2008 - For Axl Rose, it’s bad times. A week ago, his much-anticipated album Chinese Democracy debuted to less-than-stellar chart showings – in the UK it was handily beat by The Killers’ Day & Age, and in the US it did even worse, coming in at Number 3 behind Kanye West and Taylor Swift.
And now it appears that the raging apathy of once-fervent Guns N’ Roses fans continues.
Final sales figures are still coming in, but in the UK, Chinese Democracy dropped off the Top 10 and slid to Number 11. And in the US the story is even grimmer, where the record nosedived to Number 17 – a 78 percent drop-off from its first-week sales.
2002 – R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe takes the stand to defend guitarist Peter Buck against air rage charges in Britain. Stipe describes Buck as a “Southern gentlemen.”
2001 – Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M., pleads not guilty to a series of charges relating to an alleged “air rage” incident during a transatlantic flight in April. Buck, appearing at Isleworth Crown Court, is accused of assaulting two British Airways staffers, being drunk on board an aircraft, causing criminal damage and interfering with a control panel on an external door.
2000 – Rage Against The Machine lead singer Zack De La Rocha quits the politicallycharged rock outfit. In a statement, he says, “I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage because our decision-making process has completely failed. It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively as a band, and from my perspective, has undermined our artistic and political ideal.”
2000 – The Rhyme & Reason Tour, featuring the Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine postponed due to a biking injury suffered by Beastie Boys principal Mike D.
2000 – Rage Against the Machine try to force their way into the New York Stock Exchange. The stunt was part of a video the radical band was shooting in Wall Street with filmmaker Michael Moore for their song “Sleep Now in the Fire.”
1970 – Emerson, Lake & Palmer give their debut performance in Plymouth, England.
Progressive rock can be a very disreputable subject. No other musical style has been so vilified by the critics and became a synonym for ‘pompous’ and ‘bombastic.’ Almost every music critic in the early ’70′s had something unflattering to write about it. None of them seem to have noticed that the genre combined the old with the new and brought things to popular music that simply wasn’t there before. Prog rock flourished during the early ’70′s but was wiped out almost completely by 1976- each of the bands who played it had to undergo changes in order to ensure their survival or else evaporate during the late ’70′s and the ’80′s.
It’s hard to decide which band best represents the genre. King Crimson’s debut In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969) might be considered one of the first pure prog rock album while Genesis’s Selling England By The Pound was the best prog album to my mind and Yes and Pink Floyd made a huge splashes on both sides of the Atlantic, but none of these bands was never really identified with the genre as closely as Emerson, Lake and Palmer (Johnny Rotten’s hatred of Floyd to the contrary). ELP shared prog rock’s great paramount and deep chasms, reflecting all that was good and bad in that time, which is known the age of the rock dinosaurs.
ELP, like many early prog bands, was an English group. Keith Emerson, its founder and keyboard player, began to take formal piano lessons when he was eight years old. He started to learn classical music but was fed up with “playing like Bach.” Later, he discovered jazz and started to perform in little clubs while he was in college. It was during that time that Emerson, searching for a new sound, purchased with the benevolent help of his father a new Hammond L100 electric piano. Later, Emerson would delve into the world of keyboards even further.
After playing in several bands, Emerson heard that P. P Arnold (then a successful solo singer and today a back up singer for ex-Floyd Roger Waters) was looking for players. He then formed The Nice, with the group playing behind Arnold. But after six months, they began performing by themselves. During late 1967 and early 1968, the band traveled in Britain with such names as Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. In January 1968, they traveled in the U. S and came back to Britain just in time to see the release of their first album The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (a pun on the band members’ names). They later recorded “America,” a work that combined Leonard Bernstein’s famous piece from the West Side Story with Dvorak’s New World Symphony and protest lyrics, making for a complex political statement (as well as a controversial once since Bernstein didn’t approve of it). During that time, Emerson began to use knives when playing. He nailed them to his keyboard in order to help him hold certain keys while he was playing. This was just one of his yet-to-come stage tricks.
The Nice recorded another two albums during the next couple of years, but in April 1970, Emerson decided that he had enough and the band ceased to exist. Nevertheless, their manager was able to piece together more albums based on live shows and out-takes and eventually try to piggyback ELP’s success to get some sales.
During a King Crimson/Nice show in 1969, Emerson met Crimson’s young bass player Greg Lake backstage. After a small chat, they have decided to form a new band in several months. Now with The Nice project finished, Emerson was ready to move on.
Greg Lake started his musical career when he was given a guitar by his mother. When he was just a school boy, he wrote the song that will later become one of ELP’s greatest hits, “Lucky Man.” During the late ’60′s, Lake played in several bands. One of these bands, The Shy Limbs, nearly got him killed. The band used to sleep in a van and eat from the hand to mouth. Eventually, Lake developed pneumonia and had nearly died before his mother sent him to a doctor.
When he played with another band, The Gods, he caught the attention of Robert Fripp who was searching a bass player for King Crimson. Lake sang and played bass on the band’s first album, In The Court Of The Crimson King. But Fripp’s tyranny made the members of the band bitter and Lake was searching for a way out. Eve after meeting Emerson and making plans with him, Lake still helped Fripp with recording the next King Crimson’s album In The Wake Of Poseidon (retained as lead singer but not bassist) and then went of to start his own new group.
But the duo was searching for a drummer. They met Mitch Mitchell, Hendrix’s drummer who didn’t want to join but tried to get Hendrix into the new band. After the couple decided to join Carl Palmer as their drummer, the British Press fantasized about a new band with two virtuosos such as Hendrix and Emerson and speculated that the band will be called Hendrix, Emerson, Lake and Palmer or HELP (which would have surely made for some hilarious headlines). But Hendrix died in September 1970, before this idea came to fruition.
Emerson and Lake found Carl Palmer after he was recommended to them. They bought an album of his band Atomic Rooster and liked what they heard so they asked him to join them. But Palmer said no at first; he has been working hard, along with Vincent Crane, to get his band running and didn’t want to throw it all away. He was playing professionally since he was 15 years old and just recently toured with The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown which had a U.K. number one hit chart single, “Fire.”
But after continuing persuasion by Greg Lake, he decided to join them for a jam session. He enjoyed it very much and the trio began to practice until May 1970, when Palmer finished his work with Atomic Rooster and thus, ELP was born. Like another then-recent supergroup, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the English trio took the audacious move of using the group members’ names as the name of the group itself.
