Archive: Music

We must have played "Angel Baby" a million times since the only hit from Rosie and the Originals came out in 1961, Art Laboe posts on Facebook.

Been a few years since I posted on the anniversary. But here are a couple of videos.

Every location, in order, researched by reader Don Bentley and his brother.

The singer writes about her performance of a Bob Dylan song at the Nobel Prize ceremony.

The original Filthy McNasty's occupied the Sunset Strip spot now the Viper Room. He also ran FM Station in the Valley.

"Maybe the greatest combination country singer and songwriter of his generation," Robert Hilburn said today.

Evening host Jim Svejda does one-hour interviews with all the Oscar-nominated composers every night this week.

It's a bit of a stretch, but why not? The spider and the singer both dress in black.

Not many top bands with more certifiable Los Angeles roots than the Eagles, who met Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour, became her band and with her blessing went out and dominated the 1970s.

Bowie's social media accounts posted tonight that the musician and actor has died after an 18-month fight with cancer.

Weiland, the singer with Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died at age 48. He was a paste-up guy at the LA Daily Journal in the early 1990s.

Sloan, 70, died Monday night. 'For those who grew up in Southern California in the golden glow of the mid-'60s," Joel Bellman writes, "he produced the soundtrack of our lives."

For her NPR piece on the Day of the Dead celebration at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles correspondent Mandalit del Barco hooked up with El Mariachi Manchester.

The session singer best known for "Gimme Shelter" and "20 Feet From Stardom" had both legs amputated below the knee after a freeway crash. She was honored last week at The Apollo in Harlem.

May 15, 1965 was a bigger than usual Saturday taping night in the KHJ Channel 9 studios.

A clip from Arthur Lee's revered 1967 album "Forever Changes" helps enliven a story on mortgages. Join me in "A House is Not a Motel."

Grace Slick greets the dawn on Max Yasgur's farm on August 17, 1969. Turn up the sound.

If you read one more long piece on the repercussions of last week's story about Jackie Fuchs and her account of being raped by Kim Fowley, I suggest Ann Powers' personal essay for NPR.

Her book does not include Jackie Fuchs' details of being raped by Kim Fowley, the band's creepy creator. Here's why.

The bassist for the 1970s girl band had never talked about the long-rumored incident until now. She collected details from witnesses -- not including Joan Jett, who has yet to acknowledge what she saw.

"5 shows in 9 days, just like the old days," the former basketball great tweets. He has already been to 854 Dead shows.

The Survey Monkey chief executive who reportedly died outside the U.S. while on vacation with his wife -- no details have been released -- was a pioneer in bringing digital music to the Internet.

Bill Gardner soared with his on-air set devoted to the late Ben E. King on Saturday afternoon on KPFK.

Ely co-founded the Portland garage band the Kingsmen and was the lead singer on their 1963 cover of "Louie Louie." Written by Angeleno Richard Berry, "LL" may be the most recorded rock song ever.

"When a Man Loves a Woman" "raised the bar for soul balladeering for all time," the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wrote. Sledge died today in Baton Rouge.

Oh why not? Compliments of New York Magazine's Vulture site.

Choose your poison: the Hullabaloo Dancers or the Gazzarri Dancers?

New poster is here for the film about the LA talent who played on the hit records of the 1960s and 70s.

The renovated and rechristened Forum in Inglewood, former home of the Lakers and Kings, is a hit with music promoters.

In 1961, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer collaborated on a song for the upcoming film "Breakfast at Tiffany's." This is their demo recording.

Look inside and turn up the sound: As I walk this land of broken dreams... I have visions of many things.

Nice Lisa Napoli interview on KCRW with Harvey Kubernik, the author of "Turn Up the Radio: Rock, Pop, and Roll in Los Angeles 1956-1972."

Hilburn profiled Simon for the LA Times during a 1987 stop in Zimbabwe on Simon's tour for "Graceland." Simon & Schuster acquired the book at auction.

Mariachi Los Camperos members perform a final tribute to the troupe's founder and leader.

Natividad Cano, the founder of Los Camperos de Nati Cano — probably the most famous mariachi band to be based in Los Angeles — died Friday at age 81.

Assuming you like Stefani, Shelton or Fallon. You don't even have to like all three.

Wilson, the jazz musician and arranger whose career spanned from 1930s swing to the present, died at home in Los Angeles today at age 96. He had come down with pneumonia two weeks ago.

David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, La Marisoul and artists in Mexico, Argentina, Mali and Congo strum and sing through "La Bamba."

Lennon taped a promotional spot for the Tower Records store on Sunset Strip in 1974, reportedly while in studio at KHJ radio.

"Oh Say Can You Sing: ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in Popular Music" opens September 12. Yes, Hendrix at Woodstock is featured. Plus: A bonus 'O Canada.'

