Monthly Archives: April 2016

Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

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Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

April 7, 1938 – January 11, 2004

Woodstock alum
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee
Sound clip: “A Small Package of Value Will Come To You, Shortly” from After Bathing At Baxter’s by Jefferson Airplane written by Dryden

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Not the first

Spencer Dryden was not the Jefferson Airplane’s first drummer. Spencer Dryden was not the Jefferson Airplane’s last drummer. But Spencer Dryden was the Airplane’s drummer.

Born in New York City, Dryden grew up in Los Angeles where his father often brought him to jazz clubs. Jazz was Dryden’s first love and drums his choice of instruments.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Peanut Butter Conspiracy

Like many young musicians of the early 60s, the writing on the wall said Beatlemania rock and the emerging folk-rock was the writing on the wall and Dryden became part of the Ashes (later known as the Peanut Butter Conspiracy).

When Skip Spence (guitarist who played drums for the Airplane and guitar again for Moby Grape) left the Airplane to form Moby Grape, Dryden was asked to step in. When Dryden arrived in San Francisco he was surprised and accepting of the communal atmosphere he found in Haight-Ashbury.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Skip Grace

Fortunately for the Airplane (and Dryden), they’d also lost their lead singer (Signe Toly Anderson) at the same and in came Grace Slick.

Dryden and Slick formed an unofficial pact that helped drive the Airplane’s musical direction. Along with the other members their first album together was 1967’s Surrealistic Pillow, one of the most famous and well-respected albums in rock.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden
cover of Surrealistic Pillow
Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Spencer Dryden

The late 60s carried Dryden and the Airplane along for an amazing ride. The Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and both Woodstock Music and Art Fair and Altamont in 1969.

Here is the Airplane doing Somebody to Love from the sunrise serenade it provided that hazy Sunday morning in August 1969. Dryden’s drums highlight the song’s drive.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Grounded

The pressures of success combined with the resources success provided hobbled Dryden. Unpredictable behavior led to difficulties with the band. The group “released” him in early 1970.

Dryden did not leave music. From the Airplane he joined the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden

Continued to be active 

From All Music: “Dryden was enough of a fixture on the San Francisco scene that he was asked in to various combos of veteran Bay Area players during the ’80s, including the Dinosaurs, whose members included veterans of such bands as Country Joe & the Fish, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and played on one of Barry Melton’s albums as well. He was the only member of the classic lineup not to participate in the Jefferson Airplane’s 1989 reunion tour and album, though he was present in 1996 for the group’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

Dryden died of colon cancer on January 11, 2004.

Airplane Drummer Spencer Dryden
Vietnam

NSA Memorandum 328

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NSA Memorandum 328

April 6, 1965

NSA Memorandum 328

NSA Memorandum 328

Old war

Wars rarely start without warning. Perhaps the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, yet their aggression was not.

War in Vietnam was not new in 1965. France had promised its colony independence after World War II. On September 2, 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared that independence. His proclamation paraphrased the U.S. Declaration of Independence: “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!“

War with the French ensued. Ho Chi Minh defeated them and the US, under President Eisenhower, stepped in in the mid-1950s. Eisenhower was sure that a Communist ruled Vietnam would lead to Communism throughout southeast Asia. The Domino Theory.

At first we sent advisors, but as time exposed the weakness and corruption of the so-called democratic South Vietnam, the United States, now under President Lyndon B Johnson, decided to change from advisors to attackers.

NSA Memorandum 328

Ground troops

The US National Security Council meetings on April 1 and 2 in 1965 were about what we should do regarding Vietnam. The people of the United States found out on April 6.

President Johnson authorized the National Security Action Memorandum 328: the use of ground troops in combat operations in Vietnam.

The memorandum authorized U.S. personnel to take the offensive in South Vietnam to secure “enclaves” and to support South Vietnamese operations. The so-called “enclave strategy” called for the U.S. forces to control the densely-populated coastal areas while the South Vietnamese forces moved inland to fight the communists.

This memorandum represented a major mission change for the American soldiers and Marines who had recently arrived in Vietnam. American forces had been limited to strictly defensive operations around the U.S. air bases, but the memorandum authorized them to go on the offensive to secure large areas of terrain, an escalation of U.S. involvement in the war.

NSA Memorandum 328

TV explanation

On July 28 that year, Johnson explained why we were in Vietnam.

Today,  there are 58,318 names on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.

NSA Memorandum 328
Music et al, Music of the 60s

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

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Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

Recorded in Hamburg, Germany
April 5, 1964

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

Riding the Beatlmania Bronco

It’s April 1964 and the Beatles rule the airwaves. They are in the midst of filming their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night.  As has been noted before, the Beatles loved American Rock and Roll and soon groups like the Animals and Rolling Stones would bring our blues back to us.

Elvis is l making movies. His latest, “Kissin’ Cousins.“

On the defensive (after perhaps not divorcing his wife and perhaps marrying his second cousin) Jerry Lee Lewis counter-attacked. He went to Hamburg, one of the places that those Beatles had cut their musical eyeteeth.  Like NOTHING the Beatles had ever done in Hamburg, Lewis tore the roof off the Star Club. And it was recorded! My my my was it ever!

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

Live at the Star Club 

And likely you didn’t know it was. Likely you never heard it. Maybe, like me, never even heard of it.

If you like rock and roll (and I suspect you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t) then you MUST listen to this amazing album. If you can turn it up, please do so!

A producer for Philips Records Germany, Siggi Loch, fortunately for posterity, recorded the show.

Here’s the track list. The Beatles, of course, covered “Matchbox.” Lewis lights it up! That suggests there are some ballads here. Lewis pounds the keyboard throughout.

Side one
  1. “Mean Woman Blues”
  2. “High School Confidential”
  3. “Money (That’s What I Want)”
  4. “Matchbox”
  5. “What’d I Say, Part 1”
  6. “What’d I Say, Part 2”
Side two
  1. “Great Balls of Fire”
  2. “Good Golly, Miss Molly”
  3. “Lewis Boogie”
  4. “Your Cheatin’ Heart”
  5. “Hound Dog”
  6. “Long Tall Sally”
  7. “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”

AllMusic said of the album: “Words cannot describe – cannot contain – the performance captured on Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, an album that contains the very essence of rock & roll…Live at the Star Club is extraordinary – the purest, hardest rock & roll ever committed to record…He sounds possessed, hitting the keys so hard it sounds like they’ll break, and rocking harder than anybody had before or since. Compared to this, thrash metal sounds tame, the Stooges sound constrained, hardcore punk seems neutered, and the Sex Pistols sound like wimps. Rock & roll is about the fire in the performance, and nothing sounds as fiery as this; nothing hits as hard or sounds as loud, either. It is no stretch to call this the greatest live album ever, nor is it a stretch to call it the greatest rock & roll album ever recorded. Even so, words can’t describe the music here — it truly has to be heard to be believed.”

And Lewis did it with himself and a band he didn’t know, a British band called the Nashville Teens!

Musicians:
  • Jerry Lee Lewis – piano, vocals
  • Johnny Allen – guitar
  • Pete Shannon Harris – bass
  • Barry Jenkins – drums (he later played w the Animals)

So if you have the system to play it loud here it is! Good Golly Miss Molly!!!!!

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club

Live at the Star Club

Related link >>> NPR report

Jerry Lee Lewis Star Club