minute here, he’s starting to sneer, turns out he’s angrier than he let on, he’s not only licking his wounds, he’s biting back, despite the pleasant “la la” music.

“You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do

And it’s breaking my heart in two

Because I never want to see you sad girl

Don’t be a bad girl”

He’s wiser, he’d protect her, but now she’s out on her own without his direction, he’s warning her she’s gonna take hits, get into trouble, even worse don’t encourage men, don’t change your personality, don’t go down the wrong roads.

“But if you want to leave take good care

Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there

But just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware”

This is just a spin on “You don’t know what you’re losing, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone, you’re never going to find anybody better than me.”

“Oh, baby baby it’s a wild world

It’s hard to get by just upon a smile

Oh, baby baby it’s a wild world

And I’ll always remember you like a child girl yeah”

The truth is you can get very far just upon a smile. And the singer knows this. He resents this. The doors opening for his ex while he’s home licking his wounds. He’s warning her what’s out there, the bad to come, and says he doesn’t want to know what happens to her, when she grows up, when she loses her innocence, he’s going to remember her how she was with him, a child, who he probably tried to control. The guy in this song probably caused her to leave, by coddling her, trying to clip her wings. Then again, young love rarely lasts. Then again, it’s hard to get over your first.

Not that you know all this at age seventeen, when I was listening to “Wild World.” Your whole life is in front of you, you’re inexperienced, despite thinking you know it all. And the funny thing is I was brought up in an era of freedom, to be who you wanted to be, you could get by on minimum wage, you didn’t need a “career,” you also didn’t need to stay with someone if you were unhappy, and therefore it’s hard to find a boomer who isn’t divorced. And you’ll also find aged boomers who are alone, many with regrets, but there are no do-overs in life. Even worse, the one you fantasize about, who left you…unlike in the song most did quite well, had relatively happy lives, they were looking for the one before they settled down, they wanted to make a good choice, not stay with their first. Then again, not all stories have good endings.

So what you’ve got here is a legendary hit, a bedrock song, that plays all sunny, that people smile at when they hear it on the radio, but the truth is despite the lilting music, it’s really a downbeat number. Casual listeners think the singer is accepting the loss, wishing his ex good tidings, when the truth is just the opposite. But how many lovers scorned don’t have resentment.

And one thing is for sure, as we grew up we realized Cat was right, it was definitely a wild world out there and we’d give anything to be a child once again, with our hopes and dreams, our wherewithal still intact. But we’ve still got this music, which is why they call it classic rock. Is today’s music classic? I’ll let you decide.

TheFatRat is the king of gaming music. He’s got over 5.5 million YouTube subscribers and over 2 billion streams on YouTube and Spotify. Find out how a musician from a small city in Germany conquered the music business, going from Berlin to America and ultimately back again, signing to Universal and then leaving, finding he makes more money independently and can do whatever he chooses artistically. Want to know how to make it today? LISTEN!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fat-rat/id1316200737?i=1000535518029

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Elizabeth Holmes said she was too pretty to go to jail.

Needless to say, Holmes is on trial as we speak, blaming her heinous behavior on her old boyfriend Sunny Balwani, claiming abuse and ultimately PTSD as she attends Burning Man and galivants around San Francisco as if she had not a care in the world.

If you think you know everything about this story, you probably don’t.

Start by reading John Carreyrou’s book “Bad Blood”: https://amzn.to/39aYp4E The most memorable part of the book for me is when attorney David Boies, who heretofore had an impeccable image, comes in with a team to threaten Carreyrou at the “Wall Street Journal.” But Carreyrou and the WSJ stand their ground.

And now the WSJ is investigating Facebook. You’ve probably seen the headlines.

Carreyrou single-handedly brought down Theranos, will the WSJ series have an impact on Facebook? Definitely, although how much is yet to be seen.

