Happy birthday to Donovan Leitch born on this day May 10, 1946. The Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer emerged from the British folk scene in early 1965, and subsequently scored multiple international hit singles and albums during the late 1960s.

His work became emblematic of the flower power era with its blend of folk, pop, psychedelic rock, and jazz stylings.

In September 1966 Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” topped the charts worldwide followed by the hits “Mellow Yellow,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and Wear Your Love Like Heaven.”

Donovan became friends with many prominent musicians including @thebeatles.

In 1968 Donovan was part of the group that traveled to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh. The visit gained worldwide attention thanks to the presence of all four Beatles as well as Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love, as well as actress Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence (who inspired Lennon to write “Dear Prudence”).

According to a 1968 Paul McCartney interview with Radio Luxembourg, it was during this time that Donovan taught Lennon and McCartney finger-picking guitar styles including the clawhammer, which he had learned from Mac MacLeod.

Lennon used this technique on songs including “Dear Prudence,” “Julia,”“Happiness is a Warm Gun” and McCartney with “Blackbird” and “Mother Nature’s Son.”

Donovan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.

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Carmine Appice announces new Cactus album with massive all-star lineup.

“Temple of Blues” - Influences & Friends” features contributions from Joe Bonamassa, Pat Travers, Warren Haynes, Vernon Reid and many more.

Original Cactus guitarist Jim McCarty also appears on the album, as does Appice’s Vanilla Fudge bandmate Mark Stein, who sings on a cover of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.”

“The music of Cactus has always been steeped in blues tradition,” says Appice. “We kept hearing from so many of our music celebrity friends how much Cactus influenced them and how they would love to be a guest on a Cactus album.“

Cactus: “Temple of Blues - Influences & Friends” tracklist
1. Parchman Farm feat. Joe Bonamassa & Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big / David Lee Roth)
2. Bro. Bill feat. Randy Jackson (Zebra), Randy Pratt (Cactus) & Bob Daisley (Ozzy Osbourne)
3. Guiltless Glider feat. Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Guns N’ Roses) & Phil Soussan (Ozzy Osbourne)
4. Evil feat. Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) & Dug Pinnick (King’s X)
5. One Way...Or Another feat. Dug Pinnick (King’s X) & Ted Nugent
6. Alaska feat. Johnny A. & Tony Franklin (The Firm)
7. No Need To Worry feat. Warren Haynes (Gov’t Mule) & Jorgen Carlsson (Gov’t Mule)
8. Oleo feat. Steve Stevens (Billy Idol) & Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big / David Lee Roth)
9. Big Mama Boogie feat. Pat Travers & James Caputo (Cactus)
10. You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover|
11. Rock N’ Roll Children feat. Britt Lightning (Vixen), Vernon Reid (Living Colour) & Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot)
12. Let Me Swim feat. Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake) & Marco Mendoza (Blue Murder)
13. Restrictions feat. Ty Tabor (King’s X) & Phil Soussan (Ozzy Osbourne)
14. Long Tall Sally feat. Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge) & Fernando Perdomo 
Bonus Track
15. Guiltless Glider feat. Tim “Ripper” Owens (Judas Priest)

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Who sang lead vocals on the most songs by The Beatles?

@thebeatles did not start out with an undisputed leader. As Paul McCartney and George Harrison have both attested to, John Lennon was the one the others looked to as their main man.

As such, Lennon was also arguably The Beatles’ first lead singer, a role he soon found himself sharing with songwriting partner Paul McCartney.

Nonetheless, McCartney’s songwriting and vocal abilities made him the perfect complement for Lennon, and it was actually a McCartney-led composition that became the band’s first single.

‘Love Me Do’ was released in 1962, with McCartney singing the lead vocals of the middle eight, while sharing the lead harmonies of the verses with Lennon.

It was a McCartney lead vocal that first appeared on American television as well, as The Beatles opened their historic first 1964 set on The Ed Sullivan Show with ‘All My Loving.’

