Blues guitar legend Eddie Kirkland, of Macon, was killed Sunday morning in a Florida wreck.
The Jamaican-born Kirkland, 88, was a former bandleader for Otis Redding and recorded with John Lee Hooker, among others. Kirkland performed Saturday night at the Dunedin Brewery, outside of Tampa, according to his website.
Shortly before 8:30 a.m. Sunday, Kirkland was driving his 1998 Ford Taurus when he attempted a U-turn and turned into the path of a Greyhound bus, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The bus hit the right side of the Taurus, pushing it about 200 yards.
No one on the bus was injured, according to the FHP. Kirkland was transported to Tampa General hospital, where he died from injuries sustained in the crash. The crash remains under investigation.
Kirkland, who was born on a cotton plantation, moved with his mother to New Orleans when he was a year old. The two later moved to Mobile and southwest Alabama.
“That’s where I came to hear the blues . . ., ” Kirkland told the AJC in 1989. “My first experience with the blues was when I was a little baby about 2 years old. My mama used to take me to the cotton field and put me at the end of a row in the shade. You’d have people coming down the row, and it was a long field, and you could hear them singing. As a little baby, the music got into me.”
His mother gave him a harmonica when he was 4, he said. At 12, he played guitar with the Sugar Girls Medicine Show before heading to Detroit.
In 1949, Kirkland traveled to Macon while on tour with Hooker. The middle Georgia town would later become Kirkland’s home.
“If one person appreciates what I’m doing it’s just as good as a million,” Kirkland said. “A lot of places we’ve played, after I paid the band I didn’t have a dime. But it was a good show. I was happy. That’s it for me. It’s my life.”
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien OBE (April 16, 1939 – March 2, 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s. With her distinctive sensual sound, she was an important white soul singer, and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with 18 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 from 1964 to 1970. She is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the U.K. Music Hall of Fame. International polls have named Springfield among the best female rock artists of all time.
The Springfields (L to R): Tom Springfield, Dusty Springfield, Tim Springfield
Born in North London to an Irish Catholic family that enjoyed music, Springfield learned to sing at home. She joined her first professional group, The Lana Sisters, in 1958, then formed the pop-folk vocal trio The Springfields in 1960 with her brother Dion.
Her solo career began in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, “I Only Want To Be With You” (1963). Among the hits that followed were “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” (1964), “Wishin’ and Hopin’” (1964), “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (1966), and “Son of a Preacher Man” (1968). A fan of American pop music, she was the first public figure to bring little-known soul singers to a wider British audience, when she created and hosted the first British performances of the top-selling Motown artists in 1965. By 1966, she was the best selling female singer in the world, and topped a number of popularity polls, including Melody Maker’s Best International Vocalist. She was the first British singer to top the New Musical Express readers’ poll for Female Singer. Her image, supported by a peroxide blond beehive hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up, made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
Dusty Springfield
The marked changes in pop music in the mid-1960s left many female pop singers out of fashion. To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to Memphis, Tennessee, to record an album of pop and soul music with the Atlantic Records main production team. Released in 1969, Dusty in Memphis has been ranked among the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone and VH1 artists, New Musical Express readers, and the Channel 4 viewers polls. The album was also awarded a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
After this, however, Springfield’s success dipped for eighteen years. She returned to the Top 20 of the British and American charts in collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys on the songs “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”, “Nothing Has Been Proved” and “In Private”. Interest in Springfield’s early output was revived in 1994 due to the inclusion of “Son of a Preacher Man” on the soundtrack of the movie Pulp Fiction.
Dusty Springfield was born as Mary O’Brien in West Hampstead, North London, England, on 16 April 1939, the second child of Gerard and Kay O’Brien. Her brother Dion had been born five years earlier on 2 July 1934. Her father, Gerard O’Brien, who had been raised in the British Raj, was neat and precise by nature, and worked as a tax accountant and consultant. Her mother Kay came from a family in County Kerry, Ireland, which included a number of journalists.
