"man, I was so scared..."

 
Bill Wyman, bass player for the Rolling Stones, from 1962 to 1993

------------------- [excerpts from I, Tina - copyright 1986, Harper Collins] -----------------------------

Bill Wyman:  We realized that they were a great visual act, that that was the magic thing about them.  And that's what we used to admire in people, if they could be really good visually as well as on records - which was what we tried to do.  I mean, some people made great records, and then when you saw them, they were a load of old crap, you know?  With Ike and Tina, the visual thing was as important as anything else about them.  So we got them to come over.

__________________________

        By the time the Stones tour came up, the Revue was already on its second set of post-original Ikettes.  After Robbie, Jessie, and Venetta walked out, Ike had quickly scooped up two inexperienced L.A. girls, Maxine Smith and Pat "P.P." Arnold, and a young club singer from Palo Alto named Gloria Scott....

Maxine Smith:

We went up to their house to audition.  We just sang a little bit, and then Tina said, "Okay, let's start rehearsing."  And we rehearsed from eleven o'clock in the morning till three in the morning for three whole days.  The fourth day we were on the road, and that night we were onstage.  Man, I was so scared.  And from there we just kept on going, doing one-nighters. ...

___________________________

        And then "River Deep" became a hit in England, and suddenly Ike and Tina were off to tour with the Rolling Stones.

        The Stones tour, twelve dates in all, was booked to run from September 23 through October 9.  In addition, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue would be playing another dozen or so dates on the side, many at the enormous Mecca clubs that then catered to British youth.

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river deep, mountain high

 

------------------- [excerpt from I, Tina - 1986, HarperCollins] -----------------------

[1966]

        "River Deep-Mountain High" climbed to number eighty-eight in the pop charts in the first week of June, then tumbled back down. ...

        While the song misfired in the States, it created a sensation across the Atlantic, rocketing to number three on the British charts in mid-June and remaining in the Top 50 for thirteen weeks.  

George Harrison, guitarist with the then-regnant Beatles, was quoted as calling it "a perfect record from start to finish - you couldn't improve on it."  

America had deep-sixed the single, and here were the Brits, waxing ecstatic....

        "River Deep" 's reception in Britain...was no mystery, however.  The new breed of British rock bands that ruled the charts was fascinated by black American music.  Lacking a native equivalent of blues and R & B, the British groups and their audiences had become connoisseurs of the American scene.  

Such pop-oriented acts as the Beatles and Manfred Mann and Herman's Hermits reveled in covering black girl-group hits.  Grittier stuff became the province of the more blues-oriented Yardbirds, Animals, and, especially, the Rolling Stones....

        The Stones were already well acquainted with the work of Ike and Tina Turner by the time "River Deep" arrived.  As it happened, they were then gearing up for a fall tour of the U.K.  Why not, they decided, invite the Ike and Tina Turner Revue along?

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opening acts

 

After listening to the hit song "Arizona" several times, I checked out an interview with Mark Lindsay, on You Tube - at one point he was a member of the band Paul Revere and the Raiders (pictured above).

It's a band whose name is familiar to me, but I haven't studied them, don't know much about them.  According to the online encyclopedia, they had hit songs and a lot of live-performance success in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

        I didn't think I knew any of their songs, but then I clicked on one called "Kicks" and I've certainly heard that! - I know it...

...Oh don't it seem that

Kicks just keep gettin' harder to find,

You know the kicks ain't bringin' you peace of mind

Before you find out it's too late, girl,

You better get straight....

In the Mark Lindsay interview (from the '80s or '90s, I think) he told a brief anecdote about the "Raiders" playing a TV show called "Where The Action Is", in Pittsburgh, where the - Rolling Stones - opened for them...!?!

Like - Wait.  What??!

        I googled that, apparently it's true.  The Internet explained that who the opening act was and who the main attraction was, could vary, according to what part of the country the bands were playing in, based on who had a hit song that was popular locally, at that point in time.

It made a funny story in the interview, because you just wouldn't expect the Rolling Stones to be "opening" for anybody.  They would be the main attraction.  

Mark Lindsay sort of imitated Mick Jagger's accent - "Who are these guys?!"

But it was 1965, when this occurred - the Stones' most iconic albums, Let It Bleed, Exile On Main Street, Sticky Fingers, and Beggars Banquet were all still in the future, at that time - they hadn't been written or recorded, yet.

The Rolling Stones were still on their way up.

        I got to thinking about opening acts, at concerts.  A Bob Dylan concert I attended in the early 2000s had the country band Asleep At The Wheel as the opening act.  I loved that.

        And I thought about the Ike and Tina Turner Revue opening for the Rolling Stones in England, in the late '60s.  (How incredible that must have been!)  The Ike and Tina Turner Revue - musicianship, singing, showmanship would have been on a par with the Stones - they would have been just as wild, and tight, and they would have out-danced even Mick Jagger, because that was part of their style.

I remember hearing Mick in an interview saying that when Ike and Tina opened for them, "we had to work harder" to put on a great show, so as not to be "outshone" by their opening act.

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sensational melody

 

viewer comments under the

Mark Lindsay - Arizona video on You Tube:

*  I love this song - Mark Lindsay is a natural born talent with amazing lyrics and music in all the songs he has done.

*  The brass section in this song blows you away.  I remember it across the decades.