IATSE workers are first told "NO ONE is to bring meat of any kind" to Sunday's McCartney show at Dodger Stadium. The tone has softened a bit, but because McCartney is vegan the menu will be too.

The club on north Lankershim was the premier West Coast venue for country music for a few decades. Los Angeles Magazine revisits the good old days.

Brooklyn's most famous music mogul is at City Hall this morning to announce plans for a festival downtown this summer.

Citing her health, Linda Ronstadt says she won't attend April 10 in Brooklyn. Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Carrie Underwood and Glenn Frey will go instead and make sure she is properly feted.

KCSN has been rocking the LA airwaves more lately and today put out a press release about a phone call from McCartney.

The cracked, splintering benches at the upper level of the Hollywood Bowl were last replaced in 1981. New benches of Alaskan yellow cedar are now being installed.

Robert Anthony "Tony" Gieske worked for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and spent 18 years at the Hollywood Reporter.

Cervenka is putting clothing, instruments, vintage jewelry, vinyl records and other personal items up for bidding in an estate sale that begins Thursday. "She is downsizing and plans on relocating soon," says the website.

Alison Martino has posted perhaps the most fun picture yet, at her Vintage Los Angeles page on Facebook. It names several current LA figures, now grown up.

Pete Seeger, a champion of American folk music and social change since the 1940s, collected songs in the South with Alan Lomax, traveled in California with Woody Guthrie, performed for President Barack Obama — and adapted the civil rights movement anthem "We Shall Overcome."

Sounds as if the Troubadour stage has hosted another memorable show. "Deliriously upbeat," writes Chris Willman for the Hollywood Reporter. Adds Steve Hochman: "Hard to believe anyone could steal a show with a lineup like this. But, well, Rhiannon Giddens."

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers, the influential duo that became one of the first ten groups inducted into the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, died in Burbank at age 74. He had been battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The National Anthem before the Rose Bowl game on Wednesday will be performed by Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer and Judith Hill. You know their voices if not necessarily their names.

The Tucson native shows off her hometown and takes a New York Times Travel reporter into Mexico to visit the birthplace of her grandfather. The van carries enough bags to mount a rock tour. "Except nobody’s looking to score drugs or get laid,” Ronstadt quips.

On December 26, 1963, Capitol Records released an American record from a band that was creating great excitement in the United Kingdom and Europe, but not so much in the United States. Something clicked.

The renowned Crenshaw High School Elite Choir sang today for President Obama and the holiday celebration in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

It was last December 9 that the news came out of Mexico that the popular LA-based singer Jenni Rivera had died in a plane crash. The news led to a crushing outpouring of emotion by her fans and by music critics who knew and admired her, followed by the public struggles of the mainstream news media to figure out the meaning of this mega-star in the Latino world living among us in Encino.

Danny Tedesco says he needs $250,000 to pay the music licensing costs of his film on the legendary Hollywood session musicians.

"Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it!"

LA writer and political blogger Mickey Kaus was the instigator of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground performing in 1968 at a student assembly. He recalls the day.

Filmed at Venice High School in the summer of 1998, the music video that added sex to the image of 16-year-old teeny bopper Britney Spears changed everything forever. Kinda.

After starting in Chicago, Don Cornelius migrated "Soul Train" to Los Angeles and national syndication. This clip with the theme from "Shaft" is from Oct. 1971.

Layoffs and retirements have left no one on staff to repair woodwinds. More than 2,600 broken instruments of all kinds sit on shelves, KPCC says in a story.

I haven't been to enough Writers Bloc events to know if a standing ovation is usual when the author simply comes on stage, but that's what happened tonight in Santa Monica.

LA Times pop music critic Randall Roberts is blown away by some isolated tracks making the rounds on Facebook and YouTube. Before you click, he warns, "it will be virtually impossible to abandon it once you start listening."

Let the reviews begin. Mark Swed says the acoustics are great and "tourists take pleasure in merely touching the building's shiny surfaces. Yet Disney Hall is not what it could be."

Music Man Murray is the record collector who has a huge collection of vinyl kept in a building on Exposition Boulevard near La Brea. He became an actor at age 80.

"If there was something I could work on, I’d work on it till I could get it back," Linda Ronstadt says. "If there was a drug I could take to get it back, I would take the drug. I’d take napalm."

Sarah Horn, a voice teacher in Riverside, just happened to be sitting near the front of the Hollywood Bowl. She knew the words to the song from "Wicked," and now her video is sweeping YouTube.

Linda Ronstadt told the AARP website she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight months ago, after beginning to show symptoms eight years ago. "No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease,” Ronstadt said. “No matter how hard you try.”

