Are you ready, mister Mayhem.
Oh yes I am, Oh yes i am.
I'm Buzzsnight, the host of the Taken a Walk podcast, and I'm so happy that you're here for another look at this week in music history and master of music Mayhem Harry Jacobs. What week are we looking at?
This is the week of December fifteenth through the twenty first. Holy moly, you know, I distinctly remember last year we were at this point. A year ago, we were about a month or so into doing this. I had no idea it would last a year right where. I think we're both surprised by that.
By everything every day.
Is there anything that doesn't surprise you exactly? So, you know, as we were thinking about this today, I was looking back at the notes and I'm like, oh, buzz, maybe we should just run a rerun or a best of I was thinking these are really slow music weeks as we as we get it into Christmas. But there's a lot of information, you know, Claude dot Ai. I have to tip my hat to them for the research help. They're sponsor of the show, and they're they're a major
help in terms of researching and confirming things. And it's just that. That's been a delight. But I've got a lot of information. You know, the next two weeks, which I thought were going to be slow, We've got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff I was unaware of.
So we'll we'll have to parcel it out and maybe minimize the amount of Connie Francis references because it's Christmas time.
Oh, here we go, Here we go. You think I'm going Connie Francis. You're wrong, my friend. I think I may have to leave you with a cliffhanger for the week of the fifteenth, when we may have to break up the week of the fifteenth to the twenty first into two parts. Let's get it rolling. December fifteenth, John Lennon and the Yoko the Plastic ownA band with George Harrison and Air Clapton and others, played the UNISEF charity in London. This has happened in you know, nineteen seventy three.
I think this was his last appearance in the United Kingdom.
I think about a while to think about that. Yeah, boy, I would have loved to have been a fly in the world for that.
Oh can you imagine? Do they know it's Christmas? Entered the UK charts at number one. We've had this conversation biggest selling single in the United Kingdom of all time, George Michael and Sting and Bono and Phil Collins and a host of others, and.
I still love hearing it. I mean, I don't race towards the dial to turn the dial if I'm listening to a Christmas station and that song comes on, like I do with some songs.
Right, I was speaking speaking at Christmas. I was watching an interview with this guy's name Graham Norris, the guy from London. You know what I'm talking about.
Well, it sounds like he's English, but no, I know.
I think that's who he is. Anyway, he had Jennifer Laurie song. She was on at the same time Springsteen was on, and he asked her a question and he said, you know, you have a favorite song that cheers you up when you're on a movie set or you're feeling lonely, doesn't matter what time of year it is, And it's a Springsteen song. And and they literally were asking Bruce to guess what the song might be. They use the
word jolly, Well, will it makes her feel jolly? Makes me feel jolly every time, and I'm thinking that would be a dead giveaway for Santa Claus's coming to town.
I think so. I think it is a dead giveaway.
I can hear that song anytime, anywhere and be.
Happy, no disrespect to when I say jolly.
But yeah, or how jolly Christmas, that's right, that's right. So at any rate, that's that's Jennifer Lawrence's favorite, cheer her up kind of song.
I love her.
I've seen him play that in the summer. I saw him play that somewhere in July. It was funny if people were throwing the Santa hats up and he said, let's do it. Nineteen seventy nine, Pink Floyd started a five week run at number one on the UK charts, and this led to the band's only number one single the album was The Wall and Another Brick in the Wall Part two was the song their only song that made it to number one. And this was such an
interesting album for so many reasons. I can tell you that this morning, twice this morning, I listened to that album all the way through the double album. I just I wanted to get back into it. I knew we were going to talk about it, I realized that, you know, I knew this like we all do, that there were, you know, three different sections of Another Brick in the Wall, Part one, Part two, and part three, and I went specifically to listen to those three different parts. Initially I
think my favorite is Another Brick. Part one really dark, creepy, but the song ends up rocking out. Part two was the whole how can you have any meat if you don't have your pudding right? We don't need no education. And number three was the darkest of the of the three. And and it was one of those things. One of the lyrics is I don't need no arms around me, I don't need no drugs to calm me. It was this the guy, the protagonist, the pig, three stages of
grief and trauma in his life. It's a very dark when you look at when you get down the rabbit hole of what the Wall was all about. It's a very dark album. And and that song, the three different, three different you know it takes Another Brick part are the three different parts one, two, and three, all very different, but all three really dark.
