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The Feb. 6 edition of Greasy Tracks featured a special feature on music from the bay area of San Francisco, including interviews with photographer Susana Millman and guitarist Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips.

Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here. 

After self-publishing her collection of Grateful Dead-related photographs several years ago, Millman recently did a second edition release of Alive With The Dead ~or~ A Fly On The Wall With A Camera with Last Gasp.

The 250-plus page hardcover coffee table book has nearly 500 photos capturing the band from the 1980s through the present, on and offstage as well as backstage. It includes a forward by drummer Mickey Hart and commentary throughout by Millman’s husband, Dennis McNally who worked as the band’s publicist and official biographer.

Millman discusses how the book came together as well as sharing interesting stories behind some of her favorite photos that were included.

The Mother Hips mark their 30th anniversary this year. Following a forgettable 2020 as the Covid pandemic kept bands off the road, the group started the New Year on a high note by announcing they would put out their entire back catalog via limited-edition vinyl releases.

Bluhm explained that they are collaborating with Blue Rose Music to press the catalog on 180-gram vinyl, but limiting runs to 300 hand-numbered copies beginning with their 1993 debut, Back To The Grotto, which was re-issued in January.

The roots of the band can be traced to when Bluhm, Greg Loiacono (guitarist/vocalist), Mike Wofchuck (drums) and Isaac Parsons (bass) met while attending California State University-Chico in 1990.

Personnel changes would happen in the ensuing years as different line-ups would play with Bluhm and Loiacono, until the four re-grouped in 1991 and focused on playing original material.

They would record and release their debut in early 1993 which helped gain attention of some major labels.

They eventually signed with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings.

Over the years there have been changes to the band lineup and even a short hiatus, but Bluhm and Loiacono have remained the constants. They’ve done solo projects, but the focus always has always returned to The Mother Hips.

The Dec. 30 edition of The Boris Rock Show featured a tribute to Leslie West who passed away on Dec. 23 at the age of 75.

The Dec. 26 edition of Greasy Tracks also honored West. Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here. 

Best known for his work with the band Mountain, West, born Leslie Weinstein, began his recording career in 1964 with The Vagrants, a Long Island-based band that also included his brother, Larry, on bass and vocals. The group, which blended blue-eyed soul with rock, recorded a handful of singles and played the metro-New York City club circuit before breaking up in 1968.

The paths of West and Felix Pappalardi crossed when Pappalardi did some production work during recording sessions by The Vagrants. Pappalardi — who also played bass and sang — was best known for his production work on Cream’s Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire, would produce West’s debut solo album, Mountain, in 1969. Less than a month after its release, West and Pappalardi — who were heavily influenced by Cream — along with drummer Norman Smart and keyboardist Norman Landsberg formed Mountain.

By the time the unknown Mountain appeared at Woodstock — it was their third-ever gig, but they had the same booking agent as Jimi Hendrix — Steve Knight had replaced Landsberg and soon Corky Laing took over on drums. In the spring of 1970, the band delivered their debut album, Climbing!, which featured what would become the band’s signature song: “Mississippi Queen.”

The track eventually reached No. 21 in the Billboard Hot 100, while the album went to No. 17 on the Billboard Top 200.

In a 2020 interview with Guitar Player, West remarked about the song: “(It) has just everything you need to make it a winner. You’ve got the cowbell, the riff is pretty damn good, and it sounds incredible. It feels like it wants to jump out of your car radio. To me, it sounds like a big, thick milkshake. It’s rich and chocolatey. Who doesn’t love that?”

Along with Climbing!, this “classic” line-up released what are regarded to be the best studio efforts by the band along with Nantucket Sleighride and Flowers of Evil which each came out in 1971.

By early 1972, the band broke up, but West and Laing linked up with ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce to form West, Bruce & Lang. The trio released a pair of largely pedestrian studio albums and a forgettable live offering before splitting up.

West regrouped Mountain in 1973. Between 1974-2007, the band — with a veritable rotating door of different members — released five studio albums, culminating with Masters of War, a collection of Bob Dylan covers, and four live collections. In all, West released nearly 20 studio and live albums as a solo artist.

The legendary Hammond B-3 organ was the focal point of a special, three-hour feature on the Dec. 19 edition of Greasy Tracks. In addition to a wide range of music featuring the B-3, Hammond players Brian Auger, Zoot Money and Matt Zeiner were all interviewed.

Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here. 

The Hammond organ first appeared in 1935 and although many models have been produced, it’s the B-3 — introduced by Laurens Hammond in 1939 — which remains the most popular.

