The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or who ? ( or even the Who ? )

Updating the touring scene again, I've recently heard that Neil Diamond is going on the road again, with some Canadian dates included. Just thinking back --- " Sweet Caroline ", " Forever In Blue Jeans ", " I Am  I Said ", " America ", " Cracklin' Rosie ", " Song Sung Blue ", " Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon ". Yes those and others as well, the fellow has had some hits. 

A rather sad item to report from the world of Popular music today. Whitney Houston has passed away at the age of 48. She had success both in singing and movies as well. 

Earlier today I was listening to CBC radio and they had a program on about the connection between Popular music and advertising. Earlier in this tread I mentioned that I'm a fan of Bob Seger and they mentioned one of his songs on this radio show. Chevy started using one of Bob Seger's songs ( Like A Rock ) to advertise pickups going back to the early 1980's. Two other songs that he had out that I liked were " Running Against The Wind " and " Old Time Rock And Roll ".  

I remember reading an article in the Detroit Free Press at the time about Chevy using Seger's Like A Rock and how happy he had been to have one of his songs contribute to a Michigan-based company.  Contrast that with how horrified Janis Joplin would have been if she could have known her step-sister would one day sell Mercedes-Benz the rights to use Joplin's song in a commercial.  

Mention of Bob Seger reminds me of Pete Seeger (imagine that!) whose arrangement of the Book of Ecclesiastes was popularized by The Byrds, as "Turn Turn Turn."

Thanks for the posts Cystem_Phailure and Javan64. Yes I had heard that Bob Seger is from the Michigan area. I luv Janis Joplin, of course the funny part of her song is that she mentions Porsche cars as well. A cute use of a song in ads was Donovan's Mellow Yellow for Margerine  lol.

One thing that I love about Youtube is all of the music that is on there. They have some interesting video clips from Pete Seeger's Cable TV show which had quite a  variety of guests appearing on that program.  

Born in Dearborn and raised in Ann Arbor, which is only about 40 miles from Detroit and definitely within the auto industry zone (although less affected than much of the region, since so much of Ann Arbor's economy is related to the University of Michigan).  Also, Seger's father, before leaving the family when Seger was 10, worked for Ford so Seger said he always felt a strong connection to the Michigan auto industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfbBw-YMBeQ

Great biker song by Bob Seger-"Roll Me Away"

Yeah, that was another humorous twist by Joplin in the song, which has the lyric "My friends all drive Porches"-- in fact, it was Joplin herself who owned/drove a 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet.

I don't know, I mean I like all three, but if I had to say it would be the Beatles, or most of all, kind-of pre-beatles 50's is great as well (Buddy Holly, Elvis, Hawkins, etc.) Without them I doubt that there would be any of those bands!

Thanks Everyone for all of the posts, and also for the photo Cystem_Phailure. I guess that I could possibly put this post over to my thread on Machines. But re Porsches I guess my favourite model would be the rare 912 series. For our visitors here that haven't seen that model you may well have seen it and not known it  lol. The 912 looks virtually identical to the very early 911 series cars. However the 912 is a bit safer for amateur type drivers like myself as it only had the 4 cylinder engine ( the same basic engine as the 356 models ). The 911s of course had the more powerful and heavier 6 cyliner engines and are famous for trying to get the rear end of the car thru a turn first in any slippery conditions ( or if a driver is silly enough to reduce power once he is into a turn ). The V8 powered 948 cars were also nice but I gather that they had poor bodies on those.      

I just looked at some info on the 912-- you probably know it was produced during 2 different periods, initially from 1965-1969 (about 35,000 units produced), after which it was replaced as the low-end Porsche model by the mid-engine 914 (the 912 was rear-engine).  When 914 production ended in 1975 the 912 was brought back (designated 912E, with the "e" standing for the German "Einspritzung" which means fuel injection) for 1975 only.  The 912Es were the last air-cooled 4-cylinder Porches made.  Only about 2100 912Es were produced before the 924s entered the scene in 1976, and the 924s were produced thru 1988.  