When I put my Psychosis playlist together, that album is at the height of it.
There's someone that that was damaged writing writing that album. Roger twenty one a guy we owe a tip of the hat to his birthday Alan Freed was born. He actually coined the phrase rock and roll. But we all know him a little tip of the hat. We wouldn't be doing what we're doing today without him.
That's right, Minus the fact that he got messed up in the Paola side of things.
You know, I forgot all about that. But he was a part of that, wasn't he, So I believe Yeah, for those that are unaware, Paola Plugola is when record companies or artists went to the disc jockeys who in those days were making decisions about songs that were getting played. And Alan Freed took a bunch of money from the record companies.
But we do owe him, and to your point, a debt of gratitude.
Right nineteen seventy seven, who played a surprise show for the documentary The Kids Are All Right. There's a you know, a scene in that movie where they're playing, you know, in a very small venue, and that was the Shepperton Studios that was used for the documentary, and they it was basically an audience made up of fan club members for that show. That's quite a prize, right, pretty Neat two thousand and one, Joe Walsh received an honorary doctorate
of Music from Kent State. I was unaware that it's doctor Joe Walsh, but it is doctor Joe.
Walsh and Ken State too.
Yeah. Right, the song Ohio the Violence in seventy two, No, no, before that had to be before that.
Yeah, it would have been sixty eight. I was gonna say sixty eight or nine.
Yeah, yeah, sixty eight or sixty nine. Song came out. Ohio came out right away, But a long way around for Joe Walsh getting his doctorate. I'm surprised that we never heard that. I'm surprised he didn't take that name and you know, or take that title and add it to, you know, to his name. Dr wolfsh absolutely. Dr two thous Presume you're not a doctor, you're a dentist. From the Hangover two thousand and three, Courtney Love sentenced to eighteen months in rehab after she admitted she was under
the influence of coke and various opiates. I saw her around that time. Our friend Billy Bush was here in town to do something. I remember where we were at the UNLV the auditorium there where they have shows their arena, and we I did something with Billy around Beyonce and jay Z who were at that show. But I remember seeing Courtney Love there. I was struck by how enormous
she was in high heels. I mean, she was taller and I'm over six feet and she was significantly taller than I was, as I recall, and she was just a disaster. I think it's fair to say once she walked by, yeah sad, you know. Yeah, I could smell the pills coming off of her. It was it was set. I think her life is together these days, maybe maybe not.
Luckily we haven't heard much, so I think maybe it is. But listen, you know that deep loss, you know, never never loves her for sure, It's get carried through her entire life. So you know you do have to have, you know, empathy for.
Loss, you know, get a little you know, a little Kurt Kobain coming up to talk about as well, so we'll touch on that. But yeah, very sad sequence of events that led her down her road of self destruction, No, no other way to put it. Elton John hitting number one on the fifteenth in the UK was sorry. It seems to be the hardest word. Really. I'm a fan of those ballad the long ballads, Sorry and Tiny Dancer and leave On. Just the softer kind of Elton from
that period of time, you know, those longer ballads. Yeah, even I like the.
Old Yeah, the older versions. I think the Disney version of Elton it wasn't my favorite part, by the way. Brief sidebar relating to to Elton, uh and to Paul McCartney. We finally saw the spinal Tap reboots.
Uh.
Paul rob Reiner was on the show and Elton plays a prominent role in it, as does Paul McCartney too, So it's totally worth seeing. You know, I didn't know even though I loved having Rob on. Listen, I'm calling him Rob. Yeah, I I love having loved having them on, But it's definitely worth seeing.
