DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

As the man stands in front of his former home, he is confronted with the thought that, perhaps, things are better left as they are. 

…The spirit-world around this world of sense

Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
 A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires;

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires…

(from Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Warren Zevon has been finally been nominated to enter The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
Zevon is truly the only class of '23  inductee I truly give a damn about with the exception of George Micheal whom I feel is one hell of a great vocalist and Willie Nelson who is.......well, Willie Nelson.
Warren's induction could assist his estate in many ways, including providing the grand finale to getting his deserved bio film made.
Zevon was so much more than some Rock and Roll singer/ songwriter, Werewolf or Excitable Boy.
He was The Hunter S. Thompson of Popular music. Warren was dangerous, aggressive, poetic, eclectic, loving,  politically astute, fragile and as brilliant as a huge comet soaring through the night,  Accidentally Like A Martyr.
It took way too long to give him his due primarily because Jan Wenner and his corporate Hall are too busy pandering to an expanded base and are leaving a trail of forgotten giants in the mist of the money they require to remain relevant.
Zevons strengths exceed or are on par with most who have contributed to the history of popular music. 
His Ride's  Here at last.
Next year, I can only hope that with the continued inclusion of vital figures from varied musical  art forms, the Hall can understand why Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra and John Coltrane should be considered next.
All music is a Love Supreme. Get it?

The man, having remembered his former life, struggles with his conflicting desires, whether or not to return to it. 

“You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, … back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

Thomas Wolfe

The concept to which The Rascals were dedicated was, in Felix Cavaliere's words, "Marvin Gaye's voice, Ray Charles' piano, Jimmy Smith's organ, Phil Spector's production and The Beatles' writing. Put them all together and you've got what I wanted to do." A White Rock band playing Black Soul music was a new idea for Pop in 1965. "The great thing about music in the 1960s was that people were discovering there was no color barrier in the business. We were respected by the Black groups we loved as much as we respected them," noted Cornish. The Rascals' music was dubbed blue-eyed Soul, a term Cavaliere never cared for. "I always hated the label because it created a separation between Black and White music. It was a marketing concept. As soon as you put a drum in music, it's R&B. I wish it wouldn't have been called blue-eyed Soul. My eyes aren't blue."

The band's first release for Atlantic was called "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" which rose to #52 in the U.S. in 1965, but it was their 1966 effort, "Good Lovin'" that made them Rock 'n' Roll stars. The song quickly rose to the number one spot on Billboard's Hot 100 and went Gold. They followed with two more Top 20 hits, "You Better Run" (#20) and "I've Been Lonely Too Long" (#16) later the same year.

The writing was a key component of the band's success, as sixteen of their eighteen chart records were written by Cavaliere alone or in tandem with frequent collaborator Eddie Brigati. As the song writing progressed, social commentary began to show up in the music. The group's growing ambition was reflected in the change from The Young Rascals to simply The Rascals. The word "young" had originally been inserted before the band's name for legal reasons. It seems there was a group named Johnny Pulleo & The Harmonica Rascals who claimed a proprietary interest. "We were embarrassed about that, 'cause we were trying to be a Soul band," said Cornish. "It wasn't The Silver Rascals or The Rockin' Rascals, it was The Young Rascals! And we had to live with it. By the time we got to Groovin', we said, 'Well, enough of this. We are The Rascals.'"

