Brad Page

We talk a lot about Mixing on this podcast, but we’ve never explained what that actually means– until now. Join me and my guest, recording engineer & producer Drew Townson, as we look at the differences between “recording”, “mixing” and “mastering”. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions made in the studio, the challenges faced, and why you can’t really “fix it in the mix”.

*Drew Townson in the studio, Newbury Sound, Boston, 1990*

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings, and welcome to another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network.

A while ago, I got an email from a listener who said that we talk a lot about mixing the show, but we have never really explained what mixing is, or how mixing differs from recording. So, let’s do that.

And if we’re going to talk about recording and mixing, I can think of no better person to discuss it with than my old friend Drew Townson. Drew is a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, but he’s also been a professional recording engineer, a studio owner, and a producer. And he’s got the best ears of anyone I know. So I invited Drew to come on and talk with me about recording and mixing, and we touch on producing and mastering as well.

This conversation is a little more technical than we usually get on this show, but not by much. And I think you can all follow along, whether you’re a musician or not. So, let’s take a peek at the inner workings of the recording studio.

Here’s my conversation with Drew Townson.

Brad Page: Well, Drew Townson, thank you so much for joining me on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast to talk about the art of mixing, I think, first, just kind of give a general explanation to our listeners, who may or may not be familiar with, what exactly is mixing? When we talk about mixing, what are we doing?

Drew Townson: Well, you know, I’ve been listening to a lot of Miles Davis lately, and Miles Davis was a jazz musician back in the 1950s and 60s. And when those kind of groups went in the studio to record, they recorded live. And what I mean by live is, their band stood in the studio and all of them played the song together. And that’s how records were made.

The Beatles would go in the studio, stand just like they did on stage, and play their songs, and the studio would record it. And that started to change in the 60s, to where you could record parts of songs, because they had a new invention called multi-track recording, which is, as you and your listeners already know, is being able to record multiple tracks, not necessarily at the same time. You could record, like, the drum track, and then you could add the bass guitar track and then you could add the guitar track, et cetera. And so the need for mixing these tracks back to make them sound like a live performance again was a big deal. Like, learning how to mix became a thing you had to do.

Brad Page: Right. As you said, back in the original times, the mixing was literally done by, you know, if it was time for the trumpet solo, the trumpet player would step closer to the mic and then when he was done, he would step back, and it was… there was no such thing as “mixing” the way we think of mixing today. As technology went on, it’s a whole different world, where you start to have the ability to record different instruments on different parts of the tape.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: So you know, if the bass player made a mistake, well, you could go back and fix the bass part without having to re-record all the rest of the parts all over again.

Drew Townson: Exactly.

Brad Page: But then at the end of it, all those pieces have to be put together in a way that makes sense.

Drew Townson: Sounds real.

Brad Page: It sounds real.

Drew Townson: Yeah, yeah, right. Well, you know, if somebody in Miles Davis’s band hit a clam at like, you know, 20 minutes into the song– stop the tape, rewind, let’s record it again, we have to start the song again. You know, that’s what it was like. The whole band had to play the song over again if somebody made a mistake.

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: And so that was what they were trying to get rid of with this kind of mixing and multi-track recording. So what they started doing was they’d record the drums on a track, they’d record the bass on a track, then they’d record the trumpet on a track. So if the trumpet made a mistake, he’d just fix his mistake on his track and that wouldn’t affect what would happen to the bass and the drums.

Brad Page: So recording and mixing, they go together, but they’re two different things. Maybe talk about how you think of those two things, the recording part of it and then the mixing part of it. Because mixing comes after you’ve recorded all of your tracks.

Drew Townson: Right, right. So basically I was a very recording-oriented engineer, which means that all my tracks had to be– you have to have a good microphone, you have to have a good saxophone or whatever your instrument is, and you have to play well. And so, basically, my job was to do, to get the band to record the best possible version of the song. And if you do that, and a good recording engineer knows the right microphones, where to put them, you can have people record at the same time. See, that’s one myth: you can still have people Recording together at the same time. And their instruments all still go on separate tracks.

Brad Page: Right. And you can argue that that’s still the best way to do it, right? Because of the interplay.

Drew Townson: You know, what that did was that allowed bands to go in the studio, play the music of the track, but not have a vocal. And the singer was, you know, the singer sits in the control room of the studio, smoking a cigarette, while the band is in the main room recording the track. And then later, you can add the vocal track, and it has its own track. And if there’s a mistake, you fix it, whatever. So it’s a way of recording each instrument separately and giving it its own most personal attention. Get that great vocal track, get that great bass track. Uninhibited by anything else. You just play until it’s right.

Brad Page: I think of it as kind of like a cooking analogy. When you’ve got a recipe, there’s two sections to the recipe, right? There’s the ingredients, and that’s the recording side of it…

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: …you know, one cup of drums, a teaspoon of guitar, those kind of things, Right?

Drew Townson: Exactly. Yeah.

Brad Page: And then the instructions– you know, “beat the sugar and the eggs until they’re foamy” or whatever. That’s the mixing part of it. Right? So, the ingredients is, that’s when you’re recording the individual tracks and you’re getting them together. And the mixing part is when you’re actually combining these things in the proper way, and they each have their own kind of unique elements to it.

Drew Townson: That’s right.

Brad Page: And the reality is, if the ingredients that you’re starting with are no good, then the finished product is going to stink.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: No matter how good the mixing, the combining part of it is.

Drew Townson: Oh, right, right. You can be the world’s best engineer. But if you’re working with a bad, you know, with a low-quality band or artist or whatever, you know, you can’t save it.

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: You can’t fix it in the mix. “Fixing it in the mix” is a myth that does not happen. It really doesn’t.

Brad Page: That’s kind of an in-joke that you hear engineers and producers say all the time, oh, “just fix it in the mix”. But you, you know, there’s only much you can do. It’s garbage in, garbage out.

Drew Townson: Right, exactly. So now you’ve got a reel of tape, okay. You’ve recorded a song on a reel of tape. 20 years ago, that tape had 24 tracks on it. Now it’s digital and there is no limit to the number of tracks that you can record.

Brad Page: There’s literally no limit. You could have, you know, 300 tracks.

Drew Townson: There’s literally no limit to how many tracks you can record. And sometimes you go and see– and it’s like the simplest stupid song and it’ll have like, you know, 100 tracks or something. And it’s, I think it’s more than you need. But that’s just my opinion on that. Yeah, so you’ve got the performance of the song all on different tracks. And people need to know this, too: When you’re recording like a rock band with drums and bass and guitar and vocals, it’s not one track of drum set– it’s one track of kick drum, then the next track is the snare drum, then the next track is the hi-hat, and the next track is the cymbals. And so, it’s not just like drums mixed with bass mixed with guitar; it’s drums mixed with drums, and then guitar mixed with guitar. You know, you do that, you hone each sound. That’s before you actually do the mix. You go into every track, and you work on that sound to make it sound the best it can be.

And to do that, you use something called an equalizer, which I’m sure you guys know what that is” treble, bass, middle, right? So every mixing board has an equalizer on every track, so you can get the best possible sound of that track. And you might want to add a reverb or a delay or an effect or something like that. And those are all easily done when you’re mixing.

That’s, those are mixing techniques. You may say, you know, I want that lyric right there to echo a couple times. And then you can, while you’re mixing, you add the echo to the lyric.

So that’s what all the mixing is. It’s all combining the instruments to make the song sound correct. Again, it has to sound right. You’ve got drums, bass, guitars, whatever, vocals, and then any effects that you want to use.

And you know, I don’t want to get into a whole discussion of effects, because there’s a lot of that. And one of the things that I’m really good at was an effect called Compression. It’s a volume limiting effect that takes the loud parts and makes them quieter, and makes the quiet parts louder. And that’s what compression does. And so, when you hear a vocal on a record, nine times out of nine, it’s compressed. If you notice when, you listen to a record, all the instruments on the record are essentially the same volume, and they stay the same volume, they don’t change. That’s part of the mixing technique.

You basically have to rebuild the band playing the song, right? You get the drums, bass guitars, everybody’s playing, and then you’ll add like the vocal track in, then you can add some reverb or some effects or whatever, and that completes the song. And then what we used to do was, when we would do that mix, you have to mix to stereo, right, because you’ve got, what, 24 mono tracks and you’re making a stereo mix. So, we would mix onto a stereo tape recorder and that would be our finished mix, would be the stereo mix of the 24 track song.

Brad Page: So you’ve got a machine with a tape on it… or these days, it would all be digital, but however many tracks you’ve got, let’s say 24, you are essentially mixing those down to a final product, which is two tracks: a left channel and a right channel. Yeah, that would be a separate tape machine back in the day. Of course, it’s all digital now, but the essential idea is the same.

Drew Townson: Yeah. You know, there are things about modern technology I like, and things I don’t like. But one of the things I really love about modern technology is that you can make that mix, and then you can copy it. You know, you can make many, many copies of it. And then if you decide, oh, you know, that one vocal little part right there, you can actually go in and tweak– not after it’s already printed onto a CD or anything like that, obviously– but while it’s still in the mixing process, basically, even if you’re done with a mix, you can recreate it. That’s one thing that the digital does, it, will recreate your exact mix. Like every single thing you do gets remembered by the computer. And so you can bring that up anytime you. Five years from now, I can play that mix back and it’ll sound exactly like the way I mixed it.

Brad Page: Yes. Now we’re starting to talk a little bit about automation, which is basically the software in the computer can track the movement of the virtual knob, so as you turn something up or down, the bass or treble up or down or whatever, that movement of that knob can be remembered and saved into the program so that it’s reproducible. So, like, you said, you can pull that mix up, that song, five years from now, and if you don’t remember all the little tweaks you did, that’s okay because they’re all saved within that file.

Drew Townson: They’re all saved. Let me tell you a funny story: There was a company in Great Britain called SSL– Solid State Logic. They build the world’s best mixing consoles. And a “console” is a mixer, it’s a big board, right? With lots of knobs and stuff on it. And they invented “Recall” many years ago.

They actually started out by programming church organs to be able, like if the organist died, there was nobody to take their place. In England, in the 70s, the old lady who had been playing the church organ for, you know, 30 years dies because she’s 85 years old now and nobody could take her place. So this company, SSL, learned how to, “Okay, come on in, Doris, and play all your songs, and we’ll record them into the memory of the organ.” So they built these organs that could remember what you played, and play it back. That’s how they started with church organs in England. It’s funny, isn’t it?

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let’s talk about maybe some examples of mixing. Some, you know, when you think of like, just a great mix, who do you think of?

Drew Townson: You know, there’s certain producers I like, and George Martin happens to be one of them. And I’m not necessarily talking about the Beatles either. Like, after the Beatles, he continued his career and he was a really good engineer.

Brad Page: Sure, yeah. Besides the Beatles, he produced Jeff Beck; the “Blow By Blow” album, which is my favorite Jeff Beck record.

Drew Townson: That Jeff Beck “Blow By Blow” album is one of my favorite George Martin records. I mean, it is such a good record. It’s such a good record.

And here’s another guy that I’m really a big fan of. Bob Clear Mountain.

Brad Page: Mhm.

Drew Townson: And Bob Clearmountain, he produced Roxy Music’s “Avalon”, which I think is one of the best-sounding records ever made in the history of music.

Brad Page: Amen.

Drew Townson: It really is.

Drew Townson: That was Bob Clearmountain who did Roxy Music “Avalon”. That’s one of the best-sounding records you’ll ever hear. Despite the fact you can’t understand any of the vocals. You know, I tend to like records where you can’t understand the vocals. I don’t know why that is, but like, I love the first three, four REM albums, and I hate everything they did after that. And I realized the first three or four ones was when you couldn’t understand a word he was singing!

Brad Page: Let’s talk about some of the tracks that you’ve worked on, and maybe use those as some examples of some mixing challenges, or what you were going for and how you were able to get to the end result that you wanted.

Drew Townson: Well, I think a good one to start with might be The Nines. They’re called Muck And The Mires now. Evan Shore, from Muck And The Mires. I recorded one of his earlier albums and the first, the opening track is “I Can’t Keep a Secret”. And that is just straight ahead, two guitars, bass, drums, rock band playing live in the studio. And they were just rocking out. It was so good. But one thing you’ll notice is the drums, all the sounds are pristine. I mean the drums sound incredible. And you know that, that took some time and some doing. There’s a woman drummer, really good drummer.

And one of the problems that we had was the two-track stereo tape machine that we normally mix to was broken. And here’s just a little bit of 101 information for you: in the world of analog recording, tape recording, the faster the tape goes and the wider the tape is, the better the sound quality. So I had this 30 inches-per-second, half-inch wide stereo tape deck, made in Germany by Studer. I don’t know if it was Germany or Switzerland or wherever Studer is made… Made in Europe somewhere. Gorgeous machine. Went twice as fast as a lot of machines, and the tape was twice as wide as other machines. And that machine sounded stellar.

So I’m mixing this record, and that machine is broken and it’s time to do the mix. And we had this old quarter-inch wide Otari tape machine there that I just pulled out of the closet, and you know, 15 inches per second was the fastest speed.

Brad Page: It’s half the speed of what you wanted.

Drew Townson: It was half the speed and half the width of the tape that I wanted. And so I was just listening to that CD this morning– and it sounds friggin’ great, man! I forgot how good that machine ended up sounding at half speed, half width or whatever.

Drew Townson: You know, that’s what most people did mix to. I was lucky. I worked in a studio Nebury Sound in Boston, which had the half-inch Studer machine to mix to. Most studios didn’t have that nice, those were very expensive machines. And when I say expensive, let’s talk by today’s standards, that stereo recorder in 1988 would have sold for about $32,000.

Brad Page: And required regular maintenance, too.

Drew Townson: Oh, yeah, yeah, Regular maintenance.

Brad Page: They were not inexpensive devices to own and maintain.

Drew Townson: No, that’s the thing. It was broken that day that I needed it. And we got it fixed and it cost, you know, like a bunch of money to get it fixed.

Brad Page: What other things did you work on that would stand out as maybe some challenges you had to face?

Drew Townson: Some of my challenges were performers that made a mistake, or hit a flat note or a sharp note or whatever. So you’re listening to this song, and you’re hearing there’s a goof in there. You’d have to try to fix that. And the only way to fix it is to either play the bass yourself or call that bass player to come back in and rerecord that part. I mean, that’s what I did sometimes, was re-record stuff as opposed to trying to fix it in the mix. Because as we all know, “fixing it in the mix” is not a real thing. You know, you can’t really fix stuff in the mix. You can make it sound better. You can make it sound better, but you can’t fix it, you know?

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: You know, my specialty was the band would say, “Hey, Drew, we want to record with you.” “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Come in the studio.” And they’d come in, they’d set up and they just play and we would record it. That’s what I did a good portion of my life. Live in the studio, recording and then remixed by me later. So, you know, that’s one thing I always liked, was the live recording. Because even when you mix, you know, you’re not going to lose that live feel; that always, that sticks with it.

Brad Page: And that’s important.

Drew Townson: Yeah, it really is. We used to do these blues records that were on a label in New Orleans. And then the guy from the label would come up to our studio in Boston and, you know, he’d stay in Boston for a few weeks, and the artist would stay in Boston for a few weeks, and we’d bring him in the studio and they just set up their gear and play. Like it was just a gig. They just play their stuff, and I would put the microphones up, and I would record every instrument onto its own track and then remix it. But they wouldn’t be doing, like, separate recording. They would just play together all at the same time.

Brad Page: That sounds a lot more simple than it really is. I mean, there’s a skill to capturing that, right? Because you are trying to capture the sense of a performance.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: And the energy of a performance.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: And knowing when the take is right.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: And then being able to translate that to the final product, the final mix, if you will; it sounds easier than it really is. There’s a whole skill there that you have to master.

Here’s a track that Drew recorded with blues Legend Luther Guitar Jr. Johnson, in 1994, recorded live in the studio. There are a lot of instruments on this song, but notice where each instrument is placed in the stereo spectrum so that each instrument has its own space to occupy. They blend together to create that massive sound of a big band. But if you listen for each instrument, the bass or the horns or the piano, for example, you can easily find them. Capturing the energy and fire of the live band that was part of the recording process; making sure that each instrument blended in but also retained its individual place, that was done during the mixing process.

Here’s Luther Guitar, Jr. Johnson with “Walking With You Baby”.

Drew Townson: Let me tell you something: the most important thing in the studio, in recording, is knowing what mic to use and where to put it. And it’s not the same as your live mics. Studio mics are studio mics, and they start about $1,000 or so for one microphone, and it goes up from there. You can easily spend 20 Grand on a good studio mic. And so, you have to know where to put those mics to capture the sound. Otherwise, forget it, you’re not going to accomplish anything.

Brad Page: And so what are some examples of choices that you would make for microphones? Just to give people an idea of what’s the thought process…

Drew Townson: Sure. Well, these days, most drummers prefer a microphone called an AKG D112. And the D112 is a newer mic, and it was invented to capture super low frequencies. I mean, it captures frequencies below what you want. So I never liked that mic because I always thought it sounded real flabby and tubby. So I use the AKG D12E for the kick drum. It has the most punch, it has a little bit of the click that you’re looking for. You know, everybody wants that like little snap on the top of the kick. If you can find one, they’re cheap nowadays, you can probably get one for like a hundred bucks. And that’s a really good kick drum mic. And then, like a snare drum mic, hat is where you do use like a Shure SM57, because the way that mike is tuned is really good for a snare drum– but not for other stuff, you know, in the studio.

Brad Page: Right, right. And these are the kind of choices that a recording engineer has to make up front.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: And even choosing, you know, you would choose different mics for vocals, but you would choose maybe one mic for a female voice and another mic for a male voice. So these are all, they’re tools of the trade. Think about microphones as being tools, and each tool has its applications and where it’s appropriate and not appropriate.

Drew Townson: The AKG C12 is the best female mic. Look up that and see how much that mic will cost you to buy now. I’m going to say 12 Grand, minimum.

And then there’s one called the Neumann U47 and the Neumann U67. Those are German microphones. Those are really great for guys.

Or like Linda Ronstadt always used the AKG414. So, we tend to think of AKGs as more female mics and the Neumann’s as more male-oriented mics. But that’s, that’s an important thing to know, right?

Brad Page: As an engineer, these are the things you’ve got to know your tools.

Drew Townson: Right? Right. Here’s what you do. You get the singer in the studio; your first time working with that singer, you put three, four, five microphones in front of him, let him sing, and you listen to each mic and you go, “Wow, that’s the one right there”. You can tell by the sound, you know which one is going to be. And you have to do stuff like that. You can’t just pull up some junk mic and say, “Okay, let’s do the vocal track”. You can’t do that. You’ve got to really listen. You have to.

The number one thing you have to do as a recording engineer is use your ears, not your eyes. That’s one thing the digital guys have not figured out. All the digital engineers, they look at their screen and what they see is what they do.

I used to– actually, this is true, Brad, and it’s kind of silly, but we used to put tape over the meters of the outboard gear in the studio. We would literally cover up the meter with a piece of tape, so you couldn’t see the level that was going into it or coming out of it.

And you know what– I love doing that. Because you’re using your ears only; you know, try to do a mix without your eyes. That’s my recommendation for anybody who’s doing this now is try to do a mix with your ears only.

I did a record a few years ago by a Boston band that was at the time called Girls, Guns and Glory. I forget what they’re called now, they have a different name now. But we did that the first day in the studio; we took masking tape and we covered up every friggin’ meter in the studio because I didn’t want to see any of it. I wanted to hear it only.

Brad Page: Mhm.

Drew Townson: And the record sounds friggin’ great. It’s a great-sounding record.

Well this band, Girls, Guns and Glory, had gotten a small record deal. I think they got about $15,000 to do the record, which was nothing at the time, but it was still enough to, you know, I spend a week in their rehearsal space with them before the record started and the record came out incredible.