So if you’re into nonfiction, after reading “Bad Blood” be sure to read “Red Notice”: https://amzn.to/2Xw3VfR an account of finance in Russia and so much more. As a matter of fact the Magnitsky Act, which Bill Browder, author of “Red Notice,” fomented, is in the news seemingly every day.

Both of these books are easily read. As a matter of fact, you’ll have a hard time putting them down. If this were a class, they’d be assigned reading.

But before you read those books I would first make you listen to Roger McNamee on Kurt Andersen’s podcast: https://apple.co/2XfFwKZ 

I know Roger, I’ve even done a podcast with him myself, but in this hour he details the history and landscape of Silicon Valley, as well as the history of government intervention against bad actors and monopolies so well it’s like a master class.

Bottom line… Roger thought tech was a tool for good. Isn’t that what Steve Jobs famously claimed, that he was just making tools?

And McNamee was the first to blow the whistle on Facebook in the last election cycle, 2016, and he even wrote a book about Facebook, “Zucked,” but his message still has not gotten traction outside a small coterie of thinkers. That’s where the WSJ comes in.

But start with McNamee first.

When Roger puts it all in context, talks about how the government regulated meat to the benefit of the public, broke up the phone company, you’ll start to see a way through this mess.

Bottom line… Facebook and Google are on both sides of the transaction, they both host and sell, and he says they must do only one or the other.

And they colluded to control online advertising. This has been well documented in the news, but it’s not flashy enough to gain ubiquity , despite state attorneys general suing the company. But there is one smoking gun after another, evidence, it’s not just a theory.

But wait, there’s more! McNamee delineates the difference between the boomers and the millennials. The boomers grew up in an era where it was about the common good. The millennials grew up in an era where it was all about the individual, every person for him or herself, the common good be damned. Think about this, the Reagan revolution has paid dividends, and so many are not positive, the culture was changed, and too many people bought in. So Roger posits when Mark Zuckerberg makes heinous choices to benefit Facebook he thinks he’s doing a good thing, he doesn’t know any better. And now the details are coming out in the WSJ.

But staying with McNamee… Roger says how when they broke up the phone company, it stimulated advancement. That if you break up Google you’ll end up with fifty new companies. If you break up Facebook you’ll end up with a hundred. As for innovation, these evil twins are only trying to maintain their audience/customers, there’s no real advancement being made, it’s like a case study for the dearly departed Clayton Christensen, the old companies waiting to be disrupted.

So McNamee lays out a blueprint to go forward. And acknowledges that government is always behind, but that does not mean government shouldn’t flex its muscles.

But going back to the WSJ series on Facebook, the quote in today’s paper is priceless:

“A now-former executive questioned the idea of overhauling Instagram to avoid social comparison. ‘People use Instagram because it’s a competition,’ the former executive said. ‘That’s the fun part.'”

I’d provide a link but either you subscribe to the WSJ or you don’t, you’re either in the loop or you’re not. You can gather misinformation on social media, most especially Facebook, or you can go to the source, but the source costs money and Americans are cheap, even worse, they oftentimes can’t even understand what is proffered. I posit a significant segment of the population won’t even follow and grasp what McNamee says, even though it’s far from boring, they just don’t have the education to be able to analyze, to comprehend, many just believe a man in the sky will save them.

So the above quote is from the second WSJ installment on Facebook. Turns out the Facebook owned company Instagram is wreaking havoc on the self-image of today’s young women. They just can’t live up to the images online. Almost nobody can, unless it’s your full time job and you’re willing to starve yourself and get plastic surgery. Instagram is for bragging, and too many end up feeling like a loser.

But that’s not as bad as tomorrow’s segment, which went live on the WSJ site this morning:

“Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. – Internal memos show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes.”

