In 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival accomplished the unthinkable: releasing three career-defining albums in a single year. At the heart of this creative explosion was “Green River,” a track that reached #2 on the charts and perfectly encapsulated the band’s “swamp rock” aesthetic. Let’s dive deep into the mastermind of John Fogerty, revealing how he his Rickenbacker and a solid-state Kustom amp to create the raw guitar tone that created an indelible riff. We also look at the locked-in rhythm section of Stu Cook and Doug Clifford and the driving force that Fogerty famously dubbed “chooglin’.”
Beyond the music, this episode uncovers the nostalgic and sociopolitical layers of the lyrics. While the song evokes the bayous of Louisiana, its true origins lie in Fogerty’s childhood memories of Putah Creek in California… and a lime-flavored soda pop. We’ll look at how the smoldering world of 1969—marked by the Vietnam War and recent political assassinations—crept into Fogerty’s writing, transforming a childhood reminiscence into a plea for a simpler time. Whether you are a recording nerd interested in the studio minutia, or a casual fan of great rock, this episode offers a comprehensive look at a timeless American masterpiece.
Words & Music by John Fogerty Copyright 1969 Jondora Music
TRANSCRIPT:
Come on home to the “I’m in Love With That Song” podcast, one of the Pantheon family of podcasts. My name is Brad Page and on each edition of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, listening for all those special elements, those magic moments that make it a great song. We don’t get into music theory on this show; we focus on the arrangements, the performances, and the production that make the song work. So, you don’t need to be a musician to enjoy this show; this is a podcast for every music fan.
As we’ve done in our last couple of episodes, we’re revisiting a band that we featured on this show once before. It’s been about four years since we discussed Creedence Clearwater Revival—I can’t believe it was that long ago, actually. So, let’s return to this classic American band and explore how a group from San Francisco was able to capture the swamp rock atmosphere of the American Deep South. This is one of my favorite Creedence Clearwater Revival tracks; this is “Green River”.
[Audio Clip: “Green River”]
Back on that previous episode where we explored “Run Through the Jungle”—and if you haven’t heard that episode, go back and listen to it, it’s a good one—on that episode, we covered the early history of Creedence, so I’m not going to go over that again. We’ll pick things up in 1969. Many people consider 1969 to be the peak year for Creedence Clearwater Revival. In the span of this single year, the band released three career-defining albums: Bayou Country in January, Green River in August, and Willy and the Poor Boys in November.
John Fogerty, the mastermind behind Creedence, was always afraid that the audience would forget about the band if they weren’t inundating the airwaves with a steady stream of hit singles. “Green River” was the song that kicked off the album of the same name: side one, track one. It was released as a single in July ’69, a month before the album came out. It was written by John Fogerty and performed by Fogerty on lead guitar and lead vocal, his brother Tom Fogerty on rhythm guitar, Stu Cook on bass, and Doug Clifford on drums. It was recorded at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, produced by John Fogerty and engineered by Russ Gary.
The song opens with John Fogerty’s electric guitar riff. An acoustic guitar joins about halfway through before the drums and the bass kick in. Okay, first, let’s not bury the lead. Let’s take a look at Fogerty’s guitar part. It’s the crux of the song. It’s based around an E7 chord, and you don’t need to know anything about the theory behind it. Just know that the key of E, it’s the ultimate guitar key, and Fogerty works it for all its worth, hanging on this chord for extended periods. Playing in E allows him to include an open-string drone, which is often referred to as a pedal tone. That’s a term originated by pipe organ players who would use their feet to hold down low notes using pedals. But in a more general sense, it refers to a note that’s held or repeated while other notes are played over the top. In this case, Fogerty plays a pattern of notes that slowly descends while the E is sustained underneath.
[Audio Clip: Guitar Riff]
You’ll notice that that guitar is placed primarily in the right channel, and his guitar tone is pretty raw. There’s almost a brittle edge to it. I wouldn’t call it a warm tone, which is what many guitarists go for. I would chalk up that tone mostly due to the guitar amp that was used. John Fogerty preferred amps made by the Kustom company—that’s Kustom with a K—specifically, the K200A model. Kustom amps are distinctive due to their Naugahyde tuck-and-roll upholstery. But what’s important to the sound here is that these were solid-state amplifiers, not amps that use tubes, which were and still are preferred by most guitarists over solid-state amps. Tube amps have a natural compression that happens when you hit them with a loud sound; it’s a very pleasing tone. Solid-state amplifiers don’t do that. They have a much faster transient response and respond instantly with a harder, uncompressed sound. That is where the sharp, raspy tone comes from.
Now, as to which guitar Fogerty was playing, I’ve seen conflicting reports. Some sources say it’s a Gibson Les Paul Custom or a Gibson ES-175. You can find photos of Fogerty playing both of those models during this time period. But Fogerty also played a Rickenbacker 325—that’s the same model that John Lennon used to play—and I think Fogerty himself has said that that was the guitar he used here. So, I’m going to take his word for it, and that sounds right to me.
As far as the acoustic guitar, that was a Gibson J-200, which I assume was played by his brother Tom Fogerty. The acoustic is recorded a little “boomy”, not a lot of high end, and is mixed towards the left channel, so each guitar has its own space in the mix. The acoustic guitar is also just hanging on that E chord.
[Audio Clip: Guitars together]
You can also hear there’s a tambourine overdubbed there. So, after establishing the riff by playing it a few times, they launch into the first verse.
[Audio Clip: First Verse]
So, that first verse really sets the tone for where we’re going here. “Well, take me back down where the cool water flows, let me remember the things that I love.” So, it’s about a yearning for a return to a place and a time long past. And then he reminisces about some of these things: stopping at the log where the catfish bite, walking along the river road at night, and those barefoot girls dancing in the moonlight.
So, it’s a trip down memory lane, but it’s more than that. You might say it’s a longing for a more innocent time. That line about the dancing barefoot girls is interesting because it sort of speaks to an early sexual awareness, just starting to discover those feelings right before things get complicated. I think that’s a key element of this song: the desire for a life less complicated.
