Monday Music

A few tunes to begin this Monday. I've begun to feel like the world has lost its mind lately and music helps me get through it all.

shine

dance if you wanna dance

it was easier to have fun back when we had nothing

pearly dewdrop's drops

I just know something good is going to happen

Sunday Showcase June 29, 1975

This week's Sunday Showcase review is for the June 29 - July 5, 1975 issue which features Bo Svenson on its cover along with Richard Jaeckel as Walking Tall Part 2 gets some heavy promotion. The Walking Tall movies were hits nationwide, but they were huge smashes in the state of Tennessee. 

Monday July 14, 1975 you could have seen a great night of country music at the Grand Ole Opry House with Johnny Cash topping the bill. All of the artists on the bill are Country Music Hall of Fame members except for June Carter (her family is in, but she's not listed as an inductee) which is a shame as she was a great entertainer in her own right. 

dancing on a pony keg

The Osmonds were coming to town on August 1 with Marie and Jimmy Osmond too. How about some bonus Osmonds material below the video.

Rock n Roll Medley 1975

The July 27, 1975 Sunday Showcase would feature the Osmonds along with Marie and Jimmy on the cover as they were the featured story. I think we might have crested peak Osmonds fever and started down the other side as they were still touting good seats available on the ad for the show. 

Here's the article which features an interview with Donny and Marie. I learned that Donny was an electronics whiz and that Marie couldn't date until she was 16. I'll cover the Top 10 Records for the June 29th Showcase soon, but I will note that 4 of the songs in that Top 10 are still in the Top 10 almost a month later. Don't look ahead and guess which one's were in the Top 10 on June 29th. If you guess right you'll get a No Prize from the ghost of Stan Lee. 

The summer's only major outdoor concert was coming soon to the Tennessee State Fairground Speedway Grandstand with Manitoba's finest rockers Bachman-Turner Overdrive hitting the stage with special guests Elvin Bishop and Wet Willie for a good dose of Southern rock and Canadian roll. 

They rented a semi and came to Nashville

Prog rockers Yes were coming to town a few days earlier with a show on July 8, 1975 at Municipal Auditorium.  A $6.50 ticket would run you around $31 today according to an inflation calculator site. You'd be lucky to find any concert tickets for less than $40 at an arena today and would be much more likely to spend hundreds of dollars for a decent seat (at least in a pandemic free world where rock concerts would happen) so this Yes show back in 1975 was a bargain. Yes toured a lot back in the Seventies and played Nashville multiple times. Forgotten Yesterdays has a rundown on this show.

Yes live 1975

I have an entire post filled with Ask Showcase questions coming soon, so here's a little taste with a question about Paul and Linda McCartney's stay in Nashville.

Those photos that Linda took can be seen at this website: Kenneth DeGraff along with a plethora of other info about when the McCartney's stayed in Nashville in 1975. My favorite song that came out of the Nashville visit was ostensibly about Curly "Junior" Putnam's farm where they stayed. 

Let's go down to Junior's farm where I want to lay low

M*A*S*H had aired the "Abyssinia, Henry" episode on March 18, 1975 and people were still talking about Col. Henry Blake's exit from the show.

Charlie Rich had a song in the local Top 10 and an album that would hit number 1 on the country charts. My father would tell me that he used to see Charlie play live in a bar on Getwell Road in Memphis before I was born. Later in the year Charlie Rich would set fire to the slip of paper announcing John Denver as the Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Award and the Tennessean only noted that Rich was "apparently disorganized" in its October 14 write-up the next day. Some speculated it was a protest against Denver, but I have come to think Rich was just trying to be funny. He's one of my favorite entertainers.

CMA Awards 1975

A very jazzy tune - should have left the strings off it.

Did you get the acts right that would still have their songs in the Top 10? It was the Captain & Tennille, The Bee Gees, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, and The Eagles. 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" is my favorite from this list, "Jive Talkin'" is awesome too, plus I was nuts over "Love Will Keep Us Together" when I was 9 years old.