But you have to know what to do. Like when you record a drum kit. Does it sound like a recorded kit when you first record it? Probably not. It probably sounds pretty bad. You know, it’s, it’s, that’s what you have to learn is, when you record something, how do you make it sound even better? And that’s hard. That takes some years, that takes time.

Then I have a record I did on the Rounder label by Mickey Honeycutt, and it’s called “Soul Deep”. And she had been a junkie and the whole nine, had lived on the street and everything. And she was in recovery at the time. We did this record in 1989 and it has, her band was Sugar Ray and the Blue Tones, which was a great band from Providence that I had also produced their album at that time. And then we had horns and the whole nine. So this was a big, you know, full-blown blues band with saxophones, trumpets, the whole nine. And we did that record live too, including her vocals.

And one of the things that we couldn’t stop her from doing in this studio was smoking. Like at that time, even back then, we didn’t allow smoking in the studio. But she was a chain smoker and man, she just smoked through like two or three packs while we were recording. It was funny, but she was great. And she has, you can hear, I hear the cigarettes in her voice… but maybe you can, maybe you can’t.

Brad Page: What are the challenges, as a mix engineer, when you’ve got that many instruments, because you don’t want things to step on each other, you want each one to kind of occupy its own space, right? How do you approach that kind of challenge?

Drew Townson: That is a great question. That is a truly great question. And my answer is– I didn’t. I wasn’t really that aware of that kind of stuff until probably around 1990 or so, early 90s. I worked with a producer, Daniel Rey, who produced, he produced the Ramones. And he was producing a record, and I was engineering, and he told me to record that guitar.

So there was a guy out there, you know, with an electric guitar. And so I did, I recorded it and Daniel Rey stopped me, he said, “No, that’s not how you record guitar.” And then he went to the equalizer and he rolled off all the low end out of the guitar, and then said, “That’s the sound. That’s the sound you want.” And I said, “Why?” He goes, “Because the bass and the kick need to fill the bottom and really punch. And you’ve got to get that guitar basically out of there.”

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: And I was like, “Wow, man, I never knew that”. You know, that was a really big thing for me to learn.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Drew Townson: And as years went on, I learned how to do that. And there isn’t much low end that you use. You take out a lot of bass out of all the instruments except the bass and the kick, and the toms and stuff.

Brad Page: Here’s a song Drew recorded with the legendary Boston guitar player Ronnie Earl and his band the Broadcasters. This track also features guest guitarist Duke Robillard. It’s another fairly large band. You’ve got bass, drums, two guitars, organs and a horn section. But listen to how each instrument is clearly discernible. They don’t step on each other or cover each other up. You can clearly hear each part. Even the two guitars are distinct from each other. That’s what we’re talking about here. This is Ronnie Earle and the Broadcasters with the instrumental “Backstroke”.

Drew Townson: So on January 1st, Y2K, I recorded an album with a band from Salem called the Vic Morrows. And you know, like anything else, I forgot all about it, you know, over the years. And this past summer, the leader of the Vic Morrows who still– I guess they still play out once in a while, they still are friends and they still play out once in a while– he said, “Drew, we put this out on CD back in 1990. I want it to come out on vinyl this time. I want to re-release the album on vinyl.” And I said, “Okay man, give it to me, I will get it ready for you.” And, you know, mastering a record for vinyl is completely different than mastering for CD. And, so, I spent hours remastering this record by the Vic Morrows, and it sounds in friggin’ incredible. It really does.

Brad Page: You led us to the mouth of a pretty big rathole when you were talking about “mastering”. And I don’t really want to go down that rathole, but that’s kind of the third piece, right, where you have the recording, you have the mixing, and then you have what is called “mastering”. And if you could just kind of sum up for the listeners what is mastering, and what is different about mastering than the recording or the mixing piece of it, if you could?

Drew Townson: Okay, sure. First off, if you’re going to do mastering, you have to have really good ears. If you have any issues with your hearing at all, you cannot be a mastering engineer. You have to have perfect hearing to be a mastering engineer. And that’s what I’m doing now, much more than before, is mastering. I like mastering because you’re taking, you know, sometimes it was recorded by somebody else. You know, very often mastering engineers are different guys, because in an ideal world, you don’t want the same guy recording, mixing and mastering your stuff. You know, you want different ears to get involved.

And so what mastering is, is essentially taking those final track mixes and putting them on CD or record or whatever the, whatever the final format is. You have to prepare the tracks for that format. And it’s, there’s something to it, it’s not just, “Let me just track this up.” No, you have to know what you’re doing. So, you have to EQ and compress and all that stuff. And it’s a whole nother level of, after the mix is done. We don’t have to get into it, but…

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah, but it is a really specific specialty and there’s not a lot of people that. do it.

Drew Townson: There are many fewer people doing mastering than anything else.

Brad Page: Right, right.

Drew Townson: And with the resurgence of vinyl, and I should say, you know, I still have a really nice record collection, and I listen to it every day. You know, with the resurgence of vinyl, mastering has started to grow again. Because, you know, when records were gone, there weren’t nearly as many mastering engineers. Because mastering, that’s one thing. Like, if you were going to not master for something, it would be CD that you would not master for. Vinyl is more specific. You know, tape is all those things are more, they have a sound of their own that you have to deal with.

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: You know, vinyl has a sound that you have to compensate for, basically.

Brad Page: Yeah. Limitations that are different than a CD, that it’s different from a cassette tape or an eight-track or whatever it was at the time.

Drew Townson: Right.

Drew Townson: Producing– Let’s talk about what that is for a second.

Brad Page: Sure.

Drew Townson: Producing is telling the musicians, you know, help them play the song or help them develop the song. You know, if the song needs a backup vocal here, or a chorus goes too long, or not long enough, or it needs a bridge or… you know, you’re actually working with the song itself. That’s what a producer does, is develop the song.

So I produced the Vic Morrows album. And what that means is, I didn’t just sit there twiddling knobs. I actually play guitar on the record. You know, I was part of the making of the music. And I really like the way the record came out. I really do.

Brad Page: Yeah. A producer, it’s somewhat analogous to a director of a film. But not exactly.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: Not exactly…

Drew Townson: Not exactly.

Brad Page: …but a producer, you know, it’s a big picture thing.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: Whereas the recording engineer is more in the weeds, right? Like the director of a film will say, “Okay, I want a wide shot here and a close up here.” But it’s the director of photography and the cameraman who figure out, “Okay, what lens do I use and how do I light the scene?” The director doesn’t typically get involved in that level of detail.

Drew Townson: Exactly.

Brad Page: He’s stepped back and looking at the big picture. And that’s kind of what a producer does versus a recording engineer.

Drew Townson: Right.

Brad Page: A producer can help to choose the songs that end up on the record. You know, you might record 20 songs, but only 12 of them are going to end up on the album. And the producer helps to figure out what are the best, you know, help to choose the song. Like you said before, is going to help in the arrangements. Like “I think this song needs a better intro” or, you know, “What you have as the chorus would be a better verse. Why don’t you use that as the verse and then write something new for the chorus.”

Drew Townson: Or as often happens, they’ll have a chorus, then they’ll have a verse and then they’ll have another part of the song which sounds as good as another. It could be a whole nother song.

Brad Page: Uh-huh.

Drew Townson: You know that chorus right there, that extra chorus that you have in this song, is another song. So let’s drop it out of this song and let’s build a whole nother song around that chorus.

Brad Page: Right.

Drew Townson: I mean, I would meet, I would get together with a band up to two weeks before we go in the studio, and I’d start going to their rehearsals with them. You know, every night, I’d go to their rehearsals and we just sit there going through every song.

Brad Page: And that kind of work that you’re talking there, that’s what you’d call “pre-production”, right?

Drew Townson: That’s pre-production. Right.

Brad Page: Before you even get in the studio, a smart producer, a smart band would do that work so that you’re not wasting time in the studio and burning money.

Drew Townson: Exactly.

Brad Page: Anything else you want to add or wrap up with?

Drew Townson: The most important thing for any– I’m not going to say “engineer”, because I’m going to use the word “recordist”, because I wasn’t even really an engineer… before me, like, the 1960’s is when guys that worked at Abbey Road and whatever, like those guys were actual sound engineers. They had gone to school for engineering and all that.

So I’m not saying an engineer, I’m saying recordist: you need to make sure the tracks are good. Do all your hard work recording the tracks, getting the tracks to sound good. Because if the tracks don’t sound great, forget it, you’re done already. That’s my biggest number one bit of advice. Yeah, mixing is great, but recording is even greater.

Brad Page: Yeah. Again, when it comes to mixing, if somebody just hands you a bunch of poorly recorded tracks, you can only do so much. You know, if somebody hands you a bunch of really well-recorded, really well-balanced tracks, the mix gets so much easier, right? It almost mixes itself.

Drew Townson: If you’ve got tracks that are good, it almost mixes itself. That is very true. It almost mixes– It doesn’t quite mix itself, but it almost makes it itself. It needs you for, like that last 10% or whatever, you know?

Brad Page: Right, right.

Drew Townson: Yeah, but it really does. It’s amazing when you, you know, when you’re recording a band. This is one of the things I used to do. I’d be in the studio, I’d be recording a band; push up the faders and get it to sound like a band where I’m sitting. Get it to sound like I’ve got the best seat in the house, and I’m just, you know, listening to the band playing. That’s the best thing you can do, is just really capture it, you know?

Brad Page: Yeah.

Brad Page: Drew Townson, thank you so much for joining me on this episode for this conversation. This has been a lot of fun. I could talk for another hour.

Drew Townson: Me too.

Brad Page: But I think we’ve given people a good idea of what a recording engineer does, what mixing is, what producing is, all of those kind of things. I hope this answers some questions that people may have had and were afraid to ask.

Drew Townson: Yeah, like producing is more musical, mixing is more technical. Just make it simple like that, you know?

Brad Page: Yeah. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much, Drew. I love you, man.

Drew Townson: Love you too, buddy. Great, great talking to you.

Brad Page: Thanks to Drew Townson for joining us for this episode. It’s always great to catch up with an old friend, and I hope that this gave you some insight into the recording process and the thinking behind what goes into a mix. And I hope you enjoyed listening to some of those great records that Drew worked on.

I’ll be back again in about two weeks with another new episode. Until then, you can catch up with all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. You can also find all of our shows on your favorite podcast app, whether it’s Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Google, Pandora, PocketCasts, we’re available on all of them.

Support this show by going to oldglory.com and buying a T-shirt or some merch from your favorite bands. They’ve got a ton of stuff on their site, and if you use our discount code LoveThatSong, you’ll get 15% off and you’ll help to support this show. That’s oldglory.com, discount code LoveThatSong.

And don’t forget to tell a friend about this show. Your word-of-mouth support is worth a lot. So thank you.

On behalf of everyone here on Pantheon, I thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time here on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast.

Let’s close out this episode with one last track that Drew worked on. This is from an album that Drew recorded and produced for The Fathoms. They’re a Surf Rock band out of Boston, and this is one of my favorite records that Drew worked on. Recorded in his studio back in 2007, and just listen to how good this recording is! Enjoy and I’ll see you back here next time.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Drew Townson:
https://soundcloud.com/drew-townson

George Martin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Martin

Bob Clearmountain:
https://www.mixthis.com/

AKG D112:
https://www.akg.com/microphones/dynamic-microphones/D112MkII.html

Neumann U47:
https://www.neumann.com/en-us/products/historical/u-47

Solid State Logic (SSL):
https://www.solidstatelogic.com

Studer:
https://evertz.com/solutions/studer/

The Fathoms:
https://thefathomsofficial.bandcamp.com/

Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Johnson_(Guitar_Junior)

Wilson Pickett, a name synonymous with soul music, has a catalog filled with timeless classics. From “In the Midnight Hour” to “Mustang Sally,” his influence on the genre is undeniable. But in this episode, we focus on one of his lesser-discussed yet equally powerful–and damn funky– tracks, “Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9 (Parts 1 & 2)“. This song is a testament to Pickett’s versatility and the genius of Gamble & Huff and the production team at Sigma Sound.

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

Okay, all you midnight movers and night owls, the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast is back with another episode, right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. My name is Brad Page, and I’m the host of this here show, where we take a look at a different song each episode and explore the performance and production choices that turn a good song into a great one. Don’t worry if you’re not a musician or you don’t know anything about music theory, because none of that is required here. We don’t get too technical. We just try to open up our ears and listen.

On this edition of the podcast, we’re going to revisit one of my favorite soul singers, a real legit legend: Wilson Pickett, and a little bit of psychedelic soul with a song called “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number Nine”.

We spent some time with Wilson Pickett back on Episode 96 of this podcast, where we explored the song “99 And A Half Won’t Do”. So I’m not going to go over this same ground again. You can go back and listen to that episode if you want that info. But quick review: Wilson Pickett was born in Alabama in March 1941. His first taste of success came with The Falcons when he sang lead on their hit “I Found A Love”. But he soon departed The Falcons, eventually landing at Atlantic Records and cut some classic singles down at Stax Records’ Studio in Memphis– a handful of the greatest R&B singles ever recorded. “In The Midnight Hour”, “634-5789”, “99 And A Half Won’t Do”. And then after that, he had an even more remarkable run down at Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, cutting absolutely legendary tracks like “Land of a Thousand Dances”, “Funky Broadway”, “Soul Dance Number Three”, and of course, “Mustang Sally”.

Pickett also began exploring material outside of straightforward R&B. He was particularly good at taking rock songs and adapting them to fit his style. One of the first and best of these covers was his version of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.

Playing guitar on that session was a brilliant young guitarist named Duane Allman. In fact, it was Duane who suggested Wilson cover “Hey Jude”. When Eric Clapton heard Duane’s playing on “Hey Jude”, it instantly caught his attention. It was the first time he had heard of Duane Allman.

About a year later, Clapton would invite Duane to play on the Derek and the Dominoes sessions, making history. But that’s a subject for another podcast.

Over the ensuing years, Pickett would cover more rock songs, including “Born To Be Wild”, “Groovin’”, “Hey Joe”, a killer version of “Fire and Water”, originally by Free. He even had a hit with a cover of “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies.

But back in 1970, Wilson’s creative burst at Muscle Shoals eventually ran its course. So Atlantic Records moved him up to Philadelphia to work with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the hot new writer-producer duo working out of Sigma Sound. The result was the album “Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia”, which probably as an album, opposed to singles, it’s probably my favorite Wilson Pickett album.

That album featured two hits, “Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You”, which hit number two on the R&B chart, and “Engine Number nine”, which made it to number three.

“Engine Number Nine”, officially titled “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number Nine (Parts 1 & 2)”, two developed out of a jam session at Sigma Sound. Wilson was encouraging the band to find the right groove, a heavy one. They cut one take, clocking in at about three and a half minutes. Then they did it again with the final version running six minutes and 25 seconds. To release it on a 45 revolutions-per-minute seven inch single, they had to split it in two– hence the part one and part two of the title.

The band in Philly included Bobby Eli, Norman Harris and Roland Chambers, all on guitars, Tom Bell on organ, Eugene Dozier and Lenny Pakula on piano, Ronnie Baker on bass, Vince Montana on vibes and percussion, Earl Young on drums, and Sam Reed and his horn section on horns. The song was written and produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

The song kicks off with a snare drum fill. Then the bass comes in, along with some percussion. There’s quite a few different percussion elements used in this song. Right here we’re hearing a cowbell and a shaker, primarily in the right channel. And now here comes the main riff.

Okay, there’s actually a lot going on here. Just looking at the percussion by itself, you’ve got the drums, cowbell, some other kind of drum in there– could be a conga or a timbale, doesn’t really sound like either of those to me. Could just be a tom, I’m not sure.

And then there’s this kind of wacky sound made by something called a “vibraslap”. It’s a strange looking contraption, a metal rod that’s kind of bent in the shape of the letter “R”, with a wooden ball at one end and what looks like a wood cowbell at the other end, with some metal pins in it that rattle when it vibrates. It’s hard to describe, just go look it up on the internet if you want to see what it looks like. But the vibraslap kind of sounds like a rattlesnake. You’ll hear it in all kinds of songs. Everything from “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith to “Short Skirt Long Jacket” by Cake, and “Crazy Train” by Ozzy. You’ll hear the vibraslap all through this track.

Then there’s the bass. At least two guitars, one clean tone, one totally fuzzed out. And, I believe, an electric piano in the left channel, duplicating the bass part.

There’s this nasty, crashing, scratchy sound that occurs occasionally. That’s the fuzz tone guitar doing that part.

So, after a couple of measures of that setting the groove, Wilson comes in with the vocal.

The groove is gonna shift a little bit here. And I especially like these guitar parts.

Let’s go back, drop the vocals out, and just listen to what the band is doing, because I think they’re playing great here.

Next, we get a whacked-out guitar solo from Bobby Eli. Guitar sounds don’t get any nastier than this. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say he’s using a Univox Super Fuzz pedal to get that sound. It’s like an ice pick in your eardrum– In a good way.

Once again, I want to go back. This time, I just want to hear the bass and the drums.

Let’s bring everyone back in. Listen to Bobby Eli’s guitar here. And here’s a vintage Wilson Pickett scream for you.

The clean guitar comes forward in the mix here. I’m not sure if it’s Norman Harris or Roland Chambers who played this part. They change up the groove again. And the shaker returns.

Notice how they add an echo to the snare drum.

You’ve also got an organ in the left channel now. Bobby Eli’s guitar is just screeching, it’s feeding back all over the place. It’s pretty wild.

Let’s bring up the drums in the mix now. They’re going to break it down to just the drums and that fuzz tone guitar.

Slowly building it back up.

And now a break for just the drums and percussion.

This guitar part is actually two guitars, the clean one and the fuzz tone guitar bouncing back and forth, playing off of each other like it was one part. Listen to that big echo on the snare drum again.

Wilson Pickett – “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number Nine (Parts 1 & 2)”

This would be the only album Wilson recorded in Philadelphia. He would return to Muscle Shoals for one more album for Atlantic Records, then he signed with RCA Records for a while, and then EMI, and even Motown.

But like many soul, funk, and R&Bartists, he got left behind when Disco became the hot new thing, and his career never really recovered, not in any commercial sense. Though he kept on working. He survived personal struggles with addiction and some pretty violent behavior as a result.

He released one final album– call it a comeback album if you want– in 1999, called “It’s Harder Now”. On January 19, 2006, at the age of 64, Wilson died from a heart attack. It was little Richard who delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

Wilson’s voice didn’t quite have the primal scream of James Brown, or the tenderness and depth of emotion as Otis Redding, but when matched with the right material– and more often than not, he was matched with the perfect material– Wilson Pickett was unbeatable. Has anyone recorded a better song than “In The Midnight Hour”? As good as sure, but better? I haven’t heard it. Wilson Pickett has at least a half a dozen songs in his catalog that are stone cold classics. In my opinion, he’s earned his place among the greats.

Thanks for tuning in to the Pantheon Podcast Network and listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. As always, new episodes of this show come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll see you back here in just over two weeks.

If you’d like to catch up on our previous episode on Wilson Pickett, you’ll find it on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, along with over 150 episodes on many other songs, all hand selected with care by me.

If you’d like to support the show, go buy a t-shirt at oldglory.com and use our promo code lovethatsong. Save a few bucks.

And please tell a friend about this show, because recommendations from smart, sophisticated listeners like you really are the number one thing that helps us grow.

So thanks again for listening to this episode on Wilson Pickett and “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number Nine”.

RESOURCES:

Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett – Wikipedia

Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records

Stax Records
Stax Records

Fame Studios
Fame Studios

Sigma Sound
Sigma Sound Studios – Wikipedia

Kenny Gamble
Kenny Gamble – Wikipedia

Leon Huff
Leon Huff – Wikipedia

We celebrate the 201^st installment of the podcast by revisiting one of our first subjects– the legendary Paul McCartney and his band Wings, with the non-album single “Junior’s Farm.”

