Another piece from 2015. I loved writing these series and my research quests have only increased over time. I’ve also rearranged things a bit but kept the same general format the original column was in. Six years later there are more names to add. Originally a five-part series, I may just add one or two more “parts” to it down the road. So in all its 2015 glory, I present to you some of the women who rock.
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Through most of 1968, Skip Prokop’s band The Paupers had been touring with new bass player Brad Campbell as they were making their way through recording and releasing their second album for MGM Records called “Ellis Island.” But Skip was getting a taste for session work and expanding his musical horizons beyond a 4-piece rock and roll ensemble. It was leading him to decisions that would change his life and Canadian music forever…
Adam Mitchell was an integral new addition to The Paupers on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Bernie Finkelstein had come on board as manager and wasted no time getting the band signed to MGM Records stateside. It was a springboard for what was to come. Bernie wanted to showcase the band to their new American label. It meant heading to the USA.
In 2012 I took on the task of interviewing internationally renowned drummer Skip Prokop on what we thought would be a quick set of sessions to lay down the most interesting stories from his impressive career as drummer for The Paupers and Lighthouse with side projects involving Peter Paul & Mary, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass Elliot, and Mike Bloomfield’s ‘Supersession.’
The phone rang for quite a while before I realized it wasn’t part of a dream I was having, but actually ringing in the Real World. Its insistent clatter, sounding more like a fire alarm than a phone, woke me from some quality REM sleep and a dream I do not recall except for the dim memory of naked hippie girls with flowers in their hair and sex on their minds, all dancing before me in a sylvan glen surrounded by a stand of Giant Sequoias in which, besides the lovely bevy of lustful chickies named Moonbeam, Sunflower and Debbie, there stood a Pink’s Hot Dog Stand and Tony Curtis’s limousine. Go figure.
Too tired to be angry and unable to open my eyes just yet, I groped around in the bed’s headboard until I located the source of my sudden departure from Heaven and wrestled the receiver from its cradle, pranging my wife on the head with the damn thing and waking her up as well.
It was 7:00 am. October 4th 1970 Continue reading
I have “moved” Janis Joplin from my Women in Rock series to this one. When I started the “Women of ……” series, I felt she had a foot in both camps. However, the more I listen to Joplin the more I realize her feet were far more firmly planted in the blues as her voice alone attests. There have been comparisons over the years between Maggie Bell and Janis Joplin. They are reminiscent of each other and that starts with the hair. Scotland is steeped in the blues (just listen to the pipes and some of the Celtic music) but the seeds were planted, and the roots run to the core of the earth, in the U.S.’s “deep south”. Keep in mind, much of the southern U.S. became home to the Scots fleeing the oppressive English in the late 1700’s. Combine that with the African “slave” songs….mix with oppressive heat and stir….so, sometimes I wonder, who exactly influenced whom?
Thoughts and ramblings…..
Let me just wander/wonder for a moment. It’s a simply gorgeous day today (Wednesday) and there are way, way too many diatribes written about “he who shall not be shamed”, south of the 49th parallel. Noodling around in amongst what neurons are actually firing is this thought…… What if we all just simply stopped reporting on his every move, his every tweet, his every fart (cause that’s what comes out of his mouth….gas) What if it ALL just completely halted….any mention of his name or his family’s. No Tweets or tweet responses, no Facebook or Facebook sharing, no comedy shows, no “fun” news (i.e. John Oliver), nadda, zip, bupkis….. NOTHING! A complete blackout for say……48 hours. What would we talk about? What exactly are we missing in other news and stories? My curiosity has got the better of me…. what would “he” do. No attention paid, nothing to rail against, no media outlet to harangue, no “fake news” to protest….. I wonder…….and my neurons wander……
I am swamped with another project that is sucking up all my time during the waking hours. I have less than two weeks to complete it and it’s seems to be growing arms and legs I wasn’t expecting. So…..just to rehash a bit of blues history, specifically the ladies, I thought I’d have my editor post this again as many of you have probably not seen it. I wrote three series, Women of Rock, Women of Blues and Women in Song. The Women of Blues was actually inspired by a contemporary whom I saw for the first time a couple of years ago. She had dedicated her latest album to a female blues artist I had never heard of. Read all about her and the women who contributed so, so much to the genre we call the blues. The famous and not so famous. They were tough, talented, single-minded, sexually liberated, passionate and most of them had more balls than the men. Read on, you might even learn something.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 