[Audio Clip: Verse continues]
You’ll notice the vocals have that classic slap-back echo on them, right out of the Sun Records playbook, like an old Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis record. Another interesting note for you recording studio nerds out there: John Fogerty is singing into a Shure SM56 microphone. That was a relatively inexpensive mic; essentially, it’s a Shure SM57 but with an integrated pistol-grip stand mount. These are decent microphones for recording snare drums and guitar amps, but almost never used in the studio to record lead vocals. This mic was chosen by engineer Russ Gary, but why he chose this particular mic, I don’t really know. He said that this was the only time he ever used this mic for Fogerty’s vocal, so it was definitely an oddball choice. But it works.
With the second verse, you can imagine Fogerty reminiscing about his favorite swimming hole.
[Audio Clip: Second Verse]
There’s a nice little doubled guitar part that’s added in there. So, that verse is the first mention of Green River. There is no actual place named Green River, at least not as articulated in this song. One of Fogerty’s tendencies as a songwriter—you could call it a quirk or a stroke of genius, depending on how you look at it—but he was always evoking the sights and sounds of the South: New Orleans, the Mississippi River, the bayou. But Fogerty was a California boy, born and raised. He might have made you envision someplace in the South, but his actual childhood memory here is of Putah Creek near the town of Winters, California.
So, where did the name Green River come from? Well, Putah Creek doesn’t exactly sound as charming as Green River, and it’s not as easy to sing. So, Fogerty looked back to another childhood memory, this one of drinking one of his favorite beverages. Richard C. Jones, who owned a sweet shop, created Green River, a lime-flavored soft drink or soda pop, in Davenport, Iowa, in 1916. In 1919, he sold the formula to a Chicago brewing company who would switch to making soda during Prohibition. Eventually, other bottlers began to sell the flavor, but by the 1990s, it had all but disappeared. Though you can still buy bottles of Green River today, you’ll have to seek it out.
That verse is followed by one of those guitar and vocal moments that is so uniquely a John Fogerty signature. Then that leads us right into a short guitar solo.
[Audio Clip: Guitar Solo]
We haven’t really talked about the other guys in the band, so let’s touch on them for a moment. Doug Clifford on drums and Stu Cook on bass in particular were the engine that drives this track forward. Neither of them is playing anything complex, and neither is Tom Fogerty on rhythm guitar, but they are all locked in together. At the center of the Creedence Clearwater Revival sound is that rhythm that’s often described as “chooglin'”. Fogerty wrote a song called “Keep On Chooglin’”; he may have invented that term, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe, but you know it when you hear it, and you’ll hear it on virtually every Creedence track. Let’s hear this rhythm section “choogle.”
[Audio Clip: Isolated Rhythm Section]
And that brings us to the final verse. A little bit of a shift in lyrical tone here. Let’s listen to the vocal track first.
[Audio Clip: Isolated Vocals]
All right, let’s look at these lyrics a little closer. First, he mentions Cody’s Camp. This was an actual place, a cabin near Putah Creek that was supposedly owned by a relative of Buffalo Bill Cody. Then he sings about flat-car riders and cross-tie walkers. These are men traveling by train unlawfully—what they used to call hoboes. Here we have Fogerty as a young boy among the drifters and the outsiders. And then Old Cody Junior must be the guy who owns that cabin, takes young John aside and warns him, “You’re going to find the world is smoldering, and if you get lost, come on home to Green River.”
The shadow of the grown-up world is creeping into this childhood memory. And thinking back to 1969, when this song was released, the Vietnam War was raging, and it was only a year out from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. The world was indeed smoldering. And really, looking around at our world now, when is the world ever not smoldering? But he ends the song with the plea or the reassurance that if you get lost, come on home to Green River. Now, let’s hear that final verse.
[Audio Clip: Final Verse and Outro]
Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Green River”.
“Green River” climbed the charts and reached number two. It was poised to hit number one, but it was kept out of the number one spot by “Sugar, Sugar”, a bubblegum pop song by a fake band, The Archies. Oh, the indignities! Creedence has the distinction of being the band with the most songs to reach number two without ever having a number one chart-topper. The Green River album also featured “Bad Moon Rising”, another hit that reached number two. It’s interesting to compare these two songs because while “Bad Moon Rising” juxtaposes some pretty dark lyrics with a really jaunty up-tempo beat, “Green River” sounds dark and moody even though its lyrics are more upbeat. But these are the quirks that make the music of CCR so memorable and endlessly fascinating, and it’s why these songs still stand out today.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. The “I’m in Love With That Song” podcast will return with another new episode in just about two weeks. All of our previous episodes are available on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, so if you missed any of them—and there are over 200 episodes now—or you just want to re-listen to an episode, you’ll find them all right there. And make sure you follow the show so that you never miss an episode.
Thanks for coming along for the ride; I really appreciate it. If you want to help the show out, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it. Talk it up, share it with your friends and family, because recommendations from people like you are the best advertising I could ever ask for. So, thank you. I will meet you back here on the Pantheon Podcast Network for our next episode. Until then, get back down where the cool water flows, watch out for those barefoot girls dancing in the moonlight… and come on home to Green River.
Words & Music by Lonesome Dave Peverett Copyright 1975 Kohaw Music o/b/o Knee Trembler Music (ASCAP) c/o The Bicycle Music Company
In this episode, we’ll explore the story and sonic architecture behind Foghat’s 1975 arena rock anthem, “Fool for the City“. Tracing the band’s roots back to British blues rockers Savoy Brown, we dive into how Foghat solidified their heavy boogie sound and retreated to a remote studio in Vermont to record their breakthrough platinum album. And we’ll take a tour through the song’s isolated instrumental tracks, uncovering the characteristically dry 1970’s drum mix, producer Nick Jameson’s funky bass contributions, the one-of-a-kind voice of Lonesome Dave Peverett, and Rod Price’s classic guitar work.
