* We'll play a track from an artist who was born in Robbinsville, NC in 1943.  Due to congenital glaucoma, he was born nearly blind and his mother took this as a sign that God was punishing her for sins, so she left him to be raised by his grandparents.  His love of music led him to an absolutely incredible career, even touring with J. J. Cale as his guitarist for a bit.  Known for his great blend of country and soul, he racked up 35 number one hits on country charts.  Name the artist...
 
*This groundbreaking band from the mid-60's made great strides in the evolution of rock & roll itself, demonstrating that intelligent lyrical content could be wedded to compelling electric guitar riffs and a solid backbeat.  We'll play a cut from an album that was most responsible for establishing folk-rock as a popular phenomenon.  Name the band...
 
*This artist was born in Chicago in 1946, but the family moved to Philadelphia 3 years later...a place that groomed her musical aspirations with influences from soul and rock artists like James Brown, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and particularly, Bob Dylan.  Her 4 albums in the mid-late 70's inspired a generation of female rockers.  Name the artist...
 
*This artist had a half-decade of collaborations with Jeff Lynne as his producer, but decided to go another route for his 1994 album, enlisting Rick Rubin, the Def Jam founder who wanted to start a production career outside of hip-hop and metal in the early 90's.  A great 1994 album anchored by a few musicians in his former band ensued.  Name the artist and extra credit for his former band...
 
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
The Border by America vs I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better by The Byrds
 
ANSWERS
1. Ronnie Milsap
2. Byrds
3. Patti Smith
4. Tom Petty, The Heartbreakers
Listeners picked The Byrds by a 56% margin

Jeff Weigl Beats Working Friday @ 4pm
Lady Madonna by The Beatles
Paul McCartney said of this song was me sitting down at the piano trying to write a bluesy boogie-woogie thing.
I got my left hand doing an ascending boogie-woogie, then a descending right hand.
I always liked the juxtaposition of a line going down meeting a line going up. 
It reminded me of Fats Domino for some reason, so I started singing a Fats Domino impression.
 
Here Comes My Baby by The Tremeloes   
The song was written in London in 1966 by Cat Stevens.
It was almost released as Cat's first single, but "I Love My Dog" was thought to be stronger.
After "I Love My Dog's" success, "Here Comes My Baby" was shelved for several months.
The Tremeloes picked it up and it became their breakthrough hit in America.
The song's success helped establish Cat Stevens as a songwriter and he included it on his first album Matthew and Son.
 
Bus Stop by The Hollies
The song was written by Graham Gouldman, who went on to form the band 10cc.
He was 19 when he wrote Bus Stop, but he had already written three songs for the Yardbirds, For Your Love, Heart Full of Soul and Evil Hearted You. 
When Goldman played the song for the Hollies, they knew they had a winner.
Graham Nash said they recorded the song in just an hour and 15 minutes.  

I played 4 songs that have a theme running through them in the Canoe Connection.
This week the four songs were:
Respect by Aretha Franklin
Lola by The Kinks
Method of Modern Love by Daryl Hall & John Oates
M-O-N-E-Y by Lyle Lovett
The connection was that each of the song titles are spelled out by the singer. 
 
This week’s Double Take was the song On The Road Again.
I played a version by Canned Heat and Willie Nelson.
Fans of Beats Workin’ voted for Willie Nelson over Canned Heat.
 
When The Marvelettes auditioned for Motown, the label didn't have their full songwriting machinery in place, so they asked the girls to bring in material. William Garrett, a songwriter friend of group member Georgia Dobbins, offered the song Please Mr. Postman to The Marvelettes. He wrote it as a blues song, but Dobbins completely rewrote it and taught it to lead singer Gladys Horton. Motown producers Robert Bateman and Brian Holland also worked on the song with The Marvelettes and crafted it into a hit.
Marvin Gaye played drums on this song. He was 22 at the time and trying to break into the business.  

*This frontperson of this band took a long, hard road to rock & roll stardom, but when the band broke through in 1979, they wasted no time, growing from promising newcomers on the British music scene to major international stardom with a pair of smash albums to their credit in a mere three years.  That meteoric rise came to a crashing halt in 1982 with calamity to a number of band members, forcing a re-invention of the band for their 3rd album in 1984.  Name the band and extra credit in naming the leader...
 
*A track we'll play from 1975 is about a father-daughter relationship.  The writer of the song wrote it on the guitar in about 5 minutes in Aspen, Colorado, surrounded by snow-covered mountains.  The daughter who penned it wrote it the evening prior to her father's (he was the president of Greyhound Bus Lines) surgery at the Mayo Clinic.  Name the artist, her band and extra credit for the name of the song...
 
*Written by one of the members of this popular American 60's band, this song came to fruition based on a plea by the band's keyboard player for everyone to go home that evening and write some songs.  The band's guitarist actually came up with 2 songs (2 of the biggest hits of the band) in about 1 hour.  Uniquely, this band split credits equally, so every member was credited on every song.  Name the band, and extra credit for the names of the keyboard and guitar players...
*Clive Davis, a renowned American record producer, convinced this artist to record a star-studded comeback album for Arista in 1999....much like he coaxed the artist's idol, Carlo Santana, to revive his career with Supernatural.  The problem was that the artist was not willing to fully throw himself into the contemporary mainstream, as Santana did.  We'll dig into the album that came out as a result.  Name the artist.
 
