The Story Behind @therollingstones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and the Memorable Jam that Was Originally an Afterthought.

In 2010, Richards wrote in his autobiography Life, “‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ came out flying—I just found the tuning and the riff and started to swing it, and [drummer] Charlie [Watts] picked up on it just like that, and we’re thinking, ‘Hey, this is some groove.’ So it was smiles all around. For a guitar player it’s no big deal to play—the chopping, staccato bursts of chords, very direct and spare.”

When the album was released, the band’s legal team realized they didn’t have the lyrics written down to copyright them. They listened to an advanced pressing to hear what Jagger was singing. They couldn’t agree on all the words, leading to the line, I’ve got flatted feet, now. Jagger says he didn’t write that but couldn’t recall the actual line, so that’s what is copyrighted.

Keyboardists Bily Preston and Nicky Hopkins, percussionists Jimmy Miller and Rocky Dijon, saxophonist Bobby Keys, and background vocalists Ronnie Lane and Pete Townshend appeared on the recording.

“We did this at Olympic, and the jam at the end was an afterthought,” Jagger said in 2015. “It comes in two pieces. This rock song with this added jam. It’s slightly Carlos Santana-like.

Mick Taylor plays a bit of that style, I think. I don’t think we meant that, but somehow it added on, and I think this was done really quickly, too. I remember very clearly doing it. It’s very high for me, and I remember saying, ‘Oh, this is not really my key, but I’ll try.’ I did lots of harmonies to hide the fact I didn’t really hit the notes that great in the chorus.”

Texan Bobby Keys plays the sax on quite a few Rolling Stones albums. In 2014, Richards told Rolling Stone magazine, “He was the epitome of the rock and roll sax-playing man. He used to tell me about listening to Buddy Holly rehearse in his garage just down the road from his house.

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50 Years of ‘Second Helping’ by @skynyrd

Fifty years ago this month, Lynryd Skynyrd released their second studio album, titled appropriately enough “Second Helping.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s debut album featured a striking title (Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd) and at least four songs (“Tuesday’s Gone,” “Gimme Three Steps,” “Simple Man” and, but of course, “Free Bird”) that would become rock classics.

Audiences were often taken aback by the pure power of Skynyrd, who boasted three flame-throwing guitarists and a soulful shouter of a lead singer in Ronnie Van Zant. Confidence brimming, they hit the studio to make their second album with producer Al Kooper.

What they needed to really put them over was a hit single. It’s doubtful Van Zant (lyricist), Gary Rossington, and Ed King (the latter two composing the music) thought in those terms as they were writing “Sweet Home Alabama.” They were keenly aware, however, they had a killer foundation in that opening riff of King’s.

Listening to “Second Helping,” it’s striking to note how there’s not really a wasted moment on the record. All eight songs are beasts in their own way. With “Don’t Ask Me No Questions” and “Workin’ for MCA,” Van Zant thoughtfully questioned the inner machinery of rock music without sounding like a whiner, in part because of the robust musical attack going on around him.

“I Need You” and “The Needle and the Spoon” gave the instrumentalists the chance to show off their bluesier side. The cover of J.J. Cale’s “Call Me the Breeze” lent those same players an opportunity to rip and send the album out in a blaze of glory.

Al Kooper produced it all with an ear to finding just the right touches for each song, such as the call-and-response backing vocalists on “Sweet Home Alabama” or the horn section on “Don’t Ask Me Questions” and “Call Me the Breeze.”

Here was a band with instrumental chops to spare, four contributing songwriters (Van Zant, King, Rossington, and Allen Collins), and a willingness to speak to their life experiences instead of settling for easy love-song clichés.

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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How ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ Made Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers a Crossover Superstar.

“Damn the Torpedoes” epitomizes the classic Heartbreaker sound, tough and tender all at once, as realized by Petty and then-upstart producer Jimmy Iovine.

Petty initially assumed that Denny Cordell, who had mostly produced the band’s first two albums, would helm the third record as well. But Cordell instead suggested Jimmy Iovine, who, at that time, was mostly known for the work he did as an engineer on John Lennon’s “Mind Games.”

