Steve Miller wrote "Rock'n Me" in 20 minutes! He was motivated by the fact that he needed a rock'n number for his 1975 set at the Knebworth Festival in England. It became a number 1 hit from his 1976 album Fly Like an Eagle. Here is how it came about. He was asked if he'd perform at the 1975 Knebworth Festival before headliners Pink Floyd, Steve Miller initially declined. He had no band together at the time and didn't think he could assemble one on short notice. But after the promoters offered to double his already lucrative paycheck, he called ex-CCR drummer Doug Clifford, guitarist Les Dudek and bassist Lonnie Turner. He explains how that gig led him to write "Rock'n Me."
“I said, ‘How’d you guys like to have an all-expense paid vacation to London next week?” They said, ‘What is it?’ And I told them and they said, ‘Yeah.’ And they came over and rehearsed in my house — ran through the numbers we were gonna do, a lot of which were Jimmy Reed numbers and knocked everybody out. And I wrote ‘Rock’n Me’ because I was sitting there going, ‘It’s going to be 150,000 people. Pink Floyd will come on when it’s dark and the lights turn on. They’ll put me on while the sun’s going down and everybody’s cold. And the P.A. will be bad, so I’m going to have to rock everybody out. I wrote ‘Rock’n Me’ for that in about 20 minutes.”
Rob Thomas sang and wrote the Santana song "Smooth" It was number 1 for 12 weeks! In 1999 from the album Supernatural; it helped turn Santana's career around. But Rob Thomas says the song has had its ups and downs as far as he's concerned. (As far as I'm concerned carlos guitar MAKES that song. Rob not totally taken with the song, here's what he had to say:
"It's taken on a bunch of different lives over the last 20 years. It was a great summer jam and then it became something that we all got a little sick of for a while and then it came back around for a minute and then everybody was like, 'Oh, I kind of remember that. I like that.' There were moments in it where I didn't know if I should say, 'You're welcome' or 'I'm sorry.' But it is definitely one of the songs from 20 years ago that I've written that I'm fine if I never hear it again, but I love to play it. I don't think it's my best song I've ever written. Obviously, it's not the best song he's ever done. It shows the power of being in a moment."
On this date (April 7th,) in 1975, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple to start Rainbow. The Deep Purple song "Highway Star" was written in the bus on the way to a gig and played for the first time that night. It ended up on machine Head in 1972. To date, Deep Purple have opened one studio album and three live albums with "Highway Star." The band's late keyboardist Jon Lord once explained how it was written on the way to a gig in Portsmouth, England.
“We needed a fast number to open the set, we’d got tired of the one that we were using – we always used to start with ‘Speed King.’ We just sat in the back of the bus and Ritchie came up with [sings opening riff] and Ian scribbled some words on the back of an envelope or something and we went on stage and did it that night. It was called something like ‘Frankie and Billy Make a Tank’ – whatever stream of consciousness words Ian Gillan came up with that night. It later became ‘Highway Star.’ Lester Bangs, one of the great rock writers, called it, ‘The classic girl/car hard rock song.’”
David Lee Roth went back in time for his hit song: "California Girls" It came out late 1984 (single), early 1985 (EP) Crazy From the Heat. Of course it was a Beach Boys song. The DLR version peaked at number-three on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number-three on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. David Lee Roth launched his solo career while still a member of Van Halen with this. He tells what attracted him to that song.
Jenny Boyd takes us along on a wild ride in her new memoir Jennifer Juniper: A Journey Beyond the Music.
The onetime London model and former wife of Mick Fleetwood tells us, "It's a journey through an extraordinary time in history, where I was in these pivotal places at the pivotal times and was very much in the center of it all."
Jenny Boyd says her memoir re-traces of her always interesting life.
"All the innocence of the '60s and the decadence of the '70s, being with Fleetwood Mac and all the things that happened there, which was kind of crazy. And then coming through the other side, and finding myself."
Boyd was as close to the center of British rock as anyone. A top London model whose sister Patti was married to George Harrison and then left him for Eric Clapton, Jenny was the inspiration for Donovan's classic song "Jennifer Juniper." She's fallen out of touch with Donovan in recent years, and isn't even sure if he's aware she named her book after his song.
Jenny separated from the rock world when her marriage to Mick Fleetwood broke down. Now remarried, she has earned a doctorate and counsels on addiction issues. Her background has given her a unique perspective on why so many talented people abuse drugs and alcohol.