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
You Showed Me by The Turtles vs Love Me Two Times by The Doors
 
ANSWERS
1. Pretenders, Chrissy Hynde
2. Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, Landslide
3. The Doors, Ray Manzrek, Robbie Krieger
​4. Prince
Listeners picked The Turtles by a 54% margin

Jeff Weigl Beats Working Friday @ 4pm

Witchy Woman by The Eagles
The inspiration for this song’s title and lyrics about a seductive enchantress came from a number of women, although Don Henley had one particular woman in mind - Zelda Fitzgerald, whose biography he was reading while writing the song. According to Henley, the character in the song would be a mix of Zelda Fitzgerald "along with images of girls he had met at the Whisky and the Troubadour".
Zelda, the muse behind her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, was known as a wild, bewitching and mesmerizing "Flapper" of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. 
Mockingbird by Inez and Charlie Foxx
This song is based on the lullaby Hush Little Baby.  This is the original version of the song. 
This song was later covered by James Taylor and Carly Simon and became a big hit for them. James Taylor wanted to do the cover as he saw Inez and Charlie Foxx perform this song at the Apollo Theatre in New York in 1965.  
Living in a Ghost Town by The Rolling Stones
The first original Rolling Stones song in eight years, the band originally cut "Living in A Ghost Town" in a Los Angeles studio back in 2019. When the coronavirus pandemic started spreading worldwide, Jagger and Richards thought the song would resonate.
Two Princes by The Spin Doctors
This track has lead singer Chris Barron taking the voice of a poor prince trying to convince a girl that she should marry him instead of his wealthy counterpart.  Chris Barron is a literature fanatic, which played a part in this song. 
He said: "I loved The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and was really into fantasy fiction. As a child I loved wizards and kings and queens and princess and princesses.   
Jet Airliner by The Steve Miller Band
That song was written by Paul Pena, a blind folk singer from Cape Cod.  Pena played the Newport Folk Festival in 1969, but did not have much success.
In fact, for most of his life, royalties from Jet Airliner were his only income. 
Hitsville UK by The Clash
The title is a homage to Motown Records; "Hitsville U.S.A." was its first headquarters in Detroit. The song is a duet between Clash guitarist Mick Jones and his then-girlfriend Ellen Foley (who also sang "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" together with Meat Loaf). Foley said Jones' reference to Motown on that song really hit home. She said "For me, 'Hitsville UK' is about the history of The Clash and the beginnings of British punk rock,". The lyric goes, "I know the boys and girls are not alone now that Hitsville hit UK.
Black Dog by Led Zeppelin
The title of the song does not appear in the lyrics and has nothing to do with the song itself.
The band worked up the song at Headley Grange, a mansion in Hampshire, England that is out in the country, surrounded by woods. A nameless black Labrador retriever would wander the grounds, and the band would feed it. When they needed a name for this track, which didn't have an obvious title, they thought of the canine and went with "Black Dog."
 
I Second That Emotion
The song was written by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland. he inspiration for the song came one morning in 1967 as Robinson and Cleveland were shopping at a Detroit department store when Smokey found a set of pearls for his wife, Claudette. 
“They’re beautiful” he said to the salesperson, “I sure hope she likes them”.  Cleveland then added “I second that emotion”. 
Both songwriters laughed at the error but were immediately inspired to write a song using the incorrect phrase.  

*This outstanding band was formed in 1970 with a great lead singer and primary songwriter.  5 years later he had to leave the band due to illness...enter a new lead singer who took them in new directions, but with solid hits as well.  The band disbanded in 1982, but reformed in 1987.  Name the band, the first and second lead singers...
 
*This great artist was (and is) the guitarist and primary songwriter for this band from 1964 to 1982.  Truly known for his conceptual works for the band, he made his first tentative solo album in 1972.  But we'll go to his 1985 solo album for this evening's track.  Name the artist and the band...
 
*With this 1968 album, this band apparently had discovered drugs and mysticism as a basis for songwriting and came up with compelling psychedelic-era concerns.  They kind of dumped the orchestra for this album in favor of a Mellotron while the rest of the band joined in with flutes, sitar, tablas and cellos. This collection of songs is a rather close cousin to The Beatles' records of the same era.  Name the band and extra credit for the name of the album...
 
*We'll play a ballad by this great band from 1874 that was the first of three highly successful to have been gleaned from this band's 3rd consecutive chart topping album...they just didn't release 3 albums in 3 years, but each of them were #1 albums. (Remarkable)  The song is about a young man discovering himself as a person.  The entire album saw the band embracing a decidedly more mellow musical direction.  Name the band and extra credit for the song name
 
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
Cheeseburger In Paradise by Jimmy Buffett vs It’s Money That Matters by Randy Newman
 
ANSWERS
1. Doobie Brothers, Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald
2. Pete Townshend, The Who
3. The Moody Blues, In Search Of The Lost Chord
4. Chicago, (I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long
Listeners picked Jimmy Buffett by a 56% margin