During 1970, ELP recorded its debut album, which was called, appropriately enough, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They drew attention from the beginning because every one of its members played in a famous group before ELP. They were a super group, a term that was given to Cream in 1967 and was quite common during the late ’60′s and early ’70′s when music world was managed like the NBA. The first album included a modern version of a Bela Bartok piece called “The Barbarian.” It also included one of their greatest radio hits, “Lucky Man”. Lake was also responsible for the recording and it gave the album a very unique final sound. Another instrument which was innovatively used was the Moog Synthesizer. Although the Monkeys played it in 1967, no other musician has gained control over it as did Emerson. He was the first musician to use it on stage and managed to get amazing sounds out of this analog multi-switched instrument., becoming one of the earliest pioneers of the synthesizer (inventor Bob Moog himself though of Emerson as one of the great exponents of his Moog synthesizer).
The band gained wide public interest at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, during which Keith Emerson, dressed in shiny robe, fired two cannons (thus slightly injuring an Italian camera man) and played his keyboard like a madman.
In early 1971, they released their second album, Tarkus- their first concept album – which was recorded in only two weeks. The main theme of the album (the first side of the vinyl album) is, unsurprisingly, “Tarkus.” Tarkus is a bionic armadillo who fights other bionic creatures until it is convinced by the Manticore (a mythical hybrid creature that’s part human, part lion) to cease from its deviant ways. You may say that the story is a parable about wars and the ill-necessity of machines, but ELP claimed that it didn’t have any such exalted intentions. Significantly though, ELP later named its record label Manticore Records.
Tarkus was very popular in Britain and reached 9 on the U.S. Billboard charts. Six months after Tarkus, the band released Pictures At An Exhibition (1972), a newly rearranged version of the famous piece by Mussorgsky which was recorded during a live show in Newcastle City Hall. The band had already played it before at the Isle of Wight Festival (with the shooting cannons). Pictures was a very controversial album. Some people thought that it was a great achievement in rock while some classical fans thought that it was a disgrace to the original composer and some classic rock fans thought that it was self indulgent, masterbative crap that had nothing to do with rock itself. While I might understand some of the detractors’ opinions, I still think that they have ignored the most important thing in this album- the fact that these players combined two completely different types of music into a wholly amazing piece. Instead of classical masters like Liszt or Rachmaninoff who run in a raging fury on a classical keyboard, we had a new one who combines an amazing technique with amazing technicality and creating amazing, weird and feel accentuating sounds. We can get a great sense of pace from the rhythm section as well, which combines a deep electric bass with excellent drum work. And isn’t it true that many times, great art initially faces controversy when it first appears? If one is listening to this piece without comparing it to its antecedents, one can hear that Picture At An Exhibition is a very innovative work like no other.
Another anecdote about this album is that during a 1993 show in Budapest, Lake saw a man crying on the front row. After the show he asked the man why he was crying, and he told him that 15 years earlier he spend three months in jail because the Communist regime found out that he had had a copy of the album. That was the power of such music and how it was both loved and despised so strongly.
In 1972, the band released their third studio album, Trilogy. This was another eclectic album which drew on classical sources, combining the works of Ravel with the works of Aaron Copland and, of course, highly skilled playing by the members of the band. The album also contained ELP’s best selling single, “From The Beginning.”
From 1972 to 1974, ELP were one of the most popular bands in the world. With the exception maybe of other great showmen like Alice Cooper and Kiss, their shows were the most extravagant seen. Emerson was breaking keyboards like Pete Townsend use to break guitars while he also used a special remote which allowed him to play without even touching the instrument. Carl Palmer modified his drum battery by adding all kinds of bells, tubes and percussions. Capitalizing on their success, the band started its own label in 1973 to manage their music and to help new prog bands to achieve exposure, including Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield and Italian band PFM.
In 1973, ELP recorded another studio album, Brain Salad Surgery. The cover was designed by H. R Giger, which became one of the first high-profile gigs for the artists who later designed the set and creatures for the movie series Alien as well as David Lynch’s Dune and album covers for the Dead Kennedys and Debbie Harry of Blondie. The first side of BSS contains, like every ELP album before, a new version of previous works, this time William Blake’s “Jerusalem” and Alberto Ginstera’s “Toccata” (along with the stamp of approval from the composer himself). The rest of the first side contains two other short songs, including Lake’s lovely “Still… You Turn Me On” and a collaboration with Pete Sinfield. The end of the first side and entire second side of the album contained a 30 minute piece called “Karn Evil 9″ (a pun with carnival). The piece is divided into three parts and talks about the battle between men and technology (recalling Tarkus).
1974 was the best year in ELP’s history. The road shows were unprecedentedly grandiose, featuring twenty tons of musical gear. Lake played while standing on a 5000 pound rug because he was afraid two get electrified (he nearly did during an earlier show). Emerson’s piano flew and spun in the air while he was playing. In April 6, 1974 the band played at the California Jam rock festival after Deep Purple. 350,000 viewers watch their best performance and the show was broadcasted nationwide. Later on, they released a triple album to commemorate the tour with a title taken from “Karn Evil 9″ (Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends– Ladies and Gentlemen. Emerson, Lake and Palmer). ELP’s albums hit top of Billboard again and Melody Maker Magazine voted them as “Best Band” along with “Best Keyboard Player” and “Best Drummer” (leaving poor Lake in the lurch). But it was to be ELP’s, as well as the progressive rock’s, apex- from here the only way to go was down. Times began to change.
After the tour, the three had decided to take some much-deserved rest. During the next three years, they bought new homes, had some rest and worked on solo albums. When they came back, punk was the popular style of the day and one of the punk’s main targets were the progressive dinosaurs, who they painted as villains that were ruining rock and growing rich and fat from it.
During the next couple of years, the band recorded two “group solo albums” (1977′s Works) with a part for every member solo composition (and years before Outkast or Hella had the idea). A tour in 1977 was economically destructive for the band members, with a loss of nearly two million dollars. And then in 1978 came Love Beach, an album that was made because the trio was under contract and was forced to do the album. Even worse, from its Beach Boys title and sunny cover image, it’s the least convincing of all of their records. This was the end. In July 1979, ELP disbanded.
During the next 20 years the band reunited as Emerson, Lake and Powell (with Cozy Powell formerly of Whitesnake, Jeff Beck Group). Palmer was available as he was involved in the most commercial of all post-ELP projects- another supergroup called Asia (included former members of Yes and Crimson).Emerson, Lake and Powell disband in the late ’80′s but Emerson, Lake and Palmer reunited again. In the early 90′s, rthey ecording a new album (Black Moon) and embarked on a few tours during the 90′s, occasionally disrupted by Emerson’s problem with nerves in his right arm (no doubt brought on by years of his theatrical playing). ELP then ceased to exist once again in 1998.
The ELP phenomenon was not unique. Every prog rock band had to reinvent itself in order to survive the punk revolution and the shallow ’80′s. Of course, they had to do it because the bands members were accustomed to a certain living style they wanted to preserve, but the prog rock style itself became somewhat inadequate. In a world where punk could transfer the essence of a song in two minutes of guitar work, nobody needed a 15 minutes piece for the same task. The bright side is that today with the Internet revolution more and more bands can get exposure and the prog rock is more alive than ever, as witnessed by the subsequent math rock movement and groups like TV on the Radio and Radiohead who have picked up on prog’s threads.
But a parallel ELP can never exist. ELP symbolized progressive rock in all its glory, with thousands of fans, tons of technical music and a highly desired glamour. But here laid its weakness. ELP became literally too expensive to maintain. All the stage tricks, all the extra players and accessories led to a situation were the cancellation of one show could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The band’s pomposity was derided by almost many writers who instead of listening to the music as it was, tried to find the band’s faults. The fact is that few other bands has ever taught so many young men and women that classical music can correspond very well with modern rock and roll. No other band could have done it as good as ELP had.
Sure, you can say they were a bunch of self indulged hedonists and you might accuse them of plagiarism, but to me, ELP is one of the symbols of London during the ’70′s. Every time I am listening to one of ELP’s early records, all I have to do is close my eyes and I am there, walking from Oxford St. to Regent St. There you are, going through Soho, watching King Crimson perform in Hyde Park or David Bowie at the Hammersmith Apollo, or just wandering around in the streets of London at its peak; traveling in a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
1949 – Kiss bassist Gene Simmons is born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel.
Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz (pronounced Haium) on August 25, 1949) is an Israeli-born American hard rock bass guitarist, vocalist, and actor. He is best known as “The Demon,” his blood-spitting, fire-breathing, and tongue-wagging persona in the hard rock band Kiss, an act he co-founded in the early 1970s. Simmons also contends that he has “never been high, drunk, or smoked in his life.”
Biography
Simmons was born in Haifa, Israel, and emigrated to New York City at the age of eight,[2] with his mother Florence Klein—a Jewish Hungarian immigrant and the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. His father Feri Witz, also Jewish, had abandoned his family years earlier. When Simmons was young, his mother’s long absences while working two jobs in order to make ends meet left emotional scars that gave him a strong desire for wealth. After arriving in the U.S., he took the name Eugene Klein (later Gene Klein), Klein being his mother’s maiden name. In the late-1960s, he changed his name again, to Gene Simmons.
Simmons became involved with his first band, Lynx, then renamed The Missing Links, when he was a teenager. Eventually, he disbanded The Missing Links to form the Long Island Sounds. While he played in these bands, he kept up odd jobs on the side to make more money, including making fanzines and buying used comic books. Simmons then attended Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake, New York. He then joined a new band, Bullfrog Bheer, and the band made a demo, “Leeta”; this song was eventually released on the Kiss box set in demo form.
Simmons formed the rock band Wicked Lester in the early 1970s with Stanley Harvey Eisen (now known as Paul Stanley) and recorded one album, which was never released. Dissatisfied with Wicked Lester’s sound and look, Simmons and Stanley attempted to fire their band members; they were met with resistance, and they quit Wicked Lester, walking away from their record deal with Epic Records. They decided to form the ultimate rock band, and started looking for a drummer. Simmons and Stanley found an ad placed by Peter Criss, who was playing clubs in Brooklyn at the time; they joined and started out as a trio. Paul Frehley responded to an ad they put in the Village Voice for a lead guitar player, and soon joined them. Kiss released its self-titled debut album in February 1974. Stanley quickly took on the role of lead performer on stage, while Simmons became the driving force behind what became an extensive Kiss merchandising franchise.
In 1983, while Kiss’s fame was waning, the members took off their trademark make-up and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity that continued into the 1990s. The band hosted their own fan conventions throughout 1995, and fan feedback about the original Kiss members reunion influenced the highly successful 1996-1997 Alive Worldwide reunion tour. In 1998, the band released Psycho Circus, its first album in almost 20 years by the original line-up. Since then, the original line-up has once again dissolved, with Tommy Thayer replacing Ace Frehley on lead guitar and Eric Singer (who performed with Kiss from 1992 up through 1996) replacing Peter Criss on drums.
Personal life
Simmons, who has never been married, currently lives in Beverly Hills, California with longtime partner and former Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed. They have two children: a son, Nicholas (born 22 January 1989), and a daughter, Sophie (born 7 July 1992). He has formerly lived in relationships with Cher and Diana Ross.[2] He has also dated actress Liv Ullman.
Simmons speaks four languages – English, Hungarian, Hebrew and German – and is currently learning Japanese and Mandarin.[2]
Politics
A self-described liberal on social policy issues, Simmons has described himself as a supporter of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration.[3] He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing on his website: “I’m ashamed to be surrounded by people calling themselves Liberal who are, in my opinion, spitting on the graves of brave American soldiers who gave their life to fight a war that wasn’t theirs…in a country they’ve never been to…simply to liberate the people therein”.[4] In a follow-up, Simmons explained his position and wrote about his love and support for the United States: “I wasn’t born here. But, I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away…and rescued my Mother from the Nazi German Concentration Camps. She is alive and I am alive because of America. And, if you have a problem with America, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME”.[4]
During the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, Simmons sent a televised message of support (in both English and Hebrew) to an Israeli soldier seriously wounded in fighting in Lebanon, calling him his “hero”.[5]
Controversy
* In a February 4, 2002 interview on the NPR radio show Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Simmons said to Gross regarding his claim to have bedded more than a thousand women: “If you want to welcome me with open arms, I’m afraid you’re also going to have to welcome me with open legs” (paraphrasing The Who’s hit song “You Better You Bet”). To this Gross replied, “That’s a really obnoxious thing to say.” Simmons refused to grant permission to NPR to make the interview available online on the station’s website. However, the interview appears in print in Gross’s book All I Did Was Ask (ISBN 1401300103), and some unauthorized transcripts are also available.[6] A part of the interview was re-broadcast on Fresh Air on Aug 31, 2007.[7]
* In a later Fresh Air interview, satirist Al Franken related to Terry Gross his own encounter with Gene Simmons. According to Franken, he was awaiting a racquetball partner at a club when Simmons, whom Franken had not recognized, challenged him to a match, stating “I’ll kick your ass,” only to suffer an embarrassing loss to Franken. Simmons responded by calling for another match, and when Franken indicated that since his racquetball partner had arrived, he couldn’t play Simmons again, Simmons responded by making loud “bock, bock, bock” chicken sounds. Franken then offered to play Simmons with $500 at stake, at which Simmons walked away.[8]Franken told Gross not to blame herself for her experience with Simmons, and that Simmons’ behavior at the racquetball club made him “the most awful person I’ve ever met.”
