My Generation of Sun. 21 Feb.: Plastic Penny, Ronnie Bird, Taj Mahal [Ed’s show, 2016-08]

Specials: Plastic Penny, Ronnie Bird, Taj Mahal with  Ry Cooder, Jesse Ed Davis, The Stones ** Keith Richards, Jorma Kaukonen, Jefferson Airplane

Radio 68: All the sounds and all the voices that made the sixties ** Happy To Be Different  

SHOWTIME Sundays at 12:00 noon  CET (UK: 11 a.m.), repeated 16:00, 20:00 and 24:000 hrs midnight CET (UK: 3 p.m., 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.). Ends 04:00 CET / 3 a.m. UK  (Monday morning)

MY GENERATION  & BLUESIDE: THE PLAYLISTS

NEW SHOW
MY GENERATION: SPECIALS PLASTIC PENNY, RONNIE BIRD
SPECIALS: PLASTIC PENNY: Two Sides Of A Penny (LP, 1968) ** SPECIAL RONNIE BIRD ** AND ALSO: THE TEMPTATIONS ** THE OUTSIDERS ** SIMON & GARFUNKEL ** NEIL DIAMOND ** THE PRETTY THINGS ** RARE EARTH ** DOBIE GRAY  **
BLUESIDE: SPECIAL  TAJ MAHAL
SPECIAL: TAJ MAHAL’s debut album with Ry Cooder and Jesse Ed Davis, TAJ MAHAL with THE ROLLING STONES (the Circus!) , RY COODER with Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts,  JOHN LEE HOOKER and Ry Cooder, JESSE ED DAVIS & BOBBY JAMESON ** AND ALSO: LONNIE MACK  (album The Alligator Years, thanks to Alligator Records and Airplay Direct ) ** JOHNNY SHINES & SNOOKY PRYOR (album: BACK TO THE COUNTRY , thanks to Airplay Direct) **

REPEATED SHOW

MY GENERATION
SPECIALS: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE ** KEITH RICHARDS:  Crosseyed Heart,  Live Stuttgart 1999, Vintage Winos ** AND ALSO: DAVE EDMUNDS  ** BRIAN POOLE &  TREMELOES ** THE KINKS ** DONOVAN ** DERROLL ADAMS **  TIM BUCKLEY **  Voice: Danny Adams  **

BLUESIDE
SPECIAL: JORMA KAUKONEN: Ain’t In No Hurry ** SPECIAL KEITH RICHARDS  feat. Bobby Keys  and Norah Jones (Crosseyed Heart, 2015) ** AND ALSO: LEE DORSEY ** JIMMY JOHNSON (album Bar Room Preacher, thanks to Alligator Records** THE OUTSIDERS ** THE TEMPTATIONS **

MY GENERATION, incl. BLUESIDE: THE SHOW 
MY GENERATION: each week, a new 60 minute episode followed by the previous show, totalling two hours of all the sounds and the voices that shaped the 60s. Each show includes a special highlighting one artist, release, topic or trend. BLUESIDE: a new 60 minute episode every week, followed by the previous show, totalling two hours of the blues that influenced and inspired the sounds of the sixties – from the originators till the present day. Each show includes a special highlighting one artist, release, topic or trend.

SPECIALS 

PLASTIC PENNY
Most original members of Plastic Penny had known each other for years, performing as Screaming Lord Sutch’s backing band The Savages and playing in a highly successful dance and ballroom band called Chris Lamb and The Universals, aka The Universals and The Circles. They were Brian Keith aka Brian O’Shea (trombone, guitar, lead vocals), Paul Raymond (organ, who later joined Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown and UFO) and Tony Murray (who went on to The Troggs). They recruited a young Nigel Olsen (later drummer with Elton John) and MIck Grabham (he formed Cochise, joined Procol Harum, etc.). The soulful lead vocals are by Brian Keith, who would score again as The Congregation and as a songwriter.
Their first LP, Two Sides Of A Penny (1968), relies heavily on Raymond’s organ and Brian Keith’s soul voice in slow to mid-tempo songs à la The Box Tops, but with a slight psychedelic touch and some Englishness to it. They scored one huge hit, “Everything I Am”.

RONNIE BIRD
“During the mid-’60s,  Ronnie Bird was the only French artist to successfully emulate the sounds of the British Invasion across the channel. Hewas one of the few French singers with a facility for singing rock & roll in French without sounding strained or embarrassing. His first few discs were crafted with the help of expatriate guitarist  Mickey Baker, the same  Mickey Baker who was half of Mickey and Sylvia (…) For a time, Brid’s band included guitarist Mick Jones, who went on to fame with Foreigner in the ’70s”. (review by Richard Unterberger, allmusic.com) . Ronnie Bird opened for The Rolling Stones in Brussels, 1966.

TAJ MAHAL
“Taj Mahal‘s debut album was a startling statement in its time and has held up remarkably well. Recorded in August of 1967, it was as hard and exciting a mix of old and new blues sounds as surfaced on record in a year when even a lot of veteran blues artists (mostly at the insistence of their record labels) started turning toward psychedelia. The guitar virtuosity, embodied in Taj Mahal‘s slide work (which had the subtlety of a classical performance), Jesse Ed Davis‘s lead playing, and rhythm work by Ry Cooder and Bill Boatman, is of the neatly stripped-down variety that was alien to most records aiming for popular appeal, and the singer himself approached the music with a startling mix of authenticity and youthful enthusiasm (…) . one of the most quietly, defiantly iconoclastic records of 1968” (www.allmusic.com, review by Bruce Eder).

KEITH RICHARDS: CROSSEYED HEART

“Richards’ solo career has never been about seeking the spotlight. When he occasionally broke from the Stones over the years, the decision was always about finding a garage band rooted in his steadfast blues sensibilities while Jagger chased trends. Crosseyed Heart features Richards once again backed by Jordan, who co-wrote the album, and other members of X-Pensive Winos, including vocalist Sarah Dash and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. With the Winos behind him, Richards has the confidence and talent to serve up another convincing sampler of any genre he chooses: horn-bolstered, she-left-me reggae (“Love Overdue”); pedal steel-accented, done-me-wrong country (“Robbed Blind”); and guitar-driven garage blues (“Blues in the Morning”) that threatens to blow the doors off that garage like a meth lab explosion”. http://consequenceofsound.net

JORMA KAUKONEN: 

“A Jefferson Airplane pilot chills with pals on an acoustic set.
Once a pioneer of San Francisco psychedelia, Jorma Kaukonen is a bona fide graybeard folk swami at age 74. His latest LP  (AIN’T IN NO HURRY) is all austere, unplugged displays of the Piedmont finger style that’s been his signature since his 1966 Jefferson Airplane showpiece “Embryonic Journey.” There are covers and originals: “The Terrible Operation” is a randy 1930s blues number that recalls Hot Tuna’s “Keep on Truckin’ ”; longtime wingman Jack Casady adds bass on “Bar Room Crystal Ball,” a gentle jammer spangled with Larry Campbell’s iridescent pedal steel. And Jorma? He mostly lays back, a master in situ, unfurling melodies and savoring every note”. (rollingstone.com)
Singer, guitarist and songwriter Kaukonen (1940) is mainly known as a founder-member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.