A high point for both Cornish and Cavaliere was 1968's #1 hit "People Got To Be Free". "The message in songs like 'People Got To Be Free' is as important now as it ever was," said Gene. It was written in reaction to the King and Kennedy assassinations that year. In fact, Cavaliere had worked for the RFK campaign. "That the song was #1 in places like Berlin and South Africa meant a lot to me," said Felix. Despite the initial resistance to the political nature of the song, it went on to become The Rascals' biggest-selling record. It was also their last #1 hit. The Rascals followed with "A Ray Of Hope" (#24 in 1968), "Heaven" (#39 in 1969), "See" (#27 in 1969) and "Carry Me Back" (#26 in 1969). Two other 1970 releases, "Hold On" (#81) and "Glory Glory" (#71) failed to crack the Top 40, and a song called "Love Me" was a miserable flop when it peaked at #99 during a one week stay on the Hot 100 in the Summer of 1971. The Jazz-tinged experimentation of later albums like "Peaceful World" and "The Island Of Real" (which Cavaliere once called "The best record I ever made") proved less commercial than the group's earlier Garage Band Soul. Management was less than supportive of the new directions the band was headed in and a switch to the Columbia label in 1971 failed to provide the new life they were looking for. Personal frictions were on the rise too, and eventually Brigati and Cornish quit the band. They were replaced with Buzzy Feiten (from The Paul Butterfield Blues Band) and Ann Sutton, who had sung with various Soul and Jazz groups in Philadelphia. By 1972, The Rascals called it quits.

In 1974, Cavaliere began his solo career with the release of the album "Felix Cavaliere". Eddie Brigati recorded a solo album with his brother David in 1976. Cornish and Danelli started a new band called

SPIRIT ANIMAL

JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL by Neil Diamond (Columbia, 1973)

There were alot of self-help manuals popularized in the 70’s; I remember gifting my mother the book “Your Eronneous Zones” (but that’s another story)…. My acting teacher in college based her syllabus on Eric Berne’s “I’m Ok, You’re Ok”. But one of the biggest New Age parables making the rounds was Ex-Aviator Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the story of an anthropomorphized Christ-like Seagull, who has to fly off from the pack to find his true self.

It was a zeitgeist sensation, and spawned a movie with this soundtrack by the immortal Neil Diamond. Maestro Diamond is currently in the middle of a career renaissance - his biographical musical A BEAUTIFUL NOISE  is playing on The Great White Way, and although he struggles with Parkinson’s he continues to work on new music. No one was bigger in the 70s, and although the 1960s Neil Diamond that I loved, the Brill Building song plugger who wrote and recorded Cherry Cherry, You Got to Me, and Solitary Man had seemingly transformed himself into a borscht belt crooner, there was no denying his powers of voice and composition, no matter how cheesy the venue (The Jazz Singer?)

I chuckled ironically when I pulled this tape from the pile, anticipating mounds of Velveeta. But now, listening for the first time, I am moved to tears. (This is probably because all my youthful cynicism has given up the ghost). It’s a beautiful musical meditation produced by Tom Catalano, and arranged by Lee Holdridge, and Neil’s voice soars, aloft on chords of longing. 

Indeed, the album out-grossed the movie by 10 million dollars, and garnered the 1974 Grammy for Best Original Score, demonstrating that although the radio-controlled gliders representing the flying birds in the film might have been fake, Neil’s inspiration was not. 

ELLIE GREENWICH -
SONGWRITER HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE- 1991

Ellie Greenwich is one of the most successful songwriters of the modern pop music era. She was one of the major influences on the 60's rock and roll, a music that continues alive and well today. Her songs, which have sold in the tens of millions, have earned her 25 gold and platinum records.

Born in Brooklyn, her young life was filled with singing and dancing recitals and winning first prize in a local newspaper's poetry contest. At 11, she moved to Levittown, Long Island, and her musical career became serious when she took up the accordion and by 13, was writing songs. Along with two high school friends, she formed her first "girls group," The Jivettes, and the trio performed original songs at hospitals, schools and charity benefits throughout Long Island.

About this time, Greenwich's mother arranged a meeting for Ellie with Cadence Records president Archie Bleyer (of Everly Brothers and Chordettes fame). His advice to "keep writing but finish school... the music business will always be there," stuck in the young writer's head and she did just that. She attended Hofstra University, was its Spring Queen and graduated with top honors with a BA degree in English, and a listing in "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities."

During her latter years in college, she met Jeff Barry at a family gathering and the two became good friends almost immediately. "He was the first male I could actually harmonize with," she recalls. Eventually, the couple married and went on to become co-writers of some of the most memorable classic rock hits.

After graduation in 1962 and following a High School English teaching career which lasted three and one half weeks, she began free-lancing and working out of the offices of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, a pair of hot songwriters in their own right, in Broadway's Brill Building, one of the music business headquarters of that time. She wrote songs with Doc Pomus and Tony Powers and enjoyed her first chart successes with "This Is It," by Jay and the Americans, and "He's Got the Power," by the Exciters. She and Barry formed The Raindrops, who skimmed the top 16 with "What a Guy" and "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget."

Teaming with Phil Spector, the two managed number one hits with "Be My Baby," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "And Then He Kissed Me," "Chapel of Love" and "River Deep, Mountain High." Greenwich and Barry also continued their successes with such number one smashes as "Hanky Panky," and co-written with Shadow Morton, the epic, "Leader of the Pack." During these years, too, Greenwich reigned as one of New York's top demo singers and session vocal arrangers/singers, working with artists ranging from Dusty Springfield and Lesley Gore to Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra. During one of the many demo sessions in which she was involved, Greenwich met and "discovered" Neil Diamond and went on to co-produce such early Diamond hits as "Cherry Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman," doing background vocals as well.

During the latter part of the 60's, Greenwich found continued success in collaborations with Bob Crewe, in writing for The Hardy Boys TV series, and in singing on popular commercials for Cheerios, Clairol and F

On an early morning ramble,  the Man is stopped dead in his tracks by an unexpected encounter with a wild denizen of the area. 

In Native American culture, the Coyote is seen as an important messenger of personal transformation through self-reflection. ... Coyotes also remind us that anything we do to others will come back to us—good or bad.

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER MY NAME by David Crosby (1971, Atlantic)

The Reaper continues its rampage, cutting swathes across the aging population of musical pioneers. Last week it was Jeff Beck, yesterday David Crosby. In fairness, it was actually amazing that the Croz lived as long as he did. He had diabetes, and In 1994 underwent a liver transplant (paid for by Phil Collins), after suffering for years with Hep C. But despite a notorious reputation for drug abuse that would cripple even a hardened junkie, David kept forging an unfettered path, making enemies with his thoughtless taunts, enduring break ups and reunions, yet still creating some of our greatest music with his frenemies, solo, and for the last mile in collaboration with his long-abandoned and rediscovered son, James Raymond.

David Van Cortland Crosby, the son of Academy Award Winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, was a California boy who became foundational to the California folk-rock soundtrack of our generation, and despite the fact that near the end of his life he had to stay on the road and sell his catalogue to pay off his mortgage, those songs will reside forever in the Laurel Canyon canon. 

Crosby was a notoriously difficult character who burnt nearly every bridge he ever crossed. His bandmate from the Byrds, Jim McGuinn steadfastly refused to work with him again despite David’s constant imprecations to reunite; he boldly dissed and insulted Neil Young’s soul-mate Darryl Hannah after the death of Neil’s former wife Pegi, and somehow alienated his biggest supporter in life, Graham Nash.  

But, despite this, musician Melissa Etheridge solicited his sperm to make her babies. Maybe because, trumping all the difficulty, David’s harmonic acumen was unmatched and a divine gift from God. So, there he undeniably stands:  a twice inducted Rock n Roll Hall of Famer for founding two of the most important groups in Rock history.  And, this etherial, transcendent solo effort, recorded with the aid of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Graham Nash, along with members of The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead represents an artist whose questing musical imagination was always and eternally of a deeply spiritual nature. 

Humans are so complicated. As Dylan said: “I contain multitudes,” and David Crosby was an exemplar of that.  

Mitch Ryder, one of the most distinctive and soulful voices to come out of Detroit’s 1960s rock music scene, will be inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame June 11, at the Music Hall in Detroit.