Springfield was raised in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, until the early 1950s and later lived in the West London borough of Ealing. She received her education at traditionally all girls Catholic school. The comfortable middle class upbringing was disturbed by dysfunctional tendencies in the family; her father’s perfectionism, and her mother’s frustrations would sometimes spill out in food-throwing incidents. Springfield and Dion both engaged in food-throwing throughout the rest of their lives. She was something of a tomboy in her early years, and was given the nickname “Dusty” because she played football with boys in the street.
Springfield was raised in a music-loving family. Her father would tap out rhythms on the back of her hand and encourage Dusty to guess the musical piece. She listened to a wide range of music including George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller, among others. She was a fan of American jazz and the vocalists Peggy Lee and Jo Stafford, and wished to sound like them. She made a recording of herself singing the Irving Berlin song “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam” at a local record shop in Ealing when she was twelve.
The Lana Sisters (Dusty is on the left)
After finishing school in 1958, Mary O’Brien responded to an advertisement to join The Lana Sisters, an “established sister act”. With this vocal group, she developed skills in harmonizing and microphone technique, recorded, did some television performances, and played at live shows in the U.K. and at U.S. Air Force bases.
In 1960, Springfield left the band and formed a pop-folk trio with her brother Dion O’Brien and Reshad Feild (who was later replaced by Mike Hurst). They chose The Springfields as the trio’s name while rehearsing in a field in Somerset in the springtime, and took the stage names of Dusty, Tom, and Tim Springfield. Intending to make an authentic American album, the group traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to record the album Folk Songs from the Hills. The American pop tunes that she heard during this visit helped turn Springfield’s choice of music from folk and country towards pop music rooted in rhythm and blues. The band was voted the “Top British Vocal Group” by the New Musical Express poll in 1961 and 1962. During the spring of 1963, the Springfields recorded their last British Top 5 hit, “Say I Won’t Be There”. Dusty Springfield left the band after their last concert in October 1963.
(L to R): Paul McCartney, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Ringo Starr
Dusty Springfield’s first single, “I Only Want to Be with You”, written and arranged by Ivor Raymonde, was released in November 1963. It was produced by Johnny Franz in a manner similar to Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound”, and included rhythm and blues structures such as horn sections, backing singers and double-tracked vocals, along with pop music strings, in the style of girl bands that Springfield admired, such as The Shirelles. The song rose to #4 on the British charts, leading to its nomination as a “Sure Shot” pick of records not yet charted in the U.S. by New York disc jockey “Dandy” Dan Daniel of WMCA radio in December 1963, preceding Beatlemania. It remained on the American Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks, peaking at #12. The release finished as #48 on New York’s WABC radio Top 100 for 1964. The song was the first record played on BBC-TV’s Top of the Pops program. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc in the U.K.
Dusty Springfield
Springfield’s debut album A Girl Called Dusty included mostly covers of her favorite songs. Among the tracks were “Mama Said”, “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes”, “You Don’t Own Me” and “Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa”. The album reached #6 in the U.K. in May 1964. The chart hits “Stay Awhile”, “All Cried Out” and “Losing You” followed the same year. In 1964, Springfield recorded two Burt Bacharach songs: “Wishin’ and Hopin’—an American Top 10 hit— and the emotional “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself”, which reached #3 on the British chart. The latter song set the standard for much of her later material.
Springfield’s tour of South Africa was interrupted in December 1964, and she was deported, after she performed before an integrated audience at a theater near Cape Town, which was against the South African government’s segregation policy. In the same year, she was voted the Top Female British Artist of the year in the New Musical Express poll, topping Lulu, Sandie Shaw, and Cilla Black. Springfield received the award again the following three years.
Dusty Springfield being deported from South Africa for her anti-apartheid, integrated concert near Cape Town
In 1965, Springfield took part in the Italian Song Festival in San Remo, and failed to qualify for the final with two songs. During the competition, she heard the song “Io Che Non Vivo (Senza Te)”. Its English version, “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”, featured lyrics written by Springfield’s friend, Vicki Wickham, and her future manager, Simon Napier-Bell. It reached British #1 and American #4 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 and was #35 on the Billboard Top 100 for 1966. The song, which Springfield called “good old schmaltz”, was voted among the All Time Top 100 Songs by the listeners of BBC Radio 2 in 1999.
