Category Archives: Music of the 60s

Birthdays, Music of the 60s

Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

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Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

Arranger/composer/producer
April 22, 1937 — August 25, 2000

Jack NitzscheJack Nitzsche – “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (Opening Theme)” 

Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

Jack Nitzsche

Jack Nitzsche. Where have we heard that name? Album cover readers know that they saw the name regularly on the album credits. As my father sometimes joked, “He’s like horseshit. He’s everywhere.”

What I gradually realized was that Jack Nitzsche was associated with many of my favorite albums.

Born Bernard Alfred Nitzsche in Chicago, he grew up in Michigan, and moved to California as a teenager. Like many people who have moved to California, Nietzsche hoped to become an entertainer. A saxophonist specifically.

Needles and Pins

Bernard Alfred Jack NitzscheHis story is familiar. When the saxophone school didn’t worked out, he found a job at Specialty Records copying music scores. While doing that he met Sonny Bono who was chief of A & R there. Their friendship led to songwriting. You’ll likely recognize an early hit:

Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

The Lonely Surfer

He had a minor hit on his own with “The Lonely Surfer” in 1963. It’s a pretty good song!

Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

Phil Spector

In the meantime, Nitzsche met and started working with Phil Spector and eventually helped create the Wall of Sound while working with session musicians famously known as the Wrecking Crew.

If you’ve ever heard  “River Deep, Mountain High” by Ike and Tina Turner you’ve heard Nitzshe. Bob Lind’s “Elusive Butterfly“? Nitzshe.  Darlene Love? May have been Nitzsche.

Rolling Stones and more

In 1964, he met the Rolling Stones. When you hear “Paint It, Black” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together” or “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”? Nitzsche.

Buffalo Springfield’s “Expecting to Fly”? Nitzsche.

Do you like Lesley Gore? Jackie DeShannon? The Righteous Brothers? Beach Boys? Searchers? Rip Cords? Bobby Vee?  Tim Buckley? Gary Lewis and the Playboys? The Monkeys? The Ventures? James Gang? Graham Parker? Willy DeVille?

It may have been Jack Nitzsche’s handiwork. Sometimes producing. Sometimes keyboards.

You say you want more?

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, solo or together.

Performance

Bernard Alfred Jack NitzscheAnd that’s just some of the music. He also worked on movie music. Here is a partial list:

  • He won an Oscar for Best Song with “Up Where We Belong” co-written with his wife Buffy St Marie and Will Jennings from Officer and a Gentleman.
  • Performance which stared Mick Jagger
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  • Hardcore
  • The Razor’s Edge
  • Starman
  • The Exorcist
  • Breathless
  • 9 1/2 Weeks

Poor Health

His health deteriorated in the mid-90s and his career followed.  He died on August 25, 2000.

REM wrote “2JN” in his memory.

Bernard Alfred Jack Nitzsche

Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

John Paul Record Ballad

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John Paul Record Ballad

John and Cynthia

John Lennon met Cynthia Powell when they were students at Liverpool Art College in 1957. In 1962, she became pregnant. John apparently said “There’s only one thing for it Cyn – we’ll have to get married” and on  August 23 that’s exactly what they did.  

On the verge of succeeding as a band particularly with many female teenagers, manager Brian Epstein kept the marriage low key.

On April 8, 1963 Julian Lennon was born.

John Paul Record Ballad

John meets Yoko

On November 7, 1966, John  visited the Indica Gallery in London. He met Yoko Ono displaying her art.

Ballad of John and Yoko
poster for Yoko’s exhibition

Of that meeting, John later reflected, “The old gang of mine was over the moment I met her. I didn’t consciously know it at the time, but that’s what was going on. As soon as I met her, that was the end of the boys, but it so happened that the boys were well known and weren’t just the local guys at the bar.” (from All We Are Saying, by David Sheff)

On November 8, 1968 Cynthia Lennon and John divorced.  Cynthia had filed for divorce in August 1968 no longer able to ignore John and Yoko’s relationship.

Miscarriage/Marriage

On November 21, 1968,  Yoko suffered a miscarriage.

On March 20, 1969 John and Yoko married in Gibraltar.

John Paul Record Ballad

Ballad of John and Yoko

On April 14, 1969, John Lennon and Paul McCartney recorded “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” John had written the song in the days following his and Yoko’s marriage. Work on the Let It Be album had often been contentious among the then less-than-Fab Four.

A break-up was imminent, but Paul McCartney later reflected, “John was in an impatient mood so I was happy to help. It’s quite a good song; it has always surprised me how with just the two of us on it, it ended up sounding like The Beatles.” (from Many Years From Now by Barry Miles)

They recorded the song at Abbey Road’s Studio Three in a session beginning at 2:30 pm and ending at 9 pm.

It was then mixed for stereo, and was finished and ready for release by 11 pm. According to George Martin, Yoko Ono was present in the studio, although she appears to have played no part in the recording.

John Paul Record Ballad

George Martin

George Martin later said in Anthology, “I enjoyed working with John and Yoko on The Ballad Of John And Yoko. It was just the two of them with Paul. When you think about it, in a funny kind of way it was the beginning of their own label, and their own way of recording. It was hardly a Beatle track. It was a kind of thin end of the wedge, as far as they were concerned. John had already mentally left the group anyway, and I think that was just the beginning of it all.” 