* Simmons’ tongue has always been an issue of both admiration and questioning. His unusually large tongue, however, is a natural trait (as he states in his autobiography), and not the effect of plastic surgery or any kind of transplant, as alluded to in several web sites.
* In 2004, during an interview in Melbourne, Australia, Simmons described Islam as a “vile culture” wherein women had fewer rights than dogs. He described Islam as a threat, claiming that they wanted to leave the Middle East and supplant non-Muslims in other parts of the world by force. The Muslim community took offense, with Australian Muslim of the Year Susan Carland asserting that Simmons’ stereotyping of Muslims was inaccurate and that she never walked behind her husband as Simmons stated all Muslim women were required to do. He later said on his website that he was talking specifically about extremist Muslims.[9]
* In 2005, Simmons was sued by a former lover, Georgeann Walsh Ward, who alleged that she had been “defamed” in the VH1 documentary When Kiss Ruled the World, which she claimed portrayed her as an “unchaste woman” and implied that she had been merely a band groupie rather than a committed girlfriend of Simmons. Ward insisted that she had been involved in an “exclusive monogamous relationship” with Simmons since before Kiss was formed.[10] The suit was settled as of June 29, 2006.[11]
* In June 2008, in an interview with AOL News, Simmons blamed fans for the hard times that the music industry is experiencing. “The record industry is dead. It’s six feet underground and unfortunately the fans have done this” Simmons was quoted as saying. This is not the first time that Simmons has blamed fans for the falling fortunes of the music industry. In a November 2007 interview, he as quoted as saying that “Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth.”[12]
* In 2008, a video on the Internet surfaced which purported to be Simmons engaging in sexual activity with with an unnamed woman. Simmons’ later stated that the tape was recorded without his consent or knowledge and that his legal team is pursuing all legal options. [13]
* When asked by his son on an episode of Gene Simmons: Family Jewels if he was going to work fix his car, Gene Simmons, who is Jewish, replied:”that’s what Gentiles are for.”
Film and television work
Simmons has been the creative force behind such television projects such as:
* My Dad the Rock Star, a cartoon by the Canadian animation company Nelvana, about the mild mannered son of a Gene Simmons-like rock star.
* Mr. Romance, a show created and hosted by Simmons on the Oxygen cable television channel.
* Rock School, a reality show in which Gene tries to make a rock band out of a group of children trained in classical music in the first season, and in the second, a group of kids from a ‘tough’ comprehensive school. Rock School was aired on Channel 4 in the UK, Channel Ten in Australia, TVNZ’s TV2 in New Zealand, VH-1 in the United States and Latin America, Nelonen in Finland, TV4 in Sweden and Much Music in Canada.
* Gene Simmons Family Jewels, another reality show for A&E which debuted on August 7, 2006. The premise is basically the same as The Osbournes, with cameras following Simmons and his family around to document their home life. It has been released on DVD in two editions.
* Simmons was a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice in 2008. His charity was the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and he was fired in the third episode, which aired on January 17, 2008.
* Simmons was hired by CBS to judge a new Mark Burnett reality show called Jingles. [14]
Film appearances
* Simmons co-starred with other bandmates in the 1978 TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
* Simmons co-starred as evil electronics genius Dr. Charles Luther in the 1984 movie Runaway opposite Tom Selleck, Cynthia Rhodes and Kirstie Alley.
* Simmons had a small part in the 1986 horror film Trick or Treat, where he played a radio DJ named Nuke. (Ozzy Osbourne also appeared in the film as a televangelist decrying the evils of heavy metal music. )
* Simmons played the part of a villainous drag queen named Velvet Von Ragner in the 1986 film Never too Young to Die.
* Simmons also co-starred as the Islamic terrorist Malak Al Rahim in the 1987 Rutger Hauer movie Wanted: Dead or Alive.
* Simmons appeared in the Penelope Spheeris’ 1988 rockumentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.[1]
* Simmons will appear on the upcoming Japanese movie Detroit Metal City starring Kenichi Matsuyama (of the Death Note movies). He will make an appearance as Jack ill Dark, the Demon God of Rock and Roll.
Television guest appearances
* Simmons and KISS made their first national talk-show appearance on the Mike Douglas Show on June 11, 1974, and Simmons was interviewed solo by Douglas. Simmons came out in full makeup and sat down next to comedienne Totie Fields, who rolled her eyes at Gene’s appearance. “Your audience looks appetizing,” Simmons cracked, referring to himself as “evil incarnate”. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” Fields said, “if underneath all this (makeup) he was just a nice Jewish boy?” Simmons, who is indeed Jewish, replied, “You should only know.” “I do,” said Fields, “you can’t hide the hook!”, referring to Simmons’ nose. In a taped segment, Kiss played the song “Firehouse”.
* Simmons and the rest of Kiss appeared in an episode of Action League Now as toy versions of themselves performing the song “Rock and Roll All Nite”.
* Simmons has appeared on three episodes of Family Guy as himself. In one episode, Peter Griffin takes his wife Lois to a Kiss concert gala, and it is revealed that Simmons had a previous sexual relationship with Lois (known then as “Loose Lois”) when he was still known as Chaim Witz (to which Peter proudly proclaims “My wife did Kiss!”). In another episode, Simmons is shown starring with the other members of Kiss in a Christmas special called Kiss Saves Santa. In yet another episode, Simmons performs oral sex (off-camera) on Lois while standing just inside the Griffin’s garage, an exaggeration of his trademark tongue length (several feet long in the episode) and his highly sexual persona.