That's fantastic. I have not seen it, and I will take the assignment and I will watch it. Unlike you, you don't always take the movie assignments for me, but I guess in this arrangement, I work for you, So I will watch it and report were Back in nineteen ninety,
Rod Stewart married Supermodel with Rachel Hunter. He was famously quoted as saying, this is one of the most misogynistic quotes ever in the history of misogynistic statements, that he would no longer be putting his banana in anybody's fruit bowl from then on.
They divorced. He's awful soul.
No. Nineteen eighty eight, Summer fifteen, James Brown sentenced to six years in prison for various offenses, including a firearms offense and also resisting arrest. Mister Brown was uncooperative when authority showed up. He was waving the gun around.
He probably meant, well, I don't know. I don't know what he meant, and I don't think he knows what he meant at that time.
No. December sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, Hey Joe was released by Jimmy Hendrick Jimmy Hendrick Experience. It was on Pollardor That song. Three years later was the close out for his set at Woodstock.
Did a great version of that Oh there you go Yeah.
Nineteen eighty three Pete Towns and announced he was leaving the WHO. It's a big deal at the time. Now, I don't know how many farewell tours later, all due respect to Pete and Roger.
I know it's incredible, what a what a what a.
Couple of they are, and I don't know if they're you know, I always like to kind of get a little bit of information and insight into what people what the relationship was like, you know, Jagger and Richards and Lennon and McCartney, and I think with with these guys, you know, I just wonder, you know, what the what the relationship was like between them. I never heard much about arguing or disagreeing. I know, you know, Roger needed to continue to tour, he wanted the wanted and needed
the money. But I never heard much in the way of content.
Well, look, I have another assignment for you relating to a band situation or you know, two partners in music situation. It's fantastic this documentary it's called in Restless Dreams The Music of Paul Simon. And there's two Paul Simon documentaries that came out. There was the other one was Hulu and this one we just recently watched. And boy, oh boy, you get tremendous insight into that question. I'll just leave it at that because you will see it in very harsh terms with our garb uncle.
It's on my list. I came across it the other night. I had watched something musical and then in the list of suggested shows after that the Paul Simon thing, and I need to watch it.
Yeah, fabulous, And you really gain greater appreciation for him.
And he's got a hearing issue which is preventing him, you know, from playing and some more singing. But for both, I mean, if you can't hear, yeah, you sing so sad. But I'm looking forward to seeing it. I want to try to watch it over the coming days and check that out. In nineteen ninety three, on December sixteenth, Nirvana's Unplugged concert air on MTV. This was a big deal. This was one of Cobain's last performances. This is what I was alluding to a few minutes ago when we
were talking about Courtney. He died on April eighth of nineteen ninety four, and the prior week he had escaped rehab. So I don't know if you remember the sequence of events, but when you know the situation, the circumstances around his death were very cloudy. April first, he escaped from rehab two days after checking in and then he was found, you know, on the eighth and in his suicide note he used the words over the line, better to burn out than fade away. Neil Young, Right, he part of
the twenty seven club. Kurt Cobain.
Yeah, and unbelievable and yeah, that MTV performance was you know, words can't describe it.
Yeah, And if folks are curious about that, you've got a great segment where Rob Barnett joined you to talk about that. Rob Barnett, who was, you know, one of the big wigs for MTV for a period of time and he was a great guest. So folks cancerts that up.
Yeah. And Danny Goldberg too, the manager of Nirvana, actually is part of the great great episode.
Had taken a walk. And in two thousand and five, the remaining members of the Beatles began their legal action against EMI on behalf of their interests in Apple. They sued for I believe about thirty million dollars that they thought was owed that EMI had Pilford from them.
Isn't that crazy just to think about that?
And now in this day and age, when you think about the money that they thought they were owed and we continue to have this discussion about streaming and album sales and records in the record business. It's just they're worth nothing. It would be worth nothing, you know at this point, even though there's value in the catalog. That what would that lawsuit have looked like today, you know, twenty years twenty twenty one years later.