Released in November 1974, this track developed during McCartney’s escape to a Nashville farm during a tumultuous time in his life, following the breakup of The Beatles. Join us as we explore the song’s origins, the dynamic lineup of Wings during this period, and the memorable guitar work of Jimmy McCulloch, who made his mark with this track. We’ll dissect the song’s unique structure, the production choices, and the whimsical lyrics that embody McCartney’s signature style. This episode is a deep dive into a classic that showcases the artistry and evolution of one of music’s most beloved figures.

TRANSCRIPT:

Low life, high life, oh, let’s go down to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and we are here on the Pantheon Podcast Network– where fans belong– with another edition of the show where I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together.

For those of you keeping count, this is episode 201– the 201st episode of this podcast. Some of you have been with us since the very first episode, and you may remember that on our first show, episode one, we covered a song by Paul McCartney. It was a non-album track; actually, it was a B-Side. Well, here we are, exactly 200 episodes later, so I thought it would be nice to return to McCartney and another of his non-album tracks. This one was released as a single in November 1974; this is Paul McCartney and Wings with “Junior’s Farm”.

The seeds that would eventually develop into this song sprouted back in 1970, during the breakup of the Beatles. It’s a very contentious period for everyone involved; lots of business meetings with lawyers, and McCartney couldn’t wait for those meetings to end so he could escape to his farm in Scotland.

Cut to 1974, when McCartney and the current lineup of Wings, decamped to Nashville, Tennessee. They were invited to stay at a farm owned by Curly Putman, a Nashville songwriter. He was most famous for writing “Green Green Grass of Home”. Putman’s nickname just happened to be “Junior”.

The band’s visit to Tennessee was primarily to rehearse, but Buddy Killen, who had arranged their visit, also happened to own a studio called “Sound Shop”. So, of course, the band eventually ended up at that studio.

They would work up a handful of songs at Sound Shop, including a track called “Junior’s Farm”, which was actually the last song that they laid down at that studio. The band had been rehearsing the track out at the farm, so when they hit the studio, they were ready to record it more or less live.

This was an interesting period for Wings. The previous album, “Band On The Run”, had been recorded as a trio: Paul and Linda McCartney, and Denny Laine. But by this time, they had recruited two new members.

The first new addition was a 20-year-old Scottish guitarist named Jimmy McCulloch. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch was something of a child prodigy. He started performing professionally when he was 14, and in 1969, when he was just 16, he joined Thunderclap Newman. They had a number one hit in England with “Something In The Air”, a track produced by Pete Townsend of The Who.

After that band split, Jimmy worked on a number of projects and did session work for John Entwistle and Harry Nilsson, and eventually joined the band Stone The Crows. He met Paul McCartney in August of 1973.

Paul’s brother Mike McCartney, better known as Mike McGear, was recording a solo album, and Paul had agreed to produce it. He did more than just produce it, though. He co-wrote most of the songs, and it’s almost a stealth Wings album as Paul, Linda and Denny play on every song… and Jimmy McCulloch was invited to play on the album too. Essentially, it was Jimmy’s audition for Wings, and by May of 1974, Jimmy became a member of Wings.

The next task was to find a new drummer. Paul let the word get out that he was looking for a new drummer, and after his office was deluged with over 400 phone calls, Paul narrowed the list down to 52 drummers who were invited to audition. And out of all those auditions, five finalists were selected. And in the end, a drummer named Geoff Britton was selected.

Geoff was from London, and he had played in a band called East Of Eden, and then with the Wild Angels. One of the songs he jammed on with Paul, Linda, Denny and Jimmy as part of his audition was an early version of “Junior’s Farm”, though it didn’t have a title yet. Like Jimmy, Geoff Britton became a member of Wings in May 1974.

\And this was the lineup that arrived at Curly Putman’s Farm in June of that summer. Along with Geoff Britton on drums and Jimmy McCulloch on guitar, “Junior’s Farm” features Denny Laine on guitar and backing vocals, Linda McCartney on percussion, Fender Rhodes electric piano and backing vocals, and Paul McCartney on bass and lead vocal. The song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney, and produced by Paul. It was released on November 1, 1974 on Apple Records. This would be McCartney’s final release on Apple.

The song begins with an intro featuring harmonized guitar leads by Jimmy McCulloch and Denny Laine. The core parts of the song had been worked out for a while, but the intro and outro were late additions to the song. They came up with this intro just prior to entering the studio to start recording. Let’s hear just those guitars.

And that brings us into the main groove of the song, which makes up the verse section. You can hear McCartney interject a couple of “Ha”s in there. Before we get to the verse, let’s back that up again.

That is the first of many tasty guitar parts that Jimmy McCulloch adds to this song. This was Jimmy’s debut as Wings’ new guitar player, and he comes out of the gate firing on all cylinders here. Great guitar work by Jimmy all through this song. Jimmy McCulloch is one of my favorite guitar players, so we’re gonna pay attention to his playing throughout this track.

One of the interesting choices in the production of this song is the use of that phasing effect on the vocals throughout the song. That effect is also applied to the guitar at times, too.

That effect was not part of the original recording or the initial mixes done in Nashville. When McCartney returned to England, he made several more attempts to remix the song with various engineers, but he wasn’t happy with any of those mixes. Eventually, in October ‘74, McCartney let an engineer named Alan O’Duffy have a crack at mixing it. And one of the things O’Duffy added was that phasing effect. And this was the mix that finally met McCartney’s approval. That phasing effect particularly stands out on the chorus.

This song has always seemed to have somewhat of an unusual structure, to me anyway. There are two verses, then the first chorus, and then a guitar solo. Then there are two more verses, two more choruses, a repeat of the intro, then two more verses; one is a repeat of the first verse; two final choruses, and the outro. But it always seemed to me that this guitar solo comes awfully early in the song. I would have expected it to come much later, but here it is, and it is a great guitar solo. It feels improvised. It was clearly done in one take; it’s a little rough around the edges, but it is so well-structured. It flows perfectly, and it’s melodic enough that you could sing it. It’s everything I want in a guitar solo. First, let’s hear the guitar track.

Now let’s hear that in context. And I always loved how McCartney calls out Jimmy by name before he starts to solo.

You get the feeling Paul was happy to show off his hot new guitar player.

That brings us to the third and fourth verses. The lyrics to the song don’t really mean anything. The chorus is just about McCartney’s desire to get out of the city and escape to his farm. The verses don’t really make any sense… they’re not supposed to. McCartney has written a number of songs filled with oddly impressionistic lyrics, and this is one of them. There’s the poker man, the Eskimo, and the sea lion from the first two verses. This time around, we hear about Parliament, the President. He also references Ollie Hardy– if you remember Laurel and Hardy, the comedy team who were around from the 1920s to the 1950s– and he mentions something about Hardy buying a Gee-Gee who jumped the fence. Gee-Gee is apparently British slang for a race horse.

Let’s bring up the vocals for these two verses.

That brings us back to the chorus. So let’s listen to that, and again, notice that phasing effect on the vocals.

They repeat the chorus again here. That leads into a repeat of the introduction. The first time around, we listened to just the guitars, so this time let’s hear what the bass and the drums are doing during this part.

Let’s hear the final mix, and notice how that phasing effect is applied to the guitars here.

McCartney’s adding in those “Ha”s again.

Let’s back out the vocals and listen to just the instrumental tracks. For this verse, Denny Laine’s guitar and Linda’s electric piano are primarily in the left channel, while Jimmy McCulloch’s guitar is leaned to the right, and it’s mixed quite a bit higher.

With the vocals in place, there’s one new verse, and then a repeat of the first verse, but this time with harmony vocals added.

Let’s hear just the vocals on that last verse and leading into the chorus.

And that closes out the body of the song and brings us into the outro– completely new part. This was a brand-new section that McCartney came up with in the studio as they recorded it. It was not worked out in advance.

They start to play a few notes of the intro– this time Paul doubles it on his bass– but then they hold a note and shift down to E minor in a dramatically different feel.

Okay, let’s examine a few things here, starting with the guitar part under this section.

And let’s listen to McCartney’s vocal here. This is his most intense vocal performance of the whole song. But before he lays into it, there’s a little bit of studio chatter that was left on the tape. Let’s hear all of that.

And Jimmy McCulloch gets in a few more nice bits before the song plays out. So let’s hear his guitar part.

Let’s put all those pieces back together and listen to the outro in full.

Wings – “Junior’s Farm”.

This lineup of Wings didn’t last long. After recording a handful of tracks in Tennessee, the band returned to England. The McCartneys headed to their High Park Farm in Scotland, where Paul could write some new songs. In late August, the band reconvened at Abbey Road to film a live-in-the-studio performance. Paul had a vision of releasing this as a television special that he wanted to call “One Hand Clapping”. But that footage remained unreleased until 2024.

The band began recording some new material in England in the fall, and then flew to New Orleans to work on what would become the “Venus And Mars” album. But after only a week, it was decided that Geoff Briton just wasn’t the right fit, and he was dismissed in January 1975… his tenure in Wings having lasted seven months.

Jimmy McCulloch was always a mercurial presence in the band; he was young, he was brash, and when he was under the influence of one substance or another, he could be pretty tough to deal with. But he was a brilliant player and a valuable contributor, so McCartney put up with it. But eventually it just became too much, and Jimmy was let go from Wings in August of 1977.

Jimmy would go on to join the reformed Small Faces, but that didn’t last long. There was a short-lived attempt to put a band together with Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy, but that fell apart quickly. He recorded one album with The Dukes, which had some promise… but on September 27, 1979, Jimmy McCulloch died from heart failure due to morphine and alcohol poisoning. He was just 26 years old.

Jimmy’s name never appears on the list of top guitarists from the 1970’s, but he’s always on my list of favorites. He could always be relied upon to deliver a concise, tasteful, memorable guitar solo. “Junior’s Farm” is a perfect example of that. I love Jimmy McCulloch’s playing.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I used a few different resources to put this episode together, including an article in Mix Magazine by Barbara Schultz, and especially the fantastic book “The McCartney Legacy, Volume 2” by Alan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair. Gotta give them all credit for their hard work, and I highly recommend that book for any hardcore McCartney fan.

New episodes of this show come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll meet you back here in about two weeks. If you’d like to support the show, you can head over to oldglory.com and buy yourself a T-shirt or some band merch. They have stuff in stock from all your favorite artists, including plenty of Beatles and McCartney stuff. So place an order and use our discount code “LoveThatSong” to save 15%. That’s oldglory.com, discount code LoveThatSong, save 15%, and you’ll be helping to support this show. So thanks.

You can communicate with us on Facebook, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song podcast”, you’ll find us. Or email us at lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.

Share this episode with your friends and family and help spread the word. I’ll see you back here next time. Now, let’s all head down to “Junior’s Farm” — everybody tag along. Take me down, Jimmy!

Welcome to the 200th episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. To mark the occasion, we’re celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Fender Precision Bass: the bass guitar that would revolutionize the role of the bass in all forms of popular music– Rock, Jazz, R&B, Country and beyond.

On this episode, I’m joined by Joe Branton (host of the “Guitar Nerds” podcast) to delve into the rich history of the electric bass, particularly the Fender Precision, which would have a profound impact on all the music we love.

Join us for this special milestone episode as we celebrate the legacy of the electric bass guitar and the vibrant community of bass players who continue to push the boundaries of music. Whether you’re a seasoned musician or a casual listener, this episode offers insights and stories that will resonate with anyone who appreciates the art of music.

WATCH THE VIDEO EPISODE HERE:

TRANSCRIPT:

Brad Page: Welcome once again to the I’m in Love with That Song podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page. We’re here on the Pantheon Podcast Network to bring you the 200th episode of this show. That’s right, this is our 200th edition of the I’m in Love with That Song podcast. So, of course, I thought we should do something a little different, something a little special for this auspicious occasion.

2026 also happens to be the 75th anniversary of the Fender Precision Bass guitar. That’s the instrument that would revolutionize the performance and the role of the bass in popular music. So, I thought we could celebrate our 200th episode with a salute to the bass guitar.

And if we’re going to feature the bass guitar, then we should have an expert join us on the show. And I can think of no one better to talk bass with than the marvelous Mr. Joe Branton. Joe is the bass player for the band Polymath, a fascinating prog-rock band from the UK, and he’s also the host of the Guitar Nerds podcast—an absolutely fantastic podcast that I am a huge fan of. Joe is well-versed in the history of the Fender Precision Bass and bass guitar in general, so he was the perfect guest for this show.

And to make this 200th episode even more special, I’m doing a video version of this show. It’s the first time ever. I will admit, Joe and I do get a little more geeky than I usually do on this podcast, but if you watch the video, you can see pictures and examples of what we’re talking about. So, anyone can follow along with this conversation; you don’t need to be a musician.

So, turn up the bottom end, and let’s rediscover the history of the bass guitar.

Brad Page: All right, Joe Branton, thank you so much for joining me here on the I’m in Love with That Song podcast to talk about the history of the Fender Precision Bass and electric bass in general.

Joe Branton: Well, thank you very much for having me, Brad. It’s an honor to be on your podcast, on the 200th episode, no less.

Brad Page: Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. So, the electric bass kind of had a lot of false starts. It really—the whole reason for its existence, really back in the day, was volume, right? Because it was an instrument that was very difficult to hear over drums and horns and all that stuff on the classic big band stage. Prior to that, we had what we called the double bass, right? Which most people would be familiar with. That’s the stand-up bass, an acoustic bass.

Joe Branton: Upright bass, yeah.

Brad Page: Right, upright bass. That was developed around the 1500s, I think. And it wasn’t until the 50s that we had a successful electric bass. But to get us there, Gibson had experimented with an electric upright bass in the 1920s. 1930s, Rickenbacker sold electric basses. There were a couple of other companies, but they just—they were not successful.

Joe Branton: Did you ever see the “Foot Bass”?

Brad Page: The Foot Bass? No, tell me about the Foot Bass.

Joe Branton: Imagine the body of an upright bass—so just that oversized cello, upright bass—sitting upright. Attached to it, maybe 10 or 15 foot pedals, all with strings attached to it. The idea was—it was invented in, I think, the late 40s, early 50s by a fellow who was in a one-man band. And the idea was to bring some of that, like a halfway house. I just remember that being at the time… and I know that’s not the electric bass, but those early 50s… they hadn’t decided yet how bands were going to work out, and that’s why it’s so amazing what ended up happening with the electric bass.

Brad Page: Right. And just all of this stuff—guitars and amplifiers—this was really the kind of the “Wild West” in terms of innovation and discovery and a lot of crazy inventions and a lot of failures to get us to the successes that we’re all super familiar with now.

One of the ones that fascinated me was a guy named Everett Hull, who invented a microphone that you would mount inside the stand-up bass on the peg. You know, you have the peg that sticks out of the bottom…

Joe Branton: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Page: …and that extends inside the instrument. And he created a microphone that would mount on that. And that was called the “Ampeg.” And that’s where we get the name of a brand that still exists today, Ampeg. But that’s how it literally started—with an “amp on a peg.”

Joe Branton: Oh, I love that story. I did not know that! That’s fantastic. That makes so much more sense now, and I love it.

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s great!

But none of these things were particularly successful until Fender—Leo Fender—comes out with the bass that he calls the Fender Precision in, I believe, October of 1951. Does that sound right?

Joe Branton: That’s right.

Brad Page: Let’s talk about why they called it the “Precision” in the first place.

Joe Branton: Well, it’s the first time that a bass had been fretted. Bass was not a fretted instrument prior to Leo Fender in 1951. I think it’s amazing. The electric guitar is something other people were really messing with; it kind of already existed by the time Leo Fender’s doing the Telecaster or the Broadcaster. All of those things are already there. He just made a really cool one, and then a load of really cool ones for various companies. But for bass, he actually invented a new type of instrument that changed how music was recorded. Bass was not fretted until October of 1951.

Brad Page: Yeah, that’s so important. A.) the fact that it’s the first fretted bass, and B.) the fact that it’s a bass that you played like a guitar. Because a lot of those earlier inventions that we just kind of talked through, those were primarily based on the stand-up model versus a bass that you would play like a guitar. And that was pretty revolutionary and fairly controversial at the time, too, because there were a lot of detractors who felt that it wasn’t, quote-unquote, a “real” bass because you didn’t play it standing up and it had frets and all of those things. So there was initial resistance to that.

Joe Branton: Yeah, it was an established instrument. Upright bass was established. That’s what the bass players did. So people who were trained upright bass players didn’t want to play electric bass. It didn’t work out so well; you only play with three fingers on an upright, so moving to a guitar style was tricky. And other companies didn’t buy into it. You mentioned Ampeg—Ampeg were still making upright basses until the early 70s. And you think of Ampeg… they were making basses that could be used as both. 1953, two years after Fender released the Precision Bass, Gibson is still there going, “I don’t think this is going to work,” and they released the EB-1, one of my favorite basses. The EB-1, a solid-body violin bass—looks like a Hofner bass, dear listener, but it’s actually solid. It can be played in this quirky modern way like a guitar, or it comes with a telescopic tailpiece so you can play it like an upright, meaning you get the precision of the frets, which they liked the idea of, but they’re like, “But bass players, you don’t want to relearn. Why not play upright?”

Brad Page: Right, exactly. So it was a really innovative move for Fender to come out with the Precision in 1951, and it took a little while to catch on. The original Fender Precision looked a little different than the one people may be familiar with today. It was actually based on the Telecaster design, but it was a double-cut, ash body, 20-fret maple neck, single-coil pickup, a 34-inch scale length—which was something that I understand took some development. I believe they tried 30, 32, 36-inch before they settled on the 34-inch. And if I remember correctly, it retailed for around $199 US dollars, which was still a lot of money back then. I think that equates to about $1,800 in today’s money.

Joe Branton: Really? Wow.

Brad Page: Yeah, so not an inexpensive proposition.

Joe Branton: The 34-inch scale that Fender went for is extra interesting as well, because, whilst today that is the industry standard—99% of electric basses are going to be a 34-inch scale—at the time, no one went with this. Not one company went with this for years. Everyone messed around with a 30-inch scale, like Burns were doing it right into the 60s, Gibson… what you call the “short scale” bass. That was the scale that the competition almost universally went with. Fender were the only ones going 34, and at that time for the bulk of the 50s… not really until that 1957 body switch for Fender where it became the Precision Bass we know today, not until then did other companies start catching on and mimicking the 34-inch scale. It was a complete anomaly.

Brad Page: It’s amazing that so many of the things that Fender settled on became the industry standard. He just got it right the first time.

Some of the early pioneers of playing the electric bass… there was a guy named Joel Price, who was a country player. Bob Manners, who played with Liberace, believe it or not, who had a TV show at the time in the U.S. So people would see the Fender bass on TV; that was good exposure for it.

Lionel Hampton, the jazz player, had a couple of key bass players in his band: Roy Johnson initially and then Monk Montgomery, who was the brother of legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. Monk Montgomery is one of the first pioneers of playing the electric bass under Lionel Hampton’s guidance or influence.

One of the first rock records to feature the electric bass was a band called The Treniers—a guy named Shifty Henry.

Joe Branton: Such a good name. That is pure 50s right there.

Brad Page: Played on a song called “Rock-a-Beatin’ Boogie” from 1953.

One of the, I think, forgotten pioneers of the electric bass was actually a woman named Joan Anderson, who played with a country band called Bill Peer and his Melody Boys and Girls, which also featured Patsy Cline before she went solo. It’s interesting; there were a couple of women playing electric bass very early on, written out of history unfortunately, as these things tend to happen.

You mentioned the Gibson EB-1, that’s their first stab at the electric bass, right, 1953?

Joe Branton: That’s right, yeah.

Brad Page: The Hofner bass comes out in 1956.

Joe Branton: Yeah, and again, another bass with a 30-inch scale. See, no one is going with Fender’s 34-inch scale at this point in time. It’s wild to think that it didn’t catch on, not really until the dawn of the 60s did people start copying it.

Brad Page: There was a British trade embargo against a lot of U.S. products from 1951 to 1959 that cut off your access to a lot of American brands, including the electric bass. So that was kind of Hofner’s “in,” I think, to the British market. They really didn’t have competition from Fender.

