The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards has laid into fellow Sixties bands Led Zeppelin and The Who during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
The 71-year-old Stones legend reportedly described Led Zeppelin as “hollow” and said The Who were a “crazy” band and their frontman Roger Daltrey was “all flash”.
Richards revealed he has never been a fan of Led Zeppelin and while he thinks Jimmy Page is a great guitarist he doesn’t like him when he’s performing with the other members of the band.
“I love Jimmy Page,” he told Rolling Stone magazine, “but as a band, no, with John Bonham thundering down the highway in an uncontrolled 18-wheeler … Jimmy is a brilliant player. But I always felt there was something a little hollow about it, you know?”
Meanwhile, Richards also wrote off The Who. “I always thought Roger Daltrey was all flash,” he told Rolling Stone in the same interview. “I love Pete Townshend, but I always thought the Who were a crazy band anyway. You would say to Keith Moon, if you were in a session with him, ‘Just give me a swing,’ and he couldn’t … He was an incredible drummer, but only with Pete Townshend.”
Rolling Stone magazine has credited Keith Richards as the creator of “rock’s greatest single body of riffs” on guitar and ranks him fourth on its list of 100 Best Guitarists. Jimmy Page is ranked third …
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What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child? That’s the emotive question posed by this heartwarming novel of selfless courage, a quest for forgiveness, and a Swinging Sixties first love that never grew old.
“Gilbert’s Gift” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.
A recently re-discovered original recording of The Beatles singing ‘Some Other Guy’ at the legendary Cavern Club in 1962 is to go under the hammer as part of a Rock & Pop Memorabilia auction in Liverpool on 4 November 2015.
The old reel-to-reel tape had been languishing in a desk drawer for more than 50 years.
On 22 August 1962, The Beatles were filmed by a Granada Television crew at The Cavern, performing ‘Some Other Guy’ and ‘Kansas City’ for a TV programme called Know The North. However, the sound quality was so poor that it was unable to be broadcast.
When The Beatles came back to Liverpool after recording ‘Love Me Do’ at Abbey Road Studios in London, Granada TV sound engineer Gordon Butler returned to The Cavern with the band on 5 September 1962, with the intention of obtaining a better quality audio recording to dub over the original film footage. Butler took three microphones – two of which he placed on Lennon and McCartney.
The re-recording of ‘Some Other Guy’ reportedly sounded so good that the band’s manager Brian Epstein asked Butler to make five acetate copies which Epstein intended to use to promote the band.
Butler returned to Granada with the re-recorded tape and gave it to legendary TV producer Johnnie Hamp. But due to legal issues with other acts on the show, the programme was never screened and the tape remained in Hamp’s desk drawer for 50 years. He recently discovered it, and, with the help of Beatles historian Paul Wilde, listened to it on a reel-to-reel tape machine. He found the sound quality was still crystal clear five decades later.
The whereabouts of four of the ‘Some Other Guy’ acetates are unknown, but the fifth was sold at auction in 1993 for £16,000 to Apple Records, the label set up by The Beatles in 1968.
All proceeds from the sale of the tape will be donated to charity.
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What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child? That’s the emotive question posed by this heartwarming novel of selfless courage, a quest for forgiveness, and a Swinging Sixties first love that never grew old.
“Gilbert’s Gift” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.
Inspired by real events, Gilbert’s Gift, the heartwarming new novel by Brian Will Oliver, tells the story of sixtysomething Gilbert Shilling—an aspiring rock star back in the Swinging Sixties—who, against his family’s wishes, decides to donate one of his lungs in a desperate bid to save the life of a dying boy he has never met.
The novel pays tribute to all the courageous individuals who become altruistic living donors—selfless men and women who, while still alive, are willing to donate organs, such as a lung or a kidney, to help save the lives of others.
Against this backdrop, Gilbert’s Gift poses the emotive question:
What would YOU give to save the life of a stranger’s child?
Having given up on his music career long ago, big-hearted Gilbert Shilling is now an ordinary working man leading an ordinary life—just another baby boomer lucky enough to have made it into his sixties in one piece.
Still grieving over the death of his own baby son many years previously, Gilbert is deeply affected when he hears about a 10-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis who desperately needs a double lung transplant. Without the transplant, the child will die within weeks.