It's crazy to think about it. Yep.
Nineteen forty nine. Billy Gibbons, the Reverend Willie g As he refers to himself, one of my favorite guitar players. He was number thirty two on the twenty eleven Rolling Stone list of best Guitar Players of all time, was born. This is his birthday. Also on this day, this is
I never even heard this story. Same day Billy is celebrating his birthday, Dusty is unpacking his car, either looking deliberately for his Darringer pistol or it just falls out of the car, but he inadvertently shoots himself in the gut with his derringer pistol, and then he drove himself to the hospital.
Yeah, oh, he obviously he can't make this, sup he would he would go on to that way some years later.
But yeah, that that happened to Dusty. Nineteen sixty seven Big Day for Credence. Five singles and five albums were certified gold literally on the same day. For Cretans, the songs were down on a Corner looking out my back door, traveling band Bad Moon up around the Bend, and then the albums were Cosmos Factory, William, The Poor Boys, Green River, Bayou Country, and the self titled Credence Clear Water Album.
So ten ten times the gold records in one day for John Folgune Company, Big Day on this day in nineteen seventh year, nineteen seventy three, seventeen seventy three, some guys did a thing. Members of the Sons of Liberty boarded three British cargo ships in Boston Harbor and they dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into the ocean. It's by the way, it's alleged this was a quiet attack on the British. They actually swept up their mess on the deck, so the British didn't even
know right away. It was this thing that happened under the cover of darkness, and they cleaned their mess up and then split.
I didn't know that about the story. Wow, that's crazy.
Seventeenth nineteen seventy seven, Elvis Costello was on Saturday Night Live. I don't know if you remember the story around this, but he was supposed to play a couple of songs. Sex Pistols were the original guests. There was a visa prop that I think Laurene offered it to the Ramones. After that, the Ramones said no, and then they went to Elvis, who had just released My Am Is True, and the song that they wanted him to play, the
label wanted him to play was less than Zero. So Elvis, during rehearsal, plays the song and then he realizes that the song is just too somber, it's too down. It's it's just a it's a downer for Saturday Night Live, twelve o'clock at night on a Saturday night. So when it's his time to come out and play, he plays a couple of bars of less than zero, and then he said he basically stops the band and announces to the audience that that song is just too down, too somber,
and then he goes rip it into radio radio. Yeah, I do recall that.
Yeah, it was a great I'm standing tools and the story was legend would have it that he was banned forever from Saturday Night Live, and that turned out to not be true.
In nineteen eighty nine, he went back on twelve twelve years later, he went back on and play So but you know, great musical guest. And Elvis Costello is you know, one of the the most underrated artists and writers of our time. Springsteen, who we talk about often, has said about Elvis Costello, we can't all be Elvis Costello, right, I mean, it's just so great. And by the way, Elvis does a great version of She's the One.
Right.
He's a big Springsteen fan, and I love Elvis is agent gracefully too. I would agree. He did a tour and they stopped here in Vegas. I remember, if you remember that, it was like a game show where he spun the wheel. The wheel was on stage.
Oh yeah, I saw that. I saw that.
I've never seen him. I would like to see Elvis.
Oh he's great.
Is he like a Van Morrison, like Grumpy Moody, is like one of those guys where you just feel the energy is just, you know, not ideal.
I think he used to be more that way. I don't perceive it this way now.
He's still active, he's still playing, he's still out there.
Yeah, it's so creating. Yeah.
In eighty two, who played the last show of that farewell one of many farewell tours as we talked about at the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens And this was actually part of a TV special called Who's Last. You keep waiting for these things to show up on Amazon or whatever, these little gems. I'm sure.
I'm sure it'll be out there at some point. Yeah, they will.
December eighteenth. Zz Tops first album was released nineteen seventy one. I'm a fan. I've always been a fan. I've got, you know, I think a good personal history with zz Top, just if nowhere else in my own mind centrum nineteen eighty two on the Eliminator tour, drinking Schlitz beer backstage with the great Paul Lemmier and three of my buddies from high school, and you know, just a just you know, three guys that make a lot of noise, that sound great.