Side note-- Robert Redford's character drove a 912 in the 2001 movie Spy Game.

Thanks for the info Cystem_Phailure, one can learn something new everyday such as the 2cnd production period for the 912 model. Regarding the little 914 model, they had a " Hot Rod " version out of that car using a small version of the Porsche 6 cyl motors. I believe they were labeled as the 914/6 but didn't sell very well, however they must have been very lively !

HessianWarrior I checked out Bob Seger's " Roll Me Away ". It is a very good song but somehow I missed it years ago when it first came out. 

Recently I came across another interesting compilation set of music here at home, this one tho is not from the infamous K-Tel outfit. Reader's Digest has also produced sets of recorded music starting back in the days of vinyl records and thru to the CDs that we play today. Somewhere in the middle of that progression from vinyl to CDs we had some tapes as well. As I mentioned earlier in this thread I was very fond of the cute and efficient little Music cassette tapes and sometimes one can find them in a 2cnd hand store. Of course most of the recordings mentioned in this thread can be found on Youtube, indeed by now about 90% of everything ever recorded is on Youtube which is handy when doing research. As I go thu this set of 4 tapes ( entitled " Those Were The Days; 30 Years Of Great Folk Hits " ) I'll get into more detail on the terrific stuff that was recorded by Reader's Digest. As a teaser tho the first song on the first tape is " Do You Believe In Magic " by The Lovin Spoonful and which was written by the lead singer of that band, John Sebastian.     

Let me guess-- it probably has "Daydream" in that first set too?  I wouldn't have thought Do You Believe in Magic would be in a folk collection, but I guess it straddles several genres.

Thanks for the post Cystem_Phailure, yes as you suspected " Daydream " is here too. Mind you since there are 83 songs in this set they had to cast a wide net. Everything from " On Top Of Old Smokey " by TheWeavers & Terry Gilkyson ( recorded in 1951 ) up to " You're So Vain " ( from 1987 ) is covered in this set, quite a variety. The Lovin Spoonful songs ( featuring the writer John Sebastian ) could also fit into my recent post about Popular music and advertising. Several years back I saw John Sebastian on late night TV and he was plugging a compilation set of old recordings ( by Time-Life I believe ) but then again we all have to make a living  lol. 

Well, a lotta folks have listened to it.

Yeah, I have no problem at all with people continuing to make money off of their old music, whether they performed it or penned it.  I'd much rather see that than some of these situations where a 3rd party ends up owning the rights and later pulls in cash without it going to the (still living) original creators and performers.

Just a day or so ago I saw a couple columns that made mention, very cynically, I thought, of how much money Dolly Parton might make out of Houston's death because of the song I Will Always Love You.  Parton wrote the song, of course, and while I'm sure she's shocked by the death and not at all seeing it as any financial windfall (like she needs it, as one of the most capable business people in all the history of entertainers), there's nothing wrong with her receiving her due portion if any extra cash does get generated.

Another aside:  do you realize Parton has penned more than 3000 songs?  She's one of those people that records so much material herself that a lot of people don't realize how many songs she's got out there that were performed by other artists.  Same thing with Willie Nelson-- he's recorded 3 zillion songs, and there are other songs that he didn't record that I'm later surprised to learn that he wrote.  I remember reading an article once about his song "Crazy", which he wrote in 1961 and which became a huge hit for Patsy Cline in 1962.  She initially didn't like the cadence of the lyrics as sung by Nelson on a demo of his that she heard, but worked with him to develop her own rhythm, and the result was a hit that few people in the 50 years since would ever know was written by Willie.

Music is very personal, there really is no good or bad music - for me it's Credence Clearwater, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix - music from my era, music that takes you back to a certain time and place.

Dolly Parton originally sang I Will Always Love You in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  Dolly's version beats Whitney's hands down, IMO.