Brian Wilson calls "Be My Baby" the "greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.” It came from Phil Spector's Wall of Sound studios in LA with girls from Spanish Harlem whose lives were never the same. The NYT weighs in.

Steven Soboroff has picked up an interesting addition to the typewriter collection we have mentioned here from time to time. It is a Perkins Brailler that was used by the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

An exhibit of of photos taken by the house photographer for the late Country Club is bringing some attention to the days when rockers flocked to Reseda. They would buy vinyl at BeBop Records or attend shows at the Country Club on Sherman Way.

Farren, founder and lead singer of The Deviants, wrote for the LA Reader and City Beat before returning to England in 2010. He collapsed Saturday night while performing with the band in London.

It's '80s night at LA Observed. Moon Zappa does the full version of her odd little hit with father Frank, "Valley Girl," on "Solid Gold." Yes, the Zappas were Valley people.

Oscars ceremonies, Roller Games, cat shows and school concerts are part of the auditorium's legacy, but it's the T.A.M.I Show in 1964 that might be the most enduring memory — at least on film. And no performance measures up to James Brown's.

Blues and R&B legend Bobby "Blue" Bland died Sunday night at his home in Memphis. The singer of "Turn on Your Love Light" and "Further On Up the Road" was known as "the Sinatra of the blues" and worked closely with B.B. King.

Mark Robinson organized the biggest and best rock and roll show to be held within the city limits of Los Angeles. He's now a Newport Beach lawyer. We look back at the first weekend of a historical summer.

Councilman Paul Koretz interrupted Dave Davies' encore at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills to present the former Kinks member with a proclamation — then he sang along on "Living on a Thin Line."

Video from inside the tense KCRW studios just before yesterday's evacuation. The U.K. band had to cancel last night's show at The Avalon. Will try again Sunday.

Coachella music festival promoter Goldenvoice has been trying since April to repatriate hundreds of wallets, cellphones, car keys and other items with the fans who left them behind in the desert. They really work hard to find the owners.

That's the Van Nuys city hall, where the Los Angeles City Council will hold its Friday meeting. Davies is in town to perform at the Canyon Club and elsewhere. Vintage videos inside.

The Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released in the United States on June 1 in 1967. Music writer Chris Morris: "LIke every other 17-year-old in America...we turned the lights down and listened in awe as the last sustained piano chord in 'A Day in the Life' reverberated and died."

If you lived in Los Angeles in the 1960s and were inclined toward rock and roll, you might have seen Ray Manzarek and The Doors play at Sunset Strip clubs, at Ports O'Call in San Pedro — or at your high school. Memories are flowing on social media.

Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist, died at a clinic in Germany. Manzarek had cancer of the bile ducts. Sunset Strip clubs dimmed the lights Monday night in his honor. Video and photos inside.

They are donating $70 million for USC to create a new academy for students "who challenge conventional views of art and industry." The unveiling will officially be tomorrow at Interscope Geffen A&M Records in Santa Monica, but USC put out the release tonight.

The Eagles, started in Los Angeles in 1971 by Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner, grew out of the Linda Ronstadt, David Geffen, Troubadour club association that wrote several chapters of the future history of the music business. Capitol Record is releasing the "History of the Eagles" documentary that aired earlier this year on Showtime. Trailer inside.

Some senior citizens played for an hour on Sunset Boulevard last night. Fans waited all day for tickets. Those who got in had a great time. Video and the set list inside.

After producing shows for KCRW for 34 years, including 20 years with a show on Sundays, Tom Schnabel announced that Sunday was his final live program on the air. He is moving to an on-line platform that KCRW is calling Rhythm Planet. He explains inside.

Erica Phillips moves up to full-fledged general news and politics reporter after most of a year as officially temporary. And Hannah Karp moves over from GA to cover the music beat.

Ray Collins, a singer and co-founder with Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention in the 1960s, died in December with a reputation as something of a "celebrity transient' out in Claremont. While Collins was alive, he apparently had a favorite table outside the Some Crust Bakery in Claremont Village. Thanks to Google, he's eternally there.

Next year's Oscar awards will be held on March 2, moving later in the year to avoid conflicts with the Winter Olympics from Russia. The show will then move back to February (Feb. 22 to be exact) for 2015.

Domenic Priore, the author of "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood,” wants the city of West Hollywood to designate the former Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard (across from Book Soup) as a Strip-themed cultural resource center.

Bobby Rogers shared a birthday with Smokey Robinson and they began singing together at Detroit's Northern High School. Their group, The Matadors, changed its name to The Miracles after Rogers' cousin, Claudette Rogers, joined. They became the first Motown Records success.

A pre-Grammys email from the CBS standards and practices department all but dares performers to show a little skin at the upcoming show. How many ways are there for a musician (or an audience member) to violate the CBS code? A whole lot.