Gilbert sees a way of bringing new purpose into his empty existence by volunteering to donate one of his own perfectly healthy lungs to help save the little boy’s life.
Despite warnings that the transplant procedure could hold life-threatening risks for someone of his age, Gilbert insists on going ahead—driven by a determination to help save this little boy after he wasn’t able to save his own son.
With echoes of Nicholas Sparks, Gilbert’s Gift is also a poignant tale about baby boomer love—teenage love in the Swinging Sixties, lost and then found again decades later.
When the tragedy surrounding the lung transplant gains widespread media coverage, it brings Gilbert’s first love back into his life … just when he needs her most. But is she too late?
Gilbert’s Gift is a moving tale which blends a poignant theme with gentle humour. It is available from Amazon as a US paperback, a UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Fiction & Literature/Brian Will Oliver), Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, and from KoboBooks.
A ‘lost album’ by James Last has finally been released – 44 years after it was recorded.
Titled The America Album, it was produced in Hamburg in 1969 specifically for American audiences. The album wasn’t released and disappeared into Polydor’s archives for almost five decades.
The 11-track album has been described as “artistically ambitious” and “ahead of its time”. It features pop and rock-oriented songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Jimmy Webb, Laura Nyro and Rod McKuen – including classic late-1960s songs such as ‘Wedding Bell Blues’, ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, ‘Lady Lady Lay’ and ‘Ballad of Easy Rider’.
Bobby Vinton fans are being offered a new 2CD set which contains 40 of his greatest hits, B-sides and cover versions of classic songs from the 1960s. Titled Bobby Vinton – The Ultimate Epic Singles Collection, it is said to be “the most comprehensive Bobby Vinton ‘hits’ package ever released”.
Released on 12 August 2013, the collection features all of his hits, including ‘Roses Are Red (My Love)’, ‘Blue Velvet’, ‘Blue On Blue’ and ‘Mr. Lonely’, along with his take on songs like ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’, ‘Half Way to Paradise’ and ‘Sealed With A Kiss’.
Bobby Vinton, now aged 78, has been called “the most successful love singer of the rock era”. From his first hit record ‘Roses Are Red (My Love)’ in 1962 through to 1972, he had more Number One singles than any other solo male artist.
To coincide with The Animals’ 50th anniversary this year, Eric Burdon has released a new solo album, ‘Til Your River Runs Dry. It contains 12 songs, mostly written by Burdon, and is said to be his most personal album to date.
He is currently writing his third memoir (follow-up to I Used to Be An Animal, But I’m Alright Now and Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood). Details of an international tour will also be announced soon.
Reg Presley, lead singer with The Troggs, died at his home in Hampshire, England on 4 February 2013. He was 71.
In January 2012, he announced his retirement from the band, revealing he had been diagnosed with lung cancer after falling ill during a show in Germany.
The Troggs catapulted into the UK and US charts in July 1966 with their iconic version of Chip Taylor’s song ‘Wild Thing’. Classic Troggs hits written by Presley included ‘With a Girl Like You’ (1966) and ‘Love Is All Around’ (1967).
A new stage musical telling the story of the legendary Motown label is to open on Broadway in April 2013. Titled Motown: The Musical, it will feature Brandon Victor Dixon who plays the label’s founder Berry Gordy Jnr, and Valisia LeKae taking the part of Diana Ross.
Gordy himself is one of the producers of the show, so it is expected to include plenty of classic Motown songs from its heyday in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s.
A new Jimi Hendrix album, People, Hell and Angels, is to be released in March. It will feature 12 previously unreleased tracks recorded in 1968 and 1969.
It is believed Hendrix originally planned to include the tracks on First Rays of the New Rising Sun, the planned double-album follow-up to Electric Ladyland which he was working on when he died.
The tracks are said to show he was developing “new, experimental directions” and exploring fresh diversions from his legendary guitarwork.
Lenny Kravitz is reportedly set to portray Marvin Gaye in a new film about the Motown legend’s final years, focusing on his European period when he lived in London and Ostend, Belgium in the early 1980s.
The movie will be directed by Julien Temple who was responsible for the musical Absolute Beginners and biographical films about The Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer and The Kinks’ Ray Davies.
The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards has laid into fellow Sixties bands Led Zeppelin and The Who during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Sh-Boom! Magazine 