Beech Tree News Network

Tales From AXS

As you know by now, I like to set a season pass to record a bunch of AXS TV shows, so I’ll have several to watch in a row.  This past Saturday, I binged their show A Year In Music.  That’s where these facts originate. Our first fact comes from A Year In Music, 1962: Neil Sedaka, of “Calendar Girl” and “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” fame, was one of the original members of the band The Tokens but left before their breakthrough hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. 

We stay in 1962 for our next fact.  The first James Bond movie, Dr. No, was released in 1962.  It’s based on a 1958 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.  Starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman and Jack Lord, the first Bond movie was adapted by Richard Malbaum, Johanna Harwood and Berkely Mather.  The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a partnership that continued until 1975.  It was followed by From Russia with Love in 1963. 

The James Bond theme, composed by Monty Norman, has been used in every Bond movie.  It wasn’t until 1964’s Goldfinger that the franchise included original songs.  Since then, there have been instant classics from Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” to Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better”, Duran Duran’s “A View To A Kill” to Adele’s “Skyfall”.

Rita Moreno was the first Latina to win an Academy Award.  She won for West Side Story.  She was the only actual Puerta Rican in the film.  The rest were played by white actors. 

Pete Townsend was the co-founder and lead singer of the Detours.  You know them best as their name since 1964.  That’s when they changed their name to The Who.  The rest is Rock & Roll history.  The band also introduced the power chord, the use of feedback, the windmill strum, manipulated electronic sounds and they also introduced the concept of the rock opera, debuting Tommy in 1969.

Releasing three albums in 1965 along with producing, touring and songwriting proved too much for lead singer Brian Wilson, so he took a break from the band.  A then-unknown named Glen Campbell took his place for that brief stint when they performed.

A debut band looking to make a name for themselves started with a 10-year-old kid from Gainesville, Florida and his chance meeting with Elvis Presley.  The kid was then bitten by the bug.  He traded his slingshot in for a collection of Elvis 45’s and decided he was going to be a singer.  When he saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, he knew he was going to start a band.  The young man’s name was Tom Petty.  Tom dropped uut of high school and picked up a bass guitar (reminiscent of a line from their song “Into the Great Wide Open”.  With little success with his band The Epics, who changed their name to Mud Crutch, he founded the Heartbreakers, and they released their self-titled debut album November 9, 1976. 

 Peter Frampton started playing in bands when he was 12 years old and a bandmate and fellow classmate, David Bowie, was 15.  Their lunch breaks at Browley Technical School were spent listening to Buddy Holly.  Frampton is known for his work with the talk box.  The talk box is an effects device that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument by altering the frequency.  The shape of the mouth filters the sound.  It sounds as if the guitar is speaking.  Another group that has relied heavily on the talk box is Bon Jovi.  It’s all over “Living On A Prayer”.  As for Frampton’s songs that heavily feature the talk box, look no further then “Show Me The Way” and “Do You Feel Like I Do”. 

My final music fact comes from the country world.  Country music made history in 1976 with its first ever platinum album.  That album was Wanted: The Outlaws.  It’s a compilation album featuring Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessie Colter and Tompal Glazer.  It quickly hit #1 on the country charts and reached #10 on the pop charts.  People who had never bought a country album in their life bought this album.  (AXS: A Year In Music, 1976). 

Below are links to my podcast, Blendertainment

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=Uecgn9fvQ8-PM1anUpfQzA