Joe Branton: Yeah, Hofner and Framus… Burns, for the UK companies, these were the things that we were playing. Rapier as a smaller brand that were existing over here. But yeah, those were the things people were playing. The P-Bass definitely took its time over here. I don’t think British music was especially exposed to it, really, until the 60s when you saw those trade embargos go away. But then you also saw the birth of soul, so you had like Stax and Motown Records. And then you’ve got Donald “Duck” Dunn, you’ve got James Jamerson… those two guys alone, they are like the P-Bass players. They’re the people that bring it to this whole new level. They essentially defined an entire genre by the sound of a Precision Bass with flat-wound strings. And I think at that point, probably more universally, it became accepted as the industry standard.

Brad Page: Right, right. And we’ll talk more about those guys as we get further along. I believe the first recorded electric bass solo was by a British band, The Shadows. Jet Harris, a song called “Nivram.”

Joe Branton: But he’d have been playing a Burns, one of his famous signature Shadows basses.

Brad Page: Right, that would have been 1961. Jet Harris was voted the NME Readers’ Poll number one solo instrumentalist in 1962, which is interesting for a bass player, right?

Joe Branton: Wow, that’s impressive.

Brad Page: Of course, around that time you started to have some of the things like what they would call the “Tic-Tac” bass that you’d hear on Duane Eddy songs like “Rebel Rouser.”

Joe Branton: The Bass VI, so you know, that sort of early 60s… of course, Gretsch had already introduced their version of the Bass VI by then, but the Fender Bass VI turned up in the 60s. Leo was always trying to work out where the bass would sit.

Brad Page: Yeah, let’s step back a little bit and talk a little bit more about the Precision Bass. In ’54, they introduced the contoured body, a little bit of a design change. I think that’s when the sunburst came out and the white pickup. And then in ’57… ’57, I believe, is when really the definitive look of what we think of when we think of a Precision today with that very distinctive pickup, the bridge, a different pickguard, larger headstock—all of that came about in ’57, I believe.

Joe Branton: That’s right. ’57 is when we got that. We didn’t get rosewood boards, though, until a little later, so we’re still on maple boards at that point. ’59, I think, for rosewood. So sort of ’57… that’s really quintessential: two-tone sunburst (not three-tone yet), gold anodized plate, great big baseball bat maple neck, and the new headstock. And that, of course, is, I guess, what we think of as a Precision Bass today. They moved away from that single-coil pickup towards the split-humbucking pickup.

Brad Page: Right. And then in March of 1960, they introduced the Jazz Bass, which I know you’re a big fan of the Jazz Bass. Why don’t you maybe explain to people what the difference is between a Precision and a Jazz Bass?

Joe Branton: Yeah, I guess they do look kind of similar from a layman’s perspective. The Jazz Bass was great because it was the first time Leo Fender really listened to people and listened to what people wanted from an instrument. The necks on P-Basses were obviously big and fat, so he decided to make a Jazz Bass neck very slender. It has a really aggressive taper, so the strings are very close together at the nut. The idea was making it more comfortable to play, faster to play. And instead of just having one pickup bang in the middle of the body—that’s what the P-Bass has, that split humbucker—you’ve got two single coils: one in the middle of the body (so you can still make a Jazz Bass sound like a P-Bass), but then you’ve got one wedged closer to the bridge. Two volume controls, so you can blend between them, and that’s when we really got those kind of honkier sounds coming out of bass. And certainly, I would say the 80s is defined by bridge pickups on Jazz Basses and that sort of thing. The body was different; it was offset to mimic the other instruments coming out at the time, the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar. Fender were going through their “offset Beach Boys” phase.

Brad Page: Yeah, define “offset” for the folks at home.

Joe Branton: Oh, of course. So, probably a slightly angled body. Rather than it being straight as you look at it standing up, think of it as being slightly off-kilter and extended in the lower bout and the upper horn.

Brad Page: Now you play both a P-Bass and a Jazz Bass. I know you’ve owned many basses over the years. What’s your personal preference?

Joe Branton: Oh… it’s… I have a Jazz Bass that, you know, I definitely end up using probably more than any other instrument. It’s probably been on more records I’ve ever recorded and done a few more tours than anything else. I love the versatility of a Jazz Bass; having those two pickups is fantastic. But I would never, ever choose it as my favorite. My favorite thing is a very, very simple Precision Bass with flat-wounds. If you just want to sound fantastic, then a P-Bass is the answer. And there is no world where I would ever choose a Jazz Bass over a P-Bass. If you asked me what was the best bass, it’s obviously a Precision Bass. Everything about a P-Bass seems to be spot on. He just got it right. That was the thing; he just got it right.

Brad Page: In ’61, Gibson introduced the EB-3, which is kind of now… was that short scale or long scale? I forget.

Joe Branton: Short scale. They did, at this time, for the first time ever, introduce a Fender-scale bass, so they introduced the EB-3L as well, but not initially. You can get very few 60s EB-3Ls; they more commonly appeared in the 70s. But of course, the EB-3, dear listener, was on an SG-type body shape—so a really small body—so the problem was when they started using 34-inch scale necks, the neck dive was horrendous. You would snap that bass in half as soon as you let go of it.

Brad Page: Yeah, neck-heavy, so once you let go of the neck, it would immediately drop to the ground. The Gibson Thunderbird comes out in ’63, and that’s a long scale, full scale, however you want to refer to it.

Joe Branton: Yeah, that’s right. Fantastic, fantastic bass.

Brad Page: Yeah, oh, I love them. And they just look super cool.

Joe Branton: They do. I can’t pull them off. You can’t wear them up high because they’re so wide. So, difficult for me, but I do love them objectively.

Brad Page: In ’65, Fender is purchased by CBS, which kind of changes things, and eventually, the CBS-era Fenders kind of have a bad rap, right?

Joe Branton: Yeah, yeah, they do. They weren’t the same. But I mean, they’re still fantastic instruments. It’s one of those things I think there’s more in the rumor than there is in the fact.

Brad Page: I would agree. I’ve owned a few 70s Fenders and Gibsons, and I think they’re perfectly great guitars.

In 1966, Ampeg released the AUB-1, which I believe was the first electric fretless.

Joe Branton: Yeah, I didn’t know that. First electric fretless… it is such a great, great bass.

Brad Page: Now, do you play fretless much?

Joe Branton: I do, yeah. Probably about a quarter of the time. I love it. I play upright as well; I’m trying to play upright more this year—I started lessons on that. I’d really like to play upright more. But I do have a couple of fretlesses. I always record bits and pieces on records. I love it as a more expressive instrument than a fretted bass. It’s just… you’ve got to find the right track where it’s applicable, I guess. The AUB-1 bass was incredible. The fact that it was… if you’ve never seen one, dear listener, it’s a solid bass with f-holes, like you get on a cello or an upright bass, but they go the whole way through the body. Which just looks amazing. They’re incredibly cool-looking, hard to come by, and expensive.

Brad Page: Yeah. Once we get into the 70s, then we start to see an explosion of kind of more… I don’t know if I would necessarily call them “boutiquey,” but more kind of customized, custom-type basses. Alembic in 1971… what were some of your favorite oddball 70s basses?

Joe Branton: Well, the 70s is a wonderful time because Japan steps into the ring in the 70s and kind of takes a little bit of that American dominance of the music instrument manufacturers. Sure, they take the bulk of the 70s to really get it right—the 80s is where Japan comes alive—but throughout the 70s you start to see kind of more things: Ibanez becomes a pretty big player; certainly towards the late 70s you get the Roadster, the Roadstar, the Musician. These are all fantastic basses, most of which offered fretted or fretless. They also started exploring things like ebony wood for fretboards, as well as using maple, which is great on fretless instruments. Stuff like that was fantastic. I think also a brand that we didn’t mention in the 60s, you had Silvertone, Danelectro, making fantastic Sears catalog guitars. Affordable but incredible in their own right, and they were doing their own thing on the bass front as well. But yeah, in the 70s, what would be my favorite sort of type of bass? It’s still so dominated by Fender at this point. The Fender Precision Bass is still absolutely king.

Brad Page: It’s the one to beat, right?

Joe Branton: Yeah, exactly. The problem is towards the late 70s, active circuitry arrives. And this will come into play more in the 80s, but people kind of fall out of love towards the end of the 70s with that classic Fender bass tone. They want something more aggressive, more sparkly, more clear, more clinical. And so they start cutting huge holes in the back of their, by today’s standards, very expensive vintage Fender basses, putting batteries and active preamps in them, and throwing away their, sort of now sought-after, original Fender pickups.

Brad Page: Right. And you’ve got, like we mentioned, Alembic. You look at some of those basses and they have six knobs and five switches and all kinds of extra stuff on there.

Joe Branton: This is it. This is it. And it becomes standard in the 80s. We start seeing active circuitry, so having a preamp where you’d have bass, middle, and treble controlled on the bass itself becomes kind of a standard. By this point, the Precision Bass and the Jazz Bass are sort of “old hat.” It’s why people were modifying them so much. They didn’t have—that time period didn’t look as lovingly back at the 50s and 60s as we do now. Bass gear was “old tech” to be discarded or modified.

Brad Page: It’s interesting how, you know, the closer we are to something, we tend to undervalue it as opposed to once something gets to be 20 years old, and that’s constantly rolling, right? Like now instruments and amps and stuff from the 90s are now, quote-unquote, “vintage.”

Joe Branton: The other big brand, I guess, that came into play, who really brought in an instrument that was a frontrunner along with Gibson, along with Fender, is Yamaha with the Broad Bass, or BB as they’re more commonly known. That occurred at this time, which was very much a Fender-style instrument. This used the same pickups—it was a PJ split, so you got a Jazz pickup and a Precision Bass pickup in the bulk of them. So it did a bit of both. The body shape is very similar, although original in its own right, and it’s a 34-inch scale, similar headstock tuners in the same place. This was Yamaha stepping in and offering something that was along the same lines as a Precision and a Jazz, but with that incredible Japanese build quality that was occurring around the 70s and 80s.

Brad Page: Yeah, a lot of those brands started out making exact copies that sort of got them in some legal trouble, right? But that was kind of their… they were doing knock-offs and then eventually evolved into coming up with their own designs and innovations, and some of those are some of the best instruments you can get from the time and still to this day, in a lot of ways, I think undervalued or underappreciated.

Joe Branton: Yeah, there are still a few things that I think you can… less and less… older things that maybe have… that you can pick up for a reasonable price that people haven’t quite caught on to the fact that they’re really good. What happens is that you get priced out of the 60s stuff. And so then those CBS-era Fenders that you poo-pooed 10 years ago, now suddenly they become desirable just because the sheer fact that nobody can afford those 60s models. Everything goes up in price and you find yourself priced out, and so you start to look at things like Ibanez and Yamaha and stuff that really people weren’t so attracted to. Now those things have value, too.

You look at one of the best brands for high-quality Fender copies—and this, dear listener, is if you’re not aware of them, this is a brand to look out for: Tokai. And what Tokai were turning out throughout the 80s was absolutely incredible, in both guitar and basses, in both Gibson copies and Fender copies. But their “Jazz Sound” bass was their Jazz Bass and their “Hard Puncher” was their Precision Bass, and they are every bit the quality that Fender were putting out at that time. But until recently, you could pick up a good old Tokai for the best part of probably about 500 quid over here, probably about $700 over your way. But now we’re seeing them go for 1,100 pounds, so that’s $1,500, $1,600 U.S. I assume it’s probably maybe a bit cheaper for you just because of proximity to Japan, but still, they’re no longer the cheap way in, so to speak. They’ll cost you real money now, too.

Brad Page: I used to play a few Fernandes guitars back in the 80s that, again, were great Fender knock-offs that in many cases played as good, if not better.

Joe Branton: Well, you know, look at Green Day. Billie Joe Armstrong, the guitarist from Green Day, his guitar that made their first few records is a Fernandes Strat copy. That speaks volumes for that brand. They were great.

Brad Page: Yeah. We also see the first five-strings in the 70s. So, innovation continues.

Joe Branton: That’s interesting. Five-string, I guess, started to become people wanting a low B. I’ve always favored a high C on a five-string. I like it that way around, but low B, I guess, became very popular. Certainly that worked moving forward because heavier genres, metal bands, they wanted those lower tunings. Five-string is perfect for that. It was also great for soul and anything like that that just needed that sort of low register.

Brad Page: As we get into the 80s, we see on one hand, a company like Steinberger who kind of reinvents the bass…

Joe Branton: I love him. Ned Steinberger—what an absolute hero. Few people can claim to have offered more original, working ideas and design to the electric guitar and bass. I think the man is an absolute genius. I’ve loved everything he’s ever done.

Brad Page: I mean, you can go to the NAMM show every year and find all kinds of crazy inventions, but so few of them catch on. But what he did actually, multiple times, has stuck around. They were innovations that were valuable and influential. And of course, the headless bass is probably the thing that most people identify with him.

Joe Branton: Small rectangular body, headless bass. He was exploring carbon fiber as a material. That in itself was revolutionary at the time. Two-way truss rods, I think he was the first for that. But the guy was an absolute genius; all the stuff was fantastic. Of course, Steinberger later got bought by Gibson, and the instruments became a little cheaper, made out of wood. They still had the essence, but he went on to found NS Design instead, which is his company to today.

Brad Page: And on kind of the other side of that, Fender launches the Squier brand in 1982, which is kind of their budget or entry, beginner, however you want to say it. But that made a true Fender-style guitar available at a price point for beginners, which… we always need people coming into the business and picking up guitar for the first time.

Joe Branton: Yeah, it was great. That was a real change for Fender because obviously Squier were introduced to combat Japan’s sort of lawsuit-era instruments coming from Tokai and Fernandez and people like that. Squier was made in Japan at the time initially, and the idea was that they would have those entry-level instruments to kind of have a company owned by Fender so Fender can make the money from the knock-offs rather than not making the money from them. But Squier’s still out there today and actually making some great instruments today. I would recommend a Squier Strat or Tele or P-Bass or whatever to anyone who’s looking to get started. They’re fantastic.

Brad Page: As time goes on, there’s sort of less and less new ground to explore, but there are still people doing some innovative things. What are some of your favorite things that you’ve seen in the last couple of decades?

Joe Branton: Well, one of the things that I thought was kind of the, I guess, a movement that I think was one of the most innovative was, in many ways, the least innovative because it was looking back. For the first time over the last 20 years or so, we’ve started to get the concept of reissues, which is fantastic for someone like me who loves traditional stuff and I’m not really into sort of modern concepts, fan frets, vaulted, whatnots. Like Ned Steinberger is as far as I go. Everything that happened after that… it’s too modern for me. But past this point, we got all these brands releasing stuff that looked like the old things, but maybe took away some of those weirder quirks, so they’d have working truss rods, the pickups wouldn’t be microphonic, maybe they’ve refined the neck a little bit so it’s actually comfortable to play—lots of little things like that.

And it was great seeing… I love brands like… we talked about the Ampeg bass earlier. Eastwood– fantastic brand for making affordable guitars inspired by old instruments. They do a version of the Ampeg bass. You couldn’t pick up an AUB-1 probably for less than maybe 8,000 pounds at the moment, certainly not over here. But you can, for about 600 quid, get the Eastwood copy. And I think that’s wonderful that people have access to that. And you had other brands like Vintage doing a similar thing. Squier introduced their “Classic Vibe” range, which meant that they were doing things not 100% accurate to specific years of Fender’s past, but general copies of stuff that sort of existed back then.

Brad Page: Just capturing the feel and, as they say, the “vibe” of those vintage instruments.

Joe Branton: Exactly, exactly. So for me, I love that that’s become a thing. More than lots of people have looked forward; there are lots of brands doing really creative modern stuff. There’s a brand called Meta Basses—unfortunately named just before Facebook rebranded, so difficult to search for them now. But they’re a little French company and they make instruments out of carbon fiber. Their shapes are so elegant and interesting and the build quality is so extremely high. I love things like that; I think they’re really interesting.

Brad Page: Let’s talk—and you touched on it earlier—but let’s talk about some of the important ambassadors of the bass over the years. Of course, James Jamerson, Motown legend, hugely influential across almost all genres in that his technique and style really influenced so many people that it influences people today who don’t even know that they’re influenced by James Jamerson, right? So many great bass parts. “For Once in My Life” is one of my favorites from James Jamerson.

Joe Branton: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you can’t speak about Jamerson without talking about Duck Dunn. In many ways, they were… I often think of them only probably in my head, but like as these two nemeses of Stax versus Motown. Like early soul and R&B, they were just so different, but so similar in the same at the same time. I love Booker T. and the M.G.’s; I love everything they’ve ever done. And hearing the Stax records that Dunn played on and the Motown records that Jamerson played on, they just brought this vibe, this ability to groove but also solo on the bass, which was so uncommon at the time. They brought like a mojo, just a coolness to the bass guitar that probably hadn’t existed before those two men.

Brad Page: Duck Dunn is very much a groove player. Not fancy, not a lot of fills and things like that, but just the groove is what he was all about. Just always in the pocket. Jamerson had all of that, but he also had the flourish, you know? He was a little bit more fancy, if you will. And then you have guys like Bob Babbitt, who was kind of the number two chair at Motown, who played on a lot of those records too. Jamerson gets so much of the credit—well deserved—but you also had Bob Babbitt playing as well. And at Stax, originally you had a guy named Louis Steinberg, who was there before Duck Dunn, who played on a lot of that early stuff as well. And then you’ve got players like Carol Kaye in the Wrecking Crew out in LA. That’s hugely influential.

Joe Branton: Absolutely. Yeah, that time period really we started seeing the first “bass heroes,” I guess.

Brad Page: Yeah, in all using the electric bass still at a time when I think studios in particular were more inclined to go to the upright bass. The electric bass I think was adopted quicker for live performance just because it was so much easier to cart around and more sturdy and more reliable, right? Like a travel instrument at that time rather than it being a serious one. Right, I think that’s how a lot of particularly studio guys looked at it like, “Okay, you can play your electric bass live, but when we’re in the studio, we’ll do a stand-up bass.” But Carol Kaye, Jamerson, Duck Dunn—people like that really brought… and there is a very distinct sound and feel to an electric bass that you don’t get from the stand-up that became the defining sound of particularly soul music, but rock as well. And then you’ve got Paul McCartney, who’s hugely influenced by James Jamerson, but kind of develops his own sound that becomes incredibly influential and is my personal favorite bass player. I love McCartney’s stuff.

Joe Branton: Yeah, he’s incredible. His melody work’s amazing. If you ever look at… I studied The Beatles at college when I was studying bass there, and it’s so funny seeing any of Paul McCartney’s basslines. The guitarist would get their music and it would be a couple of pages because, you know, it’s a verse and a chorus looped. But Paul McCartney just played a different thing the whole way through. There were no repeats; they are full compositions. He’s not playing the same thing every chorus or every verse; he’s walking with the melodies. Everything about it was just a unique way of looking at the bass as an instrument.

But I think we talk about it versus the double bass. Early Precision Bass was designed—early bass and the Precision Bass—they wanted it to emulate the upright. Flat-wound strings emulated the sound of an upright bass.

Brad Page: You had the mutes, right?

Joe Branton: Exactly. They weren’t even on springs on originals; they were just stuck in the bridge plate of P-Basses. The foam was just in there. The idea was you would only ever want that sound, and that was the sound. And it wasn’t really until 1966 when John Entwistle helped Rotosound develop round-wound strings. Round-wound strings for bass did not exist until then. And so you didn’t get that driven, rock and roll P-Bass tone. And who’d have thought those two things would meld so well together—a Precision Bass and round-wound strings? Before then, it’s kind of been a different sounding instrument. And that one change changed everything. And then the P-Bass became a rock and roll instrument, not a great alternative for a double bass if you’re traveling, but a great rock and roll instrument.

Brad Page: An instrument in and of itself, right? Unique. Exactly. Yeah, and Entwistle, I mean, is another one of my favorite bass players—just a monster player and very influential and his use of like bi-amping and things like that really had of his time with a lot of that stuff.

