https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/05-Pile-Up.mp3 I needed some dough bad, so I told our manager Danny Hollyway I was ready to do a publishing deal. He set a meeting up with the wigs over at A&M Publishing. I wasn’t too keen on going, but Danny told me I better if I wanted to do the business, so I said okay. It was a morning meeting, and I wasn’t in the greatest shape. I was psychedelically hungover. I had an urge to cancel the meeting, but instead, I tried to pull myself together. I got up and put my shades on, and went outside to wait for Danny to show up. We always rode to these things in his car, and I was in no condition to drive. In the meeting I shook hands with a couple guys. One, a serious man in an elegant suit, youngish looking, but with well-cut grey hair, seemed to be in charge. As we were introduced, I felt nervous and started to have an almost out-of-body anxiety experience, a real existential crisis that I was trying to keep a lid on. The old short term memory was out of order or something, so the names were gone from my
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/02-Baltimore.mp3 Torn Again (1995) with Don Heffington, drums, Jerry Scheff, bass, Greg Leisz, lap steel guitar, Steven Soles, harmony, produced by Case, Soles and Larry Hirsch.
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/09-Magic-Touch.mp3 From the album “Beach Town Confidential” recorded live in 1983, [released a couple years ago by alive/natural sound recordings]with the original line-up. I wrote this song with Eddie, and we had high hopes for it as the follow-up single to A Million Miles Away, but a KROQ rep told me: “Too primitive!” Which I thought was a selling point. Oh well…maybe somebody didn’t make their payments, is the impression you get from reading the book “Hitmen” about the era, and Geffen in particular. That’s rock ‘n’ roll for you, like they say, its a vicious game. But this song was pure fun. Peter Zaremba said it was an update of the Buddy Holly and the Crickets sound…maybe so. One original feature of this was Louie beating the drums and playing maracas at the same time, I’ve seen people do it since, but never before…who knows? This song and the album are available at iTunes and Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/beach-town-confidential-live/id492812876 For the vinyl or CD: http://www.bompstore.com/plimsouls-beachtown-confidential-custom-mixed-yellow-marble-vinyl-ltd-ed-of-100-lp/ In the picture below, for some reason I’m checking my pulse! Racing for some reason, hmmm? 1983…yikes!
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/Cant-Get-Through-To-You.mp3 The Action Dogs were a collaboration with the Plimsouls, their NYC pals the Fleshtones, guitarist and rockabilly legend Danny B. Harvey, rock and roll pianist extrordinaire the late Uncle John Herron, and A Million Miles Away producer Jeff Eyrich. A twelve piece band, recorded live to two track in Hollywood, a late night, drink-fueled session that nearly none of the participants clearly recalled. The song I had started for the Nerves and never recorded, then the Fleshtones added a great section halfway through and everybody kicked in some lyrics, and it was just really fun, I think!!! Check it out. Listen on big speakers or headphones for the full effect… Thanks Danny for the copy.
No snow in Alaska No bees in the field No frogs by the river No hands on the wheel No leaders in Congress No brakes on the booze No magic experience No truth in the news No teachers on the playground They can’t protect themselves No songs on the airwaves No food on the shelves Low wages for the workers No workers getting hired No rights & no more unions Speak up & you get fired No days off the schedule No end to the tasks No answers to questions that everyone asks No pause in the battle No one gets a pass There’s no break for the poor & no more middle class No fire alarms’re working The fire escapes are locked No lights in the hallway The fixtures have been hocked No whales in the ocean No robins on the lawn No colors in the sunset Firing squads at dawn No social security It’s stolen by a lie No more going bankrupt You’ll pay until you die This was the land of plenty & everyone gives thanks Now its all gone to shareholders & the CEOs of banks They can’t agree to fix the roads They’d have to
heard the story on the evening news ‘bout the Capulets & the Montagues ryan’s dream on a private highway airport bound the convoy speeds past shanty town bannon’s vision dragons on the sidewalk angels in the trees children on the border cut down like Christmas trees ryan’s sermon he’s my rock & my salvation I shall not be moved & tho a fire awaits you your credit’s pre-approved miller time the hate truck that yr driving the wheels will soon fall off the other pigs yr riding with will push you from the trough the union won the civil war it ended in a rout hatred never wins the day Hitler found that out yes on no you lost your taste for hearing truth then got lost in a polling booth the city is silent the sea is black the sun is cold the cables slack the sky is brick the clouds are fake our votes were cast into the lake fortune cookie “to see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle.’
