Carl Perkins

I couldn't hit the 50's without throwing some Carl Perkins up.

The first video may be a little obvious, but seeing and hearing Carl sing "Blue Suede Shoes" always hits the spot.

The second video comes from the early 1970's...interesting as it pairs Carl with Derek and the Dominos (aka Eric Clapton) and Johnny Cash. Eric shows some pretty obvious admiration for Carl in the looks he gives him during the performance....as he should.






Tomorrow I'll start on a week of videos from the 1960's...all while trying to not post from any band I have already covered(though some members of those bands may sneak in here or there).

Everly Brothers

Those fantastic harmonies. Obviously an influence on many groups, not the least the Beatles. This clip is live...listen to the cheesy horns!

There was another clip I wanted to add...but it would not allow me to do it. It features a very nervous Don and Phil...nervous until they start belting out "Bye Bye Love" that is! You can see it here.

Chuck Berry

I mentioned Chuck yesterday, so here are couple from Chuck. From 1956, Chuck mimes to "You Can't Catch Me". John Lennon was sued for stealing some lines from this song for "Come Together". I'm still not too clear why Paul McCartney wasn't sued, since the song was credited to Lennon/McCartney, but that is besides the point.

Below that is a clip that isn't from the 1950's....but it is John Lennon singing "Memphis" with Chuck on the "Mike Douglas Show" in 1972. Watch for the face Chuck makes when Yoko "does her thing". For a guy known to lose it (say by punching Keith Richards out), his reaction is remarkably restrained!

Buddy Holly and the Crickets

I had meant to spend the week focusing on the music of the 1950's, but the week is now half gone. Still, I'm going to hit a few anyway...starting with my favorite of the 50's, Buddy Holly. I really think Buddy and Chuck Berry were the proto-type rockers. They played an instrument, sang and wrote their own songs. Pretty revolutionary. Elvis may have been bigger, but he was not a writer. You listen to The Beatles, and I think you hear more Chuck and Buddy (and Little Richard) than you do Elvis.

About 20 years ago, I visited Buddy's grave in Lubbock, TX. It has a small marker...too small for someone who had such a lasting impact. You can see some pictures of it here. It has changed a little since I was there. I believe both of Buddy's parents died since then, so there are more markers.

This is Buddy and the Crickets doing "Peggy Sue" on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Boz Burrell

I've just learned from my buddy Bob that Boz Burrell has died. Boz was a singer who was drafted into a early-1970's version of King Crimson. He learned to play bass while in that band, and later became a founding member of Bad Company.

Below there is a live clip of Bad Company in their prime. ..and under that is Boz playing bass with Tam White in 2000...he was really good.

RIP Boz.

The Beatles

Not much time to hunt today...so let's go with something easy and sure to please. This is the Beatles performing "This Boy" on British TV in 1963.

Fab indeed!

The Pretty Things

I was checking out various music blogs this morning and came across one very good (and frequently checked by me) blog called Kwaya Na Kisser. Now...I have a gripe that is concerning something I found posted there. This is nothing about the quality of that excellent blog, but the name of a band described in one of the posts...."Dirty Pretty Things"....Dirty Pretty Things! I guess Dirty Yardbirds and Dirty Manfred Mann was taken?

You'd think when a band picked a name, they might do a Google search to see if a band has a similar name...or in this case if you have taken a band's entire name as part of yours.

The Pretty Things were (and maybe still are in some form) a great English band. They had a couple of hit singles in the 1960's, and were recording worthwhile LPs up through the 1970's. The band even included former Rolling Stone Dick Taylor (he preceded Bill Wyman on bass) amongst it's members.

Here's a live clip from The Pretty Things...Dirty Pretty Things, hang your heads in shame....

The Lovin' Spoonful

The Spoonful is a band that didn't last long, but put out lots of great music...largely thanks to John Sebastian. This is a clip of the band on the Ed Sullivan Show. John's vocal is live, and Zal mugs for the camera as if his life depends on it...

Sex Pistols / Glen Matlock

I mentioned the Pistols in my post yesterday, so decided to try to find something to post. This is a live 1976 TV performace of "Anarchy in the UK". I purposely picked a clip that featured Glen Matlock on bass. Though Sid Vicious get the punk glory, and Matlock still seems to receive scorn, in my book without Matlock the Pistols would be all pose with no tunes. All that I read seems to indicate that Matlock was the main composer of their best known songs, while Johnny Rotten provided the lyrics.