In 1965, Springfield released three more British Top 40 hits: “Your Hurtin’ Kinda Love”, “In the Middle of Nowhere”, and Carole King’s “Some of Your Lovin’”. These were not included on the album Ev’rything’s Coming Up Dusty, which featured songs by Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley, Rod Argent and Randy Newman, and a cover of the traditional Mexican song, “La Bamba”. This album peaked at #6 in the U.K.
Springfield was instrumental in introducing Motown to a wider British audience, both with her covers of Motown songs, and in facilitating the first British TV appearance for The Temptations, The Supremes, The Miracles, and Stevie Wonder on a special edition of the Ready Steady Go! show, called The Sound Of Motown. The show was broadcast on 28 April 1965 by Rediffusion TV, with Springfield opening each half of the show accompanied by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Motown’s in-house band The Funk Brothers.
The Beatles, Helen Shapiro, and Dusty Springfield on Ready Steady Go! (L to R): Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Keith Fordyce, Helen Shapiro, Ringo Starr, Dusty Springfield, George Harrison
Springfield released three additional U.K. Top 20 hits in 1966: “Little By Little” and two dramatic ballads by Carole King: “Goin’ Back” and “All I See Is You”, which also reached the US Top 20. In August and September 1966, she hosted Dusty, a series of six BBC TV music and talk shows. A compilation of her singles, Golden Hits, released in November 1966, reached #2 in the U.K.
The Bacharach-David composition “The Look of Love” was designed as the centerpiece for the James Bond parody Casino Royale. For one of the slowest-tempo hits of the sixties, Bacharach created a sultry feel by the use of minor-seventh and major-seventh chord changes, while Hal David’s lyrics epitomized longing and lust. This song was recorded in two versions at the Philips Studios of London.
Dusty Springfield's "The Look of Love"
The soundtrack version was recorded on 29 January and the single release version was done in April. “The Look of Love” was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song of 1967. The song was a Top 10 radio hit on KGB (AM), San Diego, CA and KHJ-AM, Los Angeles radio stations in the western United States, and earned her highest place in the year’s music charts at #22.
The second season of the BBC’s Dusty TV shows, featuring performances of “Get Ready” and the U.K. #13 hit “I’ll Try Anything”, attracted a healthy audience but the show did not keep up with changes in the pop music market. The comparatively progressive album, Where Am I Going? attempted to redress this by containing songs such as a “jazzy”, orchestrated version of “Sunny” and Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”. Though it was appreciated critically, it did not sell well. In 1968, a similar fate befell Dusty… Definitely. On this album, her choice of material ranged from the rolling “Ain’t No Sun Since You’ve Been Gone” to the aching emotion of “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”. In that same year, Springfield had a British #4 hit, “I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten”, written by Clive Westlake. Its flipside, “No Stranger am I”, was written by Norma Tanega.
Dusty Springfield's album, "Dusty in Memphis"
In 1969 Springfield was at her commercial and creative height; she was performing for £1,000 a night on sold-out tours, had her own TV shows, It Must Be Dusty on ITV, and Decidedly Dusty on BBC, and released the album Dusty in Memphis and the single “Son of a Preacher Man”.
In 1968, Carole King, one of Springfield’s songwriters, embarked on a singing career of her own, while the chart-peaking Bacharach-David partnership was foundering. Springfield’s status in the music industry was further complicated by the progressive music revolution and the uncomfortable split between what was underground and “fashionable” and what was pop and “unfashionable”. In addition, her performing career was becoming limited to the British touring circuit, which at that time largely consisted of working men’s clubs and the hotels and cabarets circuit. Hoping to reinvigorate her career and boost her credibility, Springfield signed with Atlantic Records, the record label of one of her idols, Aretha Franklin.
