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Bootsy Collins: I'd Rather Be with You - 1976

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 05:09
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Bootsy Collins is an American funk bassist, singer, and songwriter. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the late 1960s, and with Parliament-Funkadelic in the '70s, Collins's driving bass guitar and humorous vocals established him as one of the leading names in funk. Collins is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.

With his elder brother Phelps, and Kash Waddy and Philippé Wynne, Collins formed a funk band called The Pacemakers in 1968.

In March 1970, after most of the members of James Brown's band quit over a pay dispute, The Pacemakers were hired as Brown's backing band and they became known as The J.B.'s. (They are often referred to as the "original" J.B.'s to distinguish them from later line-ups that went by the same name.) Although they worked for Brown for only 11 months, the original J.B.'s played on some of Brown's most intense funk recordings, including "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine", "Super Bad", "Soul Power", and "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing".

It is known that the young Bootsy clashed several times with the rigid system Brown used to discipline the young band whenever he felt they stepped out of line.

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Sammy Davis, Jr.: Suntory White - 1970's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 04:35
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Suntory was one of the first Asian companies to specifically employ American celebrities to market their product. One of the most notable is Sammy Davis, Jr., who appeared in a series of memorable Suntory commercials in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s, Akira Kurosawa directed a famous series of commercials featuring American celebrities on the set of his film Kagemusha.

Sammy Davis, Jr. was an American entertainer. Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis was a childhood vaudevillian, and became known for his performances on Broadway and in Las Vegas, as a recording artist, television and film star, and the only black member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack".

At the age of three Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and "uncle" as the Will Mastin Trio, toured nationally, and after military service, returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's after the 1951 Academy Awards, with the trio, became a recording artist, and made his first film performances as an adult later that decade. Losing his left eye in a car accident in 1954, he converted to Judaism and appeared in the first Rat Pack movie, Ocean's Eleven, in 1960.

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Frank Zappa: Interview with Norman Gunston ABC-TV Australia - 1973

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 03:49
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Frank Zappa was no stranger to Australia and its wildlife. Inspired by a monotreme encountered during his 1973 tour, the avant-rock polymath composed a complex jazz-fusion instrumental entitled ‘Echidna’s Arf (Of You)’. Three years later, he came face-to-face with that even rarer antipodean creature, the little Aussie bleeder, Norman Gunston.

Gunston was then at the height of his fame as a no-holds-barred interviewer and multifaceted television variety-show host. His hugely successful program, The Norman Gunston Show, screened weekly on the ABC, and few visiting entertainers escaped being ambushed and subjected to a penetrating interrogation. During the dismissal of Whitlam, Gunston appeared on the steps of Parliament House, where he buttonholed political luminaries.

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Martin Denny: "Quiet Village" from Webley Edwards' "Hawaii Calls"- 1950's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sat, 06/19/2010 - 21:52
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Here's a rare clip of Martin Denny and his group playing their most popular tune, "Quiet Village", on Webley Edwards "Hawaii Calls."

Martin Denny was an American piano-player and composer best known as the "father of exotica." In a long career that saw him performing well into his 80s, he toured the world popularizing his brand of lounge music which included exotic percussion, imaginative rearrangements of popular songs, and original songs that celebrated Tiki culture.

His combo spawned two successful offshoots: Julius Wechter (of Baja Marimba Band fame) and exotica vibist Arthur Lyman.

Hawaii Calls was a radio program that ran from 1935 through 1975 that featured live Hawaiian music. It was broadcast each week, usually from the courtyard of the Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach but occasionally from other locations, and hosted by Webley Edwards for almost the entire run. The first show reached the West Coast of the continental United States through shortwave radio. At its height, it was heard on over 750 stations around the world. However, when it went off the air in 1975, only 10 stations were airing the show. Because of its positive portrayal of Hawaii, the show received a subsidy for many years—first from the government of the Territory of Hawaii, and then from the State of Hawaii. The termination of the subsidy was one of the reasons that the show went off the air.

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