Jenny Boyd on why talented people are often drawn to addictive substances.
"My sense is that a lot of artists, real geniuses, they have a very fine membrane between the conscious and the unconscious. Where some people can probably survive it, I think for them, because they're so finely tuned as artists, they lose it. I think geniuses, a sort of, there is a bit of genius in madness that takes place, isn't there. Some some kind of fine line."
Cars drummer David Robinson was born on April 2nd, 1953. The original band that became the Cars was Cap'n Swing, The song "Bye Bye Love" was the only song that made it from that band to the Cars It was never a single, it has nevertheless received regular rock radio airplay since it was released. Guitarist Elliot Easton explains:
"I think it was the only song on the first Cars album that survived from the previous band that Ric and Ben and myself were in called Cap'n Swing that not many people at all, you really got to be a Cars fan to know about this. But one of the tunes we did was 'Bye Bye Love' in a very different arrangement. That's the only song that survived from that era that actually made it through The Cars and made it onto the record."
Onetime Jefferson Starship drummer John Barbata was born on April 1st, 1945. He left the band just before they recorded "Jane." He'd previously been a member of both Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Turtles.Jefferson Starship: "Jane". He left then they lost both lead singers Grace Slick and Marty Balin. They were replaced with Mickey Thomas. John Barbata was replaced with ex-Journey stickman Aynsley Dunbar. Guitarist Craig Chaquico along with David Freiberg, Paul Kantner and Jim McPherson wrote the song Jane and credits that with saving the band. It peaked at number-14 on the Billboard Hot 100!
“That was the first song we came out with after we lost Marty [Balin]and Grace [Slick] and our drummer. The record company is kind of looking at us like, ‘Wait a minute. We signed this band and now they don’t have their lead singers and their drummer. What do we really have here?’ So we got Mickey [Thomas], and I co-wrote that song with David [Freiberg] and Paul [Kantner] and this lyricist that used to work for the Grateful Dead and stuff. It was a real departure for us, because it wasn’t ‘Miracles.’ It was way on the other side of ‘Miracles.’ And I’m so happy it got the response that it did.”
Angus Young was born on this day (March 31st) He turns 65 The A.C/DC album title "Back in Black" was meant as a tribute to the late Bon Scott but not everybody thought that title was a good idea. AC/DC guitarist Angus Young recalls that they really had to stick to their guns when it came to using "Back in Black" as a title for a song -- and an album -- that saluted their late singer Bon Scott.
“That was our way of saluting Bon’s thing. We didn’t want to drudge out a tragedy, so we figured that was the best tribute we could do. So we made it black as the mark of respect when somebody passes away. That was the idea of it. There was a lot of people, actually, at the time, when we first said what we wanted, y’know, they were all saying, ‘You can’t do that. People don’t like that. Black, it’s negative thing.’ But for us it meant something and that’s what we stuck by.”
Eric Clapton turns 75 today (March 30th) He had a song that was a hit twice, 20 years apart. Once with Derek and the Dominos the othe as solo and unplugged. The song: "Layla" It was on the albums Layla (and Other Assorted Love Songs) in 1971 and Unplugged in 1992. The Derek and the Dominos version peaked at number-51 on the Billboard Hot 100; Clapton's Unplugged version peaked at number-12 on the Hot 100 and number-nine on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.
Here's Eric Clapton on why "Layla" and the other Derek and Dominos songs hold up so well when played unplugged.
"It's simple music. Those songs were written out of a desire to play live, and they stand the test of time. They always feel good to play and it's like a small band dynamic, you know, so it can be elaborated on, but you can also strip it down and the songs hold up."
Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks turns 70 today (March 27) their song "Invisible Touch" came together spontaneously in one studio session and it made it to number 1! During the mid-1980s the band tended to write songs by jamming in the studio, without anyone bringing in ideas in advance. He says their 1986 chart-topper "Invisible Touch" is a perfect example.
“It’s a very spontaneous thing. Mike was just doodling along on the guitar, playing a couple of chords, and then Phil immediately started singing “invisible touch,” just the phrase. So we just played this chorus over and over again, developed it a bit. And then, obviously, we were looking for other chords for the verse, and we tried to sort of keep it fairly quite quick and spontaneous, so we just between us worked on a melody line. We knew it should be really simple and we wanted to maintain that feel. The only thing we felt we needed was at some point to get away from the song. So we just said, ‘Okay, let’s do eight bars in a different key and then come back to the original key and it’ll sound like an up.”