Once Iovine got the gig, he insisted on hearing every piece of music Petty had written and not yet released. That meant going back to Petty’s days fronting Mudcrutch and also a short stint when he was projected to be a solo artist.

These efforts turned up “Don’t Do Me Like That,” which Petty thought was a throwaway. Iovine heard a hit, and, thanks to the way Benmont Tench’s sparkling organ work complemented Petty’s ornery vocal, he was right.

Iovine especially stood firm on getting the best possible drum sound on the record, which occasionally rankled Heartbreakers’ drummer Stan Lynch. Petty later claimed that whole days would be spent in he studio just getting the right sound on a snare drum.

While that might have sounded like needless perfectionism, it paid off when audiences head the snap of Lynch’s drums at the beginning of “Refugee.”

Beyond the hits, songs like “Even the Losers” and “Here Comes My Girl” became rock radio staples. And deep cuts such as “Shadow of a Doubt (Complex Kid)” and “Louisiana Rain” (the album closer that Iovine also found digging through Petty’s old tapes) cut just as deep as the smashes.

On Damn the Torpedoes, commercial acceptance caught up with the critical acclaim this band always enjoyed. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with the help of their indefatigable producer, found the sweet spot so rarely located, one where great music and extremely popular music turn out to be one and the same.

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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@jimmypage reflects on the Yardbirds, and his short-lived two-guitar tandem with @jeffbeckofficial

For a brief period in 1966, the Yardbirds had one of the most formidable two-guitar attacks in rock history.

Amidst a series of personnel shuffles, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck would serve as the band’s two guitar players, touring together with the group and recording the seminal single, “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.”

Though the two budding virtuosos had plenty of mutual respect for one another – indeed, their friendship would extend far, far beyond their time together in the Yardbirds – it perhaps isn’t a huge surprise that their respective styles occasionally clashed in the band. 

“Sometimes it worked really great, and sometimes it didn’t,” Page said of his musical interaction with Beck during that time in a 1977 interview with Guitar Player. “There were a lot of harmonies that I don’t think anyone else had really done, not like we did.

“The point is, you’ve got to have parts worked out, and I’d find that I was doing what I was supposed to, while something totally different was coming from Jeff,” Page went on. “That was all right for the areas of improvisation, but there were other parts where it just did not work.”

“You’ve got to understand that Beck and I came from the same sort of roots,” Page told GP in the same interview. “If you’ve got things you enjoy, then you want to do them – to the horrifying point where we’d done our first LP [Led Zeppelin] with “You Shook Me,” and then I heard he’d done “You Shook Me” [on Truth]. I was terrified because I thought they’d be the same. But I hadn’t even known he’d done it, and he hadn’t known that we had.”

Though Beck had left the Yardbirds by the end of 1966, Page stuck with the ever-evolving band until their dissolution in 1968, and was even left with their name.

With vocalist Robert Plant, bass guitar ace John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, Page formed a band initially christened “The New Yardbirds.”

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How @bobdylan Confronted Mortality on “Time Out of Mind”

In 1997, before Bob Dylan released “Time Out of Mind,” he thought he was going to die.

A life-threatening heart infection put him in the hospital, and when he recovered, he said, “I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon.”

“Time Out of Mind,” his 30th studio album, is a collection of morbid tales and tender love songs, something only Dylan could cobble into a brilliantly cohesive work.

The album was partly inspired by Jerry Garcia’s death at 53, which troubled Dylan and left him despairing over his own mortality.

The album’s first single, “Not Dark Yet,” is a world-weary tale of scars and cynicism written as Dylan exited a long period of creative uncertainty.

Daniel Lanois produced “Time Out of Mind,” recording more than a dozen musicians performing live to create the album’s swampy feel. It doesn’t sound like an orchestra, but it does sound orchestral, like an oversized band in a sweltering church. The music on “Not Dark Yet” is given the heavy task of resurrecting a broken man’s spirit.

Lanois and drummer Tony Mangurian began the album sessions in New York by recording percussion parts over Charley Patton’s Delta blues, then removed Patton’s recordings and created loops inspired by Beck. Dylan heard ” Odelay” and said, “I’d love to make a record like that kid Beck.”

