How Good It Is

Despite the allusion in the title, today’s song has no spiritual content or religious references. It’s just a description of life on the road with a hard rock band that’s paying its dues. And, as the band members would tell you, they were–and are–a rock band, not a punk band, thank you very much. AC/DC was formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in their hometown of Sydney, Australia. The band name came from an electrical adapter on a sewing machine owned by their sister and not, dear reader, from the street slang that hints at one’s sexual orientation. Within two months, the brothers Young were in the studio at their first recording sessions, and five months after that’s they were touring Australia supporting and opening for Lou Reed. Their first lead singer, Bon Scott, joined the band in time to record their first studio album, High Voltage, in November 1974. That record was released in a limited market at first, but it did give the band its first Top 20 hit (“Baby, Please Don’t Go”) and their first radio play in the United States. The follow-up, T.N.T., led to an international deal with Atlantic Records in 1976. The next five years were undoubtedly the golden years for the band. Their third offering, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, was released in late 1976, and the band toured extensively around Australia, Europe and the Americas for the better part of the next three years. Put yourself in their shoes — 4 albums in as many years, with each album requiring at least 128 concerts a year — and you’d start to think of the road as being hellish. And that’s the origin of the song we dive into in this episode.

Today’s episode is about a song that was written just up the hill from where I was born and in the same town where my wife and and I were wed. So it most definitely “strikes close to home.” Neil Young had emerged from the great north woods of Canada into the public limelight in the mid–1960s. He joined up with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay to create the Buffalo Springfield, an LA-based band that asked the musical question “Stop, hey, what’s that sound” before disintegrating – but not before Young himself had quit and rejoined the band several times. Then, in 1969, he made a self-titled solo album that had great songs, including “The Loner,” (one of my personal favorites) but which didn’t sell well. And then Young really came into his own. His second solo album got him some much needed publicity, and he hit a creative chord with an ensemble of garage musicians that he dubbed Crazy Horse. His next stop was to sign on with Crosby, Stills, and Nash (wherein he added his own last name to the group) and played the Woodstock festival with them. His participation in the CSNY album Deja Vu brought him both acclaim and paychecks, which he used to purchase a sprawling ranch in the mountains of the San Francisco Bay Area. One day, Young took a ride around his newly purchased estate with the property’s caretaker, who was at least forty years older than Young at the time. The two men had a long conversation, and the result of that little open-air chat became the basis of one of Young’s most enduring acoustic songs. Let’s find out how the song came together, who played on it, and how the listening public took to it.

Hidy, friends and neighbors. Good to be partnering up with Claude on another podcasting project! This episode is about a song whose title vaguely sounds like the result of a chemical spill, but which is actually a classic piece of rockabilly. John Fogerty and his brother Tom were natives of Northern California, and their family vacations often were to a cabin in Yolo County, just west of Sacramento. That cabin was next to both a lake and a creek, and the Fogerty boys would play in and around that creek during vacations. And yes, you’ve guessed it, the water there did have a greenish tint because of algae and other natural phenomena. Coincidentally, Green River was John’s favorite flavor of soda pop as well (though I’m not sure I would drink anything with that name these days). Fast forward a few years to the mid 1960s, and John and Tom, along with their buddies Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, are in a local band called the Golliwogs. They picked a new name in January 1968, shortly after they got their record contract, and were thereafter known as Creedence Clearwater Revival. They followed the natural route of local gigs, then national tours, and then record releases. The song titles are familiar: Susie Q, Bad Moon Rising, Born on the Bayou, Proud Mary (which Claude covered on an episode of How Good It Is a while back, and then the song that hearkened back to John’s salad days at that creek in Yolo County. Give it a listen to see how Roy Orbison rubbed off on the boys from El Cerrito, and how the song fits into the overall CCR legacy. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Where have I been? Life, Cousin. Life got in the way. A lot of things sidetracked me, and even though I was keeping the feed for this show active, I still had several moments of “Yeah! Gonna get back to it soon!” alongside an equal number of “why bother?” moments. I’ve also been working on a different podcast project with Mike Messner, who you might remember from a couple of Gordon Lightfoot episodes we did here. I talk about it during the episode, but you can check it out here. Mike convinced me that there was still more to say; in addition he wanted to help me say it. In addition, I wanted to move the show a little closer to its original educational roots. There’s more about that during the episode, too. So, bigger picture: Mike is going to take on some of the hosting duties, and I’m going to be doing a mix of new shows and a re-work of old shows. We have roughly the next 20 or so episodes mapped out, and while Mike will be writing and producing his own stuff, I’ll be reviewing scripts and dealing with final production, plus I’ll be dealing with the show notes (the stuff you read here) for the time being. Have a listen, get The Rest Of The StoryTM, and let’s re-light this candle!

