Music Archives - Page 180 of 236

Watch Classic Music from Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show

NRR Archives on YouTube started posting old rock and roll clips from Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Clips feature Johhny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Connie Francis, Dion and the Belmonts, Bobby Darin, Annette Funicello, The Platters, Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Conway Twitty, Ronnie Hawkins, Jackie Wilson and many others. Check out the NRR Archive link to see the clips. Here is Roy Orbison singing “Uptown” (the clip also includes Anita Bryant singing “Paper Roses”).

Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, also known as “The Dick Clark Show,” ran on ABC at 7:30-8:00 p.m. (EST) on Saturdays (of course) from February 15, 1958 through September 10, 1960. During this same period, Clark also hosted the show for which he is most remembered, American Bandstand, which ran on weekdays. Bandstand, which in contrast to the Beech-Nut Show featured dancing, was mainly broadcast from Philadelphia, requiring Clark to travel back and forth to Manhattan, from where the Beech-Nut Show was generally broadcast.

Although the Saturday show sponsored by “the brightest and the happiest gum there ever was” may be less remembered than some of Clark’s other work, the show had a lot of great classic music. Check out Johnny Cash singing “The Rebel (Johnny Yuma)” below and then check out the other clips.

What is your favorite clip in the archive? Leave your two cents in the comments.

The 1977 Johnny Cash Christmas Show

Jackie Wilson’s Final Performance on Sept. 29, 1975

Roy Orbison Without the Sunglasses: “Only the Lonely”

What Is the Murder Ballad That Holly Hunter Sings to Nathan Jr. in “Raising Arizona”?

The Gang’s All Here: Muhammad Ali & Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke: “Blowin’ in the Wind”

Who Are You . . . Pete Townshend?

This week on CBS Sunday Morning, Anthony Mason interviewed Pete Townshend, who opened up about his childhood, the criminal charges that almost ended his career, and his relationship with Roger Daltrey. It was a very incisive interview with the Who musician that among other things, saw Townshend contemplating how his own very troubled childhood inspired the rock opera Tommy.

Although I had already heard the story about how Townshend adopted his trademark windmill style of guitar playing from a misunderstanding about The Rolling Stones, it is such a great story that it is always worth hearing him tell it again. Check out this short but unusually insightful rock star TV interview.

What do you think of the interview? Leave your two cents in the comments.

How Smokey Robinson Inspired a Who Song

Orchestral Remake of “Love Reign O’er Me”

Colvin & Earle: “Ruby Tuesday”

The Alternate “Dead Flowers”

This Week in Pop Culture Roundup (4 Dec. 2011 Edition)

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Troubadour George Strait Announces His Final Tour

Although I have never been a big follower George Strait‘s career, like most fans of country music, I am surprised by how many songs of his I know. And I cannot dispute that he is a country music legend. Because of all that, I was sad to hear that he recently announced at a press conference that he is beginning his final tour, the “The Cowboy Rides Away Tour,” which will end in 2014. But he does not rule out making appearances after this tour ends. At the beginning of the press conference below, several country music stars pay tribute to Strait.

So we wish Strait good luck as he embarks on this final tour. One of my favorite songs he recorded was a duet he did with Alan Jackson, “Murder on Music Row,” from the Latest Greatest Straitest Hits (2000) CD. The song laments the Nashville trend toward pop and away from traditional country music. Certainly, after Strait rides off into the sunset, there will be even less country music coming out of Nashville.

Beyoncé and Dolly Parton: “Jolene”

Marty Brown Live in Calgary 1992

Trailer for Hank Williams Biopic “I Saw the Light”

Dwight Yoakam on Acting and Music

Marty Brown in Middletown, NY (Concert Review)

They Placed a Wreath Upon His Door: George Jones RIP

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Happy 30th Birthday to the Compact Disc!

Born to Run CD — Although I did eventually buy some Billy Joel CDs, this Springsteen CD was in my first CD purchase.

On October 1 in 1982, the first commercial compact disc was released, as was the first commercial CD player. The first CD released that day was released in Japan and it was Billy Joel’s 1978 album 52nd Street.

Although that day saw the first commercial release, the joint work of Sony and Philips created the new music format several years earlier before the technology became commercially available.

Partly because of a high price tag on the new technology, cassette tapes remained more popular than CDs until the late 1980s. But the CD format eventually took over.

The CD changed the way we listen to music. It featured longer playing times than record albums all in a compact size.

The CD also featured what many thought was a better sound than other formats, although that issue is still debated. The CD format is still very popular, and digital sales did not surpass CD sales until 2015.

Whatever the future holds, take a moment to salute the CD format. It originally gave us great music listening experiences through the 1980s, the 1990s, and into the current century. And I do miss CD stores.

In tribute, lets go back to someone plopping down the big bucks thirty years ago and buying that first CD and turning it on to hear that first song, “Big Shot”. . .

My personal encounter with CDs was still a few years away on that October day in 1982. I recall hearing music on a friend’s CD player for one of the first times years later, around 1986. And I got my first player a few years later. At that time, I made my first CD purchase of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.

What was your first CD?

Leave your two cents in the comments.

Billy Joel is Turning the Lights Back On After The Longest Time

Who Was Poor Old Johnnie Ray?

The First Farm Aid

Billy Joel Establishes His Residency at Madison Square Garden

Springsteen and Fallon as Two Springsteens Stuck in a Traffic Jam

Billy Joel Gets in a “New York State of Mind” With a Vanderbilt Freshman

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Harvest Moon Will Smile, Shine On All the While

The Harvest Moon is the full moon that falls closest to the autumnal equinox and gained its name because in the days before electricity, the moon aided farmers harvesting when the sun was not up. What mainly distinguishes the Harvest Moon from other moons is that this time of year there is less time between successive moonrises than usual.

For more information on the Harvest Moon and its special appearance, check out the EarthSky website. If you prefer a video explanation, check out this video:

The Harvest Moon is also responsible for inspiring a classic Tin Pan Alley song from the early 1900s. There is some dispute about the song’s authors, but “Shine On, Harvest Moon” was originally credited to the couple of Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, who were married at the time they wrote the song but later divorced. Both Bayes and Norworth had other successes, including that Norworth wrote the lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” but during their lives they were probably most famous for “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”

The song has been performed by a number of artists on TV and in film, including an appearance in the 1944 film Shine On, Harvest Moon, as well as on an episode of The Mickey Mouse Club by a young Britney Spears. Johnny Cash sang it with Emmylou Harris on TV too. My favorite performance, though, is by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who always lit up the screen during one of their musical performances. Check out Laurel & Hardy singing “Shine On, Harvest Moon” below from the film The Flying Deuces (1939).