In 1958, Link Wray released his bluesy instru­men­tal “Rum­ble,” known for its pio­neer­ing use of reverb and dis­tor­tion. The grit­ty, seduc­tive tune became a huge hit with the kids, but grown-ups found the sound threat­en­ing, rem­i­nis­cent of scary gang scenes in West Side Sto­ry and grow­ing fears over “Juve­nile Delinquency”—a nation­al anx­i­ety marked by the 1955 release of Black­board Jun­gle and its intro­duc­tion of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.”

Just three years lat­er, “Rum­ble” made mid­dle class cit­i­zens so ner­vous that the song has the dis­tinc­tion of being the only instru­men­tal ever banned from radio play in the U.S. And yet, that hon­or is some­what mis­lead­ing. It’s true many radio sta­tions refused to play the song, or any rock and roll records at all, but it did receive enough exposure—from peo­ple like Amer­i­can Band­stand’s Dick Clark, no less—to remain in the top 40 for ten weeks in 1958.

Fast-for­ward thir­ty years from Black­board Jun­gle pan­ic, and we find the coun­try in the midst of anoth­er nation­al freak­out about the kids and their music, this one spear­head­ed by the Par­ents Music Resource Cen­ter (PMRC), formed by Tip­per Gore and three oth­er so-called “Wash­ing­ton Wives” who sought to place warn­ing labels on “explic­it” pop­u­lar albums and oth­er­wise impose moral­is­tic guide­lines on music and movies. Con­gres­sion­al hear­ings in 1985 saw the odd trio of Twist­ed Sister’s Dee Snider, mild-man­nered folk star John Den­ver, and vir­tu­oso prog-weirdo Frank Zap­pa tes­ti­fy­ing before the Sen­ate against cen­sor­ship. The fierce­ly lib­er­tar­i­an Zappa’s oppo­si­tion to the PMRC became some­thing of a cru­sade, and the fol­low­ing year he appeared on Cross­fire to argue his case.

PMRC back­lash from musi­cians every­where began to clut­ter the pop cul­tur­al land­scape. Glenn Danzig released his anti-PMRC anthem, “Moth­er”; Ice‑T’s The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech vicious­ly attacked Gore and her orga­ni­za­tion; NOFX released their E.P. The P.M.R.C. Can Suck on This… just a small sam­pling of dozens of anti-PMRC songs/albums/messages after those infa­mous hear­ings. But we can cred­it Zap­pa with found­ing the musi­cal sub­gen­era in his 1985 Frank Zap­pa Meets the Moth­ers of Pre­ven­tion, which includ­ed “Porn Wars,” above, a mashup of dis­tort­ed sam­ples from the hear­ings.

All of these records received the req­ui­site “Good House­keep­ing Seal of Dis­ap­proval,” the now-famil­iar stark black-and-white parental warn­ing label (top). Zappa’s album cov­er pre-empt­ed the inevitable stick­er­ing with a bright yel­low and red box read­ing “Warn­ing Guar­an­tee,” full of tongue-in-cheek small print like  “GUARANTEED NOT TO CAUSE ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE PLACE WHERE THE GUY WITH THE HORNS AND POINTED STICK CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS.” All this inces­sant needling of the PMRC must have real­ly got to them, fans fig­ured, when Zappa’s 1986 record Jazz from Hell began appear­ing, it’s said, in record stores with a parental advi­so­ry label—on an album with­out lyrics of any kind.

But did Zappa’s Gram­my-award-win­ning instru­men­tal record (above) real­ly get the explic­it con­tent label? And was such label­ing retal­i­a­tion from the PMRC, as some believed? These claims have cir­cu­lat­ed for years on mes­sage boards, in books like Peter Blecha’s Taboo Tunes: A His­to­ry of Banned Bands & Cen­sored Songs, and on Wikipedia. And the answer is both yes, and no. Jazz from Hell did not get the famil­iar “Parental Advi­so­ry: Explic­it Lyrics” label, nor was it specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed by Gore’s orga­ni­za­tion.

The album was, how­ev­er, stick­ered in 1990—notes Dave Thompson’s The Music Lover’s Guide to Record Col­lect­ing—by “the Pacif­ic North­west chain of Fred Mey­er depart­ment stores,” who gave it “the retailer’s own ‘Explic­it Lyrics’ warn­ing, despite the fact that the album was whol­ly instru­men­tal.” This is like­ly due to the word “hell” and the title of the song “G‑Spot Tor­na­do.” So it may be fair to say that Zap­pa’s Jazz from Hell is the only ful­ly instru­men­tal album to receive an “Explic­it Lyrics” warn­ing, inspired by, if not direct­ly ordered by, the PMRC. Like the radio cen­sor­ship of Link Wray’s “Rum­ble,” this region­al seal of dis­ap­proval did not in the least pre­vent the record from receiv­ing due recog­ni­tion. But it makes for a curi­ous his­tor­i­cal exam­ple of the absurd lengths peo­ple have gone to in their fear of mod­ern pop music.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Frank Zap­pa Debates Cen­sor­ship on CNN’s Cross­fire (1986)

Frank Zappa’s Exper­i­men­tal Adver­tise­ments For Luden’s Cough Drops, Rem­ing­ton Razors & Port­land Gen­er­al Elec­tric

Hear the Musi­cal Evo­lu­tion of Frank Zap­pa in 401 Songs

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

It’s got to be one of my favorite ledes of all time: “The Doors leg­end Jim Mor­ri­son ‘faked his own death’ and is liv­ing as an aging home­less hip­py in New York, accord­ing to a con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist.”

This dead­pan gem from wacky UK tabloid Express might con­vince the cred­u­lous, with its pho­to spread com­par­ing white-beard­ed “Richard”—the aged, sup­pos­ed­ly re-sur­faced Morrison—with those of Mor­ri­son in his last years: beard­ed, bloat­ed, and look­ing ten years old­er.

These are often the images we remem­ber, but the pho­tos in the video mon­tage above (set to some inex­plic­a­bly un-Door-sy music that you might want to mute) show us a more youth­ful, clean-shaven, baby-faced, and much health­i­er lizard king, trav­el­ing through Paris with his girl­friend Pamela Cour­son and their friend Alain Ron­ay, who took the pho­tos on June 28th, 1971. (See a pho­to spread here at Vin­tage Every­day.)

Mor­ri­son was “clear­ly not in a good way,” writes Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock, “when he head­ed off for Paris,” but in these images, he appears ful­ly ready to embark on a new career as a pub­lished poet instead of join­ing the “27 Club,” as he would just days lat­er, when Cour­son awoke to find him dead in the bath­tub of their Paris apart­ment on July 3rd.

Part of the rea­son fans have dogged­ly held on to the the­o­ry Mor­ri­son faked his death has to do with the mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing that discovery–the “nag­ging­ly non-spe­cif­ic ‘heart fail­ure’” ascribed as the cause by French author­i­ties, the lack of an autop­sy, and the “dozens of rumors—many of them unfound­ed” that pro­lif­er­at­ed around the mys­tery.

It turns out that cir­cum­stances of Jim Morrison’s death were sor­did­ly pre­dictable, if we believe one­time Doors pub­li­cist Dan­ny Sug­er­man, who wrote in his 1989 mem­oir Won­der­land Avenue about con­ver­sa­tions with Cour­son, who “stat­ed that Mor­ri­son had died of an acci­den­tal hero­in over­dose, hav­ing snort­ed what he believed to be cocaine,” writes The Vin­tage News.

Her account is sup­port­ed by the con­fes­sion of Alain Ronay—in a 1991 issue of Paris Match, where many of these pho­tos appeared—who wrote that Cour­son nod­ded off instead of get­ting help for Mor­ri­son. Ron­ay also describes in his account (read it in full, trans­lat­ed, here), how he and film­mak­er Agnes Var­da helped mis­lead author­i­ties as to Morrison’s iden­ti­ty, cov­ered up his pri­or drug use, threw the press off track, and guid­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion away from the drugs and Courson’s involve­ment.

Ron­ay seems cred­i­ble enough, but what­ev­er the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Morrison’s death, it’s clear he had a lot of writ­ing left in him. In his last inter­view with Rolling Stone, he talked about his poet­ry and his admi­ra­tion for Nor­man Mail­er and revealed he’d been work­ing on a screen­play. While in Paris, he made sev­er­al record­ings of his poet­ry with some unnamed musi­cians. Last year, a hand­writ­ten poem found in his Paris apart­ment went up for auc­tion. Its final, omi­nous line read, “Last words, Last words out.”

via The Vin­tage News/Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“The Lost Paris Tapes” Pre­serves Jim Morrison’s Final Poet­ry Record­ings from 1971

The Doors Play Live in Den­mark & LA in 1968: See Jim Mor­ri­son Near His Charis­mat­ic Peak

A Young, Clean Cut Jim Mor­ri­son Appears in a 1962 Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­mo Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Bea­t­les gave us enough. You could­n’t ask for more. But if you want to get a lit­tle greedy, you could ask for a few more songs from George. Though crowd­ed out by the pro­lif­ic Lennon-McCart­ney song­writ­ing part­ner­ship, Har­ri­son squeezed in some Bea­t­les songs that rival their best. Shall I refresh your mem­o­ries?  “Tax­man.” “I Want to Tell You.” “It’s All Too Much.” “Some­thing.” “Here Comes the Sun.” “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps.” You owe them all to George.

Writ­ten in 1968 for The White Album, “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps” is ranked #136 on Rolling Stone mag­a­zine’s list, “The 500 Great­est Songs of All Time.” Clap­ton played the solo on the orig­i­nal recording–the same solo Prince shred­ded at the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induc­tion cer­e­mo­ny. And it’s per­haps part­ly thanks to that Prince per­for­mance, wit­nessed so wide­ly when the musi­cian passed ear­li­er this year, that we now have this: a new video pay­ing trib­ute to “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps,” fea­tur­ing scenes from LOVE, Cirque du Soleil’s mes­mer­iz­ing Bea­t­les pro­duc­tion that’s been run­ning in Las Vegas since 2006. If you like the beau­ti­ful LOVE sound­track, you’ll enjoy the remixed ver­sion of Har­rison’s song and all of the dreamy Cirque du Soleil visu­als that accom­pa­ny it above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son, Dis­cov­ered by George Mar­tin

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

Image by Machocar­i­o­ca, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

You don’t have to, like, stretch your brain or any­thing to rat­tle off a list of Kei­th Richards’ influ­ences. If you’ve ever heard a Rolling Stones song, you’ve heard him pull out his Mud­dy Waters and Chuck Berry riffs, and he’s nev­er been shy about sup­port­ing and nam­ing his idols. He’s played with Waters, Berry, and many more blues and ear­ly rock and roll greats, and after bor­row­ing heav­i­ly from them, the Stones gave back by pro­mot­ing and tour­ing with the artists who pro­vid­ed the raw mate­r­i­al for their sound.

Then there’s the 2002 com­pi­la­tion The Devil’s Music, culled from Richards’ per­son­al favorite col­lec­tion of blues, soul, and R&B clas­sics, and fea­tur­ing big names like Robert John­son, Lit­tle Richard, Bob Mar­ley, Albert King, and Lead Bel­ly, and more obscure artists like Amos Mil­burn, and Jack­ie Bren­ston. You may also recall last year’s Under the Influ­ence, a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary by 20 Feet From Star­dom direc­tor Mor­gan Neville, in which Richards namechecks dozens of influ­en­tial musicians—from his mum’s love of Sarah Vaugh­an, Ella Fitzger­ald, and Bil­lie Hol­i­day, to his and Jagger’s youth­ful ado­ra­tion of Waters and Berry, to his rock star hang­outs with Willie Dixon and Howl­in’ Wolf.

Point is, Kei­th Richards loves to talk about the music he loves. A big part of the Stones’ appeal—at least in their 60s/early 70s prime—was that they were such eager fans of the musi­cians they emu­lat­ed. Yes, Jagger’s pho­ny coun­try drawls and blues howls could be a lit­tle embar­rass­ing, his chick­en dance a lit­tle less than soul­ful. But the earnest­ness with which the young Eng­lish­men pur­sued their Amer­i­cana ideals is infec­tious, and Richards has spread his love of U.S. roots music through every medi­um, includ­ing his 2010 mem­oir Life, a wicked­ly iron­ic title—given Richards’ No. 1 posi­tion on the “rock stars most-like­ly-to-die list,” writes Michiko Kaku­tani, “and the one life form (besides the cock­roach) capa­ble of sur­viv­ing nuclear war.”

It’s also a very poignant title, giv­en Richards’ sin­gle-mind­ed pur­suit of a life gov­erned by music he’s loved as pas­sion­ate­ly, or more so, as the women in his life. Richards, Kaku­tani writes, ded­i­cat­ed him­self “like a monk to mas­ter­ing the blues.” Of this call­ing, he writes, “you were sup­posed to spend all your wak­ing hours study­ing Jim­my Reed, Mud­dy Waters, Lit­tle Wal­ter, Howl­in’ Wolf, Robert John­son. That was your gig. Every oth­er moment tak­en away from it was a sin.” In the course of the book, Richards men­tions over 200 artists, songs, and record­ings that direct­ly inspired him ear­ly or lat­er in life, and one enter­pris­ing read­er has com­piled them all, in order of appear­ance, in the Spo­ti­fy playlist above.

You’ll find here no sur­pris­es, but if you’re a Stones fan, it’s hard to imag­ine you wouldn’t put this one on and lis­ten to it straight through with­out skip­ping a sin­gle track. When it comes to blues, soul, reg­gae, coun­try, and rock and roll, Kei­th Richards has impec­ca­ble taste. Scat­tered amidst the Aaron Neville, Etta James, Gram Par­sons, Elvis, Wil­son Pick­ett, etc. are plen­ty of clas­sic Stones record­ings that feel right at home next to their influ­ences and peers.

With the excep­tion of reg­gae artists like Jim­my Cliff and Sly & Rob­bie, most of the tracks are from U.S. or U.S.-inspired artists (Tom Jones, Cliff Richard). Again, no sur­pris­es. Not every­one Richards appro­pri­at­ed has appre­ci­at­ed the homage (Chuck Berry long held a grudge), but were it not for his fan­dom and appren­tice­ship, it’s pos­si­ble a great many blues records would have gone unsold, and some artists may have fad­ed into obscu­ri­ty. Thanks to playlists like these, they can live on in a dig­i­tal age that doesn’t always do so well at acknowl­edg­ing or remem­ber­ing its his­to­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chuck Berry Takes Kei­th Richards to School, Shows Him How to Rock (1987)

Hear Demos of Kei­th Richards Singing Lead Vocals on Rolling Stones Clas­sics: “Gimme Shel­ter,” “Wild Hors­es” & More

Hunter S. Thomp­son Talks with Kei­th Richards in a Very Mem­o­rable and Mum­ble-Filled Inter­view (1993)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

Jeff Buck­ley released just one stu­dio album, Grace, before the emerg­ing star died unex­pect­ed­ly in May, 1997, drown­ing while swim­ming in the waters flow­ing from the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er. He was only 30 years old.

Giv­en his painful­ly short discog­ra­phy, fans will delight in the new­ly-dropped album, You and I, which fea­tures, among oth­er things, pre­vi­ous­ly-unre­leased Buck­ley cov­ers of songs orig­i­nal­ly record­ed by Bob Dylan (“Just Like a Woman”); Sly & the Fam­i­ly Stone (“Every­day Peo­ple”); Led Zep­pelin (“Night Flight”) and more. The album is now stream­ing on Spo­ti­fy.

Starved for some more Buck­ley music? Then you’ll also want to check out this new inter­ac­tive web­site which lets you browse/stream every album in Buck­ley’s var­ied vinyl record col­lec­tion. Miles Davis, Bil­lie Hol­i­day, Siouxsie and the Ban­shees, Van Mor­ri­son, the Stones, Dylan, Bowie, Coltrane and The Clash–they’re all part of the col­lec­tion. The video above shows you how to take full advan­tage of the new site. Enjoy.

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