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/PC-Bumble-Bee-day-1_01.m4a This is the Memphis Minnie blues, from the HWY 62 sessions at Sheldon Gombergs’s Carriage House Studio, in Los Angeles, performed on a guitar Ben Harper had just laid on me, a perfect replica of Lead Belly’s Stella 12-string. Bumble Bee was the first song I played on it. This song is Track 1 on a CD of blues, by Buffalo musicians, released to help homeless veterans in the Western New York area. Here is a link if you’d like to receive a copy, and help out a very good cause: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/buffaloblues
bottomlessness (from Shakespeare Wars, by Ron Rosenbaum) ‘A highly developed, acute servant of other people’s truths.’ ‘He’s someone who empties himself out.’ ‘A million percent alive… this person, walking through the streets of London must have lived each single moment with an incredible richness of awareness, so many levels, infinite levels of meaning.’ ‘ He can overhear and notice two kinds of things: all the life & noise pouring out with great excitement. Yet at the same time, even though he is a very practical man, he can evoke in words faraway worlds, strange tales, astonishing ideas, and develop & link them to an intimation of meaning in society, in regard to the gods, a sense of cosmic reality, these were all pulsing through his mind, all these levels at the same time.’ ‘he didn’t have a lot of quiet attentive people in a dark room such as this.’ ‘It was rather, the most mixed audience that ever existed in the theater: thieves, pickpockets, whores, drunks, half drunks, brawling in fights. As well as, of course, the bourgeosie, there for entertainment, sophisticates, looking for the things that are sharp, witty, erudite. It is difficult to understand how deeply difficult the
16 comments
wow. probably best Lance heard that.
Effin great! That story needs to be in film named after Hunter Thompson great quote. You know the one.
If you don’t have all the facts maybe you shouldn’t make judgements. Alan Freed had great integrity. He was never paid royalties by the publisher.
Chuck Berry was his friend. BTW,
Maybelline is the makeup company..it’s “Maybellene”.
Thanks for the correction. There are a few other typos in there as well.
But why was his name added to the composer credits? That’s what got me going as a kid. A DJ with a composer credit.
check the spelling of judgment before you post it.
I don’t claim to know all the truth about this, just that, as a DJ, he had his name on a song that he didn’t compose.
I know Alan Freed was part of the rock n roll beach head, and he deserves the kudos he gets. He was a bold representative of the music at a time when it was dangerous. But like a lot of things it appears to be a mixed bag.
I had/ have nothing against Lance who sounds like a pretty great guy. I just went off like a kid about how I thought my hero Chuck Berry had been ripped. The story is misunderstood if its seen as an attack on Freed, it’s just a picture of a rock and roll kid in a business meeting.
I’ve heard that he and Chuck were friends. I ended up spreading some of my money around when we had our own label with the Plimsouls. Then it was called independent promotion. And I don’t bear a grudge if it helped us reach people. But whoo-ee what a business. And everything’s worse now for songwriters.
BTW, where do you go to get “all the facts” on this story? I’ve looked around the internet…
In Peter’s defense, I’d heard the same story. I think it was in a movie, too, though I don’t remember its name (or perhaps there was a similar scene in American Hot Wax, which seems to be about Freed).
I really liked the first Plimsouls record (the one with A Million Miles Away on it), Peter It was a revelation at the time.
You’re doing great . More about psychedelic hangovers please!
Hey Brad, I’ll do my best. Did you see the one called Plimsouls at the Starwood? Thats got a flavor of that…
Good to hear from you, best!
Judgement?
I thought it was “judgment”. But no need to rush.
There is no such thing as “all the facts”.