Words & Music by Lonesome Dave Peverett Copyright 1975 Kohaw Music o/b/o Knee Trembler Music (ASCAP) c/o The Bicycle Music Company
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello once again, and welcome back to the “I’m in Love With That Song” podcast, beamed directly into your earholes courtesy of the Pantheon Podcast Network. As always, I’m your host, Brad Page, and each edition of this podcast, I pick a song from my library of favorites, and we explore it together, trying to get a better understanding of what makes a song work. Why do I love this song? We limit the technical jargon here and keep the music theory to a minimum. This is a show for anyone who loves music. You don’t have to be a musical expert to enjoy this show.
On this episode, we’ll continue our exploration of bands that have been featured on this podcast once before, as we revisit Foghat, one of the bands that defined the sound of 1970s arena rock. This time, we’re going straight to their most popular studio album and digging into the title cut. That’s right– this is Foghat with “Fool for the City”.
Back on episode 78, we explored Foghat’s take on “Honey Hush”. I did a quick overview of their career on that show, but it’s been a while, so let’s go over those details again.
By the mid to late 1960s, it seemed like London was overrun by young British musicians obsessed with American blues; Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy, Howlin’ Wolf… these British kids couldn’t get enough of this music, whether it was Delta Blues or Chicago Blues or anything in between. Sure, there was an element of fetishization about it, but these kids genuinely loved this music, and they appreciated it a lot more than American white kids did at this time.
One of the premier British blues bands was Savoy Brown, led by guitarist Kim Simmons. Savoy Brown seemed to churn through members, but for a time, the band settled around six members. Along with Simmons were Chris Youlden on vocals, Bob Hall on piano, Tony Stevens on bass, Roger Earl on drums, and Lonesome Dave Peverett on rhythm guitar and occasional vocals.
This lineup of Savoy Brown released a handful of albums: Blue Matter and A Step Further both came out in 1969, and then Raw Sienna in 1970. At that point, Chris Youlden and Bob Hall had left the band, and Lonesome Dave took over the lead vocals for their next album Looking In.
After that album, Lonesome Dave Peverett, Roger Earl, and Tony Stevens all left the band to start their own group. Simmons was pushing the band in a jazzier direction, while the rest of the guys wanted to pursue a heavier boogie sound. “Boogie” was a straightforward, visceral sound, with the swing of the blues melded with the aggression of rock. Things came to a head in December 1970, when Simmons fired Stevens and put additional demands on Peverett and Earl. They decided to quit, and the three of them got together to start their own group.
What they needed now was a new lead guitarist, and they found just the guy in Rod Price. Price had been playing with Black Cat Bones, and his brilliant slide guitar playing earned him the nickname the bottle. His addition to the band transformed their sound. His searing slide guitar leads delivered the sound that gave the band its heavy edge. So, the band had their lead guitarist and their sound nailed down. Now all they needed was a name. It was Peverett who provided Foghat.
The name Foghat was a meaningless word that Peverett made up during a game of Scrabble he played with his brother when they were kids. I guess the word stuck around, but it literally doesn’t mean anything.
The band met with quite a few record labels but found no takers until they met with Albert Grossman, who signed them to his Bearsville record label. Soon, they would relocate to New York.
They released their first album, self-titled, in 1972. It was produced by Dave Edmunds and featured their version of Muddy Waters’ “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, which became a staple of their live shows. It set the template for the Foghat sound. Take a classic blues tune, ramp it up, crank up the guitars, and belt out the vocals in Lonesome Dave’s distinctive style.
Three more albums followed, and though a big hit eluded them, the band built an audience, focusing on the US, growing a fan base through relentless touring. But that pace was grueling, and it took its toll. By 1975, Tony Stevens had enough and left the band. Now they were missing a bass player just as they were about to record their most ambitious album to date.
Nick Jameson had produced their previous album, Rock and Roll Outlaws, and he was lined up to produce this new record. Rather than audition a bunch of new bass players, the band turned to Nick Jameson and asked him to play bass on the album. Nick was a guitarist and a keyboard player, but not an experienced bass player, but he took on the job and became their de facto bassist for this new album.
The band decided to decamp to a small studio in Vermont called Suntreader. Located in Sharon, Vermont, it was about as removed from the city as you could get. This allowed the band to focus on the music, but you gotta wonder how that influenced this title cut.
“Fool for the City” was written by Dave Peverett. It’s performed by Peverett on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Rod Price on lead and slide guitar, Roger Earl on drums, and Nick Jameson on bass. It was produced by Jameson.
The song begins with a quick flam, probably on a floor tom, and then we’re into the opening riff.
The first thing I notice on this track is that the drums are pretty dry. I’m not really hearing any reverb. That’s pretty standard for a 1970s recording. It wasn’t until the 1980s that they started putting tons of reverb on the drums to the point where the drum sounds got kind of ridiculous, at least in my opinion. But this dry drum sound is pretty typical of the 1970s. Let’s bring up the drums and listen to that for a bit.
Now let’s go back and play the intro through to the first verse.
That first verse pretty much lays out the thesis for this song. Not a lot of subtext here. “The country sure is pretty, but I’ll leave it all behind.” Let’s bring up that vocal track by Lonesome Dave Peverett.
There’s the chorus, classic gang vocals on the chorus there, and definitely plenty of reverb on the vocals. Let’s bring that up in the mix.
Now, before they start the second verse, there’s a short bit with some harmonized guitar parts. Let’s bring that forward a bit.
I like that because it serves as a transition from the chorus to the verse, and it gives you something new to keep things fresh.
Let’s go back and hear just the instrumental track for the verse to hear what’s going on underneath the vocals.
And back to the chorus.
And that brings us to the bridge. There are two distinct parts to the bridge. Let’s tackle the first part.
First, we’ll hear the instrumental track without the vocals. Like most of the song, there are at least two guitars panned left and right, but in this section, there’s another guitar in there right in the middle. It sounds like there’s some phasing or flanging on that guitar as well.