* Simmons voiced the Sea Monster in the episode “20,000 Patties Under the Sea” of the Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.
* Simmons voiced the character of Jessie in a 2003 episode of King of the Hill, entitled “Reborn to Be Wild.”
* Simmons appeared on Ugly Betty in 2008 as himself (and Amanda’s potential father).
* Simmons has made guest appearances on TV shows such as Miami Vice, Mind of Mencia, Third Watch, American Idol, and others.
Video appearances
In 2007, he appeared alongside other celebrities, as well as regular people, in the music video for “Rockstar” by Nickelback.
Solo albums
* Gene Simmons (1978)
* Sex Money Kiss (audiobook CD), 2003)
* Asshole (2004)
* Speaking in Tongues (spoken word CD, 2004)
* Gene Simmons “Monster” Box Set (TBD)
Albums produced
* KEEL – The 1980s albums The Right to Rock and The Final Frontier by the hard rock band fronted by Ron Keel
* Wendy O. Williams – Simmons produced her W.O.W. album in 1984, and enlisted fellow Kiss members Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent to perform on it as well.
* Black ‘n Blue – He produced their albums Nasty Nasty (1986) and In Heat (1988) featuring future Kiss guitarist Tommy Thayer.
* EZO – A Japanese band which achieved fame in Japan as Flatbacker. Simmons brought them to North American show business, changing their name to “EZO”. He produced their first and self titled album as EZO, in 1988.
* Silent Rage – Produced Don’t Touch Me There (1989) with Paul Sabu; released on Simmons’ own Simmons Records.
* House of Lords – Executive producer of their 1990 CD Sahara; their self-titled debut and Sahara were released on Simmons Records.
* Doro Pesch – Her album Doro in 1991.
Publishing
In 2002, Simmons launched Gene Simmons’ Tongue, a men’s lifestyle magazine.[15] The magazine lasted five issues before being discontinued.
1947 – Keith Moon of the Who is born in Wembley, England. He dies on Sept. 7, 1978 at age 32, from an overdose of the sedative Heminevrin.
Keith John Moon (August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who. He gained notoriety for exuberant drumming and his destructive lifestyle. Moon joined The Who in 1964, replacing Doug Sandom. He played on all albums from their debut, 1965′s My Generation, to 1978′s Who Are You, which was released two weeks before his death.
Moon is known for innovative, dramatic drumming, often eschewing basic back beats for a fluid, busy technique focused on fast, cascading rolls across the toms and cymbal crashes. Moon was one of the first to play drums as a lead instrument in an era when drums were supposed only to keep the back beat. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most distinctive rock drummers.
Biography
Keith John Moon lived in Wembley as a boy, was hyperactive, and had a restless imagination. As a youth, one thing that could hold his attention was music. A report from his secondary modern school was not encouraging – his art teacher commented: ‘Retarded artistically. Idiotic in other respects.’[2] Teacher Aaron Sofocleous praised his music skills and encouraged his chaotic style, even if one school report noted “He has great ability, but must guard against a tendency to show off.” Moon failed his eleven plus exam and left school in 1961.
On 17 March 1966, Moon married his pregnant girlfriend Kim Kerrigan in secrecy. Their daughter Amanda was born on 12 July. In 1973, Kerrigan left Moon. In 1974 he began dating Swedish model Annette Walter-Lax. The next year he and Kerrigan divorced.
Early musical career
At 12, Moon joined his local Sea Cadet Corps band as a bugle player but traded his position to be a drummer.[3] Moon started drums at 14 after his father bought him a kit. He received lessons from one of the loudest drummers at the time, Carlo Little, paying him 10 shillings a lesson.[4] During this time he joined his first serious band “The Escorts”.[2] He later spent 18 months as the drummer for “The Beachcombers”, a London cover band notable for renditions of songs by Cliff Richard.[5]
Moon initially played in the style of American surf rock, jazz, with a mix of reggae and R&B drummers, utilising grooves and fills of those genres, particularly Hal Blaine of Wrecking Crew. However, he played faster and louder, with more persistence and authority. Moon’s favourite musicians were jazz greats Gene Krupa, who inspired him to be the showman he was, and Sonny Rollins.
The Who
At 17, Moon joined The Who (in April 1964), a replacement for Doug Sandom. Sandom had left less than a month earlier after Moon had a disagreement with Sandom. A police report states Moon assaulted Sandom with a cattle prod repeatedly which left him unconscious. After the episode, without a drummer the remaining members hired a session drummer to fulfill shows they had agreed to play. Moon attended one of these shows. Pete Townshend described him as looking like a “ginger man” with his hair dyed ginger and wearing ginger-coloured clothes. As stated in Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who, Moon looked up to Roger Daltrey during the show and said “I hear you’re looking for a drummer. Well, I’m much better than the one you’ve got.”[6] The band knew they needed Moon after seeing him practically smash the drum kit to pieces.[2]
Moon started on various three or five-piece kits but moved to a double bass kit, made by Premier, in late 1965. Moon took two kits and put them together. This widened his playing; he abandoned his hi-hat cymbals almost entirely and started basing his grooves on a double bass ostinato with eighth note flams, and a wall of white noise created by riding a crash or ride cymbal. On top of this he played fills and cymbal accents. This became his trademark.
Moon’s Classic Premier setup comprised two 14×22-inch bass drums, three 8×14 (Tuna Can) mounted toms, two 16×16 floor toms, a 5×14 metal snare (usually a Ludwig Supraphonic), and one extra floor tom of different sizes but mainly 16×18 or 16×16. Moon’s classic cymbal setup consisted of two Paiste 18″ crashes and one 20″ ride. In 1973, Moon added a second row of tom-toms (first four, then six) and, in 1975, two more timbales. These huge kits became well known, notably the amber set in the films, Tommy and Stardust, and in footage shot by the BBC at Charlton in 1974. The 1975/76 white kit with gold fittings was given by Moon to a young Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr. His final kit, a dark metallic one, is seen in the footage from The Kids Are Alright at Shepperton in 1978.
Early in The Who’s career, live sets culminated in “auto destruction”, members destroying their equipment in elaborate fashion, an act that was imitated by other bands and artists including Jimi Hendrix in his breakout performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Moon showed a zeal for this, kicking and smashing his drums. During the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television show, he loaded a drum with explosives which detonated during the finale of “My Generation,” singeing Townshend’s hair and embedding a piece of cymbal in his arm (this has been speculated as starting Townshend’s tinnitus). Another time, he filled clear acrylic drums with water and goldfish, playing them for a television appearance. When an audience member asked “What happens with your goldfish?” he replied with a grin, “Well I mean, you know…even the best drummers get hungry.”[7] Antics like these earned him the nickname “Moon the Loon.”
