Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Bo Diddley Stable and Recovering After Heart Attack

Tue Aug 28, 6:00 PM

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Bo Diddley was in stable condition at a Gainesville hospital after suffering a heart attack, his publicist said Tuesday.

The 78-year-old singer-guitarist complained of dizziness and nausea during a routine medical checkup with his physician on Friday, said publicist Susan Clary.

She said Diddley was taken to North Florida Regional Medical Center in Gainesville where a stent was implanted to improve the blood flow to his heart. The hospital is near the musician's north central Florida hometown of Archer.

Clary said Diddley was in stable condition in the cardiac care unit after spending the weekend in intensive care. A hospital spokesman referred all questions to Clary.

"He is conscious," Clary said. "The situation is very serious."

In May, Diddley was hospitalized in Nebraska after suffering a stroke after casino performances in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He was soon transferred to Florida.

Diddley, with his black glasses and low-slung guitar, has been an icon in the music industry since he topped the R&B charts with "Bo Diddley" in 1955. His other hits include "Who Do You Love," "Before You Accuse Me," "Mona" and "I'm a Man."

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 1998.

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On the Net:

Bo Diddley:

http://www.bo-diddley.com/

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Beach Boys - Voice Your Choice

The most popular American rock and roll group from Hawthorne, California is in the spotlight this week for Voice Your Choice on Treasure Island Oldies.

The Beach Boys
have two songs for you to choose from this week, one of which is particularly fitting for our Labour Day Back To School End Of Summer Special: Be True To Your School and When I Grow Up To Be A Man.

Come to the Voice Your Choice page and make your selection. The song with the most votes will be played in Hour 3 of next week's show.

Frankie Ford - Song of the Week

Our Song of the Week is very fitting for next week's show: Labour Day Back To School End of Summer Special. Frankie Ford's Sea Cruise is one of the top summertime songs of all time.

Enjoy!

Monday, August 20, 2007

Summer In The City Song Of The Week

As we are in those lazy days of summer, I thought it would be fitting to have a summer song as our Song of the Week here at the Treasure Island Oldies Blog.

Here's one of the quintessential summer songs of all time. The Lovin' Spoonful and Summer In The City.

Enjoy!
Michael

The Platters Voice Your Choice

The Platters were an R&B group formed in Los Angeles, California. The original lineup consisted of Tony Williams on lead vocals, David Lynch (tenor), Paul Robi (baritone), Herb Reed (bass), and Zola Taylor. They initially recorded for Federal Records but met with success once they moved over to Mercury Records.

As the #1 vocal group of the 1950s, they had 70 songs hit the Billboard charts between 1955 and 1967, including 7 Top Ten hits and 5 Gold Records. With so many songs, it was difficult to select just two of them for this week's Voice Your Choice, but I did.

This week on Treasure Island Oldies, Voice Your Choice features The Platters with Twilight Time and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Bet this will be a tight race. Which song do you want to hear? Come to the Voice Your Choice page and place your vote for your favourite song. The winning tune will get played in Hour 3 of next week's show.

Max Roach Legendary Jazz Drummer R.I.P.

Max Roach, one of the most famous jazz drummers of all time, has died at age 83. Here's the story from Telegraph.co.uk