“Facts are precisely what there is not, only interpretations”. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Press, 1968).
That’s the fact, Jack!
Happy to have a private conversation with you, Peter, and give you all the information you want about what happened.
Sometimes I get tired of people beating up on my Father. Feel the need to defend him since he can’t defend himself.
I appreciate the offer. What is your name? Maybe you can write to me on the back channel here.
But there are a myriad of sources including Chuck Berry’s book, which I have open here right now, that declare Freed was paid royalties after having his name “gifted ” onto the writing credits.
“I just recovered the full rights to Maybellene in 1986, some thirty years later. That loss was two thirds of the total , or twice as much as the royalties I received from “Maybellene” for years.”
[More about this can be found on page 119 of Chuck Berry’s autobiography.]
Maybellene
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia…
…In the 1950s, some record companies assigned publishing credits to disc jockeys and others who helped to promote a record, a form of payola by means of composer royalties. For this reason, the disc jockey Alan Freed received credit as a co-writer of “Maybellene”. Russ Fratto, who had loaned money to Chess, also received credit.[8] (Some Chess insiders have said that Chess owed money to Fratto, a printer and stationer, for producing record labels.) The Freed and Fratto credits, which do not appear on the original Chess single (see the photograph above), were withdrawn in 1986.[9] However, as of 2014, these credits still appear on some reissues of Berry’s recordings.
the npr 100
The Story Of Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’
And there were other unpleasant surprises. When Berry finally got his hands on a copy of the record, he saw he was listed as only one of three songwriters. Alan Freed, the disc jockey who had so aggressively promoted the song, was another. The third was Russ Fratto, a man he’d never heard of. Trading credit for airplay, known as payola, was a common practice at the time, especially when the song was by a black artist. And Berry didn’t ask any questions. After all, his first royalty check for “Maybellene” had been more than twice what he’d paid for his house. It was only later that he learned sharing songwriting credits also meant sharing the song’s earnings. While there’s no doubt Freed’s promotion of “Maybellene” was crucial to its success nationwide, Berry fought for years to recover the full rights to the song.
“I didn’t even know that you could use lawyers to correct these things, you know, then, you know,” Mr. Berry says. “So it goes on and on and on, but that happens to rookies, if you want to call a new musician a rookie.”
In 1986, more than 30 years after he wrote “Maybellene,” Chuck Berry was finally credited as the song’s sole composer. By that time, it was little more than a legal technicality, but in the end, it may be the most fitting tribute. After all, “Maybellene” could have been written by no one but Chuck Berry. If that’s not already obvious from the music and the lyrics, just listen to the guitar solo.
Rolling Stone
Maybellene
by Gaylord Fields
…DJ Alan Freed, co-credited as a songwriter, had nothing to do with writing “Maybellene,” although he got royalties for years in return for radio airplay.
[author John A. Jackson, calling from his home in Amity Harbor, N.Y. Jackson’s recent book, “Big Beat Heat – Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Schirmer Books, $24.95)]
“Freed was given writing credit on records for both “Maybellene” and the Moonglows’ “Sincerely,” (No. 20 in 1955). Jackson believes that Chess Records put Freed’s name on the songs to get airplay, a common alternative to cash payments in those days.’
chimesfreedom
Pophistory: music, movies, history, and life.
…In the meantime, Leonard Chess in a marketing move that was not unusual at the time, gave radio DJ Alan Freed co-songwriting credit and one-third of royalties in exchange for promoting the song. In retrospect, the deal seems unfair at the least, but assistance from the legendary DJ did not hurt.
Nice lawyering there, Mr. Case.
it’s a great story Peter… and the only problem with most great stories are that there are other people in them 🙂
too bad it’s on a “Blog”…would love to hear it in a van sometime full of gear rolling down the highway, where all the best rock & roll stories are told and should live:)
hey, Lil Mike, only kidding, I don’t have any equipment, just a guitar…
Ok Lil Mike you move the equipment and I’ll tell the stories.
But books are places for stories too. And any Kind of writing, as well. So others can hear besides the road crew…