The second clip is Matlock's post- Pistols band Rich Kids in a 1978 clip, playing the song "Rich Kids" by Glen Matlock. That's Midge Ure fronting the band.

Cheers to you Glen!

Alice Cooper

I'm talking about the Alice Cooper group, not Alice Cooper the guy. This was a great band, that just happened to feature a lead singer named Alice Cooper. The guitarist Michael Bruce wrote, I believe, more of the tunes than AC did. However, if you want to read a great Rock and Roll book, read AC's autobiography "Me, Alice"...it is really great.

Last night I was watching "The Filth and the Fury" on VH1 Classic, and was surprised to find out Johnny Rotten loved ACG, and so did his Mom!

Below you'll find a clip of the Alice Cooper Group doing "I'm Eighteen" live on the Beat Club in 1972...and below that is a clip of a 1998 reunion show with four of the five original members (Glen Buxton had passed away a couple of years prior). They sound pretty good. Bassist Dennis Dunaway doesn't look like he had aged at all. They should be in the Rock Hall...I mean...Billy Joel is in....c'mom!!

Brian Wilson / The Beach Boys

This clip knocked me out when I saw it. The Beach Boys, crammed on a small stage, perform "I Get Around" and "When I Grow Up (to Be a Man)" live on the UK program "Ready Steady Go" in December of 1964. Those five guys fill out the sound very well, in a way that would take many sidemen later in the career.

Watch the whole thing...you will not be disappointed.

That clip is followed by a 1988 clip of Brian Wilson performing "God Only Knows" live on TV. Though Brian's voice is a shadow of it's former self now at this point (though he handles some songs very well), it was still pretty much intact at the time of this clip. A miracle given what he sounded like circa the Beach Boys 1976/1977 albums "15 Big Ones" and "Love You" (though the latter contains many great tunes and is a fav of mine). The clip shows a slim , clean cut Brian...wearing a huge pair of glasses!

Raspberries

The Raspberries are one of those "should've" bands...as in "should've been huge", and probably would have been huge if they had come along five or six years later when New Wave hit. But they will have to settle for being one of the primo practioners of the power pop genre. They did manage three Top 20 hits.

This clip features live in the studio versions of two of their Top 40 hits, "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna be With You". Watch and listen for their secret weapon, guitarist Wally Bryson. He is awesome.

Eric Carmen would go on to have a few solo hits...mostly ballads like "All By Myself".

The Byrds

I don't want anyone to think that I only care about CSNY and it's 'seed' bands...but I do love those bands. Today, we have The Byrds. I once had the opportunity to ask David Crosby where his voice fit in the harmony stack in The Byrds vs CSN. He said (paraphrasing here) that with The Byrds, Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark (or later Chris Hillman) would sing the melody in unison, and he would sing a higher harmony. With CSN, he filled the middle between Stills and Nash.

I promise my next post will have nothing to do with any member of CSNY!

The Hollies


I think the Hollies are one of the most underrated bands of the 1960's. A while back when CSNY released their album "Looking Forward", the UK magazine MOJO did a story on them (CSNY). One interesting question that was asked of each member, was of the three bands the four of them had been in..Crosby (The Byrds), Nash (The Hollies) or Stills and Young (both from Buffalo Springfield), which was the best. CS and Y all answered that their own band had been the best...only Nash did not pick his own group (I believe he chose The Byrds).

All three bands were great...but there is something about The Hollies exuberance that really appeals to me. The clip I have selected today is The Hollies playing live on Beat Club circa 1966. Listen to this...it is "I Can't Let Go" LIVE and they sound great! Listen to Graham hit those high notes...and don't overlook the great guitarist Tony Hicks, as well as what may have been the greatest drummer of his day next to Keith Moon, Bobby Elliott.

The live clips I have seen of The Byrds and the Springfield cannot touch this...

Graham Nash

And another day comes...I have been on a big CSNY kick lately. I made myself a CD to listen to in the car from the CSN box set. Some of the stuff that grabbed me that hadn't grabbed me before was the Graham Nash solo stuff. So today, here is a clip from what appears to be a UK telly appearance from David Crosby and Graham Nash. The first song up is a great little ballad from the first Nash solo album called "Simple Man", followed by a CSN song (minus S, of course).


Tomorrow...Graham with The Hollies....

Alright...well...the idea of this blog is that every day or two I will link to a cool pop video from YouTube...I search for cool stuff so you won't have to...first up is a very cool live performance from The Rascals....this is my first try, so let's see what happens....