Good Music Just Got Better!!!

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Good Music Just Got Better!!!

Musical Roots

Woodstock


“Woodstock was beads and colours and flowers and sunshine and beautiful people”-John Sebastian

Forty years ago, in August 1969, drenched because of a constant downpour of rain and ankle-deep in mud, half a million music fans gathered on a field owned by dairy farmer Max “The Angel Of Woodstock” Yasgur. His small simple farm located in Bethel, New York would bring most of the best rock artists of the time to one place, in what would become recognized as the most significant and inspiring musical event of it’s kind: a landmark that defined a generation.

Woodstock is widely acknowledged as the defining moment of the rock-driven counterculture of the late 1960’s, a reaction to the conservative attitudes of post WWII society. Triggered by opposition to the war in Vietnam, many supported antiwar, racial equality, women’s rights, artistic freedom and sexual liberation. Although as a movement it was represented by many social, political and artistic groups, it is most recognized as a movement of young people adopting a “hippie” lifestyle, which encouraged “back to nature” communal living, an interest in exotic, mostly Eastern spiritual teachings and widespread use of mind-altering drugs. At the heart of the counterculture was the new, popular music of the 1960’s, which “tribal” gatherings like Woodstock celebrated.

The early half of the 1960’s set the scene for some radical social and political changes in America. The Cuban Missle Crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the greatest concern for the youth of America was the US involvement in the Vietnam War. In the second half of the decade, American society became increasingly polarized. The Civil Right Movement reached a defining moment with the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. America would become heavily divided, not by the traditional lines of race and class, but by generation, attitude and culture.

This new counterculture suggested a whole new model for an alternative society, many felt this could be expressed most completely at the “3 Days Of Peace & Music” festival…Woodstock was born.

Too many artists took to the stage during those 3 momentous days in upstate New York to name here…seminal artists of the day such as Santana, Hendrix, CCR, The Band and many, many more. We encourage you to explore the music, culture and significance of Woodstock more in depth…

For more info on Woodstock please visit: http://www.woodstock69.com/ and be sure to pick up the book “Woodstock: 3 Days That Rocked The World”

Musical Roots

ALAIN CLARK


“Davin, you have to find this song…it’s a great song…you have to find it and get on Roots Radio…we have do something with this guy…find out who he is…” That was a call I got from Michael Budman one early morning. He had just flown back from Italy, where he had seen a music video, a very simple a video. It was a duet, a song about love and appreciation, sung by a son to his father and in return by a father to his son. The song had just debuted in Europe that weekend. Michael had a sneak peak and he knew he was on to something.

I ended up finding the song on MTV Italy. “Father & Friend” by Alain Clark a spirited and emotional ballad in which Clark duets with his father Dane, himself a veteran of many a covers band, playing classics from the likes of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and James Brown. “I’m sure my dad didn’t think he’d start a whole new career at sixty-one. He’s not looking to, he still has his job as an engineer for KLM. I bet he didn’t think he’d be playing in front of 35,000 people,” chuckles Clark Jr. And the single’s success proved to be a particularly proud moment for his mother. “It’s her two guys on stage together, doing their thing.”

The song has found much success overseas and here at home and can be found on Alain’s latest album Live It Out. It can also be found on Roots.com as part of our celebration to Fathers everywhere.

Roots has introduced a new collection of leather bags, appropriately called the Father and Friend Collection. Please visit Roots.com to purchase any of the special new bags for that special father or friend, and also to watch, listen to and purchase the latest from Alain Clark.

With a sound firmly steeped in Motown’s best traditions and a hint of classic sixties soul, it understandable why Alain Clark caught Michael’s attention. He was crowned the hottest new artist from the Netherlands in 2008. It was also the year in which Alain was a mainstay of the Top 10 in his homeland. He progressed from being an unknown support act, opening shows for Amy Winehouse, to becoming an arena-filling star in his own right and collected two of the Netherlands’ most prestigious musical honours in the process.