His determination to add his voice to Who songs led other members to banish him from the studio when vocals were recorded. This led to a game, Moon sneaking in to join the singing. At the end of “Happy Jack,” Townshend can be heard shouting “I saw you!” It is said that he noticed Moon trying to join in[citation needed] Moon can be heard singing on several tracks, including a section of “A Quick One While He’s Away” (A Quick One, 1966), “Armenia City in the Sky” (The Who Sell Out, 1967), “Bell Boy” (Quadrophenia, 1973), “Pictures of Lily” (1967), “Instant Party Mixture” (My Generation Deluxe Edition, 1965), “Bucket T” and “Barbara Ann” (Ready Steady Who EP, 1966).
He was credited as composer of “I Need You,” which he also sang, and the instrumental “Cobwebs and Strange” (from A Quick One, 1966), the single B-sides “In The City” (co-written by Moon and Entwistle), “Dogs Part Two” (1969) (sharing credits with Townshend’s and Entwistle’s dogs, Towser and Jason) and “Wasp Man” (1972), and “Girl’s Eyes” (from The Who Sell Out sessions; featured on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B and a 1995 re-release of The Who Sell Out). He also co-composed the instrumental “The Ox” (from the debut album “My Generation”) with Townshend, Entwistle and pianist Nicky Hopkins. “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” (from Tommy) was credited to Moon, who suggested the action should take place in a holiday camp. The song was written by Townshend, and although many think Moon sings on the track, the version on the album is Townshend’s demo. However Moon did sing it live and on the Tommy film. He also produced “Baba O’Riley”‘s violin solo (which he had suggested), and was recorded by Dave Arbus, a friend.
Daltrey said Moon’s drumming style held the band together; that Entwistle and Townshend “were like needles… and Keith was the wool.”
A reputation for destruction
Moon was destructive. He laid waste to hotel rooms, the homes of friends, even his own home, throwing furniture out of high windows and destroying the plumbing with fireworks.[8] He frequently flushed powerful fireworks (Cherry bombs) down the toilet and enjoyed detonating toilets for personal amusement. The acts, though often fueled by drugs and alcohol, were his way of expressing his eccentricity, as well as the joy he got from shocking the public.[9] In Moon’s biography, Full Moon, Dougal Butler observed, “He would do anything if he knew that there were enough people around who didn’t want him to do it.”
Moon’s pranks bear a similarity to those of Australian comedian Barry Humphries, who affected the same maniacal stare as Moon. A darker side to Moon’s behaviour, tentatively diagnosed as caused by a Borderline Personality Disorder in Fletcher’s biography, was physically violent towards three women in his life: his wife Kim, girlfriend Annette, and only daughter Mandy. He was also prepared to pay someone to break his ex-wife’s second husband’s fingers out of jealousy. Annette Walter-Lax described his Mr Hyde-like change into a growling, uncontrollable beast as something out of a horror movie. She begged Malibu neighbour Larry Hagman to check Moon into a clinic to dry out, but when doctors recorded Moon’s intake at breakfast (a full bottle of champagne along with Courvoisier ), they concluded there was no hope.[10] Alice Cooper remembers his drinking club, The Hollywood Vampires, commenting that Moon (‘the Puck of Rock ‘n’ Roll”) used to enter dressed up as the Pope. [11] Joe Walsh has recorded chats with Moon, finding it remarkable how witty and alert the inebriated drummer managed to stay, ad-libbing his way through surrealistic fantasy stories à la Peter Cook.
Although his behaviour was outrageous, it was in the humorous vein[12] as his friend Vivian Stanshall, of the Bonzo Dog Band claimed. Moon produced Stanshall’s version of Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds.
According to Townshend, Moon’s reputation for erratic behaviour was something he cultivated. Once, on the way to an airport, Moon insisted they return to their hotel, saying , “I forgot something. We’ve got to go back!” When the limo returned, Moon ran to his room, grabbed the TV while it was plugged in, threw it out the window and into the pool. He then jumped back into the limousine, sighing “I nearly forgot.”
On January 4, 1970, Moon was involved in a car-pedestrian death outside the Red Lion pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Trying to escape hostile skinheads from the pub who had begun to attack his Bentley, Moon ran over and killed his friend and bodyguard, Neil Boland. Although the coroner said Boland’s death was an accident, and Moon was given an absolute discharge having been charged with driving offences, those close to him said Moon was haunted by the accident for the rest of his life. Boland’s daughter investigated and suggested that Moon may not have been driving.[13]
Moon’s penchant for the wild life was detrimental to his drumming and his reliability as a band member. On the 1973 Quadrophenia tour, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, Moon took a large mixture of tranquilizers and brandy. He passed out during “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and again in “Magic Bus.” Townshend asked the audience, “Can anyone play the drums? – I mean somebody good.” An audience member, Scot Halpin, filled in for the rest of the show. Guitarist Pete Townshend later said in an interview that Moon had consumed large tranquilizer pills, meant to be shot at animals, with the brandy.[14] During the band’s recording sabbatical between 1975 and 1978, Moon put on a great deal of weight.
Moon’s close friend and legendary drummer Ringo Starr was seriously concerned about his ‘Rock Star’ lifestyle and told Moon that if he kept going the way he was he would eventually kill himself. Moon simply replied ‘Yeah, I know.’[citation needed]
Moon owned a lilac-coloured Rolls-Royce, painted with house paint. On Top Gear,[15] Daltrey commented that Moon liked to take upper-class icons and make them working class. The car is now owned by Middlebrook Garages (based in Nottinghamshire, England).
Work outside The Who
Although Moon’s work with The Who dominated his career, he participated in minor side projects. In 1966, he teamed with Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, session man Nicky Hopkins, and future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to record an instrumental, “Beck’s Bolero,” released as a single-double later that year. He also played timpani on another track, “Ol’ Man River” (credited on the back of the album as “You Know Who”).
Moon is said to have named Led Zeppelin. When an early version of the band was being discussed that would have had himself, John Entwistle on bass, Jimmy Page on guitar, and an undecided vocalist, he stated the potential group would “go down like a lead zeppelin.” He joined Zeppelin on stage and drummed with John Bonham for encores in a show on 23 June 1977 at the L.A. Forum (recorded on Led Zeppelin bootlegs, For Badgeholders Only/SGT Pages Badgeholders Club).
