In 1959 singer and guitarist Sonny Curtis joined The Crickets, replacing the Texas-based group's founder Buddy Holly - who had tragically died in a plane crash. The following year the group released the album In Style With The Crickets introducing the song I Fought The Law, a song Curtis had written in 1958. Because of the upsetting death of Holly the song didn't receive much interest, and it didn't get any airplay. When the Texas rock group Bobby Fuller Four covered the song in 1965 it had already been covered by others, including a previous Fuller recording that was a major regional hit West Texas. The new version from Bobby Fuller Four reached number nine on the Billboard Top 100 chart. However, within six months of appearing on the charts, 23 year old Fuller was found dead in his mother's car in Los Angeles. Although foul play was suspected, the death was ruled a suicide. Four years later, at the same parking lot where Fuller died, singer Janis Joplin purchased bad heroin - she died of an overdose a couple hundred yards from where Fuller died. Ironically they were born a few months apart in the same area of Southeast Texas, and they both moved to Los Angeles around the same time - they didn't know each other.
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In 1954 the song Walk Don't Run was originally written and recorded by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith. In 1960 the song was famously covered by west coast instrumental rock band The Ventures. it was one of the first surf songs to chart on Billboard's Hot 100. This was the second single the band recorded, and since they did not have a regular drummer at the time, they hired a session drummer for the recording. They offered him a choice of $25 for the session or 25% of the money that Walk Don't Run made. Drummer Skip Moore took the $25. - it was his only recording with the band. The song hit number two on the charts, and it instantly made stars out of the Washington state based band. In 1964 The Ventures re-recorded the song, it was the first time a band ever had a top 10 Hit with a new version of a song they had already hit the top 10 with. This 1960 video is from Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beech-Nut Hour. In 1968 Sly And The Family Stone had their first charting single with Dance To The Music. The song introduced the band's sound, and it started the growth of a new style that was known as "psychedelic soul". After the band's first album Sly was pressured by producer Clive Davis to produce something more commercial. Sly composed this song after coming up with an idea of how he could mix in pop music to make the sound more commercial. At the time none of the band members liked the song at all, but the song accomplished what it was supposed to. The song ended up being one of the most influential songs of the late 1960's, and Sly And The Family Stone went on to play a big role in developing funk and soul music. They were also the first major American band with an integrated line-up - blacks, whites, men & women - segregation had only just been repealed in 1965. Sly And The Family Stone have been sampled many times, for examples: CLICK HERE Composer and vibraphone player Roy Ayers was a pioneer of jazz-funk and acid jazz, and he has been called "The Godfather Of Neo-Soul". He grew up in South Central, California, where at five years old, jazz legend Lionel Hampton gave him his very first vibraphone mallets. He sang in his church choir as a child, and when he was in high school he formed a band called The Latin Lyrics, where he played guitar and steel drums. By the time he dropped out of college, Ayers was recording be-bop and jazz. In the early 1970's he formed the band that he continues to perform with - Roy Ayers Ubiquity. After over a dozen albums, he released one of his signature songs - Everybody Loves The Sunshine. The song was featured on Ayer's 1976 album of the same tittle. The song was released at a musical turning point for the band - it was the beginning of the jazz-funk evolution. This song has been sampled almost 100 times. At a gig in Ontario, Canada 1965, Steven Stills and Neil Young crossed paths for the first time. Young was on tour his group The Squires, and Stills was touring with folk-rock band The Company. In the brief encounter the two knew they wanted to work to together, and they knew they would. A year later Young was in LA seeking out Stills, who had been auditioning for the TV show band The Monkees - they turned him down. In 1966 the two formed the short-lived American-Canadian rock band Buffalo Springfield. Within a few days after their debut gig, they were booked to open for rock band The Byrds. That eventually led to a seven week run as the house band at popular West Hollywood nightclub Whiskey A Go Go, their legendary residence there brought them a lot of attention. In late 1966 Stills wrote the song the band is best known for, the classic protest song For What It's Worth. The song is often mistaken as being a anti-war song, but it actually is an anti-cerfew song inspired by the Sunset Strip riots. In attempt to quiet the traffic and crowds that the rock-and-roll clubs on the Sunset Strip drew, in November 1966 the Los Angeles police enforced a strict 10 pm curfew there. Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda were among the angry youth that took to the streets to protest the curfew. The King Davis House Rockers were a popular Brooklyn-based dance band that had a few obscure singles released between 1968-1972. In 1973 the group re-formed and changed their name to Madison Street Express And The Brothers Trucking. The band was offered a song to record that had been recently written by Motown veteran Billy Nichols - Do It (Till Your Satisfied). When the band signed with Scepter Records to record the song in 1974, the label suggested they change their name to Brooklyn Transit Express. After the very successful release, the band was back in the studio recording their second release for Scepter. By the time of their 1974 debut album their name was shortened to B.T. Express. All three of those releases hit number one on the R&B charts, and the band had numerous hits off the other four albums that followed in the 1970's. After the band's second album, 15-year old keyboardist Michael Jones joined, who left in 1979 after changing his name to Kashif Saleem. Known simply as Kashif, he went to become an influential pioneer of urban music, as a solo artist and as a producer. In early 1964 Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark wrote the song You Showed Me, it was among the songs the two would perform as a duo. Before long they were joined By David Cassidy to form The Jet, and the trio recorded the song as a demo. Soon after that the band was joined by others and changed name again to The Turtles. The newly formed band abandoned the song and did not record it until 1968, when it was featured on their fourth album. The song is The Turtles biggest hit in the US, and it's been covered numerous times by artists including Salt-N-Pepa and The Lightning Seeds - a version that was featured in Austin Powers. The song has also been sampled many times, such as by U2 in 1997 for their song The Playboy Mansion. In 1989 You Showed Me was sampled and used on the debut album for De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising. The sample appears on Transmitting Live From Mars (interlude), However, the sample was not cleared, and that resulted in a $1.7 million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit. The lawsuit was settled out of court, but it set new precedents in sampling. Many album releases were delayed because of this, including De La Soul's second album, which was released eventually after removing many samples. As a result of this lawsuit major labels immediately began clearing all samples. MORE ON DE LA SOUL & SAMPLING > CLICK HERE In 1955 the original song Ain't That A Shame was a big hit for Fats Domino in the limited reach of a black musician of the time. The same year Fats Domino recorded his song, it was also covered by pop singer Pat Boone - the further reaching white version was number one on the charts for two weeks. The song was the first number one hit for Boone, who was only out-charted by Elvis in the late 1950's. Boone would have liked to change one thing about the song, but his producers persuaded him not to - he wanted to change the lyrics to "Isn't That A Shame". The song has been covered by many great musicians, including John Lennon, who has said that Ain't That A Shame was the first song he learned to play. |
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