Max Roach, who died on Wednesday aged 83, was one of the most creative and influential percussionists in the history of jazz.
His exceptional sense of form, allied to an impeccable technique and mastery of tempo, enabled him to establish a new role for the drums in the jazz ensemble. His work with Charlie Parker in the late 1940s altered the whole emphasis of jazz rhythm, lightening the beat and bringing the drums fully into the musical dialogue. The punctuating, commentating part played by the drums in contemporary jazz derives largely from Roach.
Maxwell Roach was born at New Land, North Carolina, on January 10, 1924 and brought up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York, from the age of four. He took piano lessons from an aunt, and could play well enough to accompany congregational hymns by the age of 10. He also played the snare drum in the local Boy Scouts' band, and his father bought him a drum kit when he was 12.
At high school, Max played in a student band and at weekends worked at Coney Island with a vaudeville show, Darktown Follies. He wanted desperately to hear some of the great players at close quarters, but was too young to visit the nightclubs where most of them performed. On one occasion he drew himself a moustache with his mother's eyebrow pencil and presented himself at Kelly's Stables, only to be turned away.
Max studied drums privately while at school and, on leaving, enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music. The percussion tuition there, however, was of little use to him. "It would have been fine if I'd been after a career in a symphony orchestra," he said, "but it wouldn't have worked on 52nd Street - so I switched to majoring in theory and composition."
The United States had now entered the war, but Roach was immune from the draft because of bad eyesight (the thick glasses he wore led to his being given the nickname "Tojo", after Hideki Tojo, the bespectacled prime minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944), and he soon built a busy freelance career. He made his recording debut at 19, in a band led by Coleman Hawkins.
During the early 1940s, two after-hours clubs in Harlem drew adventurous young jazz musicians to their nightly jam sessions. The music played informally at Minton's and Monroe's Uptown House was to lead to the revolutionary new style known as bebop. Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie ("Bird") Parker, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach were among the regular participants, and they worked together whenever the chance arose. Roach was the drummer in Gillespie's first big band, which toured the South in a show entitled Hepsations of 1945.
The formation in 1947 of the Charlie Parker Quintet, one of the classic bands, brought Roach's style to full maturity. No previous drummer had managed to do much more than keep time behind Parker, but Roach evolved a whole new percussive language to complement his alto saxophone lines. "Bird's approach demanded new drum concepts," he recalled. "He set tempos so fast that it was impossible to play a straight four-style, so we had to work out variations." Roach made his first overseas trip in 1949, as a member of the Parker quintet, to play at the first Paris Jazz Fair. While there he made the first recordings under his own name.
By 1950, Roach was widely acknowledged as the leading drummer in modern jazz. He toured widely and recorded prolifically. In 1954, while temporarily based in Los Angeles, he appeared in Otto Preminger's film Carmen Jones.
Later the same year, he formed a quintet with the young trumpeter Clifford Brown, which was soon hailed as the finest small band of its time. Records by the Brown-Roach Quintet, in particular A Study In Brown and Live At Basin Street, are numbered among the classic jazz albums and have scarcely been out of print since their first release.
Clifford Brown's death in a car crash in June 1956, aged 25, left Roach devastated. He attempted to overcome his depression through drink and almost died of alcoholic poisoning.
Always a forceful and outspoken man, Roach was frequently embattled. In 1960, together with Charles Mingus, he organised an alternative event to the Newport Jazz Festival, in protest at what they regarded as its safe and populist programme. He also took part in a prolonged campaign to improve the pay and working conditions of musicians in New York clubs.
Throughout the 1960s Roach's music was closely engaged with the civil rights movement. Albums from these years, such as We Insist! Freedom Now Suite and It's Time still retain their power and eloquence. An enthusiastic partner in these enterprises was the singer Abbey Lincoln, to whom he was then married. Roach's interest in African-American history, combined with his early training in gospel music, prompted him to write and record the choral work Lift Every Voice And Sing in 1971.
In 1970 Roach formed M'Boom Re: Percussion, a 10-piece percussion ensemble which gradually evolved its own unique idiom and confounded all expectations, not only by lasting for three decades but in becoming highly popular.
In later years, Max Roach devoted much of his time to education. He held a teaching post at the University of Massachusetts, where he liked to show his students "the correlation between hip-hop and Louis Armstrong".
Max Roach married Abbey Lincoln in 1962. They divorced eight years later and he is survived by two sons and three daughters.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Osmonds - Reunion

They're Back! Well at least to tape a 50th Anniversary Reunion TV special for PBS to air next year. Here's the full story from Associated Press.

LAS VEGAS (AP) - They're still a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n roll - just a lot older.

The Osmond Brothers, joined by siblings Donny, Marie and Jimmy, took the stage this week to tape a 50th anniversary reunion show to be aired on PBS next year.

A meeting of no less than seven singing Osmonds onstage hadn't happened in more than 20 years, the siblings say, although no one seems to remember the exact date of the last full family concert. That's likely because some combination of the clan is perpetually performing.

"We do over 200 shows a year," Wayne Osmond said Tuesday before the second night of taping for the TV special, "Still."

The PBS concert celebrates the anniversary of the Osmond family's original foray into show business, the creation of the Osmond Brothers barbershop quartet in 1957.

Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay Osmond, led by their strict army sergeant father, worked the state fair circuit in Utah until a visit to Disneyland led to a television debut on "Disney After Dark" in 1962.

The brothers became regulars on "The Andy Williams Show," where they made their name and forged the wholesome and peppy image that would carry through to each of the later configurations of Osmond family performers.

In an interview, the four cheerful Osmond brothers described their careers and craft in language few younger, cooler musicians would utter.

On the joy of performing: "It's just a reminder that we're all one big happy family," Merrill Osmond said.

On the reunion show: "We make a great shepherd's pie...with a pretty garnish named Marie," Jimmy Osmond said.

On what the Osmonds stand for: "We believe in America and the flag. All of my eight sons were Eagle scouts," Alan Osmond said.

Marie Osmond, 47, said her brothers always have been happily out of step with hard-living show business. That's left their accomplishments and savvy under-appreciated, she said.

The Osmonds have recorded 142 albums, selling 100 million copies with 51 gold and platinum recordings. In 1971, the Osmond brothers, including then-heartthrob Donny, tallied nine gold records, surpassing single-year bests by Elvis and the Beatles.