Joe Branton: Totally, totally. And he had Fender make him a slab-body Precision Bass. So the slab body of the original ’51, but with the appointments of a modern P-Bass, so the split humbucking pickup and the modern headstock. He had Fender make him one of those, which was the bass that he put the first sets of round-wounds on. That was the first instrument that got round-wounds. It was a P-Bass, not anything else, because he’s not especially known for P-Basses—he’s known for lots of weird things—but it was a P-Bass that he designed round-wounds for.

And you mentioned him, I think of Entwistle, Chris Squire, but then around this time you start getting these incredible sort of lead bass players thanks to round-wounds. And for me, the number one who was a P-Bass player with round-wounds who just played into a big stack—it was always driven and he just used the dynamics of his right hand for, you know, to keep things less driven sometimes—was John Wetton, the original bass player of King Crimson. Vocalist and bass player, everything he did was incredible. I think he brought King Crimson alive for me. All his lines are just incredibly interesting. And a lot of the time, Robert Fripp’s actually doing just weird stuff in the background, and so much of early Crimson is John Wetton soloing, doing lead lines, improvising. And so much of that improvisation is kept on the records, whether it’s in time or not, and I love him for that. I think he was brilliant.

Brad Page: It’s funny; he’s mostly, I think, people think of him as the vocalist, right? And he doesn’t get listed among the great bass players as often.

Joe Branton: Just go and listen to “Starless.” If you want to hear an incredible bass solo, go listen to “Starless.” That is John Wetton at his absolute best. And that’s a P-Bass.

Brad Page: Then you have the funk revolution where Larry Graham and the whole pop and slap kind of thing… Bootsy Collins, all of that stuff.

Joe Branton: Jazz Basses definitely become more popular around this time because they suit that style a little more. Still some P’s, totally, but like a lot of those players, you know, Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, they were on Jazzes.

Brad Page: Who are some of your other favorite bass players? People who you think, particularly maybe ones that don’t get enough recognition, who would you like to call out?

Joe Branton: My favorite bass player is a really obvious one, you know, for anyone who’s ever listened to my podcast, but it is Juan Alderete from The Mars Volta and Racer X as well. But he’s done countless other projects as well; he’s the bass player on most of Omar Rodríguez-López’s solo albums and a lot of his solo bands as well, which I think is where Juan does his best work. He had his own solo project called Vato Negro which you can barely find anywhere to listen to, but I think for interesting tones because he messes around a lot with effects, but also just for great lines, an incredible groove, and an ability to pin down the fundamentals of a band. When you’ve got a guitarist going crazy like Omar, the drummers that they worked with are normally very sort of crazy, chops drummers, and you’ve just got Juan Alderete there absolutely holding down the fundamentals and still keeping it interesting.

He was selling off a lot of his basses last year. He was actually, he was very sadly in a bike accident a few years ago and he was in a coma for a while. When he came out of that, he’s now cognitively impaired, and he was selling a lot of his bass collection in order to raise money for the continued sort of care that he now needs, which is very sad to have such an incredible bass legend have that occur to. But I managed to buy one of his fretless basses that he’d played on… it was actually, he sold a couple of basses that were on some of my favorite records and I didn’t quite get in quick enough to get some of those, which was a shame, but I did get his fretless Nordstrand Acinonyx, which is something he’d used. It was the first one made because Nordstrand made the fretless version of that bass for Juan because he was largely a fretless player. So it’s the first one of those. So I’m very happy to own… you know, he’s probably my biggest bass hero. So getting to own a bass owned and played by that man… that’s not something a lot of people get to do, so I’m very grateful for that.

Brad Page: Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Summing up sort of the history of bass, where do you think we’re going?

Joe Branton: Well, I think the great thing about bass is it still continues to look back as much as it looks forward. I think we have wonderful new innovations: active circuitry, fan frets, everything else that’s extended range, everything else that’s coming out. And that’s great; I love that modern people can get involved in bass in that regard. But it’s really nice to see there’s still loads of companies making great versions of the originals and those classic 50s and 60s basses that we revere so much. So I am just enjoying the… there seems to be a really good jazz and soul revival at the moment, and I’m seeing so many great melodic bass players playing old P-Basses or short scales with flat-wounds doing just really gorgeous, interesting melody work. So I’m really happy that that’s where bass seems to be going as an ensemble instrument that can offer a little bit more. So I hope that continues to be the case.

Brad Page: And in terms of where you are going in the future, of course, the Guitar Nerds podcast—one of my all-time favorite podcasts—that’s still rolling. Where’s the easiest place for people to find that?

Joe Branton: Well, yes, I mean, you can listen to the Guitar Nerds podcast wherever you get your podcasts, dear listener. So it’s available on all the streaming platforms. Don’t listen on Spotify—listen elsewhere, it’s much better. But you can listen to that wherever you get your podcast. You can check out any of the other stuff we do over on Instagram or Facebook. You can find us on Patreon, and there’s even a Discord if you want to get super nerdy.

Brad Page: And your band Polymath? Do you have new material coming out? I know you’ve got a tour coming up this spring in the UK or Europe?

Joe Branton: Yeah, that’s right. We’re doing—we’ve got about three weeks in Europe and the UK, and we’ve got a new album coming out around then that’s being put out by an American record label called The Lasers Edge, who are this fantastic prog label. We were really happy to get picked up by them, actually. So they’re putting out our new album, Something Deeply Hidden. But yeah, that’s—it’s a great record for interesting instrumental prog that’s largely inspired by like Ethiopian jazz. But heavy-ish.

Brad Page: All right, Joe Branton, it’s a pleasure to talk to you, to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your bass expertise with us.

Joe Branton: It’s been wonderful to be on the podcast. Thanks so much, Brad. It’s been a lot of fun talking about the best bass in the world: the Fender Precision Bass.

Brad Page: Yes, sir. Thank you, Joe. Take care.

Brad Page: There you go. That’s our celebration of the bass guitar and our 200th episode. Thanks to Joe Branton for joining us for this episode. If you’re a guitar player or a bass player and you’ve never listened to the Guitar Nerds podcast, please make sure you do; I highly recommend it.

This podcast will be back in about two weeks with another new episode. You can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, Lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us in your favorite podcast app. If you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it. Share it with your friends and family. The word-of-mouth support from people like you is worth more than any advertising or sponsorship, so thank you.

Let’s close out this episode with something from Joe Branton’s band, Polymath. This is the title cut from their current EP; it’s a track called “The Halting Problem.” And I will see you next time.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Fender Precision Bass:
https://www.fender.com

Joe Branton:
https://www.instagram.com/yoseph900

Guitar Nerds Podcast
https://www.guitarnerds.net

Polymath
https://www.poly-math.net

Alembic:
https://www.alembicguitars.com/

Ampeg
https://www.ampeg.com

Gibson:
https://www.gibson.com/collections/shop-all-gibson-bass-guitars

Hofner basses:
https://www.hofner.com/en/

Ibanez
https://www.ibanez.com

Meta Guitars:
https://metaguitars.fr/basses/

Rickenbacker
https://www.rickenbacker.com

Squier bass guitars:
https://www.fender.com/collections/squier-electric-basses

Tokai:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai_Gakki

Yamaha:
https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/index.html

As Mardi Gras approaches, what better way to celebrate than by diving into the rich musical heritage of one of New Orleans’ favorite sons? In this week’s episode, we explore one of the city’s most iconic musicians, Dr. John, and his classic track, “I Walk on Gilded Splinters“. Released in 1968, this song is a perfect example of the unique blend of voodoo culture and psychedelic sound that characterizes Dr. John’s early work.

“I Walk on Gilded Splinters” is a mesmerizing track that runs over seven and a half minutes long, inviting listeners into a hypnotic soundscape and creates an immersive atmosphere that reflects the voodoo rituals Dr. John was inspired by. The lyrics are steeped in Creole culture, featuring references to voodoo spirits and the vibrant life of New Orleans.

So, whether you’re preparing for Mardi Gras festivities or simply curious about this spellbinding track, tune in to this episode and immerse yourself in the captivating world of Dr. John, The Night Tripper.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, part of the Pantheon family of podcasts. I’m Brad Page, your host and each episode, I dive into my record collection and come up with one of my favorite songs for us to explore here on the podcast. Don’t worry if you’re not a musician, because we don’t get deep into music theory or technical jargon here. We’re just gonna listen closely to discover what makes these songs great.

This is Mardi Gras season this year, Mardi Gras is coming up in a few days. So I thought this year, we’d celebrate by exploring one of my favorite songs by New Orleans’ favorite son, Dr. John, from his very first album back in 1968– a classic track called “I Walk On Guilded Splinters”.

Malcolm “Mac” Rebennak Jr. was born in New Orleans in November 1941. He grew up with music all around him, a musical family in a music musical city. It’s no surprise he fell in love with the local music scene. Mac initially picked up the guitar, because there were so many great piano players in New Orleans that he figured he’d have a better chance getting gigs if he was a guitar player.

He started working young. He was about 12 years old when he started playing gigs, and soon he was playing on sessions in the studio. Working with older musicians was a great learning experience, but he also picked up some pretty bad habits. By the time he was in his teens, he was using heroin.

He did a lot of session work for Cosimo Matasa, the legendary producer. And Mac was writing songs too.

On Christmas Eve 1961, Mac tried to break up a fight. But when a gun went off, Mac almost lost a finger on his left hand. Until it healed, he couldn’t really play guitar, so he switched to playing piano– the instrument he’d eventually become famous for.

Many of the New Orleans musicians Mac had been working with ended up in Los Angeles, playing on sessions with the legendary Wrecking Crew. After a short stint in Angola prison, Mac followed them to LA and started doing a lot of session work himself. He played on tons of records during this period, but frankly, he didn’t like most of the songs he was playing on. He just didn’t care much for pop music at all.

It was around this time that he came up with the character of “Dr. John”. He based his Dr. John Persona on a real-life character named Bayou John Montaigne, who supposedly taught voodoo to Marie Laveau.

So, he created this figure of “Dr. John, The Night Tripper” voodoo doctor, with a whole theatrical stage presentation, mixing voodoo ritual, stage magic, Mardi Gras spectacle, and of course, performed by authentic New Orleans musicians.

He assembled the former New Orleans musicians now living in LA, and they cut an album steeped in the sounds and rhythms of New Orleans, but with its own unique approach, bordering on psychedelic. Some of the songs were versions of old traditional numbers, others were new compositions. Some were based on actual voodoo ceremonial melodies. The album was given the name “Gris Gris”, a kind of a ritual object, a lucky charm or totem, and it was released in January 1968. It still remains one of the most mysterious, spooky records I’ve ever heard.

It was produced by Harold Batiste and performed by Dr. John on vocals, keyboards and percussion; Harold Batiste on bass and clarinet and percussion, Richard “Dr. Ditmus” Washington also on percussion; Bob West on bass, John Boudreaux on drums; Plas Johnson on saxophone; Louis Boulden on flute; Steve Mann on slide guitar and banjo; Dr. McLean on guitar and mandolin, Mo Pedido on congas and Dave Dixon, Jesse Hill, Ronnie Baron, Johnny Jones, Prince, Ella Johnson, Shirley Goodman, Sonny Race Durden and Tammy Lynn on backing vocals.

One quick note before we get started: this song at over seven and a half minutes long, is longer than most of the songs we cover on this show. And much of it is about setting a mood, creating an atmosphere. So there are some long stretches, but we’ll work our way through it. It’ll be worth it, because this is such a great track.

It begins with the bass guitar, some percussion and, quieter in the mix, an acoustic guitar played with a slide. And all of this is primarily in the left channel.

And Dr. John is going to join in with the first verse. You know it’s him right away. Even back then on his very first album, he had one of the most distinctive voices you’ll ever hear.

The song is steeped in New Orleans voodoo culture. Dr. John based it on a song he had heard sung by voodoo practitioners. And so we’ll hear a lot of voodoo terms and vocabulary, along with that Cajun French unfamiliar to many of us outside of Louisiana. Let’s hear the doctor’s vocal track.

In the lyrics, he mentions “Le Grand Zombie”, which is a reference to a powerful serpent spirit. Serpents are believed to hold unspoken knowledge, and voodoo devotees communicate with the spirit world through them. You also hear him refer to “The King of the Zulu”. King of the Zulu is the central figure in the Mardi Gras parade. And as for the song title, “Gilded Splinters”, according to some, gilded splinters are the points of a planet, related to astrology. However, Dr. John himself said that in the original song, they sung of “gilded splendors”, but he changed it to “splinters” because he just liked the sound, and the visual, of gilded splinters.

The chant like vocals of the backing singers are panned to the right channel. The stereo mix of this track is somewhat unusual, with all of the instruments panned either hard left or hard right. The only thing in the center is Dr. John’s lead vocal. So, in the left channel, you’ve got the traditional drum kit, the congas, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, a couple of saxophones. Then in the right channel, you have the backing vocals, snapping fingers and hand claps, and a talking drum. More on that in a bit.

The backing vocals are followed by that melody played on a soprano saxophone and doubled on the bass guitar. The melody reminds me of a snake charmer, like you’d hear in one of those old movies.

Now, I used to think they’re singing “Till I burn up” during that part. But what they’re actually singing is “Tell Alberta”. Dr. John had spent two years in prison when he was young on a drug charge. Apparently, whether it was the prison he was in or a story he was told about another prison, one of the jail blocks was named “Alberta”. And sometimes the inmates would pass information, send signals between blocks, by calling out and echoing the message from block to block. And you can visualize that just by listening to the performance. Dr. John calls out, “Tell Alberta”. And then the backing singers repeat the message, one by one, and we can hear it as the message travels further down the line.

I like how he stutters as he says he can make you stutter, emphasizing the point.

Next, as they chant the chorus, they preface it with some unfamiliar phrases to those of us outside of Creole culture. The expressions “con boonay”, “kili” and “con con” are actually Creole terms for grilled corn, coffee and molasses. It may seem odd to be singing about food in a song like this, but, as in many cultures, preparing and eating food is part of ritual and celebration.

And another iteration of the “Tell Alberta” call.

Here, he references Coco Robicheaux, a character from New Orleans legend: a child abducted by a werewolf. There was a well-known Louisiana musician who adopted the name Coco Robicheaux, and supposedly he was a friend of Dr. John’s. But most likely, in the context of this song, it’s referring to that old legend, not to a contemporary musician.

He’s inviting you down to his soiree. You, your mammy, your cousin. Bring the whole family.

The backing singers get louder in the right channel as Dr. John vamps over the top. Notice the baritone sax in the left channel, playing low droning notes.

The repetition of the chant and the groove. This is essentially a one-chord song, a drone, and at a somewhat slow pace; the track clocks in at around 90 beats per minute. The combination of the tempo, the drone and the repetition make this song quite hypnotic. The song has been referred to as “voodoo psychedelia” and you can certainly feel that.

Most of the instruments are playing repeated patterns, but the talking drum in the right channel is pretty freely improvising, I think. The talking drum is a West African instrument, sort of hourglass-shaped, with drum heads on both ends. You change the pitch of the drum by squeezing it in the middle. It’s an instrument that dates back to the 18th century.

There’s an electric guitar in here now, playing a simple accent chord.

We we’re about five minutes deep into this track, and here it takes a bit of a break for a conga solo, which is still primarily in the left channel.

Then the “Tell Alberta” call and response returns. And here, with only the percussion playing, you can really hear the spatial presence of the vocals. Dr. John is front and center as if we’re in the cell block with him. And as he calls out, we can hear the next voices echo his call, each one sounding a little further away as the call is relayed throughout the prison. It’s like a mini audio play.

And the chorus chant returns, as does the snake charmer melody. And then the band chimes back in.

For the last minute or so of the track, it doesn’t fade out in the traditional sense. The band gets quieter, and maybe more distant, as the vocals are first reduced to a whisper, and eventually just wordless vocalizations, whistles, grunts, noises. The song doesn’t end so much as it dissipates like smoke.

Dr. John, The Night Tripper – “I Walk On Guilded Splinters”

The album was not commercially successful when it was released; it didn’t make the charts in the US or the UK, but over time it has earned a reputation as an essential, important album, frequently turning up on lists of the greatest albums of all time. It’s a one-of-a-kind album in terms of the songs on it and the way it sounds. There is simply nothing else like this album.

Dr. John, Mac Rebennack, would go on to have a long career. He recorded a ton of albums. Many of them, I think, are classic. He lived with heroin addiction for decades. It’s a miracle he survived, really. But in 1989, he finally got clean.

He consistently released albums from the late ’60s up through 2014. He had a little bit of a renaissance in 2012 when he recorded an album with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys called “Locked Down”.

On June 6, 2019, Mac Rebennak passed away from a heart attack. He was 77 years old.

I hope you enjoyed this taste of New Orleans, Creole culture and a little voodoo on the side. New episodes of this podcast are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so the next edition will be heading your way soon. Until then, there are almost 200 other episodes of this show waiting for you to discover, so feel free to check out any of those past episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find them on your favorite podcast app. Communicate with us on Facebook, or send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.

And if you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell a friend about it– Share it with your friends and family. The more listeners, the better.

However you choose to celebrate Mardi Gras this year, please do it safely. And on behalf of everyone on the Pantheon Podcast Network, “Laissez les bons temps rouler”. Now, go get some gumbo and crank up some Dr. John.

In this episode, we pay homage to the legendary Curtis Mayfield, a pivotal figure often overlooked in discussions about the great artists of the ’60s and ’70s. Join us as we explore his poignant track “Hard Times” from the album There’s No Place Like America Today. We delve into the rich history of his career, from his early days with The Impressions to his groundbreaking solo work that tackled social and political issues head-on.

We uncover the intricate layers of this slow-burning groove, highlighting the subtle interplay of instruments and the emotional depth of Mayfield’s lyrics. As we navigate through the song’s haunting themes of love, fear, and societal struggles, you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for Mayfield’s artistry and the timeless relevance of his message. Tune in for an insightful journey into the life and music of a true musical genius.

TRANSCRIPT:

People, get ready– The “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast is coming! My name is Brad Page, thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we take the time to listen– really listen– to uncover little elements, those special moments that turn a good song into a great one. Musical expertise is not a prerequisite here; you don’t have to know anything about music theory or understand a lot of technical jargon. We’re just going to put our ears to work and discover what’s been right there all along.

On this edition of the podcast, we’re going to be exploring a track by one of the most important figures in music history. When people list the important black artists of the 60’s and 70’s, you often hear musical geniuses like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Michael Jackson and Prince… but there’s one name that often gets overlooked: Curtis Mayfield.

Well, on this episode, we’re going to pay tribute to this musical genius by listening to Curtis Mayfield and a song called “Hard Times”.

Curtis Mayfield was born in Chicago in June 1942. When he was around 8 years old, he stumbled across a guitar shoved in the back of a closet and that was it. He’d already been singing in church and noodling around on piano, but man, when he found that guitar, he really fell in love. It set the direction for the rest of his life, really.

When he played piano, he liked to use the black keys, which meant that he was mostly playing in the key of F#. So when he taught himself to play guitar– and he was entirely self-taught– he transferred that to the guitar, and created his own F# tuning on guitar, which gave him a sound unlike anyone else.

He dropped out of school when he was 16 and joined a local group called The Roosters. Eventually they changed their name to The Impressions. Their first hit was “For Your Precious Love” in 1958, featuring the vocals of Jerry Butler, the band leader.

That taste of success was enough to inspire Butler to go solo, so he left and Curtis took over The Impressions. In 1961, with Curtis at the helm, The Impressions had a hit with “Gypsy Woman”. Their next big hit was in 1963 with “It’s All Right”.

Under Mayfield’s direction, they developed their unique harmonies centered around Mayfield’s falsetto vocals, as exemplified with their 1964 hit “I’m So Proud”.

But Curtis had more on his mind beyond love and romance. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Curtis Mayfield was a black man living in America in the 1960’s, and he wasn’t just a witness to what was going on– he was part of it. He was living it. And he had things to say.