It's just a great show. That first album, though I don't know a thing about any of it. The songs are shaking your Tree, Brown Sugar, I don't think I mean, they do a version of Jailhouse Rock the Elvis, but that wasn't on an album. Squank going to Mexico, old Man, Neighbor, Neighbor, a bunch of stuff that I don't know. Backdoor Love Affair may be the only like deep cut that I'm aware of from that that album, But that was the first album nineteen seventy one. December eighteenth, it Zeazy Top.
Keith Richards in nineteen eighty three, at forty years old, married Patty Hanson. This is also an interesting day because he chose to marry Patty Hanson on his birthday. Who does that on their birthday? I believe, and he married. He married up too, of course, but I would believe that if there was some sort of, you know, psychological examination done on this, this would be considered in this day and age, maybe narcissistic behavior. Possibly You've got to
have your birthday on our wedding day. Like can you imagine the what I mean, You're married for a long time. I was married twice. I wasn't good at it, but I can just imagine one of my ex wives saying, why would you choose your birthday as our wedding day?
Exactly?
And that would be the end of that conversation we moved it would be over yeah, oh yeah. Nineteen eighty two, Bob Dylan made his movie debut. This was a Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The big song that came out of this was Knocking on Heaven's Door part of the soundtrack. James Coburn, so familiar. Another guy with a great voice, right remember you know his voice big had a white hair. And Chris Christofferson both in that movie with Dylan, and the movie doesn't tickle anything in particular
inside of me. I guess I got to go back and watch it, but I don't think it was one of those that you know, goes down in history. Is you know something you got to see.
Kind of a spaghetti western. Just the fact that Bob was in it was made it cool. And Christofferson it's but it's a spaghetti western, you know.
Yeah. And pop culture and nine Avatar premiered. One of the things I just saw on social media was Matt Damon talking about things the roles he turned down that he should have never turned down. And he says it like shaking his head. He said, he said no to Avatar, No boy, he said no to that lead role for a percentage. December nineteenth, nineteen seven. We've all done We've all done shit like that. December nineteenth, nineteen seventy. Your song by Elton John hits the Billboard Hot one hundred.
This is an interesting thing because this show at the Troubadour earlier that year and in August, I think August twenty fifth of nineteen seventy, Elton does the show at the Troubadour. By the by Christmas time, the song goes number one. But that show at the Troubadour is one of those things that will live on in infamy. The Beach Boys several members of the Beach Boys were there.
Levon Helm was their record executives. Neil Diamond was in the crowd for that show, and that was one of those where you know, the La Times said, you know, they basically crowned him, you know, the next celebrity, the must see artists. But a legendary show. And to watch the clips and hear stuff, you know, a couple of tracks from that it was, you know, it sounds great still to this day, it sounds great. In seventy five,
Ronnie Wood joined the Stones. Ronnie Wood not just a great guitar player, and musician, but also an amazing artist. I don't know if you've seen the set list that he draws before after the Stones show.
Yeah, I'll tell you a terrible story. I got his book that depicts his artwork from him and he doodled and created some additional little art work. I can't find the freaking thing. Oh that's awful. I can't find it. It's one like I can find everything, but that I can't find it for the life of me.
M And don't you there Ask your wife because there will be some sort of response there.
Oh she's she knows too, she's asked the same questions.
Oh, she's looked forward to you know. Yeah, but there's you don't get the what did you do with it? Where did you leave it?
No, it was it was from being in Columbus running into him and and and I can't freaking find it.
He he sells that his beautiful artwork. They do it through the website, but there are art galleries that that offer it up as well. But his artwork is really pretty fantastic, and he's he's one of the great guitar players of our time as well.
Absolutely.