"I don't think they've been honoured or the accolades haven't been what they should be," Marie Osmond said.

"We think it could be that in the '70s it was drugs, sex and alcohol and they were clean cut. They were God-fearing moral men."

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On the Net: "The Osmond's 50th Anniversary"

Tribute To Lee Hazelwood Podcast

I have posted a Tribute To Lee Hazelwood as a Podcast, and invite you to download it for listening at your convenience. Click here.

Please note that for copyright reasons, we are not allowed to present the songs in their entirety when included in a podcast. Accordingly, the songs have been edited down to give you a taste. To hear the entire Tribute to Lee Hazelwood, you can listen to the Archive of the August 12, 2007 show.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Sonny & Cher - Voice Your Choice

Sonny & Cher were the darlings of the mid-60s whose first hit single I Got You Babe became a staple for lovers everywhere, and has been played at countless weddings. This husband and wife duo began their career as background session singers for Phil Spector. They first recorded for Vault Records in 1963 as Caesar & Cleo, without any national chart success.

What a chart debut they had! I Got You Babe remained at #1 for three weeks and reached Gold Record status. In total, they appeared on the Billboard charts a total of twenty times from 1965 through 1973, with five of their songs becoming Top Ten hits.

This week on Treasure Island Oldies, Voice Your Choice spotlights Sonny & Cher with two of their other big hits for your votes: The Beat Goes On and Baby Don't Go. Which song is your favourite?

Come to the Voice Your Choice page and make your selection. The song with the greatest number of votes will get played on Hour 3 of next week's show.

Wilson Pickett - Song of the Week

Our Song of the Week is a fantastic live in concert performance by the late great Wilson Pickett with Land Of 1000 Dances. It's 7:42 full of incredible soul and energy.
Enjoy!
Michael

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Lee Hazelwood - R.I.P.

Lee Hazelwood, the former disc jockey, turned producer and songwriter has died at age 78.

He switched gears from being a DJ to record producer when he discovered a singer by the name of Sandford Clark, and together they had a Top Ten hit with The Fool. He later began a long association with Rock & Roll's all-time #1 instrumentalist, guitar legend Duane Eddy, and they wrote and produced such classics as Rebel Rouser and Because They're Young.

His biggest claim to fame was when he took over the development of the music career of Nancy Sinatra. He wrote many of her hits including These Boots Are Made For Walkin' and Sugar Town. He will also be remembered for his duets with Nancy Sinatra: Some Velvet Morning, Summer Wine, and Jackson.

Here's more from United Press International.

LAS VEGAS, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Lee Hazelwood, who wrote the Nancy Sinatra smash "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," has died of cancer in Las Vegas. He was 78.

Hazelwood, who died Saturday, has been credited with much of the success Sinatra enjoyed in her career, NME.com reported Monday. He wrote and produced nine albums for her.

Hazelwood, born in Oklahoma, began his musical career in Arizona as a DJ in 1953.

Ten years later, he released a solo album, "Trouble Is A Lonesome Town."

After living out of the public eye in Sweden, Hazelwood began releasing more records in the 1970s, including the legendary "Cowboy In Sweden." By the 1990s his solo work developed a cult following.

His last solo album, "Cake Or Death," was released last year.

Hazelwood is survived by his wife Jeane, one son, Mark; and two daughters, Debbie and Samantha.

Join me this week on Treasure Island Oldies for a tribute to Lee Hazelwood in Hour 4.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Three Dog Night - Voice Your Choice

Three Dog Night were a pop-rock vocal trio from Los Angeles, named for the coldest night in the Outback of Australia. Danny Hutton, Cory Wells and Chuck Negron hit the charts 21 times between 1969 and 1975, including 11 Top Ten hits plus 7 Gold Records. They recorded songs by such varied songwriters as Otis Redding (Try A Little Tenderness), Harry Nilsson (One), Laura Nyro (Eli's Coming), Hoyt Axton (Never Been To Spain), Randy Newman (Mama Told Me Not To Come), and more.

This week on Treasure Island Oldies, Voice Your Choice features two great songs by Three Dog Night: Out In The Country and Never Been To Spain. Come to the Voice Your Choice page and cast your vote. We'll play the winning song in Hour 3 of next week's show.

Andy Kim - Song of the Week

The Treasure Island Oldies Song of the Week is by my friend Andy Kim. We originally knew each other in Montreal when we were both starting out in our respective careers. And you know how successful Andy became over the years, as both a recording artists and songwriter.

In 1969 Andy scored a Gold Record and a Top Ten hit with a classic recording of Baby, I Love You, a hit in 1964 for The Ronettes. Interestingly Andy's version became a bigger hit on the charts, as the original produced by Phil Spector peaked at #24.

Enjoy!
Michael