In case you haven’t heard, we’re on a little bit of a journey, meeting various women who have had an influence on multiple pop songs. In today’s episode we’ll be visiting Rosanna Arquette. The interesting thing here is that whether or not the songs in this episode are about Rosanna has been an on-again, off-again mystery. For a while they’re not, then they are again, and maybe, maybe not. Personally I think the evidence is there, although I can accept the explanation that there are other models for one song and there’s a deliberate ambiguity in the other, because of the nature of the music that was influencing the singer. At any rate, there’s a terrific storm going on tonight and I’ve already lost power briefly one time; let me get this out before there’s another outage. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Paid members get a newsletter 48 times per year and ad-free episodes. Free members get the newsletter on a delayed basis.  

After this many episodes, it gives me a moment of “Huh, isn’t that interesting” when I start writing the post for an episode and discover that I haven’t covered a song from that particular year before. In this case, that year would be 1956. In retrospect, that shouldn’t be a surprise, given that we’re reaching waaay back into the early days of the Pop music era. But it’s still a fun little statistic, regardless. “In the Still of the Night” was originally “In the Still of the Nite,” partly because they didn’t want this song to be confused with a 1936 song written by Cole Porter and recorded several times over the years. The other reason is that it was a little bit of a trend to spell “Nite” like that. (See also The Dells’ “Oh What a Nite”.) Later on the spelling changed to the more conventional style, and you’d often see “(I’ll Remember)” tacked on. Why it’s “I’ll remember” and not “I remember”, I have no idea. This wasn’t relevant to the broader story, but in 1986 Ronnie Milsap recorded a song called “Lost in the Fifties Tonight”, where he recounts some fond memories from listening to this song. As part of the chorus he actually sings a few bars of this song. That song went to #1 on the Billboard Country Chart and earned Milsap a Grammy for Best Country Male Performance. And finally, I didn’t promise this during the episode, but here’s the song from the Trivia Question (go listen to the episode first!): This link doesn’t have any actual video to it, but do a search and you’ll catch a lot of fun videos associated with the song. You won’t even mind hearing it repeatedly because it’s a genuine banger. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times a year (I never counted, but I don’t skip weeks often) and now they get advance access to ad-free episodes.

By 1968, Glen Campbell had moved from session musician to a star in his own right. His single “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” written by Jimmy Webb, was a huge hit for him. So when Campbell decided he needed another song, he turned back to Webb and asked him for another song. For whatever reason, he asked Webb to make it a song about a specific location. Webb, at that time, was in the business of writing as many songs as possible about his ex, a woman named Susan Horton. (Coincidentally, Jim Holvay was also spending a lot of time writing songs about a woman named Susan, go figure.) Susan Horton was at the heart of “Phoenix” and “MacArthur Park, which had just been released when Campbell came calling again. So he cranked out yet another song ostensibly about Susan. That song was “Wichita Lineman.” Now, Webb wasn’t as obvious about Susan as Holvay was, but in all of these songs you can hear some sense of loss and longing, so it’s pretty clear that he had it bad for her. And between Webb’s nearly-finished work and the production values that Campbell and producer/arranger Al De Lory, before long they had a genuine masterpiece on their hands. And honest to god, why haven’t I covered this song back when the show was still in single digits? What else haven’t I covered that really needs some attention? Drop me an email at howgoodpodcast@gmail.com! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times a year, plus a few other goodies from time to time.

…before we were so rudely interrupted… This is a song that I’m long-overdue in covering, if only because of the backstory it has. It’s simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking. It’s a love letter from lyricist Doc Pomus to his wife. That’s not unusual, of course. Many songwriters compose songs dedicated to a loved one. But this one has an extra special twist to it. I shan’t spoil it here, though: you’ll have to actually listen to the show. So in this episode we’ll learn about the genius of Doc Pomus, the genius of Dick Clark, and a little bit about children’s television. Click here to support the show as a Patron. Patrons receive a weekly newsletter about 48 times a year.

I don’t often play favorites on this show; in fact there have been a couple of songs I genuinely disliked, but I covered them anyway because the story behind them was kind of interesting. And I think you’d be hard-pressed to identify those songs, because I do try to be even-handed. However. I am going to take the time to gush about “Tiny Dancer” just a little bit, because it’s one of my favorite songs by Elton John, and it may even be somewhere in my all-time Top Ten, if I took the time to compose such a list. Actually, I’ve already taken that time, and here’s the episode. Before you listen, however, I will note that my wife doesn’t really like this song, and I can’t convince her to sing along with me on the chorus. Ever. Spoilsport. And, as promised, here’s the “Tiny Dancer” clip from the 2000 film Almost Famous: Kate Hudson shoulda been a bigger star. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