Turns out the execs are not in the control of the platform, they keep saying they’re putting on band-aids when they’re not, or they do so with unintended negative results. The goal is just to keep people on the platform, that can’t be sacrificed, that metric is king. So despite having studies detailing the deleterious results of Facebook’s platforms the company ignores them. Even worse, it says they’re taking action when they’re not. It’s obfuscation all the time. Zuck testifies in Congress, he keeps saying he’ll provide backup and then does not. And then he just goes on wrecking the world. You see Zuck is the most powerful person in the world, but this doesn’t sit right with elected officials and titans of old school industry. Rupert Murdoch has taught us the power is in the ink, the press. And in truth, Zuckerberg has got a stranglehold on the press, his sites are where people go for information, and his goal is to raise your emotions so you’ll stay connected and participate. Like, respond, forward, it’s gold to Facebook but lead for our society.

In the first WSJ installment on Facebook it is revealed that the company has a whitelist. That if you’re famous, in the public eye, have enough followers, they give you a pass, no matter what you post. Because they’re scared you’ll fight back and the company might not look good. And the truth is they don’t have enough people to police behavior and the algorithm is far from perfect, which is why the hoi polloi are constantly complaining that they post innocuous stuff on Facebook and Instagram and it gets taken down and they might even get blocked while a whole tier of society gets a free pass. Once again, Zuck was confronted with this, what did he do? HE LIED!

Newsom won yesterday. You’ll see all these learned lessons in the media today. I’m not sure I believe all of them. Bottom line, California is a Democratic state, and the only reason Schwarzenegger won was because he was famous, a celebrity, a movie star, and in the last fifteen plus years the state has moved even further left. So is California a harbinger for the 2022 elections? I would certainly hope so, but I don’t believe it, look at how many votes Trump actually got last November, they far exceeded what all the pundits prognosticated.

And where is this cult’s word spread? Online. ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM!

An for TikTok, the WSJ says there’s a distinct difference:

“‘Social comparison is worse on Instagram,’ states Facebook’s deep dive into teen girl body-image issues in 2020, noting that TikTok, a short-video app, is grounded in performance, while users on Snapchat, a rival photo and video-sharing app, are sheltered by jokey filters that ‘keep the focus on the face.’ In contrast, Instagram focuses heavily on the body and lifestyle.”

So what is going to happen? Roger McNamee posits a way out, so maybe we can have hope, but Zuckerberg has so much power…

As for Theranos, I highly recommend the podcast “The Dropout, Elizabeth Holmes on trial”: https://apple.co/3ziDNlk

You can ignore the previous season. Just start with the August 31st episode “Where Have You Been, Elizabeth Holmes.”

But listen to Roger McNamee first.

And know this is the story of our day. I mean who is going to listen to musicians when superstar Nicky Minaj says she heard from a cousin in Trinidad that his friend got the covid vaccine and his testicles swelled and he ended up impotent. Of course Fauci and every reputable outlet denied this could possibly happen, but none of them have the reach of Ms. Minaj, who has 22.6 million followers on Twitter and 157 million on Instagram, talk about the power of the image over the written word… Used to be the titans of the “Billboard” chart were educated and smart, no longer, which is why they can only move the uneducated rearguard, anybody with a brain ignores them.

But don’t ignore the news. And get it from the source, not handed down via a game of telephone like Nicki Minaj, like so many do on Facebook. In the eighties celebrity gossip culture and top-tier culture merged, this has been the story of the past few decades, but it’s no longer the truth, if for no other reason than we’re no longer sure who the stars are anymore. The movie stars have been revealed to be two-dimensional and out of touch and everybody at home believes they’re a star so you end up with an elite running the world and…those following music and gossip aren’t even members, they have no impact. Hell, look at the music business in Britain. They believed Boris Johnson was in their corner, but not only did Brexit make touring the Continent light years more difficult, time-consuming and expensive, despite this now coming to light the government still hasn’t negotiated a reasonable settlement. And why would the government listen to the music business anyway, when oldsters like Eric Clapton are issuing falsehoods and the stars of the chart are mostly television nitwits?

We are in a fight for democracy. But even more we’re in a fight for society, for culture, for state of mind. Turns out these social media outlets are killing our world, they’re beyond the control of our elected officials.