This year’s crop of inductees also includes Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the Impressions, Larry Williams, and posthumous inductees James Brown, Isaac Hayes and Mary Wells.

Ryder may have fronted a rock band, but make no mistake, his soul props are solid. As a suburban teenager, he made the trek from Warren to hang out at the Village club just off Woodward, to catch sets by the likes of Nathaniel Mayer. By the time he was 17, Ryder sang (and recorded) with a soul group, the Peps.

Later he fronted his own rock band, Billy Lee and the Rivieras, which was renamed Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. The group had an explosive sound that combined the drive of garage rock with Ryder’s raw, emotional vocals. That sound drove Bob Crewe-produced hits that included “Devil with a Blue Dress,” “Jenny Take A Ride,” “Sock it to Me, Baby” and “Little Latin Lupe Lu.”

Ryder was pleased to hear of his induction alongside some of his soul idols. “I looked at the names of some of those who came before me and it became a celebration of joy for me,” Ryder said in a statement released by his publicist, Cary Baker. “I mean, Aretha Franklin, David Ruffin, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke and so many other voices that brought me great pleasure throughout my life and career. It is still thrilling me, and I’m afraid to wake up from the dream!”

After the Wheels split up, Ryder teamed up with Booker T. and the MGs for the acclaimed album “The Detroit-Memphis Experiment.” Later, he joined back up with Wheels drummer Johnny Badanjek in a group they dubbed Detroit, which was managed by Creem magazine publisher Barry Kramer. Detroit recorded a memorable cover of Lou Reed’s “Rock and Roll,” which many felt surpassed the original. Later, John Mellencamp produced Ryder’s solo album “Never Kick a Sleeping Dog,” which featured his superb rendition of Prince’s “When You Were Mine.”

Ryder is on the short list of artists who have been unjustly overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but in a sense, the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame is the more fitting place for him.

For his part, Ryder says his induction is “an honor which will stay cherished by me for the rest of my life.”

The 5th annual Black Tie Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Concert will take place at 6 p.m. Sunday June 11 at the Music Hall, 350 Madison, in Detroit. The event will serve as a fundraiser to secure a permanent building for the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame. 

F U DEATH

TRUTH by Jeff Beck (Epic, 1968)

Ok, I’m fuckin’ sick of this parade of loss, Death. We just started 2023, and you take Jeff Beck without warning, while on tour with Johnny Depp - (as if he needs any more grief)?! Bacterial Meningitis…? I mean, WTF?!  

Of the three guitar gods that descended from Mt. Yardbird - (Clapton, Page, Beck) - for my money, the best that ever bestrode the earth was Jeff Beck. Every lick was original, surprising, mind-blowing. And his growth towards mastery through the decades was breathtaking to hear. I had some trouble with the Jan Hammer jazz fusion stuff, but even those cuts had me on the edge of my seat. He kept expanding and growing his repertoire.  

Eventually he hit upon this fluid, lyricism that brings tears to my eyes. Check out his versions of A Day In the Life, and People Get Ready. He arrived at that terra firma where every artist yearns to land: home. He found his truest voice… so relaxed and expressive, and was able to make his instrument sing with an iridescent humanity…. Becoming one with it. 

This 4-track (that’s right, kids… predating the 8 track) is his first solo effort. And, what a legendary debut it is! Aided by Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Ronnie Wood, and Rod Stewart on vocals, every cut (Shapes of Things, Morning Dew, You Shook Me, Beck’s (fucking) BOLERO!!!) Is a game changer. This is one of those recordings by which I created my musical calendar; there was B.Truth, and A.Truth, and nothing was the same for me after experiencing this album. RIP Jeff.  

Track listing:
 Shapes Of Things | 
 Let Me Love You | 
Morning Dew | 
You Shook Me | 
 Ol' Man River | 
Greensleeves | 
Rock My Plimsoul | 
Beck's Bolero | 
Blues De Luxe | 
 I Ain't Superstitious