Nineteen fifty five Carl Perkins wrote what would end up becoming a rock and roll standard. Think about Blue Swaye Shoes, think about you know, Elvis did a version of it, Buddy Holly did a version of it. But if you were in a cover band, you know, a rock band in the sixties and seventies and even in the eighties, you covered Blue Swaite shows, that's one of those songs that like, it's like for a guitar player or a musician, it's like, Johnny be good, you gotta know that song. Yeah,
it's a standard, a rock standard. In fifty seven, Elvis while living at Graceland, I didn't realize how long he has or how he long he did own Graceland. But in fifty seven he was served with his draft papers at Graceland. That's where the notice came. He ended up serving, and he ended up in the thirty second I want to get this right, the thirty second Tank Battalion, third Armor Corps, based in Germany, where he served his time in the army.
He looked good in a uniform, now.
Yeah he did. Yeah, he just you know, he was a good looking guy. That sixty eight Elvius was arguably probably the best to come back tour with the letter suit and you know, the red guitar. It's probably the best of Elvis. Soe twenty sixteen, this is interesting to me. We were talking about charts and downloads and with the Beatles and the money the lawsuit with the MII. The official chart company announced that they were changing the way that it calculated the top forty to reflect the rise
in streaming back in twenty sixteen. So we're going back nine almost ten years. So here's the way it works. Currently, one hundred streams is counted as one sale of a song. So you know, we used to go buy music when we were kids. You go buy a forty five or buy an album, that counts as a sale. Now someone has to have a song eemed one hundred times to consider it the sale of a song.
Wow, that's crazy.
Isn't that interesting? And then from January twenty seventeen, the ratio would become one hundred and fifty to one, so one hundred and fifty downloads equals the sale of a song.
And you know, it's.
Interesting to me how that's kind of we've never stopped me. We're in this music thing here together talking about this and it's never come up. It's very interesting to me that that's how they thought that they would break the bottleneck in the music industry with the charts and everything else people, because songs were just hanging on forever.
It'll read the fine print, right, Yeah.
Twenty fifteen, Thriller became the first album to ever sell thirty million copies, the runner up to this day biggest selling album. The runner up is The Eagles' Greatest Hits seventy one to seventy five, twenty nine million copies as of today, Insane. In my garage, I have a sign that a friend of mine gave me in Woolster in nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, and it was an item he found at the Brimfield Fair and it was
and is this sign for Buffalo Springfield. It's a tractor plate, so it's you know, it's you know, maybe a foot and a half by a foot tall, and it's green with white print, and it's from a Buffalo Springfield brand tractor. That's where they got their name. And I have one of those tractor plates in my garage. The thing weighs a ton. Bring it by sometimes. Yeah, well, yeah, it's easy I don't know if I get through security with that.
Probably not.
Nineteen seventy five, Joe Walsh replaced Berna leadon a recent guest on taking a Walk.
Yeah, and by the way, he did go back to the Eagles for a run, so they were on friendly enough terms there. But are they still Are they still okay? I think so. I think it's all you know, this reconciliations or whatever. Yeah, it seems like, who knows, what do I know?
I let's see. Just like starting Over, the John Lennon song from the Double Fantasy added up hitting number one. This happened at a time it was just literally right after his death. It was less than two weeks after he was shot in front of the Dakota. But that was his first and only number one song. It's just like starting Over.
It's a beautiful song and a heartbreaking loss, you know.