One of my favorite titles for an album comes from The Animals. They did a bunch of albums up to 1969, then for a year or two there were a couple of compilation albums after they broke up. But in 1977 the Animals reunited and released a new album, titled Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. I don’t know what made me think of that. Anyway. (heh.) This was one of those episodes where, the more I found, the more there was TO find. And so what I thought would be a relatively short episode clocks in at close to twenty minutes. What a bonus for ye! “Without You” has humble beginnings and a huge, happy ending, except for the composers, Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Although it was a huge hit for Harry Nilsson and later Mariah Carey, neither composer saw much money for it. They, themselves, didn’t see much potential in the song, so they buried it in the dead center of the album, at the end of Side 1. Then in 1975, after years of mismanagement and legal squabbles, Ham committed suicide shortly after learning that all of his money had disappeared. Then, in 1983, following a dispute over royalties from the song, which had been in escrow going back to the Apple Records era, Evans also committed suicide. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. As a Patron, you get access to a weekly newsletter that publishes at least 48 times per year (stuff happens once in awhile, ya know?). You also get occasional goodies like: Giveaways Special videos Bonus Episodes A Sense of Pride for Having Helped Foster an Independent Creator

You might remember a few episodes back when I teamed up with Mike Messner. He’s the host of the Gordon Lightfoot appreciation podcast Carefree Highway Revisited. Well, Mike is back, and this time around we’re talking about Lightfoot’s first big American hit, “If You Could Read My Mind.” I actually went looking around for the album that I’d first heard this song on, and it turned out that I was exactly correct about its title: This was a four-album box set that came out in 1973, so clearly the folks at Warner Brothers didn’t have a lot of hope for the rest of the decade, musically. However, this is a pretty amazing collection. I don’t think K-Tel ever put anything like this together. And it’s a shame that A) it’s never appeared in cassette or CD format; and B) it’s not likely to be, considering the nightmare it’s got to be to get the rights to them by now. (You can get it on 8-track tape if you’re so motivated, according to Discogs.) At any rate, I’ve actually wanted to cover this song for a long while, but didn’t really have enough material for an entire episode, so I was glad to have Mike along for the ride this time around. Click here to support the show via Patreon. As a reminder: Patrons of the show get a newsletter in their email box every Sunday, whether there’s a new episode or not. So I’ve been keeping them apprised of what’s been happening in the news and in my life. They’ve been following me through the “medical issue” that I alluded to early in this episode. And they’ll be getting something extra-special in the next week or two. This show doesn’t have a transcript except for the one provided by the Blubrry player.

Over the last several years, radio stations have been snapped up by large corporations. Then, as a cost-cutting measure, certain functions have been centralized. One of these has been the stations’ playlists, the literal list of songs that a station has in its rotation. This has led to a homogenization of radio stations and it kind of makes them not as much fun to listen to when you travel. That said, there are going to be variations to the playlists depending on requests and local tastes. For instance, Billboard lists the Top Song of 2022 as “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy, but in Charlotte, North Carolina it comes out as #16 for the year. In Baltimore, there’s a Christmas-related song that’s a perennial favorite among the locals. However, it gets next to zero airplay anywhere else. And the song’s author and performer is fine with that, because he knows that the song is very Baltimore-centric. His name is David DeBoy, and his song is called “Crabs for Christmas.” David DeBoy is a local theater actor, a television and movie performer, a voiceover artist, a motivational speaker, and a generally cool guy. And I’m not saying that because he responded so quickly to my request for an interview. In today’s episode we spend some time talking about his career overall and some of the stories connected to “Crabs for Christmas.” And I think my opening question may have caught him by surprise. Later this week I’ll have another Baltimore-oriented holiday song for you, and a chat with that song’s composer and performer. Click here to visit Dave DeBoy’s website. Click here to support this show through Patreon. (Sorry, no transcripts for interview shows. However, the Blubrry podcast player is now supposed to generate one automatically, so let’s see how well that works. )

If you haven’t been paying attention (and, based on the download statistics, you haven’t), I’m part of a second podcast, where I take on more of a support role than as the lead voice. The show is called Words and Movies, in which my partner Sean Gallagher and I choose a pair of films and find the links between them. In an upcoming episode, we discuss a film from 2007 called Honeydripper, starring Danny Glover. There’s a scene involving Glover’s character and a blind musician played by Keb’ Mo’, who sings a couple of bars of “Stagger Lee,” causing Glover to mutter, “I hate that song.” We don’t find out why until later in the film, but (spoiler alert) it’s because when he was younger, he’d been in an incident similar to the one outlined in the song. The interesting thing here, though, is that the song “Stagger Lee” was always about one man killing another. But when Lloyd Price recorded the song, he recorded two versions: one in which one man kills another over a dice game, and another where they merely get into a fight over a pretty girl. (The second version was for American Bandstand and for radio consumption in more conservative areas of the country.) The experience that Glover’s character went through as a younger man appears to be a mashup of both versions of the song. At any rate, “Stagger Lee” as a song has a very rich history, and it turns out to be rooted in a true story. Many times, when doing the research for an episode I reach a point where the more I dig, the more I find myself going in circles. This time, I tapped a rich mine of information, to the point where I found myself having to decide what to keep and what to toss to keep the episode to a reasonable length. Enjoy! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.