*  DAMN!!!!  We just had too much brilliant music in the late 60's and early 70's!!

*  I've never heard this before.... I just heard it on my car radio

*  The Good Vibes

*  Love the good vibes songs.

*  I heard the song on the radio in 1971 when I was 13.  I ran right out and got the single.  What a killer freakin' song.  The lyrics, the vocals, the sound..  The whole thing.

*  ...We always sang when this came on the radio.

*  I remember this playing on the store radio when I was hired at my current job 6 years ago.

*  A great memory.

*  Damn hippies....

*  Great lyrics and melody!

*  Still slaps.

*  I've always loved this song

*  Man just really love this song.  Thnx for sharing it.

*  I was in high school and remember this and SIlverbird which got me to You Tube when I heard it while watching the Grey Man on Netflix

*  This song I truly love.

*  ...the melody is sensational.  Can't stop playing it

*  A good powerful sound.

*  Awesome horn section.

*  ...It was such a great time to grow up in.  Woodstock was the largest peaceful protest ever assembled....

*  The time will be our time

*  Those born in the 40s and 50s had an incredible Era.  They got to be part of the Counterculture and that must have been wild.

*  Energy & hope galore!

*  great video and song

*  It just doesn't get any better than this!

*  Amen!

*  Awesome

*  The visual was excellent.

*  Written by Kenny Young

*  Love the brass section in this song.  It adds so much to an already great song.

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"Arizona"

 

As I was listening to news reports about the apparent kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old mother out of her house in Tucson, Arizona, I started thinking about Arizona.

It's a state I've never been to.

But there's a song - "Arizona."

I started thinking about that song last night, at work:  "AIR-ah-ZON-AH!!"

...the irresistible "hook" in the chorus:  "AIR - ah - ZONN - AH!"

        While working, I thought of the chorus of that song, and I thought, who sang it, and I came up with "Mark Lindsay."

I get home, Google it, and, uh, yeah - it's been 56 years, but - Yes, that's the song, and that's the guy.

I remember it from hearing it on my friend's :45, on the record player at her house:  "Ari - zona!"

It had a jubilant attitude.

I sensed, at the time, 'My life is out there, waiting for me.'  I don't believe I thought about it in those exact words, but - I remember the feeling.

on You Tube, video titled:

Mark Lindsay  Arizona

uploader / channel:  John1948NineA

        -  play and enjoy  -

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cascading conjectures

 
"Detective paintings"  |  Saatchi Art

Off and on, I've been listening to reports about the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, in and around Tucson, Arizona.

        The story gets a lot of attention in the media because of the "celebrity element" - Mrs. Guthrie is the mother of Savannah Guthrie, who is a television personality.

        One commentator, a retired FBI agent, said because the search has gone on for so long (since the first of this month) conjecture runs rampant - people want to know what happened, and there haven't been answers yet, and so they come up with theories - scenarios, conjectures. ...

These ideas get typed into social media, and now it's sort of a worldwide mystery.

The FBI guy said we have "cascading conjectures."

Cascading is kind of a great word.  I like it.

        A podcast host suggested that investigators contact Walmart stores in the area and find out who purchased 

a backpack,

a burner phone,

and a ski mask.

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going where the weather suits my clothes

 

--------------------- [excerpt from Chronicles, by Bob Dylan] ---------------

        ...What I did was come across the country from the Midwest in a four-door sedan, '57 Impala - straight out of Chicago clearing the hell out of there - racing all the way through the smoky towns, winding roads, green fields covered with snow onward, eastbound through the state lines, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, a twenty-four-hour ride, dozing most of the way in the backseat, making small talk.  My mind fixed on hidden interests . . . eventually riding over the George Washington Bridge.

        The big car came to a full stop on the other side and let me out.  I slammed the door shut behind me, waved good-bye, stepped out onto the hard snow.  The biting wind hit me in the face.  At last I was here, in New York City, a city like a web too intricate to understand and I wasn't going to try.

        I was there to find singers, the ones I'd heard on record - Dave Van Ronk, Peggy Seeger, Ed McCurdy, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Josh White, The New Lost City Ramblers, Reverend Gary Davis and a bunch of others - most of all to find Woody Guthrie.  New York City, the city that would come to shape my destiny....

        When I arrived it was dead-on winter.  The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snowpacked, but I'd started out from the frostbitten North Country, a little corner of the earth where the dark frozen woods and icy roads didn't faze me.  I could transcend the limitations.  It wasn't money or love that I was looking for.  

        I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot.  My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity.  I didn't know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis but that was all about to change - and quick.

        The Cafe Wha? was a club on MacDougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village.  The place was a subterranean cavern, liquorless, ill lit, low ceiling, like a wide dining hall with chairs and tables - opened at noon, closed at four in the morning.  Somebody had told me to go there and ask for a singer named Freddy Neil who ran the daytime show at the Wha?. ---------------------------------------------- [end / excerpt]

---------------------------------------------------------------

Fred Neil wrote the song "Everybody's Talkin'" which was recorded by Harry Nilsson, and became a hit in 1969.

I'm going where the sun keeps shinin' -

Through the pourin' rain

Goin' where the weather suits my clothes...

On You Tube, video titled:

Everybody's Talkin' (1989 Remastered)

uploader / channel:  Harry Nilsson

        -  play and enjoy  -

       

Greenwich Village in 1961

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