Yeah, a couple of things for the Stones on this day. In nineteen seventy one, they released Hot Rocks Great double album Greatest Hits Collection. It was one of the first albums I remember having as a kid. I think I grabbed it from my parents, from my father. And also in sixty nine, Let It Bleed hit the top of the charts, so sixty nine and seventy one Big Days. By the way, Let It Bleed was the last album
with Brian Jones. He was fired midway through Let It Bleed, and if you'll excuse my crass comment, he ended up, you know, being found face down on the pool, his pool. Mick Jones joined to replace him, and that's a story with those two Stones albums and Brian Jones Man nineteen forty seven, two birthdays, nineteen forty seven, nineteen forty eight,
nineteen forty seven. Peter Chris, drummer from Kiss, Gene Simmons, after the recent passing of Ace, freely has talked kind of openly about how the band treated Peter and Ace, you know, during the eighties after they were essentially sent packing out of the band. I knew Ace had his issues, I didn't realize Peter did as well. But there was a time where Gene was just kind of inconsiderate in terms of the way he did by his own admission,
about the way he talked about Ace and Peter. And I think since Ace is passing, he's come out and he said, listen, we didn't do enough as a band to take care of these guys. We weren't as patient as we should have been there. I mean, there was obviously unreliability. Both Peter and Ace, you know, were late
or didn't show up for rehearsals. And you know, Jean and Paul are guys that don't drink or don't do any drugs, and I think it was probably trying on them to have these two important members of the band that were under in the clutches of alcohol and drugs at the time. So Alan Parsons nineteen forty eight, famous musician, probably the I would think, maybe one of the most
well known projects. He may not be well known for it to those that don't pay attention to the weeds kind of stuff, but a producer for Dark Side of the Moon.
Yeah, I mean, think about his career, you know, the production excellence, career as a solo artist. Just a great respect for him.
Yeah, we've talked in the past. I shared with you that I interviewed him maybe nineteen ninety seven or ninety eight on July fourth, and I remember the conversation specifically because I had asked him our friend George Taylor Morris was starting to talk about Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of Oz and I asked Alan Parsons about that, and I can't think of another time I felt like such an idiot where I put my foot in my mouth.
But he didn't know a thing about it. He claimed to be unaware of the connection at that point in time.
Believe him too.
Yeah, I think there's no reason to lot, no reason exactly. No. This is an interesting day that December twenty first, our next day. This was a day that in nineteen seventy, Elvis drove from Graceland to Washington. His first stop in Washington. I want to get this right because they're no longer called by this name. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was around at that time under Tricky Dick. So Elvis shows up at this agency and pleads with them
that he can help with the war on drugs. Right, this was before Nancy Reagan's War on drugs. This was, you know, nineteen seventy. So they basically show them the door. They're like, you know, what are you going to do? We're not interested. He wanted a badge, he wanted to be named and you know, an agent in fighting the
war on drugs. So he gets turned down by this group, and then he goes to the White House with a six page letter for Nixon and wants to be seen by Nixon, so he asks to be named a special agent. He asks for a badge. I never heard this, Like, I'm reading this story this morning. I'm like, how do we not know this? It's such good information. So it's juicy, it really is. So the government agency, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, takes a hard pass. Elvis is
able to talk Nixon into it. Nixon gives him a badge. Elvis gives Nixon a gun, a cult forty five from the war, like a trade. You give me a badge, I give you a gun. And then that famous picture was taken. It seems like I almost always see the black and white version, but Elvis in that picture is wearing this purple vlure or velvet jumpsuit, shaken Nixon's hand. Classic, it's one of That picture is one of the most requested photographs still to this day in the US National Archives.
Interesting, it's a classic.
A couple more, yeah, A couple more quick ones to wrap this up. Born in the USA passed thriller to hit seventy nine weeks on the charts, and which Taal lineman hit the top two hundred. Glenn Campbell's only number one and the Billboard Charts ever, and there's an appreciation I have for him and we all should have. And we'll talk more next week about that Beahemian Raps that he hit number one in ninety one after Freddie Mercury's death.
And Paul Simon performed Sound of Silence at the funeral of a teacher in one of the twenty six victims at the Sandy Hook shooting on this day. You mentioned Paul Simon earlier, and that happened. Victorious Soto was a first grade teacher and one of her favorite songs of all time was Sound of Silence, and Paul Simon heard about it and he sang at her funeral.
It didn't really interest you.
Wow, And that is how we end this week in Music History. I promise you that we were going to have to maybe cut this into two parts, but we somehow got it all in December fifteenth through the twenty first.
It's quite a whirlwind. Master of Music, Mayhem, and thank you for another look at this week in music history, and thank you all for checking it out on the Taking a Walk podcast