Okay, let’s hear that with the vocals now.
The vocals are doubled there. Another thing that I’m noticing is that the vocals are mixed pretty low throughout this song. Sometimes the guitars almost drown them out. Dave Peverett has a great voice, but Foghat was definitely a guitar band.
Let’s move on to the second part of the bridge, and things get funky here. It was Nick Jameson who came up with this idea, and it really adds a whole new element to the song.
All right, let’s dissect this part. First, let’s just hear Dave’s vocal. It’s pretty much a spoken word part.
And now the instrumental parts. Some interesting things happening here. There’s an acoustic guitar playing that country blues riff. It’s the first time we’ve heard an acoustic guitar in this song. And Nick Jameson is playing some slap bass that’s kind of a counterpart to that acoustic guitar. I like the way those two play off of each other. And then there are some electric guitars that come up in the left and right channel, both with an envelope filter or auto-wah effect on them. It’s a very specific kind of sound. All these parts work together in a pretty interesting way. Let’s hear all of that.
And that leads right into a guitar solo, giving Rod Price a moment to shine. Rod was mostly known for his slide playing, but he’s not using any slide here.
Now, listen to how Rod Price incorporates some of the vocal melody into his solo here. And they’ve also added some backing vocals, but they’re doing something different than what they do during the other choruses. It’s all kind of clever.
And that leads right into a reprise of the bridge.
This time around, Lonesome Dave uses more of his singing voice than the spoken word. Let’s hear that in the final mix and listen to Jameson’s funky bass part here.
That time around, there’s no acoustic guitar part there, which leaves room for Jameson’s bass to really jump out of the mix. And notice how the band builds up out of that section into these final choruses. It’s a really nice way to create some excitement leading into the finale.
As Dave Peverett ad-libs his vocals over the top, Nick Jameson’s bass and Roger Earl’s drums get a little more frantic, busier, driving the song to its conclusion.
And now Rod Price has overdubbed some more guitar licks, adding even more energy to the track.
Foghat –“Fool for the City”
Besides the title cut, the album also includes “Slow Ride”, their biggest hit. The album would become their first platinum album. And in 1977, they released their live album, Foghat Live, which would become their biggest-selling album.
But by 1979, trends changed and new sounds were capturing the attention of the general public, and Foghat fell out of fashion. They continued to release albums into the 1980s with diminishing returns.
Rod Price left the band in 1980, and they continued on for a while with a guitarist named Erik Cartwright, but they eventually split around 1984. There were a number of reunions with various lineups, but I don’t think anything captured the highlights of their 1970s peak.
Lonesome Dave Peverett, one of the most distinctive singers of his era, died in February 2000 from kidney cancer. He was 56. Rod Price was living in Wilton, New Hampshire, not far from where I lived, when he suffered a heart attack and fell down a flight of stairs. He was 57.
But at the time of this recording, Nick Jameson and Roger Earl are still with us, and Earl still tours with a version of Foghat.
Thanks for joining me for this edition of the “I’m in Love With That Song” podcast. I will be back in two weeks with another new episode. If for some unexplainable reason you just can’t bear to wait two weeks, you can relisten to all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.
You can support the show by going to oldglory.com and buying some merch from your favorite artists. They even have a Fool for the City T-shirt that you can buy. And if you use our discount code, lovethatsong, you’ll save 15% and you’ll be helping to support this show. That’s oldglory.com with the discount code, lovethatsong.
Thank you for being part of this show here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where fans belong. Now let’s turn up the volume and crank up “Fool for the City” by Foghat.
RESOURCES & LINKS:
Foghat: Visit their Official Website for current tour dates, official merchandise, and their latest music releases.
Savoy Brown: The Official Savoy Brown Website features news and details on founder Kim Simmonds’ autobiography, which chronicles his six-decade journey in blues-rock.
Muddy Waters: The Muddy Waters Foundation is dedicated to preserving the history of the blues and supporting emerging blues musicians.
Howlin’ Wolf: The Howlin’ Wolf Memorial Site offers detailed biographical insights, rare photographs, and stories covering his incredible life and legacy.
Lonesome Dave Peverett: His Concord Music Publishing profile highlights his massive impact as the founding member of Foghat and the writer behind defining hits like “Slow Ride” and “Fool For The City”.
Nick Jameson: His Discogs Profile outlines his eclectic and prolific career as a producer, engineer, voice actor, and multi-instrumentalist.
Rod Price obituary: https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/rod-price-530402.html
Record Labels & Studios:
Bearsville Records: You can explore the ongoing legacy of Albert Grossman’s iconic label and its artists at the Bearsville Center. For a complete visual history of their original album art, catalog numbers, and tracklists, the Bearsville Discogs page is an invaluable database.
Suntreader Studios: The Suntreader Studios Discogs page catalogs the various releases cut at this remote Sharon, Vermont location, including Foghat’s platinum milestone.
Merchandise Sponsor:oldglory.com (Use code Lovethatsong for 15% off)
"Life Is A Carnival" Words & Music by Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm & Rick Danko copyright 1971 WC Music Corp and Canaan Music, Inc. All rights administered by WC Music Corp
By 1971, The Band was one of the most influential forces in rock music, having steered the genre away from psychedelic excess toward a more rustic, roots-based sound. However, the recording of their fourth album, Cahoots, was a period of high tension within the group. Despite these fractures, the album’s opening track, “Life is a Carnival,” stands out as a masterpiece of groove and atmosphere, drawing on Robertson’s real-life experiences working in a traveling circus to paint a vivid picture of life as a relentless “hustle.”
Let’s dive inside the track to examine the individual elements that make it work: the interplay between Levon Helm’s “behind the beat” drumming, Rick Danko’s fretless bass, Robbie Robertson’s funky guitar work, and the “calliope” atmosphere created by Garth Hudson’s Lowrey organ. And a major highlight is Allen Toussaint’s contribution; the New Orleans legend’s horn arrangements were written specifically to weave around Robertson’s existing guitar solo, resulting in a rhythmic conversation that remains irresistible decades later. This episode is a tribute not just to a great song, but to the enduring legacy of five musicians who changed the landscape of American music.
