So many times I ponder useless tidbits of information, and often MUSIC is at the heart of the subject.

I know many of us that LOVE music, and so this forum, can at times appear to be 'Musical Idiot Savants', ... for lack of a better description!

Wouldn't it be nice to have a thread to throw these random 'musical thoughts infomercials' when they are kikkin' 'round your noggin???

Well, here we all go ...

Dazzle one another w/ all those "Ooooo ~ shiny" random 'notes' ...

There are a few crack reporters that I PARTICULARLY look forward to hearing from in here ...

( ... Psssssst: some, may even literally have 'MUSIC' humming in their screen name/handle ... hmmmmm ... ... )

Now??? ... SING OUT ... Lay the tracks, my melodic friends!!!

This thing IS on, open mic ...

Here's a useless throw~away ...

So, I'm minding my own business today, but I keep hearing the theme song from my childhood's cartoon, 'The Mighty Hercules' ...

Why? ... ENOUGH!

I break down and youtube search it. Who knew that it was recorded by Johnny Nash?

The Mighty Hercules - Opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PrLVgR6J84

Next ...

Didya know that ...

Marc Bolan ( TRex fame ... RIP ... ... ) played guitar on 'Nutbush City Limits'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLGBxSHdxUc

The Shows Over ...

“Elvis has left the building” This well known phrase usually indicates that the show is over. But where does it come from and who said it?

Horace Lee Logan said it.

On October16th 1954 the 19 year old Elvis appeared on the radio show, “Louisiana Hayride” in front of a live audience. The young Elvis at this time had not yet developed his stage presence and the reception by the audience was said to be “polite”. However Logan recognised his potential and signed him up for more appearances.

In the next two years Elvis’s career reached the verge of superstardom. He bought out his contract with “Louisiana Hayride” on the agreement that he would play at one last show. This he did on December 15th 1956.

10,000 screaming fans turned up for the show and continued screaming right through Elvis’s forty-five minute set. When Elvis left the stage the audience headed for the exits, even though there were still acts waiting to play. In desperation Logan grabbed the microphone:

“Please, young people . . . Elvis has left the building. He has gotten in his car and driven away. . . . Please take your seats.”

This was the first, but not the last time, that it was used at an Elvis performance.

(Doin' some cut 'n' paste ... some of these facts I want to recant have already been said so well ...)

Here's a good 'un ...

Did Robert Johnson sell his soul to the Devil at the Crossroads? ... ...

Robert Johnson is known as “the King of the Delta Blues Singers” but did he get that title with a Faustian pact, and as legend has it, “sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads”?

Transferred from old African beliefs, the legend in the South became that if a man went down to the crossroads at midnight and sat down and started playing his guitar and wished for the devil, the devil would appear. He would sit down next to the man, take his guitar, tune it and start playing it. He would hand the guitar back to the man and the deal was done. The man could play anything that he wanted and have what he wanted in this life, but in the next his soul belonged to the devil.

Robert Leroy Johnson lived in Robinsonville and blues man Son House moved into the same town.
“As a teenager, Johnson venerated House, especially, and Willie Brown; and badgered them to let him sit in at gigs. House recalls Johnson’s guitar playing as a “racket”, though both of them helped him out with the basics” (Joe Cushley)

For various reasons, in1930 Robert moved back to the town of his birth, Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

In 1932 he went back to Robinsonville, and played again for House and Brown. They were astounded by the quality and originality of his style to such an extent that Son House said “he must have done a deal with the devil to get that good, that quick.”

So the legend was born.

However playing songs entitled “Crossroad Blues” and “Me and the Devil Blues” would not help to dispel the story.

Nor would his “womanising” or the way in which he died.

He died on August 16, 1938 at the age of 27 by drinking whisky poisoned, it is thought, by a club owner with whose wife he was “fooling around”.

On the sleeve notes of the album “Robert Johnson: Old School Blues”, Joe Cushley writes: “his use of diminished chords and his innovative use of the boogie bass… had Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones) convinced there were two guitars playing when he first heard it.” He also quotes Eric Clapton saying “His remains the most powerful cry you can find in the human voice.”

In the two years that he was away from Robinsonville, honing his skills, did Robert Johnson sell his soul to the devil?

Only Robert Johnson will ever know …….and the devil.

I was a DJ in the 80's and have an encyclopedia in my head of useless facts about music and artist up thru the '80s. Unfortunately I never can recall it until I hear a song or something reminds me of it.



And little of it is very impressive. Like.... the song Muskrat Love, the big hit by The Captain and Tennille was written by Willis Alan Ramsey and originally recorded by America. And its original name was Muskrat Candlelight.

Guess how many women are impressed by that information......

Biggest Historical Mistake in Music ... NOT signing The Beatles ...

Dick Rowe was an A&R man at Decca Records from the 1940s to the 1960s and the finger points at him for rejecting signing up the Beatles.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”

“Guitar Groups are out of fashion, Mr Epstein”.

Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles in 1962.

Oops! The Beatles signed up to Parlophone part of the EMI group, before eventually starting their own Apple Label.


.... ...

Jimmy Page plays the guitar solo on You Really Got Me by the Kinks.

I have this same syndrome! The recall is SOooooooooo random!

I am a HUGE Willis Alan Ramsey fan ...

Didya know that his overnight fame, of the 70's, absolutely freaked him out and he ran away to Ireland, only recently returning? Spider John is one of my favourite songs EVER!

Gotta run ... keep those cards and letters com'n in, Mr DJ ...

Attention Deep Purple fans! Former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, and his beautiful wife, Candace Night, have their own band now...been around for awhile playing "renaissance music". here's a couple of samplings for ya! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed6uyNqh-pY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih1WLx9ZrY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nPLdKHY574

Rockwell, who had one big hit with Somebody's Watching me, is the son of Motown CEO Berry Gordy Jr. (not sure if he's still CEO). However Rockwell signed to Motown without his father's knowledge and his father didn't know his son was the singer until after the single had been released.

Stevie Ray Vaughn was discovered by David Bowie. That's Stevie playing the solo on Bowie's "Let's Dance" and it was also his first appearance on a major record.

Trivia...an easy one...name the band with only two original members, yet has had many hit songs...also their names?

The Who. Townsend and Daltry

Strange you should mention those very words. That happens to be my screen name on YouTube.

..nice work scorpio ..I guess I should have been more specific with the question...was aiming for Steely Dan....Walter Becker and Donald Fagan who used to gather musicians from other bands together

A common and false myth. That's Dave Davies, and he was 17 years old at the time.

Oh...wonder why the rumor started? Is it true that Keith Moon is playing drums on Becks Bolero on the Truth album...or is that Bohnam?

Ever wonder why Pete Townsend (The Who) smashed his guitars up so aggressively in concert?

Or whether he use cheap copy guitars to smash an estimated 87 of them to pieces?

Nope!!! There were at least 23 Fender Stratocasters, 21 Gibson SGs and12 Gibson Les Pauls Deluxe ...

Expensive!

... Always broke my heart and pissed me off, hate the trend ...

That's why my friend and I call one another as well, Keith ... WOW! ...

And, ya most definitely fill the bill, glad that you're here! ...