Michael Nesmith is best known for his time in The Monkees, a group whose music and television show offered a fun, zany, and sanitized take on the emerging youth culture in the 1960’s. Although the television show lasted only two years, it has remained popular and influential to the present day. The music was also hugely successful, with four of The Monkees’ albums and three of their singles hitting Number 1 in the U.S. charts.
Before The Monkees, Nesmith had written a number of songs including “Different Drum”, which was a hit for Linda Ronstadt. When The Monkees dissolved, he helped to shape the emerging country rock genre, starting with the 1970 album Magnetic South credited to Michael Nesmith & The First National Band. He continued in the country rock vein for a series of acclaimed albums in the 1970’s.
Nesmith later founded the Pacific Arts video production company, which released Repo Man and other movies, and he produced music videos including “All Night Long” for Lionel Richie and “The Way You Make Me Feel” for Michael Jackson.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for Nesmith’s 10/2/19 performance at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. It was done by phone on 9/10/19.
Keyboard player/singer Lonnie Jordan is one of the founding members of the band WAR, a melting pot of soul, funk, Latin, and jazz influences whose songs include “Low Rider”, “Spill the Wine”, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”, and “The Cisco Kid”.
WAR’s fortunes took off when singer Eric Burdon asked them to back him up after leaving the Animals. They recorded two albums together, and had a huge hit song in 1970 with “Spill the Wine”.
WAR raged on after Burdon’s departure, and in 1972 they released the Number One album The World Is a Ghetto. More ’70’s success followed, with “Low Rider”, especially, striking a chord which resonates to this day.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the 5/27/18 WAR concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl, a show with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic also on the bill. It was done by phone on 5/7/18.
Of the many amazing things about The Isley Brothers, perhaps the most remarkable is that they have had hit songs in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s. And we’re talking about songs that are in our collective DNA like “Shout”, “Twist and Shout”, “It’s Your Thing”, and “That Lady”.
Only one person has been with The Isley Brothers throughtout the entire history of the band: singer Ronald Isley, who also wrote or co-wrote most of the band’s original music. With his brother Ernie, Ronald continues to carry the Isley Brothers torch, with their latest release being the 2017 collaboration with Santana called Power of Peace.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the Isley Brothers concert at the Chumash Casino on 2/16/18. It was done by phone on 2/6/18. (Tracy Isley photo)
Ernie Isley’s first recording experience with The Isley Brothers was playing bass on the hit song “It’s Your Thing” – at the tender age of 16! He never looked back, becoming the band’s lead guitarist and contributing blistering fretwork to songs like “That Lady” and “Summer Breeze”. He also co-wrote such Isley Brothers classics as “Fight the Power”, “Harvest for the World”, and “Take Me to the Next Phase”. Ernie also co-founded Isley-Jasper-Isley, which had a hit song “Caravan of Love”.
With his brother Ronald, Ernie continues to carry the Isley Brothers torch, with their latest release being the 2017 collaboration with Santana called Power of Peace.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the Isley Brothers concert at the Chumash Casino on 2/16/18. It was done by phone on 2/6/18. (Tracy Isley photo)
The year 1967 is arguably most remembered nowadays for the Summer of Love. But, ironically, one of the top songs from that year was about love which had run its course: “Release Me” by Engelbert Humperdinck, which spent six weeks at Number One on the British charts. This was Humperdinck’s first and most enduring hit, and famously prevented “Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever” from being The Beatles’ twelfth straight British Number One single. “Release Me” launched Humperdinck’s career, and other hit singles followed including “The Last Waltz” and “After The Lovin'”. He has sold over 150 million records.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for Engelbert Humperdinck’s 2/9/18 concert at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California. It was done by email, with answers received on 1/31/18. (Jamie Overton photo)
Eric Johnson is a truly amazing guitarist. But while he certainly has the ability to blow you away with six-string flash and speed, he’s much more about feel, tone, and serving the song.
Such an approach allowed his 1990 guitar-heavy album Ah Via Musicom to become a crossover hit, selling over one million copies. This album included his signature song “Cliffs of Dover” and other gems like “Trademark” and “Righteous”. Other acclaimed albums followed, most recently the 2017 album Collage.