Dusty Springfield and Jerry Wexler
The Memphis sessions at the American Sound Studio were recorded by the A-team of Atlantic Records: producers Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, and Arif Mardin; the back-up vocal band Sweet Inspirations; and the instrumental band Memphis Cats, led by guitarist Reggie Young and bass guitar player Tommy Cogbill. The producers were the first to recognize that Springfield’s natural soul voice should be placed at the forefront, rather than competing with full string arrangements. At first, Springfield felt anxious about being compared with the soul greats who had recorded in the same studios. Springfield later stated that she had never before worked with just a rhythm track, and that it was the first time she had worked with outside producers, as she had self-produced her previous recordings (although she never took credit for it). Due to what Wexler called a “gigantic inferiority complex” and Ms. Springfield’s pursuit of perfection, her vocals were recorded later in New York. During the Memphis sessions in November 1968, Dusty suggested that the heads of Atlantic Records should sign the newly-formed band Led Zeppelin. She knew the band’s bass player, John Paul Jones, who had backed her in concerts. Without having ever seen them and largely on Dusty’s advice, the record company signed a $200,000 deal with them. That was the biggest contract of its kind for a new band up until that time.
Dusty Springfield
The album Dusty in Memphis received excellent reviews on its initial releases both in the U.S. and the U.K. Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone magazine wrote:”… most of the songs… have a great deal of depth while presenting extremely direct and simple statements about love…. Dusty sings around her material, creating music that’s evocative rather than overwhelming… Dusty is not searching—she just shows up, and she, and we, are better for it.” The sales numbers failed to match the critical success; the album did not crack the British Top 15 and peaked at #99 on the American Billboard Top 200 with sales of 100,000 copies. However, Dusty in Memphis earned Springfield a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1970, and by 2001, the album had received the Grammy Hall of Fame award, and was listed among the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone and VH1 artists, New Musical Express readers, and the Channel 4 viewers polls.
The main song on the album, “Son of a Preacher Man”, was written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins. It reached #10 on the British, American and international music charts. Its best results in continental Europe were #10 on the Austrian charts and #3 on the Swiss charts. The song was the 96th most popular song of 1969 in the United States. The writers of Rolling Stone magazine placed Springfield’s release at #77 among ‘The 100 Best Singles of the Last 25 Years’ in 1987. The record was placed at #43 of the ‘Greatest Singles of All Time’ by the writers of New Musical Express in 2002. In 2004, the song made the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at #240. In 1994 the song was featured in a scene of the film Pulp Fiction, and the soundtrack reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200, and at the time, went platinum (100,000 units) in Canada alone. “Son of a Preacher Man” helped the album sell over 2 million copies in the U.S., and it reached #6 on the charts.
Dusty Springfield and the Pet Shop Boys
In 1987, she accepted an invitation from the Pet Shop Boys to sing with Neil Tennant on the single “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” and appeared on the promotional video. This record rose to #2 on both the British and American charts. The song appeared on the “Pet Shop Boys” album Actually and both of their greatest hits collections. Springfield sang lead vocals on the Richard Carpenter song “Something in Your Eyes”, recorded for Carpenter’s album Time. Released as a single, it became a #12 adult contemporary hit in the United States. Springfield recorded a duet with B.J. Thomas, “As Long as We Got Each Other”, which was used as the theme song for the American sitcom Growing Pains.
Dusty Springfield's "The Silver Collection"
A new compilation of Springfield’s greatest hits, The Silver Collection, was issued in 1988. Springfield returned to the studio with the Pet Shop Boys, who produced her recording of their song “Nothing Has Been Proved”, commissioned for the soundtrack of the film Scandal. Released as a single in early 1989, the song gave Springfield a U.K. Top 20 hit. So did its follow-up, the upbeat “In Private”, written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys. She capitalized on this by recording the 1990 album Reputation, another U.K. Top 20 success. The writing and production credits for half the album, which included the two recent hit singles, went to the Pet Shop Boys, while the album’s other producers included Dan Hartman. Sometime before recording the Reputation album, Springfield decided to leave California for good, and by 1988 she had returned to Britain.
Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black
In 1993, she was invited to record a duet with her former 1960s professional rival and friend, Cilla Black. The song “Heart and Soul” was released as a single and appeared on Black’s Through the Years album. Provisionally titled Dusty in Nashville, Springfield started recording the album A Very Fine Love in 1993 with producer Tom Shapiro. Though originally intended by Shapiro as a country music album, the song selection with Springfield pushed the album into pop music with an occasional country feel. The last song Springfield recorded in the studio was the George and Ira Gershwin song “Someone To Watch Over Me”. The song was recorded in London in 1995 for an insurance company television advertisement. It was included on Simply Dusty (2000), the extensive anthology that Springfield had helped plan, but did not live to see released. Her final live performance was in The Christmas with Michael Ball in December 1995. She died of cancer on 2 March 1999.
Dusty Springfield
Springfield’s biographers and journalists have suggested she had two personalities: shy, quiet, Mary O’Brien—and the public face she created in Dusty Springfield. In the 1970s and early 1980s, during a time when her career had slowed down, she succumbed to alcoholism and drug dependency (which she later battled successfully). She was hospitalized several times for self-harming (by cutting herself) and was diagnosed as suffering from manic depression. During this period of psychological and professional instability, Springfield’s involvement in some intimate relationships influenced by addiction resulted in episodes of personal injury. An incident in early 1983 led to her brief hospitalization at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where she was admitted under her real name and received medical attention from hospital staff who were unaware of who she was. In her early career, much of her odd behavior was carried out more or less in fun and was treated as such (as, for example, her noted food fights and hurling a box of crockery down a flight of stairs). Springfield had a “wicked” sense of humor and a great love for animals (particularly cats). She was an advocate for several animal-protection groups. She enjoyed maps, and would intentionally get lost and navigate her way out.
Dusty Springfield
The fact that Springfield was never reported to be in a relationship recognized by the public meant that the issue of her being “bisexual” was raised continually throughout her life. In 1970, Springfield told the Evening Standard:
A lot of people say I’m bent, and I’ve heard it so many times that I’ve almost learned to accept it….I know I’m perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don’t see why I shouldn’t.
By the standards of 1970, that was a very bold statement. Three years later, she explained to the Los Angeles Free Press:
I mean, people say that I’m gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. I’m not anything. I’m just … People are people…. I basically want to be straight…. The catchphrase is: I can’t love a man. Now, that’s my hang-up. To love, to go to bed, fantastic; but to love a man is my prime ambition…. They frighten me.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Springfield became involved in several romantic relationships with women in the U.S. and in Canada that were not kept secret from the gay and lesbian community. She had a love affair with singer-musician Carole Pope of the rock band Rough Trade.
Dusty Springfield
While recording her final album, A Very Fine Love, in January 1994 in Nashville, Tennessee, Springfield felt ill. When she returned to England a few months later, her physicians diagnosed breast cancer. She received months of radiation treatment, and for a time the cancer was in remission. In 1995, in apparent good health, Springfield set about promoting the album.
Cancer was detected again during the summer of 1996. In spite of vigorous treatments, she succumbed on 2 March 1999. She died in Henley-on-Thames on the day she had been scheduled to go to Buckingham Palace to receive her award of Officer, Order of the British Empire. Before her death, officials of Queen Elizabeth II had given permission for the medal to be collected by Springfield’s manager, Vicki Wickham, and it was presented to the singer in the hospital in the company of a small party of friends and relatives.
Elton John with Dusty Springfield's induction trophy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, had been scheduled for 10 days after her death. Her friend Sir Elton John helped induct her into the Hall of Fame, stating:
I think she is the greatest white singer that there ever has been.
Springfield’s funeral service was attended by hundreds of fans and people from the music business, including Elvis Costello, Lulu and the Pet Shop Boys. It took place in Oxfordshire, at the ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin, in Henley-on-Thames, the town where Springfield had lived during her last years. A marker dedicated to her memory was placed in the church graveyard. Some of Springfield’s ashes were buried at Henley, while the rest were scattered by her brother, Tom Springfield, at the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland.