Here's the trailer for Danny Tedesco's 2008 documentary on the famed Hollywood session musicians dubbed The Wrecking Crew, screening on Saturday night at the Saban Theatre followed by a Q-A with musicians from the era.

O'Neill gained a measure of Los Angeles radio immortality when he became the first voice heard on KRLA when the AM station switched to rock and roll (from country western music) in 1959. He went on to become LA's top radio deejay, then at age 24 went national as the host of ABC's short-lived rock music show "Shindig" in 1964. Here's some video.

The suit names Jenni Rivera Enterprises Inc. as well as the owners of the rented Learjet that crashed Dec. 9 in Mexico.

Mouzis was the production director at formative LA radio station 93 KHJ and editor of the 48-hour "History of Rock and Roll" — the station's 1969 rockumentary.

Raw news footage from 1964 shows the teenage frenzy and celebrity arrivals outside the private party held for the Beatles during their first trip to Los Angeles. Also: we have a new venue for the event.

Last night I asked if a color candid photograph of the Beatles chatting with fans outdoors could have been from the private party held in August 1964 in the Beverly Hills backyard of Alan Livingston, then the president of Capitol Records. By this morning, LA Observed readers had provided the answer.

From the Beatles first tour of the United States in 1964, most of the published photographs have been in black and white. Now color slides found in the collection of a late inventor include shots from a private party the Beatles attended here in 1964.

Page was to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award next month. The top selling female recording artist of the 1950s died in a nursing home in Encinitas.

I'm catching up on some locally prominent deaths I've missed during the holiday slowdown. Video inside: 17 minutes of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida."

Fontella Bass, a church choir singer in St. Louis who recorded as a soul singer for Chess Records and had a hit with "Rescue Me" in 1965, died Wednesday at age 72 in her hometown. She suffered a heart attack three weeks ago.

Awesome. Brilliant stroke to go female with the Led Zeppelin anthem. The surprise church choir voices finally brought Robert Plant to subtle tears.

For free attendance at Wednesday morning's Gibson Amphitheatre service, LiveNation is requiring fans to have both a credit card and a photo ID. Guess who that leaves out.

If you read one more obituary on the cross-cultural star Jenni Rivera, I suggest it be Gustavo Arellano's personal observation on her life and career in the OC Weekly. "What was most amazing about Rivera is that everything she told me she'd do in our two interviews, she accomplished—empty promises simply didn't exist in her life."

Oxy posts a little remembrance today that connects the small size of Shankar's living room in Beverly Hills in the 1970s with a 40-year tradition of live Indian classical music at the Eagle Rock campus.

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi takes his stab at explaining why most Americans had never heard of Jenni Rivera until the Mexican-American performer died in a plane crash — and why very few media in Southern California had ever done stories on the local girl who made good. Make that very good.

The April 18 induction ceremony will be held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, moving to the West Coast for the first time since 1993. The event will be open to the ticket-buying public, and will air as an HBO special on May 18.

She will perform "Llorando," from the David Lynch film "Mulholland Drive," perhaps one last time on Sunday in Downtown LA. The brain surgery is expected to damage her voice.

Jenni Rivera, who was born in Long Beach, is a popular performer and songwriter in the Mexican Nortena and banda styles and a rising television star on both sides of the border. She recently signed a deal with ABC to develop a comedy around her. Rivera is divorced from former Dodgers pitcher Esteban Loaiza and leaves five children.

In honor of Dave Brubeck, who died yesterday, a video of his 1960s hit "Take Five' being performed live on the electric ukulele at the 2008 SoCal Ukulele Showcase. Just listen.

Lynn Harrell, the international cello master who lives in Santa Monica, always buys a separate seat for his instrument on Delta flights. He's been accruing frequent flier miles for "Mr....

Los Angeles journalist John Johnson and his co-author, Joel Selvin, have finished "Peppermint Tiwst," their book on the nightclubs where the mob discovered through "The Twist" that there was money in rock and roll music. "The Sopranos meets American Bandstand," Ronnie Spector blurbs. With some fun video.

Leonard Cohen returns to Los Angeles Monday night for a show at the Nokia Theatre. Here's a taste from his London concert on July 17, 2008. I don't know who the bandmates are, but the voices of the angels are Sharon Robinson, Charley Webb and Hattie Webb.

Bill Dees was a Nashville songwriter working with Roy Orbison in 1964 when they wrote 'Oh, Pretty Woman," inspired by Orbison's wife Claudette. The song changed both of their lives forever.

Early "Soul Train" with a young Don Cornelius, the theme from "Shaft" and some classic Los Angeles dancers. The date of this episode is probably Oct. 23, 1971.