Just over a month later, McCartney became the first Beatle to feature as the sole lead vocalist on a single release, with his composition ‘Can’t Buy Me Love.’

The Beatles no longer had a band leader per se. If anything, in the band’s later years, McCartney would be taking charge of things from album concepts to business decisions.

So was McCartney more of a lead singer in The Beatles than Lennon?

For argument’s sake, any song which features one of The Beatles on lead vocals, even just for a short section, will count towards their total, as will joint-lead vocals.

So ‘Love Me Do’ goes to both McCartney and Lennon, for example.

Unsurprisingly, the Beatle with the lowest total number of lead vocals is drummer Ringo Starr, with 13. George Harrison is one up on the list with lead vocal parts on 36 different songs.

Between Lennon and McCartney, the totals are much closer. Paul McCartney has 106 songs on which he sings lead or joint-lead vocals.

But it’s John Lennon who comes out on top, with a whopping 115 lead vocal parts. Not bad, for a recording period spanning just seven years.

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Happy birthday to Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Traffic co-founder @davemasonmusic born on this day May 10, 1946.

Mason served three stints with Traffic beginning with their first two albums.

Mason has went on to play with many pop and rock musicians, including Paul McCartney, George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Steve Winwood, Fleetwood Mac, Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell, and Cass Elliot.

One of Mason’s best known songs “Feelin’ Alright” became a hit for Joe Cocker in 1969 and later for many others. Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know” became a signature song for Delaney and Bonnie.

Mason’s first solo album “Alone Together” is considered a classic.

Mason is a proponent of music education for children. In 2005, he signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments and lessons to children in American public schools. He sits on the organization’s board of directors as an honorary member.

Mason and his longtime friend Ted Knapp have founded Rock Our Vets, an all-volunteer charity supported by many other musicians, helping military veterans and the families of law enforcement and firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty. The charity has focused on providing food and clothing to homeless veterans, laptop computers for veterans.

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Happy birthday to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Ritchie Furay born on this day May 9, 1944.

Furay formed Buffalo Springfield with Neil Young and Stephen Stills and was one of the band’s three lead singers.

Furay sang lead for Buffalo Springfield on the Neil Young-penned songs “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” and “Do I Have to Come Right and Say it” and his own composition “Kind Woman.”

He later went on to form country rock band Poco with Randy Meisner, Jim Messina and Timothy B. Schmidt.

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On this day May 9,1970 The Guess Who topped the charts for the first and only time with their anthem “American Woman.”

The song came about by accident when guitarist Randy Bachman was playing a heavy riff on stage after he had broken a string and the band had taken a break.

The other members joined in on the jam and lead singer Burton Cummings started singing the first thing that came into his head. A fan in the audience captured it all on tape and presented it to the group after the show. It was quickly developed into a full song in the studio and ended as the band’s biggest hit.

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This week’s Rush Hour Blues gets you ready for @callmekingfish’s May 16 show at @the.centerofthearts

Join Sacramento’s K-ZAP this Friday, 5p as your host Cale Wiggins digs into the music of this defining blues’ voice of his generation. Keep a particular ear out for a rare live track from this young bluesman.

RHB is sponsored by @blackrockauto,1313 C Street, Sacramento. “They can do stuff.”

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On this day May 8, 1970 @thebeatles released “Let It Be” their twelfth and final studio album.

The album’s release came a month after the group’s public break-up, in tandem with the documentary of the same name.

Concerned about recent friction within the band, Paul McCartney had conceived the project as an attempt to reinvigorate the group by returning to simpler rock ‘n’ roll configurations.

“Let It Be” contains some of The Beatles most famous songs including “Get Back,” “Let It Be” and “I’ve Got A Feeling.”

In 2003 Paul McCartney, long unhappy with the original Phil Spector produced Let It Be LP, initiated a remix of the album, titled “Let It Be... Naked.”