And why should they take action, when a healthy part of the population won’t get the vaccine and keep talking about it on social media platforms, raining down coin for their owners?

Think about it.

Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3zflA8v

At this point Al Kooper is most famous for playing the organ on “Like a Rolling Stone.” The tale has been retold countless times, it’s become part of rock lore, overshadowing all the rest of Al’s musical contributions, which are formidable in number and scale.

You start with cowriting “This Diamond Ring,” a huge hit for Gary Lewis & the Playboys, despite being played in a completely different arrangement than Al imagined, he saw it as a soul number.

And then there was the almost forgotten tenure with the Blues Project which morphed into Blood, Sweat & Tears which ultimately broke through to gigantic success with Al’s blueprint on the second LP after he was kicked out of the band, but history has now been properly written, it’s the first BS&T LP that is memorable, that is the one, that still holds up today.

And then Al started the jam band record paradigm with “Super Session”…ultimately we ended up with Moby Grape’s bonus record “Grape Jam” and the third LP of George Harrison’s opus “All Things Must Pass,” entitled “Apple Jam.” One can even say that Al pushed the envelope with extended numbers, with the “Super Session” remake of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.”

And then Al cut his first solo album “I Stand Alone,” an unrecognized triumph that never generated a hit record, that has been forgotten to the sands of time, but is one of my absolute favorites, I play it all the time.

The original, the title track, “I Stand Alone,” is marvelous, in the league of Al’s previous peaks. But then the album took a turn, Al went on an adventure, he covered Harry Nilsson’s “One” before Three Dog Night turned it into a regional hit and long before Nilsson’s own career gained traction.

Following that you got a cover of “Coloured Rain.” Superior to the original on the initial Traffic LP. Which Al also boosted by covering “Dear Mr. Fantasy” on his double live album with Mike Bloomfield. And at this point if you were paying attention you knew the original from FM radio, but it was these covers along with the aforementioned Three Dog Night’s rendition of “Heaven Is In Your Mind” that got me to buy Traffic’s album in its U.S. form, different from the original U.K. iteration. But I was disappointed, the songs were there, but not the production. Traffic peaked with its second LP, when Dave Mason was a full time member of the band. And Three Dog Night’s take of “Heaven Is In Your Mind” is more full-bodied with more energy than Traffic’s original recording. And Traffic’s take on “Coloured Rain” features an incredible full-throated vocal by Steve Winwood, but Al threw in horns, everything including the kitchen sink, along with raindrops, and turned the song into a tour-de-force. As for “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” no one could ever compete with Traffic’s original version, a stone cold classic that Steve renders accurately to this day, you’ll be stunned his voice is still intact, but even more you’ll be wowed by his playing, he’s not known as a gunslinger but after you see him picking the notes you’ll be re-evaluating.

And on the second side of “I Stand Alone” there’s a cover of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” which became iconic when done by Elvis Presley, although in this case it’s almost an imitation, an homage, it’s fun, nearly a throwaway, then again when I first heard it on Al’s album I knew no previous recording, being nine years younger than Al, from almost an entirely different generation.

And then came “Toe Hold.”

But the piece-de-resistance was the second to last song on Al’s album, “Hey, Western Union Man.” It was the horn section flourish, the rich background vocals and the telegraph sound, sending a message throughout. “Hey, Western Union Man” is one of my go-to tracks, played constantly. That return of the horn flourish two-thirds of the way through…I wait for it, and then I want it to return when it won’t so I just play the track over and over again.

And then I was pushing the SiriusXM buttons one night and lo and behold I came across the original!

Jerry Butler’s take went to number 16 on the “Billboard” chart but in this era the chart didn’t necessarily square with local radio. Then again, by ’68 I was already dedicated to FM, I didn’t know it. But I was stunned when I heard it. It’s the same arrangement, the same song, but a different production. Butler’s take is soul, not rock, there’s a slower dreamy groove, and Al’s horns are strings, Jerry’s take is for making out, Al’s take is for sex, Jerry’s is a warm-up, Al’s is the main event, it’s pure action, it’s not deep, it’s all on the surface, it’s in-your-face, it’s undeniable, not that many people have heard it.