“Life Is A Carnival” Words & Music by Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm & Rick Danko copyright 1971 WC Music Corp and Canaan Music, Inc. All rights administered by WC Music Corp
TRANSCRIPT:
Take a load off, because it’s time for another episode of the I’m in Love with That Song podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, coming to you courtesy of the Pantheon Podcast Network, where fans belong. Each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we take a look at it together as we try to get a better understanding of what makes a song work. We’ll dig into all those little elements, those small decisions and choices that add up to making a great song. No musical knowledge or experience is required here; we don’t get too technical. This podcast is for anyone who loves music and is curious about what makes a song great.
This time around, we’re revisiting one of the most important bands that came out of the late 1960s, and they had a huge impact on the direction of rock music. We’re talking about The Band. We’ve covered The Band once before—that was way back on Episode 17, with a song from their second album. This time, we’ll explore a song from their fourth album, released in 1971. This is a great song called “Life is a Carnival.”
(Music: “Life is a Carnival” by The Band)
In the late 1950s, a singer named Ronnie Hawkins had a backing band called The Hawks. The Hawks included four Canadians: guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson both on keyboards, and one American: a drummer named Levon Helm. Hawkins built up quite a following in the Ontario area, but eventually, The Hawks outgrew working with Ronnie and split off on their own. In 1965, Bob Dylan hired them to be his band for his 1965-66 tours, and suddenly, The Hawks were thrust into the big time. They became known as simply The Band, and after working with Dylan on what became known as The Basement Tapes, they got their own record deal and released their first album, Music from Big Pink.
(Music: “The Weight” by The Band)
To say that that album was influential would be a huge understatement. It changed the landscape, the whole direction of rock music. Suddenly, the trippy excesses of psychedelic rock were out, and the rustic, return-to-roots sound that The Band exemplified became the hot new thing. But by the turn of the 1970s, the pressure of their own myth was clearly having an effect. When they recorded their first album in 1968, they were as tight as a band could get, practically telepathic in their musical communication—it was a shared communal experience. But when they headed into the studio to make their fourth album, Cahoots, in 1971, their brotherhood was being fractured by fame, substance abuse, and creative stagnation.
Probably the biggest casualty by this time was pianist and singer Richard Manuel. On their first album, he was a key ingredient of their creative stew, contributing a number of that record’s best tracks. But by the fourth album, his creative output had evaporated; he contributed no new material for this album. Drummer and singer Levon Helm’s creative input had also diminished, though he did remain their primary vocalist. That left Robbie Robertson as the driving force for getting this new album together. So then, of course, that imbalance of songwriting led to resentment from the other members. From his perspective, Robertson felt abandoned by the others and forced into taking the role of the leader. And the rest of the band, particularly Levon Helm, would become bitter about the songwriting credits and the lack of royalty payments that followed.
The studio situation just made things worse. Albert Grossman, the band’s manager and also founder of the Bearsville record label, had built Bearsville Sound Studios in Woodstock, New York. It was designed to be a state-of-the-art studio, but when The Band entered it in 1971, the studio wasn’t finished yet, and there were a lot of technical issues that just hadn’t been fixed. And the band were used to working in more natural environments. This new studio felt sterile to them—too bright, too cold. And the album that resulted, Cahoots, is often described as sounding muddy and murky.
Cahoots isn’t a concept or thematic album by design, but there is a thread that runs through the record. Maybe unintentionally, but it’s there. Most of the songs deal with obsolescence: the vanishing of trades and traditions, the extinction of animals like the buffalo and the bald eagle. You could pretty easily extrapolate these themes as representing The Band itself at this time. But we’re still talking about The Band here; even at their lowest points, they were still capable of brilliance. There are a few moments like these on the album, especially the song that opens the record, “Life is a Carnival.”
Interestingly, “Life is a Carnival” is the only song on the album where band members besides Robertson share credit. The song is credited to Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Robbie Robertson. It features Levon Helm on drums, Rick Danko on fretless bass, Robbie Robertson on guitar, Richard Manuel on piano, and Garth Hudson on a Lowrey organ. The vocals are delivered by both Rick Danko and Levon Helm. The track opens with a single kick drum hit, then the bass, guitar, and the drums and percussion come in for four measures.
(Music: Intro to “Life is a Carnival”)
Okay, a couple of things here. First, I’m hearing a lot of noise in the left channel. I imagine you can hear it too, even on this podcast MP3 file. Now, I’m using the original CD of this album released in 2000 for this breakdown. This album was remixed and remastered in 2021, but I didn’t want to use that version because it’s significantly different than the original album, and I just wanted to stick with the original mix for better or worse. I did go back and listen to my vinyl copy of this album, and other than the typical surface noise from an old record, I didn’t really hear as much noise on the vinyl as I do on this CD. So I don’t know if this is something unique to this particular copy of the CD, but there’s definitely some distracting noise in that left channel. I could run some software to clean it up, but I’m not going to do that; I don’t want to mess with the original track. So we’ll leave it, noise and all.
Okay, so now let’s go back and listen to this intro, this time just the drums and the bass. This is quite a funky little groove that Levon and Rick are laying down. Remember that Rick is playing a fretless bass—it’s actually an Ampeg AMUB-1. We discussed these bases a little bit a few episodes ago on Episode 200 about the history of the electric bass. Let’s hear that intro.
(Music: Isolated bass and drums)
And now, let’s bring up Robbie Robertson’s guitar to see what he’s playing in counterpoint to that groove. Notice how Robbie’s guitar has a tremolo effect on it.
(Music: Isolated guitar with tremolo)
All right, now let’s put that back together and we’ll listen to the first four measures of this intro.