The album was presented as an alternative attempt to capture the original artistic vision of the project, to “get back” to the rock and roll sound of the band’s early years.

The album features alternate takes, edits, and mixes of the songs, mainly removing elements added by Spector. The album omits the group chatter, “Maggie Mae” and “Dig It,” and adds a live rooftop performance of “Don’t Let Me Down,” a song omitted from the original album and issued as the B side of the “Get Back” single in 1969.

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“We shall return” - Is Chris Frantz teasing a @talkingheadsofficial reunion?

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz has sparked rumours of a possible reunion of the band with a social media post reading: “We shall return.”

Frantz posted an image on his Instagram page of a black and white theatre marquee with the main banner saying “TALKING HEADS,” alongside “Dec 13, 14, 15, 16, 8pm,” and “Tix at all ticketron outlets.”

The image has a lot of historic meaning for the New York new wave legends. The Pantages Theatre is famously where the band recorded their iconic live movie and album ‘Stop Making Sense’ in December 1983. Fans are speculating that this image and message might be a sign of the band returning to the stage.

This could however, simply be referring to the fact that the band will be returning to the Los Angeles venue for a Q&A and screening of the film next month.

On June 4, A Night Of Stop Making Sense will see the band talk about the iconic film alongside a performance from Blondshell.

The four musicians have had a complicated relationship since their breakup in 1991. They reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th-anniversary reissue of the film, while in 2002, they came together to perform four songs at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony – their only live performance since 1984.

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@thereallerxst says he’s jamming with @geddyimages again – but they sound like a “really bad tribute band” at times.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Lifeson unveils what’s happening behind the scenes and why there are currently no plans to take their songs out on the road.

“It’s funny because we sound like a really bad tribute band for the first three or four run-throughs on these things,” he reveals. “It’s ‘Oh, my God, what did I play there? Why did I play that so hard?

“And then muscle memory kicks in, and we’re having a ball doing it. It’s good for the fingers. We’re together in a room like we’ve always been. That’s been really good, but there’s no chance that we’re going to get a drummer and go back on the road as the rebirth of @rush or something like that. And if we wanted to write new material, nobody cares about new material anymore. They just want to hear the old stuff from guys like us.”

Despite these recent jamming sessions and Lee publicly talking about a possible live reunion, Lifeson doubled down that he’s not convinced they should tour again, particularly because of his recent health issues. 

“No, we’ve talked about it in depth, and I was waffling between maybe considering it and not. And then my health issues came up. I know if we went on the road, it couldn’t be like we used to do it.”

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Lifeson explained how doing the book tour with Lee for the bassist’s memoir My Effin’ Life, and their reunion for 2022’s Taylor Hawkins tribute shows temporarily reignited his passion for touring.

“So for a little while I thought, you know, it’d be kind of good to get back out,” he mused. “And then I thought… nah, not really.”

However, he didn’t exclude any further song collaborations with Lee. “I mean, we toured for 40 years. I’m not interested in going back out on tour. I don’t wanna sit in a hotel room for hours and hours and hours to work for a couple of hours. 

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@thetubesgroup’ Debut Album By Flamboyant New Wave Headline-Grabbers

The 1975 debut album by the larger-than-life San Francisco band.

A significant contribution to the new wave of music that was bubbling up from the underground in 1975, in both Europe and America, came from the San Francisco sound of the larger-than-life Tubes. The band’s self-titled debut album released in June 1975.

The Tubes teamed the flamboyant group, fronted by Fee Waybill, with the production skills of widely-travelled rocker Al Kooper. The group had come together in San Francisco from origins among school friends in two bands, the Beans and the Red, White and Blues Band, back in Arizona.

Drummer Prairie Prince, born in Charlotte, North Carolina on May 7, 1950, is also an accomplished artist, typifying the band’s broad palette. As the Tubes, their colorful songs and stage delivery soon won them a live audience.

The tongue-in-cheek and deliberately over-the-top “White Punks On Dope” would go on to be one of the songs that united the British and American new wave movements.