Part of the magic of Time Out of Mind is the hesitancy of the band—one chord away from crashing into each other. “Not Dark Yet” went through many mutations and changed keys before reaching its final, haunting destination.

However, Lanois’ methods added sophistication to the complexity of Dylan’s lyrics. His cinematic soundscapes frame the songs in a murky portrait, making it sound like Dylan is singing from another dimension. The blurry album cover photo, snapped by Lanois, looks like the album sounds.

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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This week’s Rush Hour Blues celebrates the “Heart of the Hills Blues Blast” with Tommy Castro and the Painkillers, Chris Cain and Tom Rigney & Flambeau coming May 11th to the Overland Center in El Dorado Hills.

Join Sacramento’s K-ZAP this Friday, 5p as your host Cale Wiggins rocks your socks off with tunes from these award-winning Blues musicians.

Rush Hour Blues is sponsored by @blackrockauto, 1313 C Street, Sacramento. “They can do stuff.”

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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Neil Young Launches Love Earth Tour: Set List and Video

Neil Young launched his 2024 Love Earth Tour with Crazy Horse in San Diego, California on Wednesday night.
Young performed a number of his classics, including “Cortez the Killer,” “Cinnamon Girl,” “Powderfinger” and “Heart of Gold.”

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, 4/24/24, Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, San Diego, California
1. “Cortez the Killer”
2. “Cinnamon Girl”
3. “Scattered (Let’s Think About Livin’)”
4. “Don’t Cry No Tears”
5. “Down by the River”
6. “The Losing End (When You’re On)”
7. “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”
8. “Powderfinger”
9. “Love and Only Love”
10. “Comes a Time” (Solo Acoustic)
11. “Heart of Gold” (Solo Acoustic)
12. “Human Highway” (Solo Acoustic)
13. “Don’t Be Denied”
14. “Hey Hey, My My” (Into the Black)

Check out the video of Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing “Hey Hey, My My” (Into the Black) at last night’s show below:

bit.ly/4bdFvIm

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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Mike Pinder, keyboard player and founding member of prog legends the Moody Blues, has died, aged 82, it has been confirmed by his family.

Pinder had been the last surviving founding member of the band. Drummer Graeme Edge passed in 2021, vocalist and flautist Ray Thomas died in 2018, with original guitarist Denny Laine passing last year. Clint Warwick, the original bassist, died in 2004.

As well as the music he created with the Moody Blues, Pinder will best be remembered as an advocate of technology, notably his pioneering work with the Mellotron.

Pinder helped form the Moody Blues back in 1964 and they had an initial hit with Go Now, but it wasn’t until 1967, by which time Justin Hayward and John Lodge had replaced Laine and Warwick respectively, that the band began to rise in popularity, shifting their sound from the early R’n’B roots to a more progressive and symphonic sound with their second album “Days Of Future Passed.”

Happy to stay out of the limelight, Pinder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Moody Blues in 2018, but was the only member of the band who did not give an acceptance speech, saying “Many MB fans have asked why I did not speak at the induction but by the time the Moodies took the stage we were 5 hours into the ceremony. The oldest of the inductees were up the latest. The speeches were a bit anti-climatic at that point and it was only fitting that the current touring members (Edge, Hayward and Lodge) spoke first. I am happy that we finally got inducted for our fans’ sake. As I have said for the last 30 years ‘the fans are my hall of fame’.”

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Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton on the making of @stevierayvaughanofficial “Couldn’t Stand the Weather.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon – faced the classic second-album conundrum at the end of 1983. 

They needed new material quickly, coming off the road from a year of extensive international touring behind “Texas Flood,” a debut album that included the highlights of their excellent live shows. 

“We had to come up with the songs pretty quickly,” Shannon says. “Stevie wasn’t a fluent songwriter; he’d spend a lot of time on a song. “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” came together over time. We worked through it in rehearsals and gradually put all the sections together. “

The song, which would become the album’s title track, was inspired by Cutter Brandenburg, the group’s initial road manager and first true believer. 