In 1974 Track Records/MCA released a solo single: “Don’t Worry, Baby” b/w “Teenage Idol”, the former a reflection of his love of The Beach Boys.
In 1975 he released his only solo album, pop covers entitled Two Sides of the Moon. Although this featured Moon’s singing, much drumming was left to other artists including Ringo Starr, session musicians Curly Smith and Jim Keltner and actor/musician Miguel Ferrer (Twin Peaks and Crossing Jordan). Moon played drums on only three tracks.
In late 1975, he played drums on the track “Bo Diddley Jam” on Bo Diddley’s The 20th Anniversary of Rock ‘n’ Roll all-star album.
In 1971 he had a cameo role in Frank Zappa’s film 200 Motels. He acted in drag as a nun fearful of death from overdosing on pills. In 1973 he appeared in That’ll Be the Day, playing J.D. Clover, the drummer at a holiday camp during the early days of British rock ‘n’ roll. Moon reprised the role for the sequel Stardust in 1974. The film co-starred Moon’s friend Ringo Starr of the Beatles. He appeared as “Uncle Ernie” in Ken Russell’s 1975 film adaptation of Tommy. In a bar about 1975, he asked Graham Chapman and Bernard McKenna to do a “treatment” for a “mad movie”. They asked a thousand pounds, Moon pulled the cash from his pocket and gave it to them. This was the start of the project that would become the movie Yellowbeard. Moon wanted to play the lead but the movie took many years to develop, and by that time he was in physically poor shape, and unsuitable.[16] In 1976, he covered the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” for the soundtrack of the documentary All This and World War II. He impersonated a camp fashion designer in Sextette (1978), starring Mae West. He was to have a part in Monty Python’s Life of Brian and stayed in the Caribbean with the six Python members as they wrote the script. He died before filming. The published edition of the screenplay to Life of Brian is dedicated to Moon.
Moon once owned a hotel, The Crown and Cushion in Chipping Norton.
Death
Moon was Paul McCartney’s guest at a film preview of The Buddy Holly Story on the evening of 6 September 1978. After dining with Paul and Linda McCartney, Moon and his girlfriend, Annette Walter-Lax, returned to a flat on loan from Harry Nilsson in Curzon Place, London (near Shepherd Market), where Moon died of an overdose of Clomethiazole (Heminevrin). The medication was a sedative he had been prescribed to alleviate his alcohol withdrawal symptoms as he tried to go dry on his own at home; he was desperate to get clean, but was terrified of another stay in the psychiatric hospital for in-patient detoxification. However, Clomethiazole is specifically contraindicated for unsupervised home detox due to its addictiveness, tendency to rapidly induce drug tolerance, and dangerously high risk of death when mixed with alcohol.[17] The pills were also prescribed by a new doctor, Dr. Geoffrey Dymond, who was unaware of Moon’s recklessly impulsive nature and long history of prescription sedative abuse. He had given Moon a full bottle of 100 pills, and instructed him to take one whenever he felt a craving for alcohol (but not more than 3 per day). The police determined there were 32 pills in his system, many times the lethal amount, 26 of which were still undissolved when he died.[18] Moon died in the room in which Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas had died four years earlier.
On the audio DVD commentary to The Criterion Collection’s release of the Monty Python film Life of Brian, Eric Idle talks about the dinner party. Idle relates that Moon was excited about his role as a prophet in the movie. After launching into his speech for the film, Idle and Moon exchanged a “big, warm hug,” with Idle commenting that “he was just such a wonderful enthusiast.”
Moon died a couple of weeks after the release of Who Are You. On the album cover, Moon is seated on a chair back-to-front to hide the weight gained over three years (as discussed in Tony Fletcher’s book “Dear Boy”). The chair is labeled “NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY.”
Moon was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the Gardens of Remembrance at Golders Green Crematorium in London.
Events after his death
While Moon was alive, The Who performed with four members. Afterwards, he was replaced by Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenney Jones and later Simon Phillips. The Who also added keyboardist John “Rabbit” Bundrick to the live band. The Who’s drum position is currently occupied by Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr. Starkey was taught by Moon and referred to him as Uncle Keith.
Daltrey recorded a song, “Under a Raging Moon”, as a tribute to Moon and the “middle bar” in the London Astoria is named after him.
A biography was written about Moon by Tony Fletcher, entitled Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon. “Dear Boy” became a catchphrase of Moon’s when he started affecting a pompous English accent around 1969, particularly when ordering drinks.[19]
In early 2006, Moon’s signature Pictures of Lily drum kit was reissued by Premier Percussion under the name Spirit of Lily.
Moon’s ex-wife, Kim, was married to Ian McLagan of the Faces in 1978, the year that Moon died. She was killed in a traffic collision near Austin, Texas on August 2, 2006.
Moon’s daughter, Mandy, is married to a graphic artist. She has two daughters and lives in Southern California.
Daltrey is producing a biopic about Moon called See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked for Your Pleasure, which will be released in 2009. Comedian Mike Myers will play the main role.
1945 – Don McLean is born in New Rochelle, N.Y. His biggest hit is “American Pie,” which hits No. 1 for four weeks in 1972. The song is inspired by the Deaths of Buddy Holly, “the day the music died.” Madonna eventually covers the song for the soundtrack of her film “The Next Best Thing.”
A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, theyd be happy for a while.
But february made me shiver
With every paper Id deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldnt take one more step.
I cant remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.
So bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
Singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
Did you write the book of love,
And do you have faith in God above,
If the Bible tells you so?
Do you believe in rock n roll,
Can music save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well, I know that youre in love with him
`cause I saw you dancin in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes.
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.
I was a lonely teenage broncin buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died.
I started singin,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
And singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
Now for ten years weve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin stone,
But thats not how it used to be.
When the jester sang for the king and queen,
In a coat he borrowed from james dean
And a voice that came from you and me,
Oh, and while the king was looking down,
The jester stole his thorny crown.
The courtroom was adjourned;
No verdict was returned.
And while lennon read a book of marx,
The quartet practiced in the park,
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died.
We were singing,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
And singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singing,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
And singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devils only friend.
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break that satans spell.
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite,
I saw satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singing,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
And singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where Id heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldnt play.