Johnson is revisiting Ah Via Musicom on tour, joined by Kyle Brock on bass and Tommy Taylor on drums, both of whom played on the original album and toured with Johnson after the album first took off. This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the tour’s 1/24/18 concert at the Majestic Ventura Theater. It was done by phone on 1/8/18. (Max Crace photo)
Robin Trower first gained fame as the guitarist for Procol Harum, playing on their classic late ’60’s and early ’70’s prog-tinged albums. When he left after 1971’s Broken Barricades, he followed the direction hinted at on that album’s “Song for a Dreamer” and his earlier Procol Harum song “Whisky Train”, namely Jimi Hendrix-inspired blues-based rock.
He has gone on to release more than 20 albums in this vein, including 1974’s acclaimed Bridge of Sighs – with songs like “Too Rolling Stoned”, “Day of the Eagle”, and the title track – and the brand new album Time and Emotion.
This interview was for the Robin Trower concert at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California on 5/17/17. It was done by phone on 5/10/17.
Electric guitar virtuoso Uli Jon Roth got his start with The Scorpions, playing on the band’s early studio albums including Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, and Virgin Killer, and the live album Tokyo Tapes.
Eager to explore a more expansive direction, Roth left The Scorpions in 1978 to form Electric Sun, which released a trio of albums. His musical journey then took him in a more classical music direction, which continued until he returned to the rock format for the G3 guitar tour in 1998.
More recently, Roth has gone back to his hard rock beginnings with the release of Scorpions Revisited in 2015 and Tokyo Tapes Revisited: Live in Japan in 2016.
This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for Uli’s concert at the Majestic Ventura Theater on 2/19/17. It was done by phone on 1/28/17.
Guitarist/singer/songwriter Dave Mason was a co-founder of the English psychedelic/folk rock band Traffic, and he stuck around for their first two albums, the second of which contains his original version of “Feelin’ Alright”, a song that became a huge hit for Joe Cocker.
Mason also had a notable solo career, with albums including his 1970 debut Alone Together and 1974’s Let It Flow. Some songs from Mason’s solo career are “Only You Know and I Know”, “We Just Disagree”, and “Let It Go, Let It Flow”.
As if all this wasn’t enough, along the way he also worked with other artists including Jimi Hendrix for his cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”, George Harrison for his first album All Things Must Pass, Paul McCartney for “Listen to What the Man Says”, and much, much more.
This interview was for Mason’s performance at the Santa Barbara Bowl on 9/1/16. It was done by email, with answers received on 8/16/16. (Chris Jensen photo)
There’s no denying that many classic albums have classic album covers. Think of Crosby, Stills & Nash sitting on a couch on their debut album. Or The Doors looking out the window of the Morrison Hotel. Or the handsome young James Taylor on the cover of Sweet Baby James.
It turns out that the same photographer, Henry Diltz, took those and many, many other album cover photos over the years, along with thousands upon thousands of candid and action shots of musicians in places like Laurel Canyon and at Woodstock. Diltz was also a member of the Modern Folk Quartet.
This interview was for a preview article for Behind The Lens at the Lobero Theatre on 3/23/16, for which Diltz will be sharing some of his favorite photos – and the stories behind them. Joining Diltz will be Pattie Boyd, the muse for the songs “Something” by George Harrison, and “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, plus an accomplished photographer herself. This was done by email, with answers received on 3/16/16. (Photo from morrisonhotelgallery.com)
Mike Finnigan has been a part of an amazing amount of rock and roll music over the last four-plus decades. A big highlight was playing organ on the tracks “Rainy Day, Dream Away” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland album. He has also played organ and/or sang with many other artists including Crosby, Stills & Nash, Etta James, Dave Mason, Ringo Starr, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and Eric Burdon.
This interview was for a preview article for a benefit concert in Santa Barbara on 8/22/14 for The Rhythmic Arts Project (TRAP), an educational program that integrates percussion as a medium to address reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as life skills, with children and adults with intellectual and developmental differences. It was done by phone on 8/12/14.