A childhood friend of Stevie’s, it was Brandenburg who helped transform Little Stevie into Stevie Ray Vaughan, encouraging him to use his full name, to wear the black hat and to adopt a consistent persona. 

Another highlight of Couldn’t Stand the Weather is Vaughan’s cover of “Voodoo Chile.”

“Stevie played the song with so much soul and spirit,” recalled producer Richard Mullen. “That take was live from beginning to end, seven minutes of pure guitar energy without a single miscue.”

Vaughan played his trusty Number One Strat on most of the album. “He had the most authority and best sound on it,” Mullen said. “It always had a huge tone whether he slammed it or picked it gently.”
The album’s basic tracks were recorded live, with Vaughan standing next to Layton’s drums in the main room. His amps were in a large isolation booth, with a sliding glass door often left open. 

“I always tried to allow Stevie to play without headphones, so he would be just as animated as he was in his live performances,” said Mullen. “He danced around, slidin’ across the room on his toes.”

The album solidified Stevie Ray’s standing as a guitar icon and proved to any doubters that this was no one-hit wonder.

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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The moment @graceslickofficial first met @mickjagger.

It is difficult to imagine Grace Slick ever being intimidated. Nevertheless, the prospect of meeting Mick Jagger was enough to elicit panic in the mind of Grace Slick. 

Stalwarts of the San Francisco psychedelic scene Jefferson Airplane were nothing short of iconic figures within the counterculture movement.

Nevertheless, the two groups wanted to organise a rock festival for the West Coast of America so that those hippies who missed Woodstock in New York could get a taste of the countercultural celebration.

So, as Slick explained to Rolling Stone, “Paul [Kantner] and I went to England to talk to Mick Jagger about Altamont,” noting that, “I was scared because I’d never met Mick before. I thought, ‘Oh, God, there’s going to be some kind of orgy there and I don’t do orgies and they’re going to think I’m a big prude and it’s going to be a party with heroin and all this weird stuff I don’t do’.”

Luckily, then, Slick and Kanter seemingly managed to catch Jagger on an off-day, saying, “I walked into Mick’s flat and it looked like my parents’ home: Oriental rugs, Edwardian furniture, well kept. I was perfectly at home — it really was like visiting my parents. He was in a three-piece suit and served us tea, and we talked about how to put this thing on.”

According to the Jefferson Airplane singer, Jagger was very professional when it came to organising the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, sharing, “When he does business, he does business. He doesn’t screw around. He knows how to separate having orgies from doing business.”

As it turns out, Slick and Kanter might have been responsible for hiring the bikers, “We’d done a bunch of free stuff in Golden Gate Park and the Hell’s Angels had been our security. And they never hurt anybody. And they were good at it because people were afraid of them. So we said, ‘We’ll get the Hells Angels to do security’, and Jagger didn’t know and said OK”. The rest, as they say, is history.

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@stevemillerband on LSD and salvation

Did you participate in the LSD scene?

Of course. I’d taken LSD 25, from the Sandoz lab in Switzerland, with a Doctor of Philosophy at university in Madison in 1965. We had books, music and deep discussions.

By the time I got to the Monterey Festival everyone was taking Owsley’s acid and it became trivialised: let’s put strychnine, speed and cat food in! Acid should be taken in the right circumstances; driving downtown, tripping, to rough places like the Fillmore West, wasn’t a great idea. I stopped in ’68 because drugs and work didn’t mix. I like to be clear-headed and fast on my feet.

Who is the most awkward musician you’ve worked with?

Much as I love him, it has to be Chuck Berry. When the Miller Band backed him, at Bill Graham’s request, first thing he said at rehearsal was: “Okay, no one take a shave or shower until we’ve played.” Just before the gig, he disappeared and returned loaded as a zombie on downers. We backed him all over California for two years and he got more and more annoying. At the Carousel Ballroom he got crappy with us on stage. Afterwards he came to my dressing room and I told him: “Hey. Screw you, Chuck. Get your own band, get your own amp and get out of my dressing room.” He was fine from then on. A lot of blues guys are real cranky.

Do you have any words of wisdom to pass on?