Alain Clark sums up his latest album, “It’s a very autobiographical record, there’s love and relationships, attempts at bettering the world and an ode to my dad. Fractions of a young man’s life put into 12 songs”

Surely worth the listen

For more info on Alain Clark please visit: http://www.alainclarkuk.com

Listen to Roots Radio and be sure to visit Roots.com to hear the music of Alain Clark

Musical Roots

Chess Records



Did you know?
The Rolling Stones were named after one of Muddy Waters songs “Rolling Stone”…
Did you also know?
The new motion picture “Cadillac Records” chronicles the life of Leonard Chess and the artists who recorded for Chess Records…


Chess Records was the home of the Electric Blues. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and countless more all enjoyed their greatest success with the label. The label would create a monopoly of Chicago music recording. If you were anyone recording the Blues in the 50’s & 60’s, you were on Chess Records. The label would go from a small local Chicago record label in the late 1940’s to a major force in popular music.

Brothers Leonard and Philip Chess were two Jewish immigrants from Poland who came to Chicago in 1928. They were involved in the liquor business and by the 1940’s they owned several bars on the south side of Chicago. Their largest establishment was a nightclub called the Macomba. The Macomba was heavy on live entertainment. Blues performers that had migrated to Chicago from the Mississippi delta in the '30s and '40s were usually a popular draw.

However, Leonard and Phil realized that these performers were not being properly recorded, so they decided to start recording them themselves. In 1947 they entered into a partnership with Charles and Evelyn Aron, who owned a small successful label called Aristocrat Records. By 1950, the brothers had bought out the husband and wife and Chess Records was born, it would soon become a fixture in the world of music and it remains the most impressive collection of blues music in the world.

The most important artist to record for Aristocrat before it was Chess, was McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. He had a few successful singles with Aristocrat. But through their connections with radio and other local clubs around Chicago, Chess was able to form Waters into Chicago’s premier Blues singer.

From their experiences in the nightclub business on the South side of Chicago, the Chess brothers understood the popular preferences of their predominantly African-American audiences, but also saw the marketability of blues music to a broader audience. In the beginning Chess Records was ran as a two man business, with Phil overseeing the nightclub and the offices of Aristocrat/Chess and Arc, it’s publishing division, while Leonard alternately scouted talent, produced the sessions, and hand delivered fresh recordings to radio stations in the Chicago area.

Other greats joined like Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lowell Fulson and John Lee Hooker, all recording for Chess during post- war America. Later, they recorded the next generation of Chicago blues artists with Buddy Guy, Little Milton and Koko Taylor and later Etta James and Fontella Bass. Chess also recorded two black vocal groups, the Flamingos and the Moonglows, singing sentimental songs in styles that had appeal to the white record buying public.
But no one at Chess had the impact on the future of popular music as Chuck Berry. Berry spoke to his friend Muddy Waters and took his advice regarding the advantages of working with Leonard Chess. Berry signed with the label in May of 1955 and had his first unforgettable hit, "Maybellene." 




In 1969, Leonard and Phil Chess sold Chess to General Recorded Tape (GRT) for 6½ million dollars plus 20 thousand shares in GRT stock. In October 1969, the company suffered a devastating blow when Leonard Chess died. Quality output declined, and by the summer of 1972, the Chess Chicago offices were almost empty, the distribution company and pressing plants had been closed, and only the Chess Ter Mar studio was operating with a few employees. By the summer of 1975, GRT was dismantling what was left of Chess. In August 1975, with all of the GRT record operations closed down, what remained of Chess Records, was sold to New Jersey-based All Platinum Records. In 1985, MCA acquired the rights to the massive Chess catalog. At the start of 1987, the company began to mount an ambitious long-term reissue campaign of the invaluable Chess masters. 2007 marked the 60th anniversary!