For all that was great about Motown, they stayed decidedly away from politics; and Stax Records, even though they were integrated and in that sense, more progressive than most, they largely avoided the subject at the time. The fact that they were located in Memphis probably meant it was safer if they didn’t.

But Curtis had no such reservations. They released “Keep On Pushing” in 1964, one of the first pop songs to directly address civil rights.

That was followed by “People Get Ready” in 1965. By any measure, one of the most significant singles ever released. It reached number three on the R&B charts, number 14 on the Top 100 chart. Martin Luther King considered it the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement. It’s been covered dozens of times, by everyone from The Staple Singers to Bob Dylan, from Bob Marley to Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck. It’s a song that still inspires today.

“People Get Ready” was also the first time that Mayfield’s guitar was prominently featured on a track.

Curtis continued to write songs addressing the social and political environment, particularly from the black perspective. His lyrics could be pointed, but the music was always subtle, gentle and encouraging. He might have been angry– God knows there’s plenty to be angry about– but the music was rarely delivered in anger.

In 1968, he launched his own record label with manager Eddie Thomas called Curom Records. Finally, he was able to control his own recording and publishing, something very few artists, black or white, were able to do. In 1968, he released his first solo album, simply titled “Curtis”, in 1970. It is a great record, including at least two classics: “Move On Up” and “Don’t Worry If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go”. Listen to the fuzz bass on this track.

Two more albums followed in 1971, and then in 1972, he got the job to create the soundtrack to “Superfly”.

Mayfield’s soundtrack is simply iconic. Along with Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”, it defined the sound of this era of filmmaking. The thing is, Curtis wasn’t really a fan of the movie, at least not the message. Where the film “Superfly” in some ways glorifies drug dealers, Curtis wanted none of that; he was not interested in promoting that. So, with the “Superfly” soundtrack, you have these songs that are, in essence, commenting on the actions and the characters in the film, with Curtis giving his point of view, which often is in opposition to the images on the screen. It all makes for, I think, one of the most interesting and unique soundtracks ever recorded. Along with the title cut, the album also features a few other classics like “Pusher Man” and “Freddy’s Dead”.

The success of the “Superfly” album, and the album literally outsold the movie, that success ushered in a second career for Mayfield, writing and recording for films, and he would release a handful of other soundtracks, working with Gladys Knight, the Staples Singers and Aretha Franklin.

And he would continue recording solo albums. “Back To Whe World” came out in 1973, “Sweet Exorcist” and “Got To Find A Way” in 1974, and 1975’s “There’s No Place Like America Today”. That’s the album we’re visiting on this episode.

“There’s No Place Like America Today” was Mayfield’s seventh studio album. Curtis was wrestling with his own depression, not to mention the troubling situations in America at the time… I guess some things never change. This is Mayfield’s State of the Union album, and it’s sobering. Death, poverty, sadness all make their way into these songs, but so does love and romance, faith and hope. Its ‘one of my favorite Curtis Mayfield albums… in fact, maybe it is my favorite.

The song we’re digging into in this episode is “Hard Times”. It’s the second-to-last song on the album.

The album was produced by Curtis, and features Gary Thompson and Phil Upchurch on guitars, Rich Tufo on keyboards, Harold Dessent on woodwinds, Joseph “Lucky” Scott on bass, Quinton Joseph on drums, Henry Gibson on percussion, and Curtis Mayfield on vocals, guitar and keyboards.

“Hard Times”, like all of the songs on the album, was written by Curtis Mayfield. And like most of the tracks on this album, it’s a slow burn. Doesn’t come on strong, but the groove is insistent. The song kicks off with a single hit on the hi-hat and then the band launches into the groove.

Let’s explore this groove a little bit. Let’s start with the bass, drums and percussion. You can hear that the drums are recorded quite dry, not much for reverb or room sound on them. And that makes for a very intimate and maybe even a little claustrophobic sound.

Now let’s hear the guitars. I’m just making a guess here, but I think we’re hearing Curtis and Gary Thompson on rhythm guitars and it’s Phil Upchurch playing some lead lines in the left channel, using a wah-wah pedal to get that classic sound.

Alright, lets go back to the top.

At this point, there’s a subtle shift in the groove, and the guitar solo comes a little more forward. Focus on those tasty licks.

That leads us to the first verse. You’ll hear multiple vocals; all the voices are Curtis overdubbed.

I really like that little instrumental break there. Here comes the second verse, and Curtis is really laying it out here. You can feel his depression and paranoia in these lyrics. “I’m afraid to come outside; although I’m filled with love I’m afraid they’ll hurt my pride, so I play the part I feel they want of me, and I’ll pull the shades so I won’t see them seeing me.”

Nice guitar lick there. There’s more tasty guitar playing coming up. It’s in the left channel, but let’s see if we can bring it to the center and up the volume a bit.

That brings us to the third and final verse. Just a classic Curtis Mayfield vocal on this track. You can really feel the emotion in his voice.

For this chorus, let’s hear what the band is doing underneath the vocals. The interplay between the bass and the drums, it’s great.

Let’s pick it up from there through the chorus.

And the track will slowly fade out. Riding out on the groove.

Curtis Mayfield – “Hard Times”

As I said at the beginning, when people mention the important black artists of the late 60’s and 70’s, it’s usually names like James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Prince; Curtis Mayfield is often left off the list, but he stands toe-to-toe with any of the important artists of that period.

Curtis would continue to release albums through the 70’s and the 80’s, as well as doing concert tours… and it was at a concert in Brooklyn, New York, on August 13, 1990– an outdoor show at Wingate Field,– when a storm was brewing. And just as Curtis’s name was announced and he headed for the stage, a massive gust of wind hit the lighting trusses. Lights came crashing down, injuring half a dozen people. And Curtis, Curtis was struck in the back of his neck, breaking his third, fourth and fifth vertebrae. Curtis was permanently paralyzed from the neck down. He’d never play guitar again. He was 48 years old.

Being paralyzed made breathing difficult, which made it almost impossible for him to sing. But Curtis didn’t give up. In 1996, six years after the accident, he released one final album titled “New World Order”. Recording it was painstaking and arduous. He discovered that if he laid on his back, gravity would help him to exhale, just enough to be able to sing one line at a time.

And so slowly, a line at a time, he was able to record his vocals for this last album.

Curtis’ health declined, and in December 1999, the day after Christmas, Curtis passed away. He was 57.

Rolling Stone magazine referred to him as “the gentle genius”. That’s as good as any way to describe the great Curtis Mayfield.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the podcast. As always, we’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. All of our previous shows are available on our website, and we’re creeping up on 200 episodes, so there’s plenty of them to be discovered. You can listen on the website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find the shows on your favorite podcast app.

You can keep in touch with us on Facebook, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast and you’ll find us there. Or send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.

Support the show by sharing it with your friends and family. And if you’d like to go one step further, then head over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or some band merch from your favorite artist. Old Glory has tons of great stuff, and if you use our discount code, lovethatsong, you’ll save 15% and you’ll be supporting this show. That’s oldglory.com , Discount code is lovethatsong– get some cool merch, save some money, and support the show. Thanks.

On behalf of Pantheon Podcasts, where fans belong, I thank everyone for listening. Now it’s time for you to rediscover some of the great Curtis Mayfield records. So go listen, and I’ll meet you back here next time.

Dive into the world of Blue Oyster Cult with our latest episode, where we explore their fan-favorite track, “Transmaniacon MC” from their debut album. Discover the band’s history, the creative minds behind their lyrics, and the unique sound that defined them as the “Thinking Man’s Heavy Metal Band.” Curious about the story behind their enigmatic lyrics? Tune in now.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back, all you veterans of the Psychic Wars, this is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast and I’m your host, Brad Page. Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where each episode, I pick a song from my extensive library of favorites and we listen to it together, listening for all the little moments, those special touches that make it a great song. No musical knowledge or experience is ever required here. This is a show for everybody– all you need is a love for music and you’ll be right at home here.

On this edition of the podcast, we’re gonna climb into our hard-rockin’ Wayback Machine and set the dial for 1972, and explore a track from the debut album of the band that was known as the “Thinking Man’s Heavy Metal Band.” This is Blue Oyster Cult with “Transmaniacon MC.”

This is our second time visiting Blue Oyster Cult; we covered their classic track “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on one of our Halloween episodes a while back, I believe that was episode number 90. It’s one of my favorite episodes of the podcast, actually, so if you haven’t heard that one, go back and listen to it. It’s a good one.

The band that would become Blue Oyster Cult came together in New York in the late 60’s. Albert Bouchard was a multi-instrumentalist, but it was as a drummer that he first hooked up with a guitarist named Donald Roeser. They formed a band called Soft White Underbelly. Soon after, Alan Lanier joined them on Keyboards, and they also made two other key connections, Sandy Perlman and Richard Meltzer. Meltzer was a music critic and a writer who would write lyrics and poems that would become some of the classic Blue Oyster Cult songs. Perlman also wrote a ton of lyrics for the band, and he would also become their manager and record producer.

Along with Meltzer and Perlman, other literary figures would contribute lyrics, including Michael Moorcock and the great Patti Smith. It’s the contribution of these writers that earned Blue Oyster Cult the reputation as the “Thinking Man’s Metal Band”. Of course, at this point, they weren’t quite Blue Oyster Cult just yet.

Still working under the name Soft White Underbelly, with bassist Andy Winters and a lead vocalist named Les Bronstein, they recorded an album for Elektra Records. But that album was never released. Eventually, Eric Bloom was brought in to replace Bronstein on vocals and guitar. And the final piece of the puzzle came into place when Albert’s brother Joe Bouchard replaced Winters on bass.

A few more band name changes happened too. They were the Stock Forest Group for a while, and the Santos Sisters… and another recording session took place again for Elektra Records, but that also failed to be released. This was a band that was at a dead end.

Up until this time, their sound was more of a jammy, psychedelic, San Francisco, almost Grateful Dead kind of thing. But by 1971, change was necessary.

Murray Krugman was a project manager and an A & R guy at Columbia Records. Capitol Records was having success with Grand Funk Railroad, and Black Sabbath was making a lot of waves over at Warner Bros. And Columbia, well, they wanted a piece of that action. They were looking for a band that would be Columbia’s answer to Black Sabbath.

Murray Krugman told the band, if they could work up some new material that was dark and mysterious and heavy, then he could get them a record deal at Columbia. So, along with another name change– Perlman was the one who came up with the name Blue Oyster Cult– they retooled their sound into a harder rock sound. Really, it’s not nearly as heavy as Black Sabbath, but it rocked hard enough. And with their enigmatic foreboding lyrics, Columbia Records signed them up.

The first Blue Oyster Cult album, simply titled “Blue Oyster Cult”, was released in January 1972. It was produced by Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman and David Lucas.

“Transmaniacon MC” would be the first sound the world would ever hear from Blue Oyster Cult. It’s the song that opens the the album: Side one, track one. It features Donald Roeser on lead guitar; Perlman would give Roser the nickname “Buck Dharma”, and that nickname has stuck right up till today. Alan Lanier is on keyboards, Albert Bouchard on drums, Joe Bouchard on bass, and Eric Bloom on rhythm guitar and lead vocal. The song was written by Eric Bloom, Albert Bouchard, Donald Roser and Sandy Perlman.

The lyrics are pretty much all Perlman. It’s one of his sci fi conspiracy epics. He loved that kind of thing. He envisioned a story where the disastrous Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California in 1969 was masterminded by a secretive evil motorcycle club called the “Transmaniacon MC”. MC stood for Motorcycle club. In Perlman’s story, the Transmaniacon MC were behind the violence and murder at that show. And this song was supposed to be their theme song. It was their club song, the song that they would sing before they rode off to create more chaos and terror.

Like all great hard rock songs, the track kicks off with a great guitar riff. Let’s hear the guitar and the bass.

Notice on the second half of the riff that the bass doubles the guitar part. After playing that riff twice, they launch into the verse riff.

Let’s go back to the top and play it through.

Here’s where Eric Bloom comes in with the first verse. His voice is kind of punky here. As time went on, he developed a lot as a vocalist, but here he still got some of that garage-rock edge.

You can hear the reference to Altamont there as Sandy. Pearlman’s lyrics paint the picture of this fictional motorcycle gang out for violence. Remember that this track was released in January ’72, recorded sometime in 1971; the Altamont concert was in December of ‘69. So the memory of this tragedy was still fresh when the song was written and recorded.

They return to that chromatic riff and then begin the second verse. Let’s listen to what Alan Lanier is doing on the keyboards here underneath this verse. It’s mixed fairly low in the final mix, but he’s got both an organ part and a piano part going on here. So let’s hear some of that.

Okay, now let’s go back and hear that in context of the full second verse.

I want to go back and listen to what the Bouchard brothers, Joe on bass and Albert on drums, are playing during the chorus.

After the chorus, they return to the riff. And then there’s a guitar break courtesy of Buck Dharma.

Nice little bass guitar fill there from Joe Bouchard. Let’s pick it up. Leading into the third verse.

Here, they’re going to pull back, bring the dynamics down before the big conclusion.

Let’s go back and listen to Alan Lanier’s piano part in the right channel.

And now let’s back it up and hear that again in the mix.

And they return to the intro riff.

What’s Eric Bloom saying? There’s well, I can isolate it for you, but I’m not sure it’s gonna make much more sense. Something about a “wheelie”, I guess. Let’s play it through to the end.

Blue Oyster Cult – “Transmaniacon MC”

This was the first of a long run of Blue Oyster Cult albums, and of course they evolved over the years. For some fans, those first three albums are considered their best. Of those three, my personal favorite is the third album, “Secret Treaties”. But I also like a lot of their mid-period stuff and it’s hard to deny how great the “Agents of Fortune” album is; that’s one of my favorites.

Alan Lanier passed away in 2013, but at the time of this recording, the other original members are still with us, and there’s a version of Blue Oyster Cult that’s still out on the road today.

Thanks for hanging in there with me for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes of this show come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll meet you back here soon. You can catch up on all the previous episodes of this show on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or listen to them on your favorite podcast app. We’re on Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, PocketCast, iHeartRadio… ou can listen to us everywhere fine podcasts can be found. And while you’re there, please leave us a nice review.

If you’d like to support this show, please spread the word about it and share it with your friends and family, because recommendations from listeners like you are the number one way podcasts like this grow.

You can also support this show by buying a T shirt or some band merch from oldglory.com. They carry official band merch from all your favorite artists, and if you use our discount code lovethatsong, you’re going to save 15% and you’ll be helping to support this podcast. That’s oldglory.com with the discount code LoveThatSong. Thanks.

Once again. I am Brad Page, and this is the Pantheon Podcast Network where fans belong. Now go explore that great catalog of Blue Oyster Cult, and join us again next time here on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast.

Join us as we kick off 2026 with a celebration of one of America’s most electrifying party bands, The J. Geils Band! This episode dives deep into the infectious “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party,” a party anthem that perfectly encapsulates the essence of a good time. We explore the band’s origins, looking at how the J. Geils Band blended classic R&B with Rock, creating a legacy that resonates through their catalog. We’ll reflect on the band’s rise to fame, and the bittersweet nature of their journey, culminating in their eventual split after achieving commercial success. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to the band, this episode is a perfect way to celebrate the spirit of the J. Geils Band and the joy of their music.

TRANSCRIPT:

Whether you’re doing the Southside Shuffle or the Detroit Breakdown, you’ve danced your way right into the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, each episode of this show I pick one of my favorite songs and we look at it from top to bottom, right to left and inside out, as we try to get a better understanding of what makes a great song work. No musical expertise required here– all you gotta do is listen.

This is our first episode of 2026, so what better way to ring in the new year than with a party? A house party to be exact. And what better way to do that than with America’s all-time greatest party band, the legendary J. Geils Band with “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party.”

John Warren Geils Jr. Was born in New York City in February 1946. He grew up in New Jersey and eventually landed at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, studying mechanical engineering. But he was already playing plenty of guitar by then. He played trumpet as a kid, but eventually switched to guitar, inspired by the Butterfield Blues Band, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. In Worcester, he met Danny Klein, a bass player, and a harmonica player named Richard Salwitz, who became better known as “Magic Dick”. They dropped out of college in 1967 and moved to Boston.

Another New York transplant was Peter Wolf. Peter Walter Blankfield was born in New York in March of 1946, attended the High School of Music and Art, and then moved to Boston to attend the School of the Museum of Fine arts. In 1964, he founded a band called The Hallucinations, which included Stephen Jo Bladd on drums. Wolf also had a gig on a local FM radio station, WBCN; If you grew up around Boston, or anywhere in New England, you know those call letters. Well, that’s where Wolf worked the all-night shift as a DJ, where he called himself “Woofa Goofa”.

Eventually, Wolf and Bladd joined with Geils, Klein and Magic Dick. And then, when keyboardist Seth Justman joined the band, that was the final piece to fall into place, and the new J. Geils Band became one of the hottest tickets in town. They signed with Atlantic Records in 1970 and released their first album, self-titled, that same year.

That album was followed by “The Morning After” in 1971. That record includes their version of “Looking For A Love”, which was originally recorded by The Valentines featuring Bobby Womack.

This was the magic of the J. Geils Band: They played classic R&B, but with a rockin’ edge that made these songs their own. Many kids growing up in this era didn’t even know that these were covers; their first exposure to these songs was from the J. Geils versions. They opened a lot of doors and a lot of ears.

This was also a bit of a problem though, because by the mid-70s, radio– which was still the number one way fans discovered new music– radio was becoming tightly formatted, and the J Geils Band was sometimes considered “too white for the black kids” and “too black for the white kids”. So stupid, but that’s how radio could be.

In 1972, they released their first live album, a killer single disc live record called “Live – Full House” that, though it only peaked at number 54 on the charts, it is one of the greatest live records of all time. The band is on fire here, tearing through a brilliant set of some of their best tunes, including Magic Dick’s harmonica horkout, “Whamma Jamma” and a smoking version of “First I Look At The Purse”.

Then in 1973, they released their third studio album, “Bloodshot”, which includes a number of J. Geils classics, including “Give It To Me”. It was their first single to crack the top 20, and it made “Bloodshot” their breakthrough album.

“Bloodshot” also included a little song called “Ain’t Nothing But A) House Party”. And that’s the track we’re gonna be looking at today. It’s the song that opens the album– side one, track one. And it really gets things started.

The song was written by Del Shah and Joseph Thomas, and originally released as a single by The showstoppers in 1969. Here’s a little bit of that version.

The J. Geils version begins with J. Geils’ guitar part, doubled and panned hard left and right. A cow bell also joins in in the right channel.

The band joins in with Stephen Jo Bladd on drums, Danny Klein on bass and Seth Justman on the organ. And you can hear Seth Justman has added a piano part in the right channel. Peter Wolf comes in with the lead vocals for the first verse. And you can hear Magic Dick playing a simple, sparse harmonica part in the left channel.

Stepen Jo Bladd plays the first part of the verse with a beat on the tom toms. Let’s listen to that, along with Danny Klein’s bass.

For the next part of the verse, he shifts to the snare and hi-hat.

As they hit the chorus, Magic Dick is blowing long sustained notes on his harp in the right channel.

Let’s bring up Peter Wolf’s vocals for the second verse.

I believe it’s Seth Justman joining him on vocals here.

And now it’s time for Magic Dick to really play that harp. And he’s good. His harmonica sound and style was a big part of the J Geils’ sound, a critical element.

Seth Justman is doubling the harmonica part on the organ.

Now it’s J Geils turn. Big guitar solos weren’t really a huge part of the J Geils Band. You kinda get the feeling that Geils himself was pretty content to just lay back and be part of the band. But he would step up front and take a solo now and then.

Before we move on, let’s go back and listen to what the bass and the drums were doing, because this is a pretty great groove here.

And that brings us to a shortened third verse.

And now there’s a little bit of a breakdown here, It’s a classic move. Primarily bass and drums, with Seth Justman adding some low notes on the piano.

And of course you gotta have a cowbell in there.

Sounds to me like they’ve added some conga drums in there.