(Music: Reassembled intro)
And here, starting with the next measure, the horns come in. And from my money, the horns are the most exciting part of this song. They were arranged by Allen Toussaint, an absolute legend. Based in New Orleans, Allen Toussaint produced literally hundreds of recordings. He wrote a number of classic songs, he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2013. There’s a street named after him in New Orleans; he even had his own postage stamp issued last year. His horn arrangement on this track is so great.
(Music: Intro with horn section)
A couple more things to note here: the stereo placement of the horns—some on the left, some on the right—really accentuates the way the different horns bounce off of each other in a funky conversation. Also, notice that there’s an acoustic guitar that’s been added, somewhat low in the mix, adding another percussive rhythm.
(Music: Intro with acoustic guitar detail)
That brings us to the first verse, where the vocals come in. The song is sung as a duet between Rick Danko, taking the high parts, and Levon Helm, with Richard Manuel providing backup on the choruses.
(Music: Verse 1 vocals)
That leads us into the second part of the verse and a couple of my favorite lines in the song. It’s a great example of how Robbie Robertson’s songwriting could really paint a visual picture. First, let’s bring up the vocals.
(Music: Verse 1 continued vocals)
You can really picture this guy peddling watches on the street. That’s the hustle, right? The hustle of this carnival called life. Let’s hear that verse in the final mix.
(Music: Verse 1 final mix)
And that brings us to the first chorus. Garth Hudson’s Lowrey organ is heard more prominently here.
(Music: Chorus 1)
The intro riff returns here for a few measures.
(Music: Interlude)
Here comes the second verse, which tells of a man with “a jinx in the third degree” from dealing with people “he can’t see”. This is the most enigmatic line in the song; there’s a few ways you could interpret that. One thing we should probably mention here is that Robbie Robertson actually spent time working in a carnival. When he was 14, he worked at a traveling circus and freak show outside of Toronto. I think the things he saw and experienced there were life lessons that he carried with him—a certain perspective on human nature, which I think informs this song.
(Music: Verse 2)
Before we move on, I want to go back and listen to that verse without the vocals, just to appreciate this performance. Everything about it is great. Levon Helm’s drums are played perfectly laid-back, behind the beat. He’s avoiding the typical clichés and playing around the beat. Rick Danko’s also playing bits that slide around the beat, often avoiding the ‘one’ and playing in between the beats. Robbie Robertson’s laying down an acoustic guitar track that almost functions more as a percussion instrument than a melodic one. And then there’s those horns: sharp, rhythmic stabs bouncing off of each other and the rest of the band. The playing between Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and that brass section creates this push-pull rhythm that is absolutely irresistible.
(Music: Instrumental track of Verse 2)
And the last half of this verse really gets to the crux of the song. “We’re all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world; the street is a sideshow, from the peddler to the corner girl. Life is a carnival, it’s in the book. Life is a carnival, take another look.”
(Music: Verse 2 conclusion and Chorus)
Next up is a guitar solo from Robbie Robertson. And what I love about this solo is the way it bobs and weaves around the other parts. But it wasn’t constructed that way; the solo was actually recorded before the brass section was arranged and recorded. Allen Toussaint received a rough mix of the song with the guitar solo already there and wrote the horn parts around the existing solo. Listen to how all of these parts—the solo, the rhythm section, and the horns—interact with each other.
(Music: Guitar solo with horn interaction)
And that brings us to a reprise of the line about the guy hawking watches before one final chorus. But before we get there, I want to listen to just the rhythm section one more time, especially to Rick Danko on fretless bass.
(Music: Rhythm section isolated)
Let’s bring the other instruments back in.
(Music: Instrumental build-up)
All right, now let’s go back, add the vocals back in, and listen to the final mix. This time, listen for Robertson’s funky guitar part and how Garth Hudson’s organ recreates the atmosphere of a circus calliope on the chorus.
(Music: Final Verse and Chorus)
And they’re going to ride out on this great groove into the fade.
(Music: Fade out)
“Life is a Carnival” by The Band.
When Cahoots was released in September 1971, it met with reviews that ranged from mediocre to downright hostile. That was something The Band wasn’t used to; they’d been critical darlings up until that point. The reaction stung, so much so that it would be four years before they released another album of new material. They followed Cahoots with a live album, Rock of Ages, that featured a horn section all arranged by Allen Toussaint. And then, an album of all cover songs called Moondog Matinee. They didn’t release an album of new original songs until Northern Lights-Southern Cross in 1975. By 1978, they called it quits and celebrated with The Last Waltz. They would later reform, but without Robbie Robertson.
All the members of The Band are gone now. Richard Manuel took his own life in March 1986. After a gig in Florida, he hung himself in the hotel bathroom. He was 42 years old.
Rick Danko passed away from heart failure at his home in December 1999. He was 55.
Levon Helm survived a bout with throat cancer in the 1990s that left him unable to sing for years. Eventually, he started singing again in 2004, but it was never really the same. The cancer returned, and after years of a valiant fight, Levon Helm died in April 2012. He was 71.
Robbie Robertson died at the age of 80 in Los Angeles from prostate cancer.
And the last surviving member, Garth Hudson, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Woodstock, New York, on January 21, 2025. He was 87 years old.
The music lives on, though—that’s a cliché to say, but it’s true. They were one of the most influential groups ever, whether people realize it or not, and that music continues to inspire and influence artists upcoming today.
Thanks for checking out 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 stay tuned for more. You can catch up on or revisit any of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Keep up with us on Facebook—just look for the I’m in Love with That Song podcast, you’ll find us there—or send email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.
You can support the show by going to oldglory.com and buying a t-shirt or some band merch. Use our discount code “lovethatsong” to get 15% off.
And please, share the show with the other music lovers in your life—your friends, your family. Please spread the word about this podcast, because that’s what keeps us going.
On behalf of everyone here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. And remember– life is a carnival.
The Band: A Musical History (Comprehensive Fan Site) theband.hiof.no – An extensive archive of the group’s history, including Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks and their work with Bob Dylan.
Words & Music by Rick Neilsen Copyright 1979 Screen Gems-EMI Music and Adult Music
What happens when a record label shelves a band’s most ambitious studio work to capitalize on a surprise live hit? On this episode, we explore this unique moment in rock history and analyze “Dream Police” by Cheap Trick — the title track of the album that sat on a shelf for nine months while Cheap Trick at Budokan conquered the world. We’ll step through the song’s complex architecture, revealing how Rick Nielsen combined lyrics of paranoia with a hard-rocking guitar riff and a heavily orchestrated, at times “horror-movie” vibe.
The episode goes beyond the surface, isolating the tricky guitar melodies, the pre-chorus drama, and the disorienting shift in time signatures. You will gain a new appreciation for the technical prowess of Robin Zander’s vocals, Tom Petersson’s 12-string bass, and Bun E. Carlos’s Moon-esque drumming. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or a newcomer to the “hardest working band in show business,” this episode illustrates why “Dream Police” remains an inescapable classic and a testament to the band’s survival and creativity.
Words & Music by Rick Neilsen Copyright 1979 Screen Gems-EMI Music and Adult Music
TRANSCRIPT:
The smallest bones in your body are in your middle ear. Referred to as the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup—those are some pretty rock and roll names– these three bones are the first bones in your body to fully ossify; they’re done developing by the time you’re born, and they never grow any bigger. Each of these bones is tiny– smaller than a grain of rice; you could fit all of them on the tip of your finger. But from these tiniest of bones comes a whole universe of creativity and imagination.
This is the I’m in Love with that Song podcast, and I’m your host Brad Page. We’re here on the Pantheon Media Network, and on each edition of this show, I pick a favorite song and we dive into it together, exploring all the nuances, the little moments, and special elements that turn a good song into a great one. If you’re not a musician or you don’t know anything about music theory, don’t worry about it, because we don’t get too technical on this show. All you need is a love for music and a little bit of curiosity, and you’ll fit right in here.
On this episode, we’re heading back to 1979, when one of the all-time great bands was at the top of their game. Cheap Trick were coming off the smash hit live At Budokan album, which they followed up with an album that pushed their sound forward. Stick around as we explore the title cut from this album. This is Cheap Trick with “Dream Police”.
[Music plays]
We’ve discussed Cheap Trick a couple of times before on this show, including an overview of their early career leading up to the At Budokan album. On that show, I was joined by Brian Kramp from the Rock and/or Roll podcast, who wrote the definitive book on Cheap Trick’s history. That book is called This Band Has No Past: How Cheap Trick Became Cheap Trick, and if you don’t have it, go get it—it is a great book. And go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t heard it; it’ll catch you up on the origin of Cheap Trick.
So, I’m not going to cover that same ground here. We’ll pick up the story after the release of the At Budokan album, and that’s a pretty famous story all in itself. Cheap Trick were struggling to break through to the masses in the U.S., but they had managed to gain rock star status in Japan. A live album was recorded during their 1978 tour of Japan, and it was intended as a Japanese-only release. But American radio stations started playing it, and word of this killer import-only live album caught on. Epic Records realized that if they released it in the U.S., they could have a hit on their hands—which they certainly did. When that album came out in the U.S. in February 1979, Cheap Trick At Budokan would eventually sell over three million copies.
Which was great, except for one thing: Cheap Trick had already recorded their next studio album, and it was ready to be released when the record company decided to put it back on the shelf and release the live album globally instead. So the new album, the band’s most ambitious record to date, sat unreleased for at least nine months.
This new album was produced by Tom Werman and engineered by Gary Ladinsky. Along with band members Robin Zander on lead vocals and guitar, Rick Nielsen on lead guitar and occasional vocals, Tom Petersson on bass, and Bun E. Carlos on drums, the band was augmented by some additional studio musicians, most notably Jai Winding, who added keyboards and also helped with the string arrangements. The addition of strings on this album really expanded the sound of this album, but there was another technical decision that contributed to this album’s sound. This was one of the first handful of recordings to be made with the 3M Digital Audio Mastering system, a system that offered 32 tracks of digital recording.
The song that opens the album, side one, track one, would also give the album its name: “Dream Police”. The song was written by Rick Nielsen and performed by Nielsen on guitar, mandocello, and vocals; Robin Zander on lead vocals and probably some rhythm guitar; Bun E. Carlos on drums; and Tom Petersson on 12-string bass.[1] Also appearing on the track are Jai Winding on piano and organ, and producer Tom Werman and engineer Gary Ladinsky also chip in with some background vocals.
The song kicks off with two flams on the snare drum, and we’re off and running.
[Music plays]
The track is already sonically full right from the start, but it’s still just guitars, bass, and drums, and the strings. Before we get any further, let’s just take a minute to look at the parts. Along with the drums, there are two guitar parts panned left and right.
[Music plays]
Then there’s the string parts, which are very dramatic. These are not lush, gentle, romantic strings; there’s a lot of energy and power in this string arrangement.
[Music plays]
And then, underneath it all, is Tom Petersson’s bass part, played on his trademark 12-string bass, which is such a part of the Cheap Trick sound. It blends in with the final mix so it doesn’t necessarily stand out any different than a standard bass part, but when you hear it in isolation, then you can really hear all of those strings ringing out and what it adds to the overall sound and feel of the track.
[Music plays]
We will take a closer look at all of these parts as we go through the song, but for now, let’s move on. The song begins with the chorus, though that’s not exactly a rarity; it is a little less common for a rock song to lead off with the chorus.
[Music plays]
That leads immediately into the first verse. And I think what really makes these verses work, besides the great vocal by Robin Zander, is the combination of the organ, which sounds straight out of a horror movie, and Tom Petersson’s bass part. That 12-string bass really delivers something special here
[Music plays]
The guitar basically lays out most of the verse and just adds some accent chords. Let’s go back and listen to those two parts I mentioned before. First, the organ:
[Music plays]
And here’s the bass part:
[Music plays]
The next section—let’s call that the pre-chorus—perfectly builds the drama into the chorus. Let’s break this down bit by bit.