But even fewer have heard “Toe Hold.”

Now in the old days it was all about albums, you dropped the needle on a side and let it play through, so I know “Toe Hold” as well as “Hey, Western Union Man,” and after playing the entire LP the other night, “Toe Hold” got stuck in my mind, you know, you’re walking through your house and suddenly you burst out with the chorus and those in the vicinity think you’re nuts but you’re elated, entranced by the music.

And I needed to know more. Obviously it was a cover. But who did the original?

Well, depending on who you listen to you might be confused, Allmusic credits Sam & Dave, but that’s not true. The original was done by Johnnie Taylor. But Sam & Dave did do a version, but so did Wilson Pickett, so did Carla Thomas, even Ellen McIlwaine took a swing at “Toe Hold.” Imagine the songs of today being covered tomorrow… IMPOSSIBLE! First and foremost most are just beats. And as far as iconic pop numbers…they’re few and far between. But acts kept taking a swing at “Toe Hold,” and not one version ever broke through, became ubiquitous.

“All my life I been a po’ boy

It’s been hard to get a dime

Everythin’ I got, umm

I had to pay for it on time, but that’s all right”

Now wait just a minute, Johnnie’s singing from down there, not up here, he’s not talking down to us, he’s not drenched in jewelry, parading in his Benz on the way to the club to make it rain, he’s a nobody trying to survive, but he’s not depressed:

“Long as I got a toehold

As long as I got a piece of you

As long as I got a toehold

I can make it through”

That’s what gets you through, hope. If you have a little traction you feel you’re on your way, if they’re giving you the time of day, paying attention to what you have to say, you’re halfway there.

And I learned this wasn’t written by Johnnie Taylor but David Porter and Isaac Hayes, members of the Memphis Mafia, STAX bedrock. Nashville gets all the attention, Memphis is too often overlooked. but Nashville is country and Memphis is soul, it’s more southern, a stone’s throw from both Mississippi and Arkansas.

Porter and Hayes wrote the Sam & Dave hits. And ultimately Isaac Hayes went on to become Black Moses, a paragon of soul, and ultimately Chef on “South Park,” a role he ultimately ankled in a kerfuffle over the creators parodying his Scientology faith. And it’s funny how it’s the last thing people remember while what came before is plowed under, and the truth is Porter and Hayes didn’t only start with hits with Sam & Dave, actually their first big crossover number was “B-A-B-Y” by Carla Thomas, which was ultimately covered a decade later and made into a ubiquitous new wave number for a whole new generation of fans by Rachel Sweet, an American who recorded for the English company Stiff.

“Now listen

I said I went to my doctor

First thing he talked about is malnutrition

I’m not tryin’ to be a fat man

I’ve got to look after my ambition”

Doctors used to be a regular feature of songs, before the performers believed themselves invincible. And once again, Taylor is not looking for everything, just something, somebody, the object of his affection, who he is not observing from afar, but upon whom he’s got a toehold.

“So baby if you’re with me

I’ll let the whole world be against me

I don’t expect to ever get rich

You may find me diggin’ in a ditch”

It’s you and me baby, against the world. We don’t need everything, just each other. This is not an aspirational tale for the masses, but a situation, a vision they can identify with.

“Oh give it to me baby

A little little little little little little little little little toehold

A little little little little little little little little little toehold”

And now they’re together, participating in monkey business, intimacy, at first he’s singing the song from afar, but now they’re conjoined, having fun. Because he’s got a TOEHOLD!

That’s all we’re looking for.

And now I’m old enough for living history to rear its head, for me to go back and mine the past, and it’s easy to do as a result of the internet and streaming services, you can discover the roots. This music is ready to be found, as fresh as ever. And the provenance of them is there too. Who wrote them, who played on them, these giants.

And it all started with Al Kooper’s covers, he gave me a toehold!