Leonard Chess was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987


Watch the movie!!
Cadillac Records-an DVD & BluRay & lots of other stuff now

Musical Roots

Jerry Wexler


The man who gave rhythm and blues it’s name, Jerry Wexler, died earlier this year, August 15, at his home in Florida of heart failure at the age of 91. How many lives Wexler must have touched in his many years as a very successful music producer, propelling the careers of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Picket and countless more is remarkable. Wexler was one of the great music business pioneers of the 20th century.
Born Gerald Wexler in The Bronx, New York to Jewish parents, he grew up during the depression in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. His youth was marked by late nights at poolrooms, until the mid-1930s when he was distracted by a music called jazz. Wexler became part of a loosely knit group of record collectors and streetwise intellectuals, praising trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen and quoting Dutch Philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Many members of this circle eventually became captains of the music industry: John Hammond and George Avakian at Columbia Records, Milt Gabler and Bob Thiele at Decca, Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff at Blue Note, and Wexler's future partners at Atlantic, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun. Jerry Wexler became somewhat of a paradox. A hopelessly devoted music fan and a tireless businessman with a ruthless mean streak and a volatile temper.
His start in the music industry began as a writer for Billboard magazine where he was largely responsible for changing the name of the black-music charts from “Race Records” to “Rhythm & Blues”. Years later he would join Atlantic Records founders Ahmet & Nesuhi Ertegun and began producing Atlantic’s major R&B artist of the time at all night recording sessions. In hindsight, Wexler’s efforts were historic in their scope and impact on popular music, he was instrumental in bringing black music to the mainstream and in helping build race relations at the same time. Wexler would go on to become a partner in Atlantic by Ahmet, a gesture Wexler never forgot. “In a way, he handed me a life” Wexler would say after Ertegun’s death in 2006.
While recording “Dusty In Memphis”, Dusty Springfield’s hallmark album in Memphis, Wexler discovered Stax Records and developed a distribution deal that brought to Atlantic the brightest stars of Southern soul: Rufus & Carla Thomas, Booker T. & The MG’s & Otis Redding. At Stax, and in a few studios in nearby Muscle Shoals, Wexler learned a new way of making records: more organic and improvised than the pressured, pre-written approach typical of New York City studios. He was soon bringing Atlantic artists south to record; Wilson Pickett, Don Covay and Sam & Dave were among the many to benefit from Wexler's change of venue.
The stage was set for what today stands as Wexler's greatest single triumph. In 1966, he signed a singer whose Columbia Records contract had lapsed, and whose potential had yet to be realized. Wexler asked Aretha Franklin to drop the Judy Garland cabaret act, play the piano herself and focus on her natural, church-trained way of singing. Before one could spell "Respect," a legend was born.
He was also responsible for signing such bands as Led Zeppelin, Cream & The Bee Gees, he would go on to produce such greats as Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Carlos Santana, The Staple Singers, Dire Straits and George Michael. “Jerry left his stamp on a lot of great music. He had a commercial ear as well as a critical ear”, says Jim Henke of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. In 1987 Hall Of Fame recognized Jerry Wexler’s contributions to American music by inducting him as a non-performer
Jerry Wexler moved to Sarasota, Florida in the late 1990’s cancelled his Billboard subscription and retired from the music industry.

Listen to Roots Radio to hear the music produced by Jerry Wexler

To find out more about Jerry Wexler visit:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/memories-of-jerry-wexler-clips-from-immaculate-funk/3323561977


Twenty Essential Jerry Wexler Productions

A few years back, Jerry Wexler burned a CD for friends of the songs he was the most proud of from his half-century career in music.

Here's the playlist:

1. Professor Longhair, "Tipitina" (1953)
2. Ray Charles, "I Got a Woman" (1954)
3. Big Joe Turner, "Shake, Rattle and Roll" (1954)
4. LaVern Baker, "Tweedlee Dee" (1954)
5. Champion Jack Dupree, "Junker's Blues" (1958)
6. The Drifters, "There Goes My Baby" (1959)
7. Ray Charles, "What I'd Say" (1959)
8. Solomon Burke, "If You Need Me" (1963)
9. Booker T. & the MG's, "Green Onions" (1962)
10. Wilson Pickett, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965)
11. Aretha Franklin, "Respect" (1967)
12. Dusty Springfield, "Son of a Preacher Man" (1969)
13. Dr. John, "Iko Iko" (1972)
14. Doug Sahm, "(Is Anybody Going to) San Antone" (1973)
15. Willie Nelson, "Bloody Mary Morning" (1974)
16. The Sanford/Townsend Band, "Smoke From a Distant Fire" (1977)
17. James Booker, "Winin' Boy Blues" (1978)
18. Etta James, "Take It to the Limit" (1978)
19. Dire Straits, "Lady Writer" (1979)
20. Bob Dylan, "Gotta Serve Somebody" (1979)