The Beatles invaded America fifty years ago, and The Animals weren’t far behind, with their definitive version of “House of the Rising Sun” spending three weeks at the top of the Billboard charts in 1964. Other hits followed for The Animals, including “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, with the only constant bandmember during their 1960’s run being singer Eric Burdon.
After The Animals disbanded, Burdon continued to make great music, with War (“Spill the Wine”) and in a notable solo career. His latest album, 2013’s ‘Til Your River Runs Dry, shows that he’s still got it as a seventy-something.
This interview was for a preview article for Burdon’s birthday performance on 5/17/14 at the Libbey Bowl in his current hometown of Ojai, California.
This interview was done by email, with answers received on 5/11/14. And check out Burdon’s and The Animals’ Facebook pages.
(Marianna Burdon photo)
Dick Dale is known as the King of the Surf Guitar, and for good reason. He basically invented the surf music genre with his reverb-drenched distorted-Fender-Strat-through-Fender-amps gloriously-glissandoing staccato-picked guitar instrumentals.
Dale had his first heyday in the early 1960’s in Southern California, and roared back into popular consciousness when his signature song “Miserlou” was used to great effect in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Now in his seventies, Dale still has the fire that he showed in his early recordings, and gives awe-inspiring concerts like the one from 2009 reviewed here.
The following interview was for a preview article for Dale’s scheduled concert at the Majestic Ventura Theater on 11/10/13, which unfortunately was canceled. But the interview is still worth reading. As you’ll see, it turned out not to be a standard Q&A; instead, after a shaky start on the part of the interviewer, Dale spoke at length about his life in music and beyond. This was done by phone on 10/16/13.
Micky Dolenz is best known as the lead singer and drummer for The Monkees, a group whose music and television show offered a fun, zany, and sanitized take on the emerging youth culture in the 1960’s. Although the television show lasted only two years, it has remained popular and influential to the present day. Dolenz’ vocals can be heard on songs such as “Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m A Believer”, “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, and “Porpoise Song”. Altogether, four of The Monkees’ albums and three of their singles hit Number 1 in the U.S. charts.
The following is from a phone interview with Dolenz on 7/5/12, for a preview article for the Happy Together Tour visit to the Chumash Casino on 7/12/12.
Greg Lake first made his mark as a founding member of King Crimson, for which he was lead singer and bass player. During Lake’s tenure, King Crimson released their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King, which is regularly hailed as one of the pioneering works of progressive rock, and included “21st Century Schizoid Man” and the title track. When this original line-up broke up, Lake joined with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer to form the prog rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer (often abbreviated ELP), which became one of top bands in the genre. ELP’s albums included Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery, and their best known songs include “Lucky Man”, “From The Beginning”, and “Karn Evil 9”, all of which were written or co-written by Lake. ELP broke up in 1978, but reunited in the 1990’s and beyond, most recently for a one-off 40th anniversary concert in London in 2010.
Lake is currently on a solo tour called “Songs of a Lifetime”, in which he performs songs and tells stories about his life in music. The following interview took place on 4/24/12 as Lake was on his way to a gig in Alexandria, Virginia, and served as the basis for a preview article for his 5/17/12 concert in Ventura, California.
Photo: Lee Millward
Jack Casady played bass guitar for the Sixties band Jefferson Airplane, which is best known for the hits “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit”. Their albums Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing At Baxter’s, Crown of Creation, and Volunteers are amongst the best of the psychedelic rock genre. Casady also played on “Voodoo Chile” with Jimi Hendrix, and “Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)” from David Crosby’s first solo album. As the Sixties wound down, Casady and Jefferson Airplane lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen’s attention shifted to their new band Hot Tuna, which focused on acoustic and electric folk- and blues-based music. (L. Paul Mann photo)
Photos of Experience Hendrix concert, Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara on 3/4/10. (L. Paul Mann photos)
Here is a link to my review of this concert.
Review of Experience Hendrix concert at Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara on 3/4/10.
I emailed Dick Dale the link to my review of his concert at the Ventrua Majestic Theater on 6/14/09. Here is his response, by email: