NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME INFO LINK - ARE YOU AN INVENTOR?

USPTO GOV : NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME


WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY?

It is imagination made real. It is the ownership of dream, an idea, an improvement, an emotion that we can touch, see, hear, and feel. It is an asset just like your home, your car, or your bank account.

Just like other kinds of property, intellectual property needs to be protected from unauthorized use.

(486) LES PAUL CHASING SOUND : AMERICAN MASTERS DVD : DOCUMENTARY : LES PAUL AND MARY FORD

"Musician. Inventor. Architect of Rock N Roll... NOT JUST THE INVENTOR OF THE HARD BODIED ELECTRIC GUITAR BUT, a pioneer in RECORDING TECHNIQUES..."



LES PAUL CHASING SOUND - An American Masters CD, presents an impressive line up of music stars give their thumbs up to Les Paul... Including Bonnie Raitt, Tony Bennett, Jeff Beck, Merle Haggard, ... Waukesha Wisconsin, Chicago, New York, Hollywood.... NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME!

LINK TO NATIONAL INVENTORS HALL OF FAME

and the LES PAUL FOUNDATION ORG

(485) DION : ABRAHAM MARTIN AND JOHN (DICK HOLLER SONGWRITER) ON THE SMOTHER'S BROTHERS TV SHOW

So proud of Dion, known for his early Rock and Roll hit "Run Around Sue," when he hit the charts in 1968 with this song, "Abraham, Martin, and John," a song written by Dick Holler.  It's become a classic tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and President John F. Kennedy.


Link to DION DI MUCCI : OFFICIAL

 "Music Critics say he is the only first-generation rock and roll artist who  has remained creative and relevant through the decades. In 1958 He had three top-forty hits. In 2007 He was nominated for a Grammy. His last three albums have some of his best work.

Dion and his music represent a special time and place . . .  a moment when a song could mean so much and a singer could sum up what it means to be young, in love and on top of the world.

A street poet and singer of extraordinary versatility, range and resonance, Dion defined Rock 'n' Roll for a generation."

Use the Google Search feature embedded in this blog to pull up past posts on Dion as well as the Smothers Brothers!

HERE IS THE SONGWRITERS VERSION:

FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATON OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

LINK TO JFK PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY here! if you're interested in what the library has to say about it.

(484) MERLE TRAVIS : A FIXTURE AT AMERICAN MUSIC AND SONGWRITER FOR TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD

I met Merle Travis, the country western singer who they called a "guitar picker" and who came from the South - Kentucky,  when he came into American Music, the big song publishing house I worked for as a staff writer for several years when I first moved to Los Angeles!  I grew up in North Carolina and Oregon listening to Country music and never lost my enthusiasm for it.  Merle wrote songs and played on sessions for demos and became a fixture there.  Great man!

So many artists who went into performance careers have worked making demos, Bobby Darin, as I recently mentioned, made demos in the recording studios in the Brill Building, in New York City.  Glen Campbell made demos in Los Angeles, some for American Music.  I made demos while at American Music and also I made demo's for Pat Boone's company, Cooga- Mooga! 

Demo records of songs with hit potential were send out - sometimes hand delivered by people like me - to the recording artists that the writer had in mind for their listen.  Sometimes they piled up in a corner and months went by before one got a listen, so that personal connection was important.

 

DISCOGS PAGE FOR MERLE TRAVIS link

SIXTEEN TONS : A CLASSIC SONG WRITTEN BY MERLE TRAVIS : WHICH DO YOU PREFER?

TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD
BOBBY DARIN
ERIC BURDEN(OF THE ANIMALS)
THE PLATTERS

or maybe LEANN RIMES  ?

VETERANS DAY

(483) BOBBY DARIN : FROM MOTOWN TO FOLK SONGS

Back in July of this year, we posted on Bobby Darin on Motown Records, where he tried on the popular Motown Sound.  Well, Bobby was challenged to find his niche in music by the mid sixties. He was challenged by changing times and the influence of Bob Dylan to cover songs that were more folk or political.  It was particularly difficult to pick and choose because he was so diverse in his talent.

I first met an ambitious Bobby in New York City in the Brill Building, introduced by Neil Sendaka, where he was making his rent by singing on demo records for song writers.  He was also writing songs of his own.  He was in the perfect spot to discover or write a hit song, and he did soon after we me with his recording of  Splish Splash.

Bobby was able to change his singing style enough to be hired to make a good many of those demos and I suspect that somewhere there is a treasure trove of them that he made - and some of them maybe you wouldn't know right away you were listening to Bobby. 

This challenge of being true to yourself, or what you're really good at, and being out of sync with the changing times, it's happened to the best of us. It happens in the music business every few, maybe every several years that music changes enough that you might get left behind, and 1966 is right about when you found the British Invasion with the Rolling Stones making the Beatles look tame - and in San Francisco, a new sound, the beginning of a Psychedelic drug fueled sound, typified by the Grateful Dead - and Peter Paul and Mary who are sticking to their folk music - while Bob Dylan is identified as a protest singer but doesn't want to be identified that way - and Bobby Darin - out of a whole group of young men who had vibrant carriers beginning in the 1950's, trying to figure out which way to go. 

Give it enough time though, and you become known as a CLASSIC.
Linking to his official site:  BOBBY DARIN NET - OFFICIAL - INCLUDING LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Bobby gets the most airplay over time for Mac The Knife, with Splish Splash clearly thought of as the 1950's.

(482) PLACES TO GO THINGS TO DO : BEN FRANKS DINER

CHARLES PHOENIX ON BEN FRANKS DINER link

IN OUR PLACES TO GO THINGS TO DO posts, we wrote about the Palamino for  mostly Country Music (post 335 on Marty Robins and Jerry Lee Lewis), the Red Velvet - one of the few clubs Elvis used to go to and where P.J. Proby performed (post 334), and the dinner club, Ciro's, known for the Rat Pack, but also Johnny Rivers before The Whisky.  Post 333 was about Trino Lopez.  Post 336 Ciros.  We've recently updated the videos and links for these posts from 2010.

All of these  clubs were performance spaces.

One of my hangouts for just having coffee, talking, hanging out, was Ben Franks Diner.  It was a good place to meet with friends, co-workers, and people I wanted to do business with, on the Sunset Strip, which has been active with entertainment for more than half a century.

Here's a link with a good picture. 

EXCERPT: "Today, forty five years later the classic coffee shop structure still stands. But about decade or so ago Ben became Mel when Ben Frank’s quietly closed and morphed into a trendy retro diner called Mel’s Diner. I wonder if they have Liver and Onions on the menu."

EVOLUTION OF DANCE BY JUDSON LAIPLLY STARTS WITH ELVIS PRESLEY AND CHUCK BERRY

WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC: RIGHTS INFORMATION

Though it most often goes without saying, and we post a notice like this one in our Pages, once in a while we post a notice like this one in our posts.  We want to reminds readers that the original content of this blog is Copyright Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna with all rights reserved including Internet and International Rights.

We are linking to a good many web sites, favoring the official web sites of various famous and important musical artists as well as reference sites and music videos. If we link to your site or a video you uploaded and you don't want us to reference it, please let us know and we'll take down the link. The content of other people's sites remains their own.

We also appreciate hearing about any link that is down or video that has been removed from its source, such as YouTube!

Thank you for your consideration and courtesy!

Christine Trzyna  and Wes Bryan

WILMA ASKINAS Quote on Friendship

“A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view.”  - Wilma Askinas 

TO ALL YOU SPOOKS OUT THERE!

MITCH RYDER AND THE DETROIT WHEELS "DEVIL WITH A BLUE DRESS ON and GOLLY MISS MOLLY"

How many dress colors does the Devil wear?  There's the Devil with the Red Dress and then the Devil with the Blue... Does it have anything to do with being a Devil from Detroit, the Motor City?  Christine

Does Mitch Ryder have an official site?  You bet!  MITCH RYDER NET

FRANK SINATRA Quote on Friendship

"A friend is never an imposition." - Frank Sinatra

FRANK SINATRA : FROM CAPITOL RECORDS TO WARNER AND HIS OWN LABLE : REPRISE :FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Post (416) FRANK SINATRA : FROM CAPITOL RECORDS TO WARNER AND HIS OWN LABLE : REPRISE

Capitol Records was probably the hottest big record label by 1965 other than RCA, Elvis' label. Capitol had the Beatles and Glen Campbell, but they lost Frank Sinatra to Warner Records where he got his own label and distributor which he called Reprise Records.

Jimmy Bowen produced the record "STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT" which was a hit for Frank, got him HIS FIRST GOLD RECORD, and is known today as "classic Frank Sinatra" though it was recorded years past his early days of performance and stardom.

We're linking to the official Frank Sinatra site so you can read about Frank his way!



Frank was on the same charts as his daughter Nancy!

(481) NANCY SINATRA'S BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKIN'

A while back we posted on Nancy Sinatra when she was one of the guests on the TV program that featured Elvis Presley and her father, Frank Sinatra, The Welcome Back Special. Elvis had just returned to the United States from Germany and the United States Army.

  

"Are you ready boots?  Start Walkin!"  These words are so associated with Nancy, who chose to record songs on Frank's Reprise label (where my friend Jimmy Bowen became a producer) that portrayed her as a take-charge, in control, and liberated woman.  The song was written for her by Lee Hazelwood and it became a number one hit in the United States and the United Kingdom, making Nancy one more American who Invaded Britain.

No doubt initially aided by her loving dad, Nancy, who appeared on the Welcome Back Special in what was a prim prom-gown kind of dress, had moved with the times, the early 1960's and the dancing Go Go Girls.

Now Nancy has her own site, but we found it down, and we think it may be bombarded because of the news recently that a son of Mia Farrow's may be Franks.  We proceeded to the Sinatra Family site and same thing. 

So we're going to post the links for you here and hopefully when you try them, they'll be up!

NANCY SINATRA OFFICAL link

SINATRA FAMILY OFFICIAL link

Lee Hazelwood passed away in 2007.  Here's a link to some good career information for the man who was known to be a rugged individualist!

CBENJAMIN WORDPRESS ON LEE HAZELWOOD link

Church Benjamin is a Blogger on Word Press!  His theme is SONGS YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD, and he's a good writer.

BOB DYLAN and NEIL YOUNG ? AN ALBUM COVER and RECORD LABEL PRINTER

Christine here!  Taking my dog for a long walk one very early morning, we found the doors of a business wide open.  Inside were machines.  Strange looking machines.   Couldn't figure them out, unless maybe Dr. Suess had done some manufacturing here!

There were some people around and so my friendly dog went in nose first and I followed.  We spoke to a man named Bruce.  He explained that Impressions LA Printing Services and Dorado Music Publishing over at Burbank Boulevard in NoHo were in the business of printing album covers, the innards of the covers, and the center labels.  We're talking for VINYL records here.

Those machines - one from the late 1950's, another from the mid 1970's - others a history of album cover and record label printing! I felt like a secret shopper when Bruce told me that they'd received recent orders from Bob Dylan and Neil Young.  See people are buying Dylan and Young record albums in vinyl even when the same music is available in CD.  (As you may know from Neil's memoir which I covered here a while back, Neil is involved in getting better quality sound recording onto those CD.s)  The records that were recorded originally and pressed on vinyl are being ordered in and for that, an artist needs more album covers printed too.  Bruce said Neil reminded them that he wanted his covers to look as old as the originals do today.  A small run is about 1000.

I'm posting this because they were friendly people and because they give TOURS TO THE SCHOOL CHILDREN.  So while we don't do advertising on this Google Blogger, we thought you might want to give them a call about the little tour.  When I was there those strange machines weren't running.  I hope to go back someday when they are!

Their number is 818-761-9295

A FRIEND IS SOMEONE...

Who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.  - anonymous

JOHN FOGERTY WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE AT THE GRAMMY MUSEUM and OFFICIAL SITE LINK - AN EXCELLENT SITE!

JOHN FOGERTY OFFICIAL SITE  - It's excellent!

John explains he was drafted for Viet Nam in 1965 but went into the Reserves. His site explains the Viet Nam War and the Protests that began about 1967 and  the upset he felt about politician's sons being able to avoid the draft.  That's what's behind his song "Fortunate Son."  He wrote the song in 20 minutes, but after a lot of thought about these issues.

Here's a version with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.



Christine here!  At the Grammy Museum exhibit, I learned that Creedence Clearwater Revival was considered a  FOLK REVIVAL MOVEMENT, a revival of AMERICANA, with a kind of anti-hippie movement with roots in the American South.  The influence of Pete Seeger and Duane Eddy on John Fogerty is explored. 

Here's the link to the exhibit! GRAMMY MUSEUM : JOHN FOGERTY WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE

We first mentioned John Fogerty on this blog in 2008, due to his pre-Creedence work with the Blue Velvets.

HELLO TO AUSTRALIA, ISRAEL, VIET NAM, and HUNGARY

Welcoming Early Rock and Roll Fans from all over the world! Thanks for reading WES BRYAN- MY LIFE IN MUSIC. Friends, check out that long long list of links! There is so much energy and talent in the sites that we link to and this blog wouldn't be what it is without them!

GRAMMY MUSEUM - THE RINGO PEACE AND LOVE SHOW

Christine here!

Recently went to the GRAMMY MUSEUM, lured by the Ringo show.  The Museum has had shows focusing on John Lennon and George Harrison in the past, which I missed.  This video shows some of the exhibits that include clothing and costumes worn my Ringo, a replica of the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band drum, various drum kits Ringo played, and lots of memorabilia, including a wall of Ringo Albums and a wall of Beatles Albums (I think I have them all!)

There is an old early 1960's television console playing black and white Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show with a early 1960's sofa in front of it. I lingered in the area and I have to say, all around the exhibit people were smiling.  There was a happiness in the air.  I was reminded that the Beatles and maybe especially Ringo had a great sense of humor in their day, and I kept thinking "Ringo is the one who kept a friendship going with all of them, even when the others were not getting along."

At the same time the Museum has a JOHN FOGERTY and CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL SHOW.  Wes is a John Fogerty fan!  The emphasis here was on roots music, and the American South.

GRAMMY MUSEUM ORG SITE link here.

The museum was crowded.  It was full of people from all races  various ethnicities, young and old.  It's very hands-on and very much about SOUND as well as the visuals.

This visit, I spent time in the ARCHIVE.  That's where there are videos to watch of special Interviews and Performances that were featured at the Grammy Museum.  I watched some of Gordon Lightfoot (one of my favorites) and some of Michelle Phillips.

The Grammy Museum is a great place to visit and as things are in Los Angeles, with music appreciation classes and classes in the arts in public schools unfunded, field trips to this museum may be it for the school children!