And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
And they were singing,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
Singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Thisll be the day that I die.
They were singing,
Bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye
Singin, thisll be the day that I die.
Donald McLean (born October 2, 1945 in New Rochelle, New York) is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for his 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs American Pie and Vincent.
Musical Roots
As a young teenager, McLean became interested in folk music particularly the Weavers’ 1955 recording “Live at Carnegie Hall”. By age 16 he had bought his first guitar (a Harmony acoustic archtop with a sunburst finish) and begun making contacts in the music business, becoming friends with folk singer Erik Darling, a member of the Weavers. McLean recorded his first studio sessions (with singer Lisa Kindred) while still in prep school.
McLean graduated from Iona Preparatory School in 1963, and briefly attended Villanova University, dropping out after four months. While at Villanova he became friends with singer/songwriter Jim Croce.
After leaving Villanova, Mclean became associated with famed folk music agent Harold Leventhal, and for the next six years performed at venues and events including the Bitter End and the Gaslight Cafe in New York, the Newport Folk Festival, the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., and the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Concurrently, McLean attended night school at Iona College and received a Bachelors degree in Business Administration in 1968.
In 1968, with the help of a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, McLean began reaching a wider public, with visits to towns up and down the Hudson River. He learned the art of performing from his friend and mentor Pete Seeger. McLean accompanied Seeger on his Clearwater boat trip up the Hudson River in 1969 to protest environmental pollution in the river. During this time McLean wrote songs that would appear on his first album, Tapestry.
Tapestry was released in 1970 on Capitol records to little notice outside the folk community. In late 1971, McLean’s second album, American Pie, was released and became a major success, spawning two number one hits in the title song and “Vincent”. American Pie’s success made McLean an international star and renewed interest in his first album, which charted more than two years after its initial release.
McLean continued to tour and release albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s but never replicated the success of American Pie.
McLean had a series of conflicts with Saturday Night Live writer Andy Breckman, starting when Breckman opened for McLean on tour in 1980.
Songs
American Pie
Main article: American Pie
Don McLean’s most famous composition, American Pie, is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959. The song would popularize the expression The Day the Music Died in reference to this event. McLean has stated that the lyrics are also somewhat autobiographical and present an abstract story of his life from the mid-1950s until the time he wrote the song in the late 1960s.
The song was recorded on 26th May 1971 and a month later received its first radio airplay on New York’s WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM to mark the closing of The Fillmore East, a famous New York concert hall. “American Pie” reached number one on the US Billboard magazine charts for four weeks in 1971, and remains McLean’s most successful single release. It is also the longest song to reach #1 with a running time of 8:36.
Nearly thirty years later, pop singer Madonna released a truncated dance-pop cover version of the song. In response, Don McLean said: “I have received many gifts from God but this is the first time I have ever received a gift from a goddess.”
In 2001 “American Pie” was voted number 5 in a poll of the 365 “Songs of the Century” compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The top five were: “Over the Rainbow” by Judy Garland “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie “Respect” by Aretha Franklin; and “American Pie” by Don McLean.
Other songs
McLean’s other well-known songs include:
* And I Love You So, covered by Elvis Presley, a 1973 hit for Perry Como
* Vincent, a tribute to the 19th century Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh
* Castles in the Air, which McLean recorded twice — his 1981 re-recording was a top-40 hit
* Wonderful Baby, a tribute to Fred Astaire that Astaire himself recorded
* Superman’s Ghost, a tribute to George Reeves, who portrayed Superman on television in the 1950s
The album American Pie features a version of Psalm 137, entitled Babylon, and arranged by Don McLean and Lee Hays (of The Weavers). Boney M would have a number one hit in the UK with this song in 1978 under the title Rivers of Babylon, although the two renditions are so different it is not immediately noticeable that they are versions of the same song, originally composed by the reggae band The Melodians.
In 1980, McLean had an international number one hit with a cover of the Roy Orbison classic, Crying. Only following the record’s success overseas was it released in the U.S., becoming a top 10 hit in 1981. Orbison himself once described McLean as “the voice of the century”, and a subsequent re-recording of the song saw Orbison incorporate elements of McLean’s version.
Another hit song associated with Don McLean (though never recorded by him) is Killing Me Softly with His Song which was written about McLean after Lori Lieberman, also a singer/songwriter, saw him singing his composition Empty Chairs in concert. Afterwards, Lieberman wrote a poem titled Killing me Softly with his Blues which became the basis for the song written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox and recorded by Roberta Flack (and later covered by The Fugees).
Later work
In 1991, Don McLean returned to the UK top 20 with a re-issue of “American Pie”.
In 2004, Don McLean was inaugurated into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2007, the biography The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs was published. Biographer Alan Howard conducted extensive interviews for this, the only book-length biography of the often reclusive McLean to date.
Discography
Albums
Year Album
1970 Tapestry
1971 American Pie
1972 Don McLean
1973 Playin’ Favorites
1974 Homeless Brother
1976 Solo (LIVE)
1977 Prime Time
1978 Chain Lightning
1981 Believers
1982 Dominion (LIVE)
1987 Love Tracks
1989 For the Memories Vols I & II
1989 And I Love You So (UK Release)
1990 Headroom
1991 Christmas
1995 The River of Love
1997 Christmas Dreams
2001 Sings Marty Robbins
2001 Starry Starry Night (LIVE)
2003 You’ve Got to Share: Songs for Children
2003 The Western Album
2004 Christmas Time!
2005 Rearview Mirror: An American Musical Journey
Compilations
Year Album
1980 The Very Best of Don McLean
1992 Favorites and Rarities
2003 Legendary Songs of Don McLean
2007 The Legendary Don McLean
2008 American Pie & Other Hits
Singles
USA
#1 – American Pie (1971)
#5 – Crying (1981)
#12 – Vincent (1972)
#21 – Dreidel (1972)
#23 – Since I Don’t Have You (1981)
#36 – Castles In The Air (1981)
#58 – If We Try (1973)
#83 – It’s Just The Sun (1981)
#93 – Wonderful Baby (1975)
#73 – He’s Got You (1987)
#49 – You Can’t Blame the Train (1987)
UK
#2 – American Pie (1972)
#1 – Vincent (1972)
#38 – Everday (1973)
#1 – Crying (1980)
#12 – American Pie (1991)
Rarities
Year Title Additional information
1982 “The Flight of Dragons” This song was recorded for the film The Flight of Dragons in the early 1980s.
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