“It’s about a bunch of rich kids we knew,” said co-writer and Tubes guitarist Bill Spooner. “You see all those ads on TV about drugs in the ghetto, and they say, it’s not their fault. They were born poor, and all they had to turn to was drugs. Well, in San Francisco, we know a whole bunch of these kids that are so rich, and they’re all strung out, and they’re total derelicts. So you don’t have to be poor to be a derelict.”

From the outset of “Up From The Deep,” it’s an endearingly oddball, episodic soundscape with myriad influences, tempo changes, big strings and much more.

“Haloes,” for example, has a melodic and edgy urgency somewhat reminiscent of Todd Rundgren, with a great drum pattern from Prairie Prince.

They typify a notable recording debut by a band who never took themselves too seriously, but had huge talent to reinforce their individuality.

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@mikecampbellofficial Recruits Chris Stapleton, Graham Nash for New LP ‘Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits’

His third record with the Dirty Knobs, out June 14, also features guest spots by @lucinda_williams and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench.

Many of the songs on Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits are new, but “Dare to Dream,” “Hands Are Tied,” “Angel of Mercy,” “Don’t Want Up,” and “Hell or High Water” all came from Campbell’s vast archive. “Back in the day, I would write songs and then give them to my partner Tom, and that’s all I ever did with them,” Campbell says. “I gave him so much he couldn’t possibly ever deal with it all. I stuck a lot up on the shelf for future assessment. And so here I am in the future and I pulled them out.”

Campbell and Williams swap lead vocals on the moving, country-tinged “Hell or High Water.” “Watching her sing almost brought me to tears,” says Campbell. “The song took on a whole new depth once she did her part. I was really lucky to get her.”

Campbell and the Dirty Knobs are kicking off a summer tour June 21 in Skokie, Illinois.

The set will focus on songs from the group’s three albums, but will dip into the Heartbreakers catalog: At their first show of 2024, they played “Listen to Her Heart,” “Fault Lines,” “Refugee,” “Rockin’ Around (With You),” “You Wreck Me,” and “Running Down a Dream.”

“I’m still grieving,” Campbell says. “It’s a bittersweet thing. We do an old song because I still miss my brother. But he’s still alive in those songs. I do those songs pretty close to how they should be done.“

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On this evening May 7, 1967 @jeffersonairplane touring behind the recently released “Surrealistic Pillow” played UC Davis’ Freeborn Hall with the Steve Miller Blues’ Band.

The UCD concert was the band’s second show that day having played earlier at the Frost Amphitheater on the Stanford campus.

See the Sacramento setlist below:

* Somebody to Love 

* White Rabbit 

* She Has Funny Cars 

* Embryonic Journey

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How @ronniewood Joined @therollingstones

Though, now, fans couldn’t imagine The Rolling Stones without Ronnie Wood, there was a time when he was merely dreaming of being in the band. He got his wish in 1976. The events that led up to Wood joining the rock outfit were happenstance.

Before Wood joined the group, guitar duties were being handled by Keith Richards and Mick Taylor. Though many fans consider Taylor’s run as one of the best legs of the Stone’s lengthy career, it came to a close due to the guitarist’s issues with songwriting credits and drug addiction.

Meanwhile, Wood was amassing an illustrious career as a solo artist and a member of many bands. Among the groups he joined include the Jeff Beck Group and Faces. Despite his past success, it was the Stones he was gunning for.

“I always knew I was gonna end up in this band,” Wood further explained. “I remember walking around the periphery of Hyde Park in ’69, and this big car pulls up through a whole sea of people and out steps Mick and Charlie. Mick comes up and says, ‘Ullo, Face,’ which is what he called me then, ’cause I was in the Faces. And we talk away for a while and then they say, ‘Okay, we gotta go and play. We’ll see you soon.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sooner than you think.’ I was always confident I would end up in this band, and a few years later I did.”