They are really building up the energy to a frenetic level here.

That is a really great scream from Peter Wolf there. Let’s see where we can bring that up in the mix.

The J. Geils Band – “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party

The J. Geils Band would continue to make some great records; “Nightmares…”, “Hotline”, “Sanctuary” and “Love Stinks” are particular favorites of mine. And then, in 1981, they released “Freeze Frame”, and that album was a smash.

Finally, with their tenth studio album, they had their first number one album. They finally reached the top… and then they split up. Peter Wolf was gone and the band limped on with one more album, and then they were gone.

This is one of those things that always baffles me– how a band can slog it out, year after year, through all the hard times, and then as soon as they make it, they fall apart. Whether it’s egos or whatever, you would think that it’s in everyone’s best interest to hold it together for at least another couple of years, or records. But nope. All that hard work, years of logging the miles, and as soon as they make it to the top, they self-destruct.

But the J. Geils Band gave us a dozen albums; many of them are quite good, and a few are true classics. That will have to be enough.

J. Geils passed away in 2017. He was 71 at the time he died. He was living in Groton, Massachusetts… that’s the town that I went to high school in.

The rest of the members of the band are still with us today. Peter Wolf has put out some really good solo records, and last year, he released his autobiography, which is a good read. I recommend it.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the podcast. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. ‘Till then, you can get caught up with all of our previous episodes on our website lovethatsongpodcast.com or just find the show on your favorite podcast app.

If you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to just tell a friend about the show. Share this podcast with your friends and family, because that helps us to grow the audience.

You can also support the show by going to oldglory.com and buying some band merch, like, a cool T-shirt. They have a ton of great stuff there, and if you use our discount code LoveThatSong, you’ll save 15% while you’re helping to support this podcast. So please, that’s oldglory.com with the discount code LoveThatSong. Take advantage of it. Thanks.

That’ll wrap up this episode. On behalf of everyone here on the Pantheon Podcast Network– where fans belong– I thank you for listening. Now, go dig out all your old J. Geils albums and crank ‘em up, starting with “(Ain’t Nothing But A) House Party”.

RESOURCES:

J. Geils Band
Official Website

Peter Wolf
Official Website

The Butterfield Blues Band
Wikipedia

Muddy Waters
Wikipedia

Buddy Guy
Official Website

The Showstoppers
Wikipedia

Seth Justman
Wikipedia

Magic Dick
Wikipedia

Bloodshot (Album)
Wikipedia

Podcast

BONUS HOLIDAY EPISODE: Doug Powell – “God Bless Us All”

December 21, 2025
Tagged as: Christmas, Christmas Music, Christmas Songs, Classic Rock, Doug Powell, Holiday Songs, Power Pop, Rock

Our special Bonus Holiday Episode for 2025 features a song that should be a Christmas staple– a brilliant power-pop gem from Doug Powell called “God Bless Us All“. Originally written for Ringo Starr’s 1999 Christmas album but didn’t make the cut, this is a lost Christmas classic that deserves to be a holiday favorite.

In this episode, we welcome back author Gillian Garr to discuss her new book, “Tom Petty: The Life and Music“. We’ll take a look at the fascinating career of one of rock’s most beloved figures. From Petty’s early encounter with Elvis Presley to the eventual rise of The Heartbreakers, this episode is packed with anecdotes and insights that shed light on Petty’s enduring legacy.

Gillian shares stories about Petty’s struggles with record labels, his creative partnerships, and the pivotal moments that defined his career. We discuss the making of iconic albums like “Damn The Torpedoes” and “Wildflowers”, as well as the challenges he faced, including battles with addiction and the pressures of fame. With a mix of nostalgia and admiration, this episode is a heartfelt tribute to Tom Petty’s music and the impact he had on fans and fellow musicians alike.

Pick up Gillian’s book here:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tom+petty+the+life+and+music

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings, all you rebels, refugees and heartbreakers. Thanks for joining me for another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your host, Brad Page.

Tom Petty is a big favorite here on the show– in fact, we first covered him way back on Episode 2 of this podcast. I’m a big fan of Tom, and the Heartbreakers too, as a band. Mike Campbell is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. So, when I heard that author Gillian Gaar has a new book out, celebrating the life and music of Tom Petty, I wanted to get her back on the show to talk about Tom and his remarkable career. You may remember Gillian from her appearance on this podcast, about eight months ago, when she joined me to talk about the 50th anniversary of Queen’s “Night at the Opera” album. It’s a pleasure to have her back this time to talk about the late, great Tom Petty.

Here’s my conversation with Gillian Gaar:

Brad Page: Well, Gillian Gaar, thanks for coming back on the podcast. And you’ve got a brand new book that’s out now. It’s out for the holidays– Hint, hint, folks, go pick it up. Perfect Christmas gift for any Tom Petty fan out there. This is a great package, great new book, “Tom Petty: The Life and Music”. And Gillian’s here to talk with me about the fascinating career of Tom Petty. He’s one of my favorite songwriters. There’s really great stuff in here of the whole band, the Heartbreakers, as well as Tom. I just had a great time reading the book.

Gillian Gaar: Oh, good.

Brad Page: Yeah. So, let’s start talking about Tom Petty. One of the most formative things about him, which I don’t know that I knew this before I read the book, is that Tom had actually seen Elvis Presley at a very young age, and that kind of set the stage for him for his future career in a lot of ways.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, I had no idea he had a close encounter with Elvis either. And I’ve written a lot about Elvis, so that was interesting. And, yeah, it came before Tom was really that interested in rock music as well. I mean, what’s interesting about that encounter is that it wasn’t a concert; he was watching Elvis on a film set. But he was just kind of dazzled by, I suppose you’d say, the accoutrements of show business and what that was like. Elvis had come back from the army and was focusing on making films. And his film “Follow That Dream”, which is about a family of homesteaders, was set in Florida. And one of Tom’s relatives worked as local crew on film shoots. So he was working on this film shooting, so he asked Tom, who’s, you know, like 10, would he want to come and meet Elvis? And he said, “well, sure”. And so he was, he was brought to the film set, they were filming on location. So then all the Cadillacs pull up with his entourage, the Memphis Mafia guys, and the anticipation’s building, and then Elvis comes and yeah, he was just really impressed by that moment of the girls shrieking and waving their album covers that they want to get signed.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: And fans would break past the barricades and you know, in and try and hug Elvis. So, oh, shop ruined, got to do it again. And Tom was just dazzled by this whole experience. And yeah, he talked a bit to Elvis, got to shake his hand and all that. And when he gets home that night, his friend who lives next door just wants to know all that information, every bit of detail, you know, about what happened. And Tom ended up trading a slingshot to his friend for a box of 45s, which included some Elvis 45s.

Brad Page: And then of course, like so many people of that era, kind of the next big thing was seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. And that was a life-changing experience for him.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, I mean I was watching too… though I didn’t, you know, end up in a rock band later. But we were all one of those 73 million people watching that night.

Gillian Gaar: It’s almost a universal thing for a whole generation of– and more– of musicians, that launching off spot. And Tom was one of them.

Gillian Gaar: I thought, though, in Tom’s case, you know, there he is watching the Beatles at 13 or so and just think, if you could have told him that in 20-some years he was going to be making a record with George Harrison, think how flabbergasted he would have been.

Brad Page: I know, right?

Gillian Gaar: He wouldn’t have believed you.

Brad Page: It’s incredible, I mean, how many of those 73 million that watched that show got that to that point? It’s really something.

So he forms– he has a couple of bands, but the first one that really kind of comes together and does anything is a band called Mudcrutch. And that’s where Tom meets Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, who become kind of his left- and right-hands through the rest of his career.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah, Mike Campbell in particular was always brought on with every project, solo as well as the band projects.

Brad Page: And Mudcrutch has some success. They go out to California, they get signed to Shelter Records. But it kind of falls apart, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it fell apart pretty quickly. They had all the Hollywood dreams, but I mean admittedly the single they put out was not that strong, either. I mean, I think it got some okay reviews in Billboard, but it didn’t take off. And the record label seemed to lose interest in them pretty quickly. Well, they dropped them– except for Tom. They hung onto to Tom because they recognized that he had the talent. He should probably be the main focus.

Brad Page: Right. They could see the potential. And he was actually doing some work as a songwriter; I think you mention in the book that he had a very short period where they were teaming him up with some LA studio musicians, and that really didn’t work for him. He’s a band guy and so he ends up kind of slowly but surely bringing in the members of the Heartbreakers, including those guys that came from Mudcrutch and they form this new band, The Heartbreakers.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, and you think about Mudcrutch, that was just the band named Mudcrutch, it was not Tom Petty and the Mudcrutchers or something. And his subsequent band, he thought of in those terms as well. They weren’t going to name it Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Tom Petty and the such and such, but, one, it made sense. He was the one that had the contract with the record company.

Brad Page: Mhm.

Gillian Gaar: So he was kind of bringing them on as sort of his side musicians, except he wanted them to be a band and not just side musicians. So yeah, I think it was also at the label’s instigation that it became Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.

Brad Page: So Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers officially make their first album, and it comes out to, you know, it got some good reviews but it didn’t really do very much. And this is another thing I always thought was a really fascinating little aspect of the Tom Petty story, is that there’s this one guy, a promotions guy named John Scott, who almost single-handedly breaks the song “Breakdown” as a single. And it just shows you that there’s always these unsung heroes behind the scenes. John Scott really was an important figure in getting the Heartbreakers really going, getting their career going.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it’s interesting to think about what if he hadn’t been there.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: You know, then maybe we wouldn’t have heard of the Heartbreakers. Because, as you say, the album got some good reviews, but it didn’t zoom up the charts and sell a million copies or anything. So, you know, kind of a lukewarm success, and they might not have progressed further.

Brad Page: John Scott heard something in the song “Breakdown” and started to get it on the radio. And before you know it, it’s a, it’s a minor hit, but it gets them going.

Brad Page: And then their second record, “You’re Gonna Get It”, which is, I think, a much stronger record than the first one, has some great tracks on it. “Listen to Her Heart”’s one of my favorites.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah. That’s the one with the cocaine line in it, isn’t it? Right, yeah, that. got him in a bit of trouble because he referenced cocaine, even though it wasn’t really a positive reference. It’s more of a bribe than anything.

Brad Page: It sort of sets a precedent for Tom, that he would not change it. He was not going to budge on that. And that remained an element of his personality and his career through the rest of his life.

Gillian Gaar: That’s true, that’s true. Very much so.

Gillian Gaar: I remember he said they wanted him to change to champagne, and his argument was, you know, you can get cheap champagne in the store. That’s not much of a special thing to offer someone. Well, logically, that makes sense.

Brad Page: And then as they go into their third album, and it’s a convoluted story, but Shelter Records was distributed by ABC, or a subsidiary of ABC Records, and ABC Records gets purchased by MCA at the time, one of the large record conglomerates. And Tom doesn’t like the fact that his contract is essentially, he’s sort of owned by people that he never signed a deal with.

Gillian Gaar: Right, right.

Brad Page: And so he’s fighting against this contract, and eventually to get out of it, he declares bankruptcy.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, that was a pretty clever move.

Brad Page: On his part it was, but incredibly risky, too. And you know, in the meantime, he’s not getting paid, and the band’s not getting paid. And you know, they’re trying to get this third record off the ground.

Your first two records could be so-so, but by the time you get to the third record, you really, it was kind of a make-or-break kind of thing, and you got to start having legitimate hits if your career is going to continue. And so he’s in this very precarious place, where the first two records, they did okay, but nobody was beating down the doors to release Tom Petty records. And now he’s in a contractual dispute with his record label. Usually you almost always lose when you’re an artist in that perspective. Somehow, he’s obstinate and persistent enough that he pulls it out.

And so, amongst all of this precarious situation, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers end up releasing their third album, “Damn The Torpedoes”, which still to this day is my favorite Tom Petty record. I think this is a fantastic record. It’s as close to a perfect record as Tom Petty ever got. I think it’s so great.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, that’s a record, you just, you remembered seeing it everywhere. Not just hearing it everywhere, but yeah, I remember Tower Records and they would have the, those huge blow ups of the album covers, and that was there. I mean, that was probably the first Tom Petty record I really noticed. Because of that, because of seeing that everywhere.

Brad Page: Yeah, it was, it was exactly what he needed. It was a big hit record. It had a number of singles on it.

Just so many great songs on this record. I’m a huge fan. And that’s 1979, Tom Petty and “Damn The Torpedoes”.

That’s followed up by a record called “Hard Promises”. And we’re smack-dab into another controversy, because the record label, now having had a big success with “Damn The Torpedoes”, decides that they want to release this new album at a brand-new price point of $9.98. And Tom will not have it.

The average record price at the time was $8.98. And so he goes into a whole big fight with the record company about not releasing this record at a dollar more. It’s gotta be $8.98, to the point where he was almost gonna name the album “$8.98”.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. They called that “superstar pricing”. That was the surge pricing of its day.

Brad Page: Yes. Yeah. And it’s fascinating that, you know, he went from struggling with those first two records, had one big record, and suddenly now he’s a superstar, right? And they think they can charge a dollar more per record, which, you know, in those days, it was a big deal. $9.98 was a lot of money for a record back then.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: Of course, now we pay literally four times that for vinyl these days. But, yeah. And a number of great songs on the “Hard Promises” record. “The Waiting” is probably my favorite track from that one.

Brad Page: And then Tom seems to be everywhere, because he has this huge hit with Stevie Nick, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around”. And he just seemed to be, like, on the radio all the time. Between his solo career and this song with Stevie, it was, you could almost guarantee: turn on the radio and there’ll be something by Tom Petty on.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. It did seem like that kind of a third little golden era for him. I think it kind of harmed radio play in some instances, though, you know. Well, we got the Stevie Nicks song on. Why Do we need to play the Heartbreakers kind of thing.

Brad Page: Yeah. And I think “Hard Promises” did have a dip in sales compared to “Damn The Torpedoes”. And you could chalk some of that up to a little bit of over-saturation, maybe? And the fact that he’s almost competing with himself by having this song out with Stevie, because that was technically a Stevie Nicks song.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t on their on his album.

Brad Page: Correct, yeah. 1982, they released their fifth album, “Long After Dark”, which features another huge Tom Pety hit, “You Got Lucky”. That’s such a great song.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: I mean, he’s just racking up the hits at this point. And this is kind of a decisive moment for the Heartbreakers, because this is the last album for a while that they record with bass player Ron Blair. He was one of the original members, and he kind of gets fed up with the whole thing, and he leaves the band. So The Heartbreakers suffer their first casualty at this point, and they bring in a guy named Howie Epstein to play bass for them.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it’s interesting that sometimes when they get their big break and they’re famous now, that it doesn’t always sit well with everyone. You think it would. You think, “Oh, yes, this is what we’ve been striving for”. And the musician themselves probably thought that, too. But then the constant touring… there are different kinds of pressures when you’re a success than when you’re trying to be a success. But then he missed the band and came back later. Seems like he was able to do that.

Brad Page: Right? Well, we’ll get to that, too. But, Mike Campbell talks about this in his book, that at some point early on, the management or whatever came to them and basically said in, you know, in no uncertain terms, that Tom is the star and you guys are hired hands, and it’s not an equal split. So, “We love you guys, you’re a great band. But make no mistake, Tom is where the money is.” And the guys in the band kind of had to live with that. And Mike Campbell seems to have rolled with those punches, but I think that’s when things started chafing with Stan Lynch, who was the drummer.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah. I think also, as The Heartbreaker’s career progresses, they’re working with Tom, but then there are longer breaks between the albums, and those other players like Mike Campbell, they go off and they work with other performers, too. So they’re developing kind of their own identity and their own career as well. In addition, you know, Tom’s the focus, The Heartbreakers are the focus. But then they start adding other things in there themselves, and I think that helped. But Mike, he seems to have been the savviest in learning how to negotiate that. I think he’s told this, yeah, you’re the side man, but he thinks, “Okay, how can I use this to my best advantage? How do I make this really work for me?” I think that’s the attitude he took.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: And I think that explains a lot to how Tom always turned to him when he was doing new projects. Sometimes, in starting an album, Mike would be the only person he’d bring in at first.

Brad Page: Right, right.

In 1985, they make this– to me, it’s sort of the odd album in Tom’s whole career– the “Southern Accents” record. Not my personal favorite record, but it’s a really interesting record, just because it’s a real departure, I think.

Gillian Gaar: Well, that’s one where he starts working with Dave Stewart.

Brad Page: Yes.

Gillian Gaar: So, see, it starts off as more of a Southern accent, and then Dave Stewart gets in there, so it’s kind of less of an accent. And there are some songs that were going to be on the album that were dropped, and they appear as B sides and, oh, they’ve come out on probably some of the many box sets they’ve done. And really, those songs would have fit better with the whole “Southern Accents” theme.

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s kind of a schizophrenic record because, like you said, he has this idea of kind of revisiting his– because, you know, he grew up in Florida, and he kind of wants to revisit his Southern roots. And so he starts heading down that vein and they cut a bunch of tracks, and then he starts to work with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, who is not Southern at all, and takes the rest of the record in a whole different direction. And you get things like, you know, “Don’t Come Around Here No More”, which was a big hit, but that sounds nothing like any connection to Southern rock or whatever. It’s a strange record.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I mean, I think some of his bandmates were frustrated with that, too, and not that keen on working with Dave Stewart at first, though obviously, they got over that and produced a, you know, ended up turning out a good album.

Brad Page: It was a really successful record, but still, you know, when I look back at his records, this one always seems to me to be the odd one out. But people do love that record.

We start to see him get involved in, well, he does Live Aid, but he also gets involved in Farm Aid, the initial launch of Farm Aid. He and The Heartbreakers, they tour as Bob Dylan’s backup band, essentially, which was pretty fascinating.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Oh, they really liked doing that. I mean, again, that generational thing. Bob had a huge influence on people, but yeah, through their work on Live Aid. You know, I love how it came together.

Brad Page: Yeah, you tell the story in the book how they didn’t really even know what they were getting into. Their manager, it seems like essentially just booked them for Live Aid and they said, “Okay”. And they were halfway across the country or whatever. And it was, “All right, you guys, you got to get up and get on this plane and fly to Pennsylvania” or whatever. “We’ll do this gig”. And then they show up and it’s Live Aid, and they’re like, wow!

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, there’s this massive audience and oh, by the way, you’ve got like a worldwide audience of so many millions.

Brad Page: Right. Not only a stadium packed full, but you’re being literally broadcast around the world. So, you know, “better be good”

Gillian Gaar: “ Relax. Have a good time.” “Oh, okay.”

Brad Page: And so, yeah, working with Dylan, of course, that sets us up for some things that come down the road. But almost immediate impact from that is they work on their next record, which is “Let Me Up, I’ve Had Enough”, comes out in 1987 and that features at least one co-write with Bob Dylan.

Brad Page: So there was a lasting relationship established between Tom and Dylan. I think “Let Me Up, I’ve Had Enough” is an underappreciated Heartbreakers record. It’s one of my favorites. I think this record deserves a little bit more love than it typically gets.

Gillian Gaar: Well, it’s got a great title for one thing. I’ve always liked that aspect about it.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: But then, you know, that’s kind of the problem when you put out a lot of albums.

Brad Page: There’s an ebb and flow of everyone’s career, right? There was certainly more to come from Tom Petty, but the same year, 1987, just a really frightening experience: his house burns down. Luckily, his instruments are safe. But you know, he and his, not just him, but I mean, he’s married with two daughters. I think he had both of his daughters at this point, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, but one of them was at a friend’s home. So it was only one daughter that had to go through that. But, you know, they lost all their stuff, and think how traumatizing that would be.

Brad Page: All your photo albums, I mean all of that kind of stuff goes up in flames, literally. And then it turns out to be a case of arson, which is even more frightening. It wasn’t accidental, somebody set his house on fire.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. And it’s still unsolved to this day, so we don’t know who it was or why they did it. So, you know, he had to live with that for the rest of his life.