On February 26, 2011 former member of The Electric Prunes and The Smashing Pumpkins, Mark Tulin collapsed while helping out at the Avalon Underwater Clean-Up in Avalon, California. Baywatch Avalon and Avalon Fire Department medics responded immediately, but could not revived Tulin. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mark Tulin was the bassist with The Electric Prunes. They had hit singles with “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” and “Get Me To The World on Time”. In particular, “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” is regarded by many critics as a defining song of the psychedelic and garage rock music, appearing on the famous Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 compilation in 1972. It was also featured prominently in the 1969 film Easy Rider. In the late 1990s, renewed interest in The Electric Prunes led to a reunion of the original lineup. Since then, the band has toured and released albums consistently.
Tulin gained much mainstream attention in 2009 when it was announced that he was joining The Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan in the studio to demo songs for what would become the band’s eighth full length album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. Tulin met Billy Corgan in 2008 when Corgan was recording music with The Seeds front man Sky Saxon. In an interview with the band’s official Web site, Tulin praised these sessions with the band saying they were times of “limitless possibility” and that the new music was “…interesting, innovative, and arresting.”
The Electric Prunes
Following the death of Sky Saxon in June 2009, Tulin took part in Corgan’s tribute band Spirits in the Sky which played a show on July 24, 2009. Following the success of the show, Corgan had the band play a small tour of extremely small venues in California in August 2009. These shows included Jane’s Addiction front man Dave Navarro on guitar with Corgan, as well as many of The Smashing Pumpkins’ longtime collaborators. In November 2009, Tulin played in the band The Backwards Clock Society with Billy Corgan and longtime Smashing Pumpkins collaborator Kerry Brown to raise money for an injured friend of Corgan.
In March 2010, following the departure of Smashing Pumpkins touring bassist Ginger Pooley to raise her newborn infant, Tulin was announced as a temporary live bassist until a permanent replacement could be found. During this time, Tulin played his only full length show with The Smashing Pumpkins on April 17, 2010 in celebration of Record Store Day. A few days later, Tulin played “Widow Wake My Mind” with the band on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. These two appearances with the band marked the only times the band played with a male bassist. In May 2010, the band officially announced Nicole Fiorentino as the newest official member of the band. In an interview with Ultimate Guitar, Corgan confirmed that Tulin’s bass parts were featured on the first EP of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Volume 1: Songs for a Sailor.
The Washboard Rhythm Kings (R to L): Bruce Johnson, Clarence Profit, Teddy Bunn, Harold Randolph
The Washboard Rhythm Kings 1931 to 1933 (aka. Washboard Rhythm Boys, Georgia Washboard Stompers from 1934 to 1935, Alabama Washboard Stompers 1930 to 1932) were a loose aggregation of jazz performers, many of high caliber, who recorded as a group for various labels between about 1930 and 1935.
The band played good-time swinging music, featuring spirited vocals, horns, a washboard player and occasionally kazoo, and were popular around the time of the Great Depression. They mostly covered current hits from other artists.
The Washboard Rhythm Kings
Their personnel varied considerably between sessions, with guitarist Teddy Bunn a regular member from 1930 to 1931. Later recordings included singers Leo Watson, Harold Randolph or Steve Washington, trumpeters Valaida Snow and Taft Jordan, and clarinetist Ben Smith.
Their 1932 recording of “Tiger Rag” has been cited for its “wild, informal feel” as an early precursor of rock and roll – see “First rock and roll record”. Their music was also highly influential on the skiffle music of the 1950s and later.
CALL OF THE FREAKS
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THE WASHBOARD RHYTHM KINGS
(circa 1933 – Song title unknown)
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HUMMIN’ TO MYSELF
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BLUE DRAG
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IT DON’T MEAN A THING (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING)
Robert has been performing
in bands and writing songs
since 1969. He is a former
writer and performer for the
Bob & Tom Show. He lives
in Fort Wayne, IN with his
wife, Sheri and their three
children, Dustin, Harrison
and McCartney.
I've had several requests to do a Pink Floyd post. I'll get around to it soon. For now, enjoy this live video of the band from Knebworth in 1990 with SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
Every Sunday, Peter Tibbles contributes a column called "Elder Music" at the web site,TIME GOES BY. Check it out. For archives of previous "Elder Music" columns click HERE.