The B-3 features two, 61-note keyboards which are known as manuals; nine pre-set keys and nine drawbars for each manual; and a number of different pedals. Initially built for use in churches, the B-3 was later marketed for home and studio use. Due to the fact that it weighed in excess of 400 pounds, it was hardly the assignment any roadie would want to be tasked with moving for a touring band.

Based upon the design of the B-3, the organ is known for its versatility and “warm” sound, often enhanced when paired with a Lesley speaker. The innovative unit featured a pair of rotating speakers — low and high frequency drivers — which can turn at a number of different speeds, thereby “moving” the sound.

In time, Hammond organs, especially the B-3, were finding their way into band line-ups throughout the jazz, blues and rock music ranks.

Brian Auger and Zoot Money were Hammond aficionados and equally in the middle of the burgeoning jazz-meets-blues environment of 1960s England. As both were influenced by the likes of Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, each was key to mainstreaming the organ, namely the B-3, in the growing rock market which help fuel the “British Invasion” of the United States.

Following a studio appearance playing harpsichord on the Yardbirds’ version of “For Your Love”, Auger formed The Steampacket with singers Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Rod Stewart. He and Driscoll later were part of The Trinity which formed in 1966. Their version of Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s On Fire” reached No. 5 on the U.K. Singles chart. In 1970, he merged jazz and rock, forming Brian’s Oblivion Express which helped usher in jazz fusion. The group released a number of well-received studio and live albums. Earlier this year, Auger released

Money’s Big Roll Band, which he formed in 1961, continues to perform to this day, albeit with a different line-up than the original. Between this group and a variety of other bands he worked with, including, Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and Dantalian’s Chariot, Money turned down one invitation to join the Animals in 1965 — when Alan Price left the band — before ultimately linking up with a renovated and renamed Eric Burdon and the New Animals in 1968. An avid session player, Money would go on to work in television, doing everything from scoring music, playing sessions and directing/producing for radio and television.

A special three-hour program focusing on the music and culture of Memphis — featuring an interview with noted author and documentary filmmaker Robert Gordon — took place on the Dec. 5 edition of Greasy Tracks.

Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here. 

Gordon talked about how he embraced the 25^th anniversary of his debut book, It Came From Memphis, publishing a revised and updated version with Third Man Books, the literary imprint of Jack White’s Third Man Records. The just-out tome features more than 80 new photos, updated text with additional interviews and a new layout.

Following in the footsteps of legendary music writers Peter Guralnick and Robert Palmer, Gordon’s latest effort is perhaps the definitive tale of the how music played a key role in Memphis — especially from the 1950s through the 1970s, but even onwards — as the city went through an array of social and cultural changes with a seemingly endless cast of fascinating characters.

Gordon has written six books and produced or directed eight documentaries, including the Emmy-winning Best of Enemies — about the televised 1968 debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal — which took honors for Outstanding Historical Documentary in 2017.

He won a Grammy for his essay for the four-CD Big Star collection, Keep an Eye on the Sky and four of his documentaries have earned Grammy nominations, including Johnny Cash’s America; Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story; Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied and “The Road To Memphis” which was an episode of Martin Scorsese’s The Blues.

An interview with veteran folk and blues singer Tom Rush was featured on a special edition of Greasy Tracks on Oct. 15.

The program also included music from across Rush’s career which is now in its sixth decade. Rush appears at Bridge Street Live on Nov. 7.

Click here to check out an archive of the program, while a playlist is here. 

In 1962, Rush released his debut album — Tom Rush Live At The Unicorn — as two of his performances at the famed Boston coffeehouse were recorded, even though only 600 copies were ultimately pressed. The record remains highly sought after by collectors.

It was during this period that Rush, a native of New Hampshire, helped introduce the era of the singer-songwriter, paving the way for artists who would become household names years later, including Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne to name but a few.

Rush would go on to record a number of songs written by the aforementioned artists. Throughout his recording and performing career, he’s managed to find the right balance between his own compositions and a wide range of tastefully done covers.

In March, Rush was diagnosed as having COVID-19, but by the following month, had apparently recovered from the sickness.

Rush will be joined by multi-instrumentalist Matt Nakoa at the Bridge Street show. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Nakoa first played with Rush during an impromptu recording session in 2014 when he sat in on piano. Impressed by Nakoa’s ability, Rush took him on the road shortly thereafter and the duo have worked together regularly since as Nakoa accompanies Rush on guitar or keyboards.

Greasy Tracks presented a two-part feature on the band Spirit.

Go here to check out the first part and here for the second part, while a playlist is here.

In addition to music from throughout their catalog, the feature includes interviews with founding members Mark Andes and Jay Ferguson as well as Mick Skidmore, the trustee of guitarist Randy California’s estate.

Best known for their 1968 single “I Got A Line On You” which went to No. 25 in the U.S. charts, the band was formed in 1967 and merged rock, jazz and psychedelia — essentially progressive rock before the genre gained popularity in the early 1970s.

It was during Wolfe’s time in the Blue Flames that Hendrix nicknamed him Randy California to differentiate him from Randy Palmer. Since Wolfe was from California, while Palmer was from Texas and would be known by Hendrix as “Randy Texas.”

Between 1968-70 the band released four albums, including their self-titled debut, The Family That Plays Together, Clear and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus which would be their only gold album.

Ferguson and Andes would leave the band for form Jo Jo Gunne in 1971 following a tour to support the release of Sardonicus.

In addition to discussing the band’s history, especially the talents of California, the guests also share insight on the on-going lawsuit which was filed by Skidmore on behalf of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust against Led Zeppelin in 2014 contending that Zeppelin copied elements of the Wolfe (California)-written “Taurus” from Spirit’s 1968 debut for what would become one of the most famous songs ever recorded, “Stairway to Heaven” which was released in 1971.

Last month, Skidmore filed a petition for writ certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, essentially requesting that it gives the lower court’s ruling a complete review of how it found that the Zeppelin classic didn’t infringe on the Spirit track.

Oddly enough, on their first U.S. tour in 1968-69, Zeppelin opened for Spirit on a handful of dates and would regularly include Spirit’s “Fresh Garbage” during a mid-set medley.

A trust, established by California’s estate, provides financial support for music programs for the school systems of Ventura, Calif. and Quincy, Mass.

A special program featuring the music of the late Justin Townes Earle was part of the Aug. 31 edition of The Devo Rock Show. Earle passed away on Aug. 20 of an apparent drug overdose according to reports by police in Nashville, Tenn.

Click here for an archive of the program.

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The son of musician Steve Earle, he grew up in South Nashville.  His parents separated when he was a young child, partly due to Steve Earle’s drug use. This led to a tumultuous childhood with Justin battling drug addiction beginning in his teenage years. After dropping out of school, he worked for his father as a roadie and was later invited to perform onstage with Steve Earle’s band The Dukes.

After cutting his teeth with Nashville bands The Distributors and The Swindlers, Earle borrowed a $1,000 from a girlfriend to release his debut EP Yuma in 2007. This led to moderate success and got him into the Nashville singer/songwriter music scene. From 2008-19 he released eight more albums, including his most recent The Saint Of Lost Causes.

His music is described as a fusion of rock, blues, bluegrass and country. In 2009, he received an Americana Music Award for new and emerging artist of the year.  His “family trilogy” albums from 2014-17 include Single Mothers (2014), Absent Fathers (2015) and Kids In The Street (2017). 

Justin struggled with drug addiction his whole life and was in and out of rehabilitation facilities. He is survived by wife Jenn Marie Maynard and daughter Etta.

The Aug. 17 edition of The Devo Rock Show featured an interview with  John Cate and music from his band The Van Gough Brothers.

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Click here to check out an archive of the program.

Included was a world radio premier of a track from their forthcoming untitled album that was just recorded at David Minehan’s  Woolly Mamouth Sound in Waltham, Mass., and music from their 2019 release Love Letters (American Music Partners). Minehan (The Neighborhoods/The Replacements) co-produced the new album which is Cate’s 15th.

In the interview, Cate described how he got his start as a musician playing jazz fusion/rock with Mark Zamcheck, including gigs at The Newport Jazz Festival and touring with the likes of Dave Brubeck and Pat Metheny.

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He did many things along the way in his 50-year career, including working as a sound engineer at the legendary clubs The Jazz Workshop and Paul’s Mall in Boston before leaving the music business and pursuing a business career that eventually led to his involvement as a founding principal with eMusic where he conceived the industry’s first-ever digital rights licensing strategy in the creation of the pioneering music download company EMusic.

In the late 1990s, he teamed up with an old friend Paul Candilore (guitar) and formed The Van Gough Brothers. They recruited bassist Clayton Young and fiddle, pedal steel and mandolin player Steve Latt. They have employed a variety of drummers, including former Fairport Convention member Dave Mattacks and noted session players Andy Plaisted and John Sands.

Their sound is often compared with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers with songs that tell stories of love and struggle.

