• February 9, 1964 — THE day that changed music forever!

    February 9, 1964 — THE day that changed music forever!

    For me, Friday, February 7, 1964 will forever occupy a special place in my music history heart as it marked the first ever television appearance of The Kinks (performing “Long Tall Sally”) as part of the Ready Steady Go series in the UK. For most of the rest of the world, however, the date of February 9, […]

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  • Remembering Eleanor Rigby!

    Remembering Eleanor Rigby!

      Eleanor Rigby, wife of Thomas Woods, granddaughter of John and Frances Rigby, died on October 10, 1939. Made immortal by the Beatles song from their 1966 album Revolver, the song was primarily written by Paul McCartney with significant lyrical contributions from John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney. In an October 2021 article in The New Yorker, McCartney […]

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  • The 60s/70s + Music + BBC/ITV = Heaven

    The 60s/70s + Music + BBC/ITV = Heaven

    Whether it was Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Later with Jools Holland, BBC Sessions, Ready Steady Go, From the Basement or something called Guitar Heroes at the BBC, the channel was home to some unbelievable musical performances in the 70’s. Commissioned by none other than Sir David Attenborough, who was actually the […]

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  • Happy 80th, George Harrison, 25 February 1943.

    Happy 80th, George Harrison, 25 February 1943.

    Sometimes known as ‘the quiet Beatle’, George Harrison would have been 80 years young today. The Liverpool-born musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer and, oh yeah, lead guitarist of the Beatles passed away in November 2001 of lung cancer at the extraordinarily young age of 58. While most Beatles fans will immediately identify with songs written […]

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  • February 9, 1964 — The day that changed music forever!

    February 9, 1964 — The day that changed music forever!

    For me, Friday, February 7, 1964 will forever occupy a special place in my music history heart as it marked the first ever television appearance of The Kinks (performing “Long Tall Sally”) as part of the Ready Steady Go series in the UK. For most of the rest of the world, however, the date of February 9, […]

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  • From the Vault — The Beatles’ Penny Lane trumpeter, David Mason

    From the Vault — The Beatles’ Penny Lane trumpeter, David Mason

    56 years ago today on January 17, 1967, The Beatles finished recording Penny Lane in Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios including David Mason’s famous piccolo trumpet solo. As the story goes, the Beatles began recording Penny Lane on December 29. As time passed, Paul became somewhat dissatisfied at the initial attempts at the song’s instrumentation and […]

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  • From the Vault — ‘The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus’

    From the Vault — ‘The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus’

    Filmed before a live audience in London on December 11-12, 1968, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was organized by The Rolling Stones and originally conceived as a BBC-TV special. Centering on the original line up of the Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman (with Nicky Hopkins […]

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  • 50+ years down the road, Bob Dylan reveals what makes him ‘feel at home’

    50+ years down the road, Bob Dylan reveals what makes him ‘feel at home’

    A big TOH to Reid Robinson, Tellyspotting’s intrepid reporter in Richardson, TX who reminded me of one of music’s most controversial moments which occurred at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1966. A heckler branded one of the greatest songwriters of all-time, “Judas” for going electric during a set thus ‘betraying his folk roots’. Reid pointed me in the direction of one Robert Allen Zimmerman and how, over a half century later, he answered one of life’s most sought-after musical questions.

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