Wood first got in touch with the Stones at a party that was attended by several heavy weight rockers. Wood met Mick Jagger and instantly forged a connection–one that would eventually earn him a permanent spot in the Stones.

“I wanted someone that was easy to get on with, you know, that wasn’t too difficult and that was a good player and was used to playing onstage,” Jagger once said. “It’s quite a lot to ask of someone to come and do a big American tour with a band like the Stones, you know? I mean, not that I think the Stones are any really big deal, but it tends to be a bit of a paralyzing experience for people. You know what I mean? And I wanted someone that wasn’t going to be phased out.”

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How @thebyrdsofficial Launched a New Chapter With ‘Eight Miles High’

When the Byrds kicked off the second phase of their multistage career in March 1966 with the release of “Eight Miles High,” they also happened to launch a new chapter in rock history.

The quintet pretty much spent the previous year mining the @bobdylan songbook, fine-tuning its own collective songwriting talents and perfecting the folk-rock genre with chart-topping singles like “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

One day, a friend of David Crosby’s played jazz great John Coltrane’s 1961 album “Africa/Brass,” which incorporated Afro-Indian improvisations into a more traditional big-band setting.

The music “seared through the center of my chest like a white-hot poker,” noted Roger McGuinn - who, like Crosby, was one of the Byrds’ three singers, songwriters and guitarists - in 2006’s “There Is a Season”box set.

From the start, the Byrds knew they were getting into something new and significant with “Eight Miles High.” In early 1966, there still wasn’t much that sounded like it.

But they took it even further in “Eight Miles High,” capping it with a head-spinning guitar solo based on a jazz progression inspired by Coltrane.

McGuinn explained that his solo “wasn’t mapped out”; instead, he had a “basic skeleton” borrowed from a four-note “Africa/Brass”riff he then improvised on.

While band members denied the allegation at the time, they eventually admitted that the track was indeed a drug song. “We were [even] stoned when we wrote it,” Crosby said in the 1998 book The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited.

Still, it wasn’t so much the song’s subtext as its unconventional structure that abetted “Eight Miles High’s” struggle on the charts: Not only was its three-and-a-half-minute running time considerably longer than most radio singles in 1966, there weren’t a whole lot of pop songs grabbing inspiration from John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar back then either.

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Behind the Album: ‘Making Movies,’ Dire Straits’ Musical Peak

“Making Movies,” which was released in 1980 and features some of @markknopfler’s finest songwriting, as well as a sound somehow both tighter and more expansive than what the band had managed previously.

To that end, they brought in young producer Jimmy Iovine, who had just shepherded “Damn the Torpedoes” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to massive success, thanks to the his exacting focus on the sound.

But those sessions didn’t always run smooth. David Knopfler, the band’s rhythm guitarist and brother to Mark, left the band after battling with his sibling in the studio. That led Mark to rerecord those parts with help of uncredited session player Sid McGinnis.

“Making Movies was closer to what I like to do. On that record I was determined I would not be immobilized by anything. I was going on to do what I knew I could do,” says Mark Knopfler.

Mark Knopfler’s guitar work is more concise on the records, filling in the gaps, while the rhythm section of bassist John Illsley and drummer Pick Withers chugs along with grit and grace. Iovine’s production makes every element pop, even while leaving enough space for Knopfler’s vocals to tell his stories.

The centerpiece is “Romeo and Juliet,” which stands out as one of the most touchingly wistful love songs. It captures the sweet fumblings of new romance, even as the narrator is speaking from a heartbroken perspective.

“Making Movies” still feels underrated. But when you start to play the thing, you realize just how jam-packed it is with goodness. “Tunnel of Love,” “Solid Rock” and “Expresso Love” all stand out as dynamic uptempo tracks with a lot to say. “Skateaway” is a character sketch that elevates its rollerskating subject to practically heroic status, while “Hand in Hand” finds Knopfler singing with tenderness and vulnerability even as the music stays tough.

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