[Music plays]
First, notice how on the second half of that line, “They’re looking for me,” Petersson doubles the vocal melody on his bass.
[Music plays]
Next, all the instruments and the vocals, they all hit the same syncopated beats together.
[Music plays]
Let’s bring up the drums a little bit in the mix here.
[Music plays]
And another nice little touch is how Rick Nielsen is sliding down out of each of those chord hits. Let’s hear that.
[Music plays]
All right, let’s move on to the next bit. Both the guitar and the bass are playing a nice little descending riff there.
[Music plays]
Okay, let’s keep going. And let’s hear Bun E. Carlos one more time with that drum fill that leads us into the chorus.
[Music plays]
All right, now that we’ve heard that all chopped up, let’s go back and play through the whole pre-chorus into the chorus.
[Music plays]
Let’s look at the vocals on the chorus. Sounds to me like Robin Zander has double-tracked his main vocal, with what I assume is Rick, Tom Werman, and Gary Ladinsky providing the falsetto backing vocals.
[Music plays]
And that brings us to the second verse. And this time, let’s bring up Robin Zander’s vocal first.
[Music plays]
Okay, now let’s hear the final mix of that verse.
[Music plays]
Bun E. Carlos plays some nice drum fills coming out of that verse, so let’s hear that for a second.
[Music plays]
And that brings us to another pre-chorus and chorus. Let’s focus on the vocals again.
[Music plays]
And now we’ve reached the bridge, which is a spoken word part by Rick Nielsen. Let’s just hear his vocal.
[Music plays]
And now we’ll listen to it in context.
[Music plays]
And then there’s a really short guitar solo. It’s nothing flashy, just Rick playing this almost woozy melody; it’s a little disorienting, almost like waking up from a dream.
[Music plays]
That little string part there really adds a lot. And that takes us into one final pre-chorus.
[Music plays]
Now, they’re going to stretch out this last line as the song builds. The bass will hold down the root note while Rick Nielsen’s guitar will climb—slowly at first, then faster. They’re just wringing every bit of drama out of this one chord.
[Music plays]
And we’ve reached a new section of the song, a heavily orchestrated part. All the instruments—the drums, the bass, the guitar, and the strings—each have a different part to play. And to make it even more disorienting, the time signature will shift: two measures of four beats, and then one measure of three beats. And that pattern will continue through this section: two measures of 4/4, one measure of 3/4. Let’s break it down starting with the drums. Bun E. Carlos is playing a part that reminds me of Keith Moon, though not as manic—of course, no one was as manic as Keith Moon.
[Music plays]
Next, let’s hear Rick Nielsen’s guitar. He’s playing these crazy arpeggiated chords; they’re almost dissonant in places, which just adds to the disorientation along with those shifting time signatures.
[Music plays]
In contrast, the bass is playing steady, rapidly picking one note at a time, slowly climbing until he hits a plateau alternating between two notes.
[Music plays]
And finally, the strings are playing an intense cinematic part building to their own crescendo.
[Music plays]
Now let’s hear all of that together as it builds until it finally explodes into the last choruses.
[Music plays]
You can hear some handclaps overdubbed here.
[Music plays]
“Dream Police” – Cheap Trick
Though the At Budokan album would remain Cheap Trick’s best-selling album, Dream Police was their biggest studio album. The song “Dream Police” is maybe the perfect example of Rick Nielsen’s one-of-a-kind songwriting: combining a lyric of nightmare and paranoia with a guitar riff that just rocks hard and orchestration that makes the song a cinematic anthem.
A lot has happened since 1979, but Cheap Trick is still making records and touring consistently. They remain one of the hardest-working bands in the business. And though Bun E. Carlos is no longer a member of the band, all four of the original members are still alive and well at the time of this recording. Cheap Trick are true survivors in every sense of the word.
“Dream Police” is one of those songs that’s just ingrained in my life. I was in high school when it came out, and the song was inescapable. A few years later, when I bought my first car—a second-hand Plymouth Satellite Sebring—it had an old eight-track player in it, so I went out and bought a bunch of second-hand eight-tracks to play in the car. I probably owned maybe six albums on eight-track, but one of them was Dream Police.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the I’m in Love with that Song podcast. Don’t forget to follow the show so that you never miss an episode. New episodes come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so there’ll be another episode coming your way soon. And there’s over 200 previous episodes of this show; if you missed any of them, you can find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. I always like to hear your thoughts. You can communicate with us on Facebook—just look for the I’m in Love with that Song podcast there—or send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.
It always helps if you leave a positive review wherever you listen to this show, so thanks for that. But the best thing you can do to support us is to tell someone about the show, recommend it to your friends or family. A good word from listeners like you, that is priceless.
I’ll be back here on the Pantheon Podcast Network with a new episode soon. Until then, watch out for the dream police. Sleep tight…
P. McCartney, L. McCartney - Copyright 1974 MPL Communications Ltd.
We celebrate the 201st 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.
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.
John Creaux Copyright 1967 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp and Skull Music
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.
“I Walk On Guilded Splinters” – John Creaux [Mac Rebennack] Copyright 1967 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp and Skull Music
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.
"Transmaniacon MC" - Sandy Pearlman, Albert Bouchard, Donald Roeser, Eric Bloom Copyright 1972 Sony/ATV Tunes, LLC
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.
“Transmaniacon MC” – Sandy Pearlman, Albert Bouchard, Donald Roeser, Eric Bloom Copyright 1972 Sony/ATV Tunes, LLC
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.
"(Ain't Nothin' But A) House Party" - Dal Sharh & Joseph Thomas Copyright 1967 Clairlyn - Dandelion Music BMI
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.
“(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party” – Dal Sharh & Joseph Thomas Copyright 1967 Clairlyn – Dandelion Music BMI
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”.
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.
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