Cate has written more than 1,000 songs, many of which have been featured in film and television, including such programs as NCIS, Justified, American Idol, Numb3rs and others.

He was interviewed at The Magical Moon Farm and Foundation Marshfield, Mass., which is currently one of the only places featuring live music in the area this summer. Cate is the music director of the organization and has recruited an eclectic lineup of musicians to play at the farm in an open air environment to help keep it in business and support local musicians.

The Aug. 8 edition of Greasy Tracks featured a special on Zamrock.

Click here to check it out, while a playlist is here.

Tracing its roots to Zambia’s mineral-rich Copperbelt Province in the 1950s where northern singers Stephen Tsotsi Kasumali, William Mapulanga and John Lushi were based, the genre is a hybrid of traditional African rhythms and Western influences stemming from funk and psychedelic rock.

One of the people responsible for Zamrock was Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia who happened to be an amateur musician. In the first years of his tenure, Kaunda passed a law that at least 95 percent of the music on the radio in the country had to be of Zambian origin.

Key musicians in this new, very unique form of music included guitarist Rikki Ililonga who led the band Musi-O-Tunya (MOT) and Paul Dobson Nyirongo — best known as Paul Ngozi — who fronted the Ngozi Family. MOT was based primarily in Kenya for periods of time.

As a player, Ngozi had some obvious Hendrixian influences, down to his stage antics of occasionally playing with his teeth.

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Another important performer was Emanyeo “Jagari” Chanda, the lead singer for one of the top Zamrock bands, WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc). WITCH played especially heavy music, boosted by an array of electronic effects and the fuzz guitar of Chris “Kims” Mbewe.

Chanda garnered the nickname when crowds compared him to Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, but not wishing to be likened to the Stones, he tweaked the moniker, combining it with “jaggery” — a type of dark sugar.

Italian journalist/documentarian Gio Arlotta, who traveled to Africa with Tim Spreng to make We Intend To Cause Havoc chronicling Chanda’s life, summed up the genre: “What’s special about Zamrock is how heavy it sounds,” Arlotta said. “Nigeria has more funk. Mali is more bluesy, Ethiopia is more jazz. In Zambia they just loved Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix. It’s proto-metal, proto-punk — a dirty sound that you can’t hear anywhere else in Africa.”

Other Zamrock bands that turned heads and caught ears included Amanaz, The Foot Steps, 5 Revolutions, The Peace and Salty Dog

Social themes were central for the majority of the material recorded and performed by Zamrock bands as Zambia, one of the world’s largest producers of copper, enjoyed strong economic times in the opening portion of its first decade of independence, but quickly fell on hard times as the 1970s progressed.

Despite the immense pool of talent and potential for numerous Zamrock bands, the “glory days” of the genre were short-lived and lasted less than a decade. In the 1980s, Zambia was handicapped by a horrible economy compounded by the HIV/AIDS epidemic from which the country has never recovered. WITCH was the hardest hit with every member, minus Chanda, dying from AIDS.

WRTC hosts have done a number of tributes to Peter Green who passed away July 25 at the age of 73.

The first spotlight on Green took place July 25 with three hours of music from throughout his career on Authentic Radio. Click here to listen to an archive of the show. The Aug. 1 tribute on Greasy Tracks, focused on deeper tracks in a career overview. Click here to check it out, while a playlist is here.

The start to Green’s rise to critical acclaim and later commercial success — both of which he would shun – came simply because of who he replaced when he joined as the lead guitarist in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in July 1966 to fill the place of Eric Clapton who left to form Cream.

Green had subbed for Clapton for a handful of shows eight months earlier, but upon taking on the role, Green’s new boss was his biggest champion. When going into the studio to start recording A Hard Road, Mayall told Decca Records producer Mike Vernon: “He (Green) might not be better (than Clapton) now. But you wait… he’s going to be the best.”

While he would only remain with Mayall for less than a year, the time spent in studio and on the road with the Bluesbreakers became a valuable experience for Green who would go on to form Fleetwood Mac in 1967, bringing on two Mayall alums, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood.

In time, the group would boast three guitarists with Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan rounding out the line-up which would release three outstanding studio albums (Fleetwood Mac, Mr. Wonderful and Then Play On) before Green left the band in 1970.

It was during his Mac days that Green penned some of his greatest songs, “Black Magic Woman,” “Albatross,” “Man Of The World,” “Show-Biz Blues,” “Rattlesnake Shake” and “Long Grey Mare.”

In the post-Mac period of his career, Green dealt with a series of mental health issues, inconsistent studio creation and album output and a number of different line-ups of players.