Pursue your dream, but learn about publishing and accountancy before you look for a gig as a trumpet player. Kids now are so naive, most of ’em couldn’t organise a flight from Frisco to Portland. The ones who tell me: “I wanna be a rock star,” I say: “Nah, get a job in a clothing store instead.”

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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Hey there, Sacramento`s K-ZAP fans and rock aficionados! Are you tired of that old clunker taking up space on your lawn or driveway, making you feel like you`re living in a horror movie set? Well, it`s time to turn that nightmare into a dream come true for your favorite community rock & roll station!

Introducing the K-ZAP Vehicle Donation program, where your not-so-runnin` vehicle can help keep the lights on and the tunes rockin` at Sacramento`s K-ZAP, 24/7 commercial-free rock and blues radio. That`s right, your abandoned, lawn-dwelling, brick-propped vehicle could be the hero we need to keep the good times rolling!

Don`t worry about the paperwork, we`ve got pros who will handle all the title and transfer shenanigans. Just hop on over to k-zap.org/donate-car/ and let us know you`re ready to give your car a new lease on life!

And hey, if your vehicle isn`t quite as possessed as Christine, we`ll take it anyway! We`re not picky, we just need your help to keep the music alive. So, what are you waiting for? Pick up that phone and dial 844-K-ZAP-CAR (844-592-7227) to get started.

Remember, every car donation makes a difference, and with your help, we can continue to bring you the best in rock and blues, 24/7, commercial-free! Let`s give your not-runnin` ride a chance to shine, and keep the music going strong at Sacramento`s K-ZAP

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@davidgilmour to Release First Solo Album in Nine Years, ‘Luck and Strange,’ Featuring His Family and Late @pinkfloyd Bandmate Richard Wright.

“Luck and Strange,” out September 6. will be accompanied by the release of Gilmour’s first Luck and Strange single, “The Piper’s Call,” on Thursday, April 25.

A majority of the tracks were written by novelist Polly Samson, Gilmour’s wife, co-writer, and collaborator of more than 30 years. “Luck and Strange” features eight new songs, including a reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers’ 1999 song “Between Two Points” and the title track, which features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright.

On “Luck and Strange,” Wright’s parts were originally recorded in 2007 during a jam session inside a barn at David’s home. 

“It’s written from the point of view of being older,” said Samson of the themes surfacing within Luck and Strange. “Mortality is the constant.” Gilmour adds, “We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.”

Portions of the album were bred from live streams that Gilmour and his family performed during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 and 2021.

Daughter Romany Gilmour sings and plays the harp on the Luck and Strange track “Between Two Points” with son Gabriel Gilmour on backing vocals.

Luck and Strange also features a hand-picked collective of musicians, including Roger Eno and Rob Gentry on keyboards, bassists, Tom Herbert and Guy Pratt, and drummers Steve DiStanislao, Steve Gadd, and Adam Betts, along with string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner.

Be sure to join Sacramento’s K-ZAP every Tuesday night at 8pm for Floydian Slip. A full hour of rarities, favorites, and all things Pink Floyd with host, Craig Bailey.

Craig works classic Floyd songs, deep album cuts, and Floyd’s unique brand of ambient segues into a seamless blend of music and sound best described as a “listening experience.”

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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On this date April 24, 1998 The Big Lebowski was released. The independent crime comedy film was written and directed by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

The film starred Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted as a result of mistaken identity, then learns that a millionaire, also named Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), was the intended victim.

The millionaire Lebowski’s trophy wife is supposedly kidnapped, and millionaire Lebowski commissions “The Dude” to deliver the ransom to secure her release. The plan goes awry when the Dude’s friend, Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), schemes to keep the ransom money for the Dude and himself.

The film is loosely inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler.

Since its original release the film has become a cult classic with ardent fans calling themselves “achievers.”

Dudeism, a religion devoted largely to spreading the philosophy and lifestyle of the film’s main character, was founded in 2005. Also known as The Church of the Latter-Day Dude (a name parody of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), the organization has ordained over 220,000 “Dudeist Priests” all over the world via its website.

Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
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