Brad Page: Yes. And he’s a public figure, and you can only imagine, like, the thoughts that go through your head now, you know, that it becomes very real, the danger of being a public figure. And now you’re out on the road, literally in front of the thousands of people every night, and what could happen. Scary.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Page: Talk about the downsides of fame that you don’t think about when you’re coming up and you’re just, you’re dying to be a rock star, and then you get there and you realize there’s a whole dark underside of it. And Tom certainly lived through some of that.

A year later– the Traveling Wilburys, which is the supergroup of all supergroups, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Oh, I think so.

Brad Page: And it all starts because George Harrison basically needs a B-side, which is the most throwaway beginning to one of the most incredible supergroups of all time! And George Harrison writes this song, “Handle With Care”, that is tailor-made for, it ust shows what a great songwriter George Harrison was. Because there’s a moment in that song for each of those vocalists to kind of do what they do best. Of course, the record company heard it and said, “oh, this is way too good for a B-side!”

And Tom follows that up with the “Full Moon Fever” album in 1989, his first solo album, produced by Jeff Lynne, so that relationship continues out of the Traveling Wilburys. It’s a hugely successful record. Big hits off this record. And of course, Mike Campbell is there through the whole thing. Still his right hand man. Indispensable, I think.

Gillian Gaar: Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. That was such a partnership. I think about how Mike just must still miss him so much.

Brad Page: I know. What a team. Just great songwriters. And Mike Campbell is one of my all-time favorite guitar players, because he always plays the right thing– the exact right thing that’s necessary, even if it’s only one note. He never overplays. He always finds something interesting to play. Just a great, great player and a great songwriter. And yeah, one of my favorite musicians, Mike Campbell.

Gillian Gaar: But that’s the one that the record company didn’t like initially, isn’t it?

Brad Page: Which surprised me because it was such a huge record!

Brad Page: “We don’t hear any hits.”

Gillian Gaar: Right. And literally half the record was hits! You know sometimes record companies, they don’t know anything more than we do. Nobody really knows what makes a hit.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. If they did know, then every record put out there would be a hit, right?

Brad Page: Yeah. Jeff Lynne also produces the next Heartbreakers record, which is “Into the Great Wide Open” in 1991.

Brad Page: And now, when did Stan lynch, the drummer, leave the band?

Gillian Gaar: It was when they were recording the tracks for the “Greatest Hits” album. That was the last session he did with them. He just, he always comes across as a kind of prickly character. He was the one who seemed the most resentful about, you know, this whole sideman thing and that Tom would go off and work on his solo things and “Who’s this Dave Stewart guy”, etc. And yeah, he was unhappy during the recording of the new songs for “Greatest Hits” and that was just kind of it for him. He didn’t, he seemed to feel that he wasn’t being appreciated enough, so he just left.

Brad Page: Interestingly, Stan was replaced by a drummer named Steve Ferrone, who was a journeyman player, but I grew to love him from his work in the Average White Band, which is a band that I am really fond of. I love the Average White Band and he’s a really funky drummer, very different kind of drummer than Stan, but seemed to fit right in with the Heartbreakers and was a mainstay of the band, right up until the end. Steve Ferrone.

And Tom, in 1994, releases his second solo album, “Wildflowers”, which has gone on to be a big fan favorite. A real classic record. They released that deluxe box set version of it.

Gillian Gaar: The band members that worked on that album consider it a highlight of Tom’s career, he did himself. And, it was natural it would get this sort of deluxe box treatment. I don’t know if any other album in his catalog has received that, you know, because they put out a lot of extra stuff, here have been other box sets…

Brad Page: Yeah, it was like a 5 LP set, I believe.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, just on the one album.

Brad Page: It does have a more intimate feel than you get from a typical Heartbreakers record.

Brad Page: 1996. This is another kind of oddball record in their catalog, a soundtrack album called “She’s The One”, which the movie didn’t really do anything, and I think the record really didn’t do too much.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, Tom seemed to have pretty mixed feelings about it, ultimately. One thing that definitely harmed the record’s chances was that it’s all completed, but then they decide to delay the release of the movie, but for some reason they don’t delay the release of the soundtrack. So they put the soundtrack out months before the movie, which makes no sense to me. Yeah, you know, they put it in the soundtrack section, which was not where a Tom Petty fan is necessarily going to look for the latest Tom Petty album.

Brad Page: Yeah, exactly.

Gillian Gaar: And he himself seemed to feel conflicted about even working on the project. Like, he agreed and then I think he regretted it. First it said it was going to have other musicians doing their own tracks, but then he would have to reach out to them, and he didn’t like doing that. So then he would write everything, and that just became a hassle, too. So, not one of his most best-realized projects, though they did revamp it somewhat. I think it was recorded around “Wildflowers”, but he didn’t really want to mix it up too much. So some of those songs ended up on the “Wildflowers” reissue. And they reworked the soundtrack completely and I think even gave it a new title.

Brad Page: Uh, and this is also, it gets into a pretty uncomfortable time for him that he really didn’t like talking about very much… but he had a serious drug addiction at that time.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Not just drugs, but heroin. And I don’t think I knew this until researching and reading about him for this. Well, of course, he kept it under wraps, and he wasn’t collapsing in public or anything like that. But, you know, even his friends were surprised.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: To hear that. “Heroin? You’re using heroin?” I mean, if he’d, say, become a drunk or something…

Brad Page: Like heroin, that can kill you pretty quickly. Luckily, he pulled himself together, but you get the feeling it was a really, really rough time for him. Of course, he was going through a divorce at that time, too, right.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah, and not an entirely amicable divorce. So you have that weighing on you as well. I remember this friend of mine in an obituary she was writing for Lane Staley, she said, “No one starts using heroin thinking they’re going to be an addict.”

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: And, you know, they generally end up that way. “Oh, I can handle this”. Well, then six months later, “Oh, gee, I guess I was wrong about that.” And I could see also for someone in his case, or his situation rather, that it would be easy to fall into because he’s not going to have the problems of someone that doesn’t have the money. He does. You know, he doesn’t have to go out and break into people’s homes to steal their stereos and computers to get money for his habit, right? He could take care of that easily. And so I think that, you know, that’s another barrier removed.

Brad Page: Yeah. It becomes too easy.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. And, well, if you know, the music industry, it’s kind of full of leeches, too. There’s more than enough people that are happy to provide you with whatever you might think you want.

Brad Page: Sure.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I was surprised to learn about that. But, you know, good on him for getting out of it. Not everyone does.

Brad Page: And I’m sure it was… again, he didn’t really like talking about it, because I don’t think he wanted to glamorize it. He was, I think, ashamed.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, you definitely get that sense. A lot of shame. But I think his story with it is a cautionary tale.

Brad Page: Yes.

Gillian Gaar: I don’t see how anyone could read what he went through and think that sounded at all glamorous, because it doesn’t. You know, he was just isolated in this new home, in a kind of rural setting, and not doing anything except taking drugs and nodding off. Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? So, yeah, I definitely think it’s more of a cautionary tale and not glamorous at all.

Brad Page: I do respect the fact that he wasn’t trying to cash in on it in any way. I think it would have been probably beneficial for some people for him to maybe have talked a little bit more openly about it, but at the same time, he didn’t make a spectacle of himself about it and hang his dirty laundry out for everyone to see. But, you know, these are such personal things you can’t fault anyone for however they feel like they have to deal with it. The reality is, thank God, he did deal with it, and by 1999, he was pretty much cleaned up.

The Heartbreakers release a new album called “Echo” in 1999. Produced by Rick Rubin, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Page: That seems to have been a very difficult record to make. I think they had, again, working with an outside producer, there’s pluses and minuses to that. I think towards the end, Tom wasn’t super happy with Rick Rubin. I guess he left at the end to go work on a Red Hot Chili Peppers record, and kind of left Tom drifting in the wind there to finish up the record. But I think this probably started when he was, either still had his drug issues or he was working hard to get out of it, but that all was part of it, right? And made for kind of a difficult recording of that record.

And it’s the last record they make with bass player Howie Epstein, because Howie also had a serious drug problem, and they ended up having to let him go.

Gillian Gaar: And then he died not long after that.

Brad Page: Right, right. So, I mean, on one hand you have Tom, who’s able to make it through, and his fellow bandmate, who’s not so lucky.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: And it could have gone either way, really.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. That must have been quite a sobering moment for him. You know, “there but for the grace of God go I” type of thing.

Brad Page: Yeah. We do have some great songs on that “Echo” record, though. I’m a big fan of the song “Swingin’”.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Page: Ron Blair, the original bass player, he comes back. You know, it’s getting the old gang back together again. He could have probably had any bass player he wanted, but he brings in Ron Blair.

Gillian Gaar: Well, you mentioned earlier about how Tom liked working with these musicians regularly, even on solo projects, because it was a comfort level type of thing. And I think that’s one reason that Ron was able to be integrated back into the band so readily. Because, yeah, they had to get a new bass player and you could see that’s always a bit of a hassle. And so when they knew he was interested, I mean, it must have seemed perfect because here’s a guy who worked with them and up to a certain point, you know, was familiar with everything the Heartbreakers had done. Hadn’t played on the recent stuff, but he was a guy who I think they saw, he can get back in the groove pretty quickly.

Brad Page: Talk about “The Last DJ” album, which comes out in 2002. That’s the record that Ron Blair returns for. And that’s kind of a concept album, which is another interesting turn for Tom. But he was just so frustrated with the state of commercial radio that he just comes up with this whole concept record, basically lambasting the radio biz.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it’s like this attack on consumerism that I enjoy quite a lot.

Brad Page: Yeah, I like that record a lot. And of course, you know, there were radio stations that refused to play it, and real petty stuff– no pun intended– real petty behavior. But I think it’s a strong record and, I mean, he makes his case pretty well.

Brad Page: 2006, Tom records his third and final solo album, a record called “Highway Companion”. And to me, this is the really forgotten or overlooked record in his career. It wasn’t as popular as the other records. It’s probably one of the least selling– I’m guessing, but I think it’s probably one of the lowest-selling records of the career.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, you know, I’m looking, certainly among the solo albums; the other two solo albums went platinum, but “Highway Companion” just went gold, so yeah, that means lower sales.

Brad Page: Yeah, I’m not sure why that is. I think it’s a perfectly fine record. There’s quite a bit of stuff on that that I like. Maybe the solo thing just kind of ran its course, I don’t know. But it always seems to be the record that people forget about.

Brad Page: 2007. A real left turn: He reassembles Mudcrutch. And they put out an album. And he plays bass, because that was his original role in the band; he was the bass player, not the guitar player. And you just get the feeling that he just, on a whim, just said, you know what, I want to get the old guys, the really old guys, back together and just have some fun.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, that really came out of left field.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: If you were trying to predict what Tom Petty was going to do next in his career, bringing back Mudcrutch to not only play some shows, but release an album…

Brad Page: They ended up releasing two albums, actually. Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: Two! Well, again, that’s just his love of music there. It is kind of like a Wilburys type of thing.

Brad Page: That’s a level of fame– where you can go back to your high school band, get them back together and actually get records put out. Not everyone can do that.

Gillian Gaar: Yes.

Brad Page: Also in 2007, we finally get an officially released documentary, the Running Down a Dream documentary, which is like three hours long.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Brad Page: Well worth watching. One of my favorite rock docs.

Gillian Gaar: And you know, Peter Bogdanovich, too, a noted film director, not known for putting out musical films. Kind of unusual choice.

Brad Page: I got the feeling from reading your book that he didn’t even really know much about Tom Petty.

Gillian Gaar: No, that’s also another interesting aspect about that. I mean, he came from a very different world, the film world. Best known for his work in the 70s, I think, with the Last Picture Show, and Paper Moon and what’s Up Doc. Yeah, so, that just shows it’s an interesting choice. I think at first he was even a little surprised, like, “Why do you want me?” But then he got to know Tom and liked him quite a bit.

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. He comes out of it being a Tom Petty fan, but he didn’t go into it that way. But I think that lends a certain, um, maybe an objectivity to that documentary? And a curiosity, kind of a mix of both of those things, right? That he’s not smitten, like a fan film.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: But he’s also, there’s a curiosity about it that if you knew everything there was to know about Tom Petty, a die-hard fan, you might not ask some of those questions.

In 2010, The Heartbreakers released the “Mojo” album, which is one of my favorite records of their later period. Post 1990’s records, that’s my favorite. There’s some really hard rocking tracks on that record; there’s one track where I think they give Led Zeppelin a run for their money.

Gillian Gaar: That’s one thing about the whole breadth of his music. Just the sort of range in styles. I mean, they were always a rock band, but they really did seem to have the most fun when they were rocking out like that.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: And they probably didn’t do it often enough.

Brad Page: And that was followed in 2014 by “Hypnotic Eye”, which would turn out to be the last Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers album.

Gillian Gaar: And that was his first number one album, which is, you know, kind of surprising.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar I guess his only number one album certainly during his lifetime.

Brad Page: Which is an odd fact for someone that successful, right? You would have thought they would have had number one albums. He’s had, of course, big hits, but the albums always fell a little short of hitting number one, until “Hypnotic Eye” all the way in 2014.

Gillian Gaar: Like “Mojo” and “Damn The Torpedoes”, they both reached number two, but yeah, not quite the peak.

Brad Page: Yep. I remember “Hypnotic Eye” getting a lot of really great reviews. So right up until the end, critics loved him; obviously, fans loved him, because it hit number one. But if you gotta go, going out on a high point like that, it says something.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Page: They performed their last show on September 25, 2017. During that tour, Tom had had an injury.

Brad Page: At least the account I had read was that he fell and he had a hairline fracture and he thought he could just deal with it later. But over time, you know, it became more of a full-on break.

Brad Page: Yeah, because he’s on stage, he’s on the road and you know, he’s a trooper. He doesn’t want to cancel the shows, he wants to go out and play and do his thing, do what he does best. And so he stupidly, really– but we’re all prone to these kind of things– he decides just to grin and bear it. And he’s going on stage every night, which is a physical thing, you know, you’re on stage, you’re stomping around, you can’t help but rock out, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: He’s putting more and more pressure on that hip. He’s not a young man anymore. And it keeps getting worse and worse. And so he starts self-medicating, always a dangerous thing to do when you’re, you have a history of addiction, because again, like you were saying, no one goes into taking heroin thinking that they want to be an addict. I’m sure he’s going into this thinking, “I’m just trying to take care of this pain. I can handle it. Hell, I kicked heroin, I can do it.”

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Page: And ends up just a couple of weeks after the Tour’s over, on October 2, 2017, he just takes the wrong mix of medications… and he’s gone.

Gillian Gaar: When they released the toxicology report, he was taking prescription fentanyl, but he was also taking non-prescription fentanyl. And you were saying self-medication is a dangerous thing, and I mean, it’s kind of doubly dangerous if you’re taking prescribed drugs too.

Brad Page: Right?

Gillian Gaar: You’re taking prescribed drugs, you’re adding things on top of that. And if your doctor doesn’t know that you’re doing that, that can set up a lot of dangerous interactions. So I mean, clearly he was doing that to deal with the pain. When you’re taking all these different kind of substances, then, yeah, it’s like a roll of the dice every time you do that. It’s a gamble, it’s a roll of the dice. And he unfortunately lost that day.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: I gotta say, I gotta say the one thing that’s kind of doubly frustrating is that the issue was not that serious. And of course, in retrospect, we say, “Well, he should have canceled the tour. The fans would certainly have come to see him after recovery.” But you know, he needed hip surgery. And, yes, there’s a risk with every surgery, but it’s very common and the risk is relatively low. So, it was just a relatively simple thing to take care of. So that’s, I must admit, as I’m writing that part, I’m thinking, why didn’t you just have the hip surgery?

Brad Page: I know you just think, “Oh, Tom, why were you so stupid?” But you get the feeling he was, obviously, he was a stubborn guy, for better or worse. It served him well in his career. Until it didn’t.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I mean, it was sad to read things from his bandmates on that last tour who would kind of help him get on stage and could see that he was in a lot of pain.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: Uh, and saying, “Are you going to be okay?” And he’d say, “Just get me on that stage.”

Brad Page: Yeah. And it’s the “show must go on” mentality that so many artists have. And it’s an admirable thing, but all things being said, I think we would all rather still have Tom Petty today.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Page: But, yeah, And I remember hearing the news and what a shock it was.

Gillian Gaar: Well, yeah, that was another thing that just seemed to come out of nowhere.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: Because, you know, there was no serious illness. There wasn’t any obvious drug problem. And he just finished this successful tour that had gotten the usual strong reviews. And then I think it was just about a week, two weeks later, “Oh, he died”.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: “What? Something’s wrong with this picture.”

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s one of the… you just don’t, you don’t believe it. It’s so hard to fathom. Such a shame. A huge loss for the music business.

It’s an incredible catalog of music. I’m a huge fan of so much of it. I really enjoyed the book, Gillian, you did a great job of putting this story, just telling this story. It’s just a fun read. And the photos are great, the layout of the book is great, the package is great. They did another great job with the slipcover and everything on this book. It’s beautiful.

Like I said at the beginning, if you’re a Tom Petty fan, or if someone in your life is a Tom Petty fan, and you’re looking for a Christmas gift, look no further. This book is great. It’s an excellent gift. It’s going right up on my shelf with my collection of books. I’m happy to have it.

Gillian, thanks so much for joining me again on another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Always a pleasure to have you on.

Gillian Gaar: Well, it’s fun to be here.

Brad Page: Well, thanks again, Gillian. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Have a great holiday.

Gillian Gaar: You too. And everyone listening!

Brad Page: And that’s a wrap on this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Just a few notes before I sign off:

#1: Don’t forget to subscribe or follow the show so that you never miss an episode. And please share the show with your family and friends.

#2: Share your thoughts and your opinions on our Facebook page. Just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, you’ll find us there. Or you can send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com

#3: If you’d like to support the show, head on over to oldglory.com and buy a T-shirt or some merch from your favorite bands. They have tons of stuff in stock, including some Tom Petty stuff. And you can use our discount code lovethatsong to get 15% off. That’s oldglory.com with the discount code lovethatsong .

And finally, #4, pick up a copy of Gillian’s book. It’s called “Tom Petty: the Life and Music”, and it can be found on Amazon or fine bookstores anywhere. Go get it. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for listening. Hope to see you again on the next episode.

RESOURCES:

Gillian Garr
https://www.quarto.com/authors/Gillian-G.-Gaar/

Tom Petty
https://www.tompetty.com

Traveling Wilburys
https://www.travelingwilburys.com

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Petty_and_the_Heartbreakers_(album)

You’re Gonna Get It! (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_Gonna_Get_It!

Damn the Torpedoes (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_the_Torpedoes_(album)

Hard Promises (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Promises

Long After Dark (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_After_Dark

Southern Accents (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Accents

Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Me_Up_(I%27ve_Had_Enough)

Into The Great Wide Open (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Great_Wide_Open

Greatest Hits (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Hits_(Tom_Petty_album)

Wildflowers (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildflowers_(Tom_Petty_album)

She’s The One (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_and_Music_from_%22She%27s_the_One%22

Echo (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_(Tom_Petty_and_the_Heartbreakers_album)

The Last DJ (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_DJ

Highway Companion (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Companion

Mudcrutch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudcrutch

Mojo (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(Tom_Petty_and_the_Heartbreakers_album)

Hypnotic Eye (album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotic_Eye

with Stevie Nicks: Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Draggin%27_My_Heart_Around

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The Art Of Mixing with special guest Drew Townson

Wilson Pickett – “Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9 (Parts 1 & 2)”

Paul McCartney And Wings – “Junior’s Farm”

75 Years of Bass with special guest Joe Branton

Dr. John – “I Walk On Guilded Splinters”

Curtis Mayfield – “Hard Times”

Blue Oyster Cult – “Transmaniacon MC”

J. Geils Band – “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party”

BONUS HOLIDAY EPISODE: Doug Powell – “God Bless Us All”

Tom Petty – The Life And Music with special guest Gillian Gaar