Amazing Rhythm Aces

10cc

love didn't keep them together - it's still a great tune

Bee Gees

I'll wrap up this Sunday Showcase review with a couple of ads for great places to go to during the summer. I hope your 1975 was filled with joy if you were there and if you weren't there I hope this summer rocks.

Film Flashback June 26, 1969

It's another year for me and you another year with nothing to do

Except enjoy another Film Flashback to June 26, 1969 as we check out what was playing at the movies in Murfreesboro, TN. First up is a trip to the Marbro Drive-In which brings us Blue and Villa Rides. Terence Stamp is the star of Blue and even with his British accent slipping through on occasion he is excellent in a pretty boring movie about a young American raised by Mexican bandits who has to choose sides as they make murderous raids into border towns. Villa Rides has a script co-written by Sam Peckinpah and stars Yul Brynner and Robert Mitchum while also boasting the first appearance in the same film of Charles Bronson and his wife Jill Ireland. An American aviator trapped in Mexico helps Pancho Villa lead a revolution. I could not find a trailer for that film.

Blue trailer

A couple of superstars top the bill for the other 2 movies playing. Don Knotts stars in The Love God? which is playing downtown at the Princess Theatre. Knotts is hilarious as the put upon Abner Audubon Peacock who is the publisher of a bird watching magazine that is converted into a girlie mag. Late 60's style is on full display in this comedic romp. 

Of course Don Knotts is The Love God

He might not be a Love God, but Elvis was the King. The Trouble With Girls (and how to get into it) is a delightful movie and it was starting at the Martin Theatre. This period piece set in the Twenties has Elvis in the role of Chautauqua manager Walter Hale. A Chautauqua was a traveling roadshow popular back then that offered up light entertainment mixed with educational lectures. I really enjoy this movie which features a performance of "Clean Up Your Own Backyard" along with a strong performance from Marlyn Mason. The supporting cast boasts Vincent Price and Anissa Jones among others. 

The Trouble With Girls trailer

Sunday Showcase June 22, 1980

Our time travel journey this week is the June 22 - 28, 1980 Tennessean Sunday Showcase. I was so hoping I could find the Debby Boone special on YouTube, but I came up empty. 

Check out who is opening for Ted Nugent on July 2, 1980 at Municipal: The Scorpions who are great, but even better is Def Leppard who were on their first tour of America that year. The Nuge was still riding high with Scream Dream being released this very month in 1980. It featured the instant classic cut "Wango Tango."

Def Leppard from earlier in 1980 when they opened for Pat Travers

Scorpions live in Paris April 1980

"Wango Tango" live on The Midnight Special 1980

The Tennessee Theater was bringing Johnny Winter to town on July 8th with the then basically unknown Billy Squier opening. So, if you saw both of these rock concerts you were ahead of the pack when it came to Def Leppard (who would be opening for Billy in a few years) and Billy Squier. Johnny Winter is one of those rare rock and roll artists who didn't receive much radio airplay, but always was out playing blistering music live to an appreciative audience. I regret not getting to see him in person.

Billy Squier - You Should Be High

I couldn't find a 1980 video so how about this 1974 appearance

Time to pause this review for an ad for Judy Judy Judy's which I believe was once just plain old Judy's which was a blatant copy of Wendy's. There was one located in Murfreesboro and the kids in my neighborhood liked to run bicycles over the drive-in cord repeatedly. The teenagers working there must have hated us. 

The ever funky and smooth Isley Brothers would be playing Municipal with The Gap Band and S.O.S. (which stood for Sounds of Success) on July 3rd. That would have been an awesome night of music. 

S.O.S. Band Take Your Time (Do It Right)

Oops Upside Your Head

Here We Go Again live at Bearsville Studio 1980

John Denver was coming to Municipal Auditorium on July 12th. I think by this time in his career he was beginning to be thought of more as an actor and television personality than a singer/songwriter, but he was still a huge music star. I couldn't find a good 1980 solo performance so I'm posting a tune from his 1979 appearance on The Muppet Show. 

talking plants!

I bet a good portion of the John Denver concert was probably taking these macramé classes at the 100 Oaks and Rivergate Mall's JC Penney stores. Didn't they notice the Eighties had arrived? 

Earth shoes always come back - the natural heel boomerang of a shoe. I post these Earth shoe ads for one reason only: I always wanted a pair when I was a child and my parents sensibly never bought me any. 

I don't know if Earth shoes would have been too cool at Phrank and Stein club where the nascent Nashville punk rock alternative music scene was coalescing. 

Placid Fury

Cloverbottom

The Ratz

Capitol Records was giving "The Gambler" songwriter Don Schlitz a huge push. We're talking a full page advertisement. You can't tell it with the black and white, but the lion's eyes are the same blue color of the background. 

I can't find out anything about The Tenderrifics, but they look smooth. I wonder if they played yacht rock. 

I had a really great joke written about this movie, but I think I'll keep it to myself. The movie probably doesn't need any more abuse.

This movie launched the 80's?

The Top 10 Records this week is a great mixed bag with many of these tunes being staples at the roller skating rink. "Funky Town" and "Cars" always filled the floor. My other favorites from this list would be "Coming Up", "Call Me", and the super awesome "Brass In Pocket" by the Pretenders. 

You want a love to last forever...

Gotta move to a town that's right for me

Here in my car I feel safest of all

Been driving Detroit leaning no reason

Film Flashback June 19, 1977

June 19, 1977 was a Sunday so it's a perfect afternoon and evening to see some movies. Here is what was playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on that date. The Marbro has a couple of movies that probably wouldn't do much business with the after evening church service crowd....or perhaps they would. 

Girls On The Road from 1972 is about a couple of girls who pick up a Vietnam war veteran on their way to a hippie encounter session. Ralph Waite of The Waltons fame plays the hippie guru. A serial killer begins knocking girls off and it might be the Vietnam veteran played by Michael Ontkean probably most known for Slap Shot and the television show The Rookies. It's quite typical of youth exploitation films of its time. 

The other cinema classic at the Marbro is Satan's Cheerleaders which is about a janitor at a high school kidnapping the cheerleaders to use for a coven's rituals. One thing he didn't count on was one of the girl's is a witch herself and there's this head scratcher too....the coven needs to sacrifice a virgin so I don't know what the janitor was thinking as there were no virginal cheerleaders in Seventies b-movies.  I have never seen this film, but the trailers are definitely enticing. The Munsters Yvonne De Carlo is in the movie. 

Girls On The Road trailer

Satans Cheerleaders trailer for PG version

And another different trailer

Cinema_One's matinee offering The Last Tycoon which is the last movie directed by Elia Kazan. It boasts an all star cast with Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Jeanne Moreau, and Donald Pleasence to name but a few. F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel was about a Hollywood producer working himself to death so it was perfect fodder for a movie. I have not seen this movie, but I have liked most of the film's I've seen directed by Kazan so I may have to view it someday.

The Last Tycoon trailer

I had yet to see Smokey and the Bandit which was in its 4th big week at the Martin Twin, but it would still be playing when I did see it during the 2nd week of July. I've written about this movie before when it played at Cinema_One on January 31, 1978 so you can read my original summary there if you like. Suffice it to say, I love this movie and if not for a little space opera called Star Wars it might have been the top money maker of 1977. 

The Buford Pusser movie franchise's Final Chapter: Walking Tall was also playing and the Walking Tall films always did well at the Martin. Bo Svenson reprises his role as Pusser after taking over in the second film in the series. The real life Buford Pusser used to make personal appearances at car dealerships after the first film was released and was going to play himself in the sequel before dying in a one car accident when his Corvette struck an embankment at high speed in 1974. He was and still is a folk legend here in Tennessee. Final Chapter recounts lots of the events from the first 2 films and then ends with Pusser's death. Somehow it became a television series a few years later. I must admit I enjoyed the TV show and the first movie, but not this one. 

80 thousand dollars

Final Chapter Walking Tall shout factory trailer

A Song

Here's a tune called "Anything & Everything" which dates back to 1988. It's funny how things really don't change, yet still do.

Sunday Showcase June 16, 1985

Everybody wants to rule the world in 1985 and who could blame them. The world was just so awesome with Connie Smith making sure Stephen Wesley Bridgewater gives blood, hot air balloons set to race across the Nashville skyline, and Australian pop rockers Air Supply (who had a hot air balloon on the cover of their 1981 The One That You Love album) coming to play the Opry House. I had just graduated high school and life was pretty sweet. This week's Sunday Showcase review is brought to us today by my Apple computer and an old Audio Systems ad.

Air Supply were still a pretty popular band back in 1985 or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them a duo with backing musicians as that is how they are marketed today. The Englishman Graham Russell and Aussie Russell Hitchcock were driving force with the blonde Russell writing songs and the dark haired and golden voiced Russell singing them. They specialize in soft rock love tunes - sort of the musical version of a chick flick. It's a bit ironic that their last top 20 hit, "Just As I Am", from their eponymous 1985 release was co-written by the brilliant hard rock guitarist Dick Wagner. 

Not in Nashville, but from the same month in North Carolina

Just As I Am video

You could get tickets to Air Supply from CentraTik, but Ticketmaster was where you had to go for Gordon Lightfoot tickets if you wanted to see him at TPAC on July 7, 1985. 

Ticketmaster was also selling the tickets for the Earl Klugh concert which would be on June 26, 1985. I'm sure that was a smooth evening of guitar.

Audio Systems has your last minute gift ideas for dad. I'll take one of those Sony Walkman's that can record plus the built-in FM radio. 

KDF's main man Carl P. Mayfield was pitching Apple Computers in 1985. I was over a decade away from getting a computer, but can't imagine life without one now. 

Music Village U.S.A. had a full slate of concerts coming up with a variety of country stars. If I had to pick one from this advertisement it would have to be the hilarious Jerry Clower.

Coon huntin' story

Music Village U.S.A. was catering to the tourist crowd while the newly opened Roosters (above the Cannery) was out to bring in the alternative music scene which included multitudes. Just check out this line-up which has blues, heavy metal, roots rock, new wave, and pop rockers Radio One. Actual, Will Rambeaux, and Chip and the Chiltons would be what I would want to see the most. 

Chip and the Chiltons

How in the world did I not notice back in 1985 that the Circle Jerks were coming to Cantrell's? 

Maze featuring Frankie Beverly were coming to Municipal on July 4th which makes me wonder if there wasn't a fireworks show downtown then. I would have been much more interested in Jesse Johnson and Teena Marie on this bill. 

Jesse Johnson's Revue

I think people tend to forget what a huge rock star Rick Springfield was back in the Eighties. He would coming to Municipal on July 11th. I have liked Rick since he first hit the big time with "Jessie's Girl" back in 1981. I wish I had gone to this show in addition to the one I was planning on going to at Municipal a few days before. The Tennessean online features great photos from this show along with the one I attended. 

a taste of Rick Springfield live 1985

I went to the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert on July 9, 1985. It was weeks away when this ad ran, but I bought my tickets as soon as they had gone on sale. Note the big print for opening act Lone Justice who had a minor hit with the Tom Petty/Mike Campbell penned "Ways To Be Wicked" that year. Only around 5,000 people came to this show according to the same Tennessean article  I linked to above which features incredible photographs from the night. I decided to start smoking Kool cigarettes on this evening and the menthol made me sick so I do not have the fondest memories of the evening, but both Lone Justice and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were great.

Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers live a few days later 7-14-1985

No Passes for The Goonies. I wouldn't see this scream fest until it aired on network television. I love it even if the kids spend almost the entirety of the film yelling their lines. 

Goonies never say die

The Top Ten songs are full of blockbuster 80's tunes with my favorites being "Don't You Forget About Me", "Things Can Only Get Better", and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World." I love the Tears For Fears song so much you're going to get the original video and the end of Real Genius even though that movie wouldn't be released until August because it's inclusion was just brilliant. Next week's Showcase Review will be from 1980. Hope you stop by for that one.