In 1966, John comments regarding the Beatles and Christianity had gotten no reaction in the UK but blew up in the American press. Some radio stations refused to play Beatle music.

Aware that the Ballad line “Christ you know it ain’t easy” could re-ignite that controversy, the song was kept “secret” until its release.

Apple released it on May 30 in the UK and on June 4 in the US. True to expectations, some top-40 US stations refused to play it and some played a version with the word “Christ” reversed in an attempt to avoid criticism.

Ironically, the Spanish government had no issue with the word Christ, but did have a problem with the line “you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain” as Spain considered Gibraltar part of Spain not the UK.

Ballad of John and Yoko
cover of John and Yoko’s wedding album

 

The lyrics tell the story:

Standing in the dock at Southampton
Trying to get to Holland or France
The man in the mac said
You’ve got to go back
You know they didn’t even give us a chance(chorus) Christ you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re going to crucify me Finally made the plane into Paris
Honeymooning down by the Seine
Peter Brown call to say
You can make it O.K.
You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain(chorus)Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton
Talking in our beds for a week
The newspapers said Say what’re you doing in bed
I said we’re only trying to get us some peace(chorus)Saving up your money for a rainy day		 Giving all your clothes to charity
Last night the wife said
Oh boy when you’re dead
You don’t take nothing with you but your soul, thinkMade a lightning trip to Vienna
Eating chocolate cake in a bag
The newspapers said
She’s gone to his head
They look just like two gurus in drag(chorus)Caught the early plane back to London
Fifty acorns tied in a sack
The men from the press
Said we wish you success
It’s good to have the both of you back (chorus)

John Paul Record Ballad

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

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

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Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Happy birthday to you
April 13, 1944
Airplane Hot Tuna Bassist Jack Casady
Jack Casady with the Jefferson Airplane
Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Washington, D.C. Kid

Jack Casady grew up in Washington, DC. He found an old guitar in his parents’ attic.  Jack was 12. The guitar had four stings. For Christmas, his parents gave him a certificate to take guitar lessons.

Jack used money from part-time neighborhood jobs to buy his first electric guitar, a ’58 Fender Telecaster, He and his dad built an amp from a kit.

His brother Chick’s high school friend visited one afternoon. The brother’s friend was Jorma Kaukonen. The two boys quickly realized that they shared a love of blues and records (echoes the story of Bob “The Bear” Hite and Alan “Owl” Wilson). They briefly formed The Triumphs.

Kaukonen left for Antioch College (Ohio) and Jack continued playing local gigs. One gig needed a bassist. Jack filled in and realized he loved the instrument.

1964 and Beatlemania struck and left blues-oriented bassists on the sidelines.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Jorma calls

Jorma left Antioch. He was out in San Francisco and had joined a band. Jefferson Airplane. Jorma heard Jack played bass he told Jack that the Airplane needed a bassist. Jack laughed at the name, but flew out to San Francisco.

Jorma picked up Jack at the airport in his Sunbeam convertible. Jorma worriedly greeting Jack with a, “You better be able to play.”

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Artistic Freedom

October 1965. According to Casady, “What was great for me was the opportunity of coming to San Francisco in that environment in the mid ’60s where you had a tremendous number of middle class white kids trying desperately to do anything their parents didn’t. And all these kids were suddenly out there playing instruments, making up songs. And that whole coming together aspect created some different music, most of it not keeping up to professional polish of other areas of the country, but still, people wanted to make their own statement. And so I found myself in this band that I thought was the craziest band I had ever seen.”

The Airplane became one one of the hallmark bands of the era and whose story is too long to include here. Suffice to say, the music of that time would not be the same without them. From a personal viewpoint, their Woodstock performance was one of highlights of my long concert-attending life.

Airplane Hot Tuna Bassist Jack Casady
1969-08-17 Sunday sunrise just before the Airplane began (photo by J Shelley)
Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Roadie Roomies

While touring, Jack and Jorma were often roommates and between gigs, in a motel room with a broken-TV, they’d play stuff together. Jorma on an acoustic guitar, Jack on an electric base. 

They had never lost their love of the blues and in 1970 they formed their Hot Tuna duo. For Airplane fans used to its psychedelic sounds, Tuna was a revelation.

51 years later, Tuna continues. Here’s a show from November 29, 2019.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp

Today Jack Casady regularly joins Jorma at Jorma’s Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp to teach bass.

With the engineers at Epiphone Guitars, Jack has developed the Jack Casady Signature Bass.

According to Casady, “Epiphone and I designed this bass to my exact specifications, certainly a dream come true. I feel we really created a comfortable bass that carries a great, warm tone, and is a lot of fun to play! And it also looks great.”

The  Beginner Guitar HQ site reviewed  what they call Gibson’s little sister the Epiphone Les Paul Special II electric guitar because: “What we need to see is if this is really a Les Paul guitar at a price anyone can pay. Because, instead of a budget Les Paul alternative, this model could be the evidence of too many corners cut.” You can find out here.

Casady has played on dozens of albums. Here is a the AllMusic link to that very long list.

In 1996, Jack Casady was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Jefferson Airplane.

As venues begin to reopen, Hot Tuna is a bit back on the road.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady