It’s been a long time since we’ve conversed. I must apologize, but I’ve been a bit busy over the past year and have been meaning to say hello – but you know, life sometimes gets in the way. I’ve felt guilty for abandoning you about a year ago, which was a few days after “Reading Between the Grooves” had turned seven and we had our 1700th post.
This weekend, I heard a song on the radio that brought back a lot of memories and reminded me that the blog’s eighth birthday was coming up. Facebook nudged me of this morning. So, I make a return, but I can’t promise that I will be as active as I was those first few years, but I’d like to come back from my sabbatical even if it is on a limited basis.
The amazing thing, even with my extended absence, the best month the blog had was during my absence. In December 2016, we had 27,473 pageviews. No other month comes close. The second highest was in July 2016 with 15,568 pageviews. January 2017 was no slouch at third with a total of 14,425 pageviews. In fact, some of our heaviest traffic months were in 2017. More on the stats later.
As for that song I heard, it’s title is “Urge for Going” – which is how I behaved a year ago. It was written by Joni Mitchell, but her version wasn’t my favorite. Although it’s her song, I preferred Tom Rush’s arrangement from his “Circle Game” album.
Of the hundreds of versions of this song, there is a distinction of direct influences. Many use Joni’s arrangement as a base (such as Crosby & Nash) and others used Tom Rush’s version as a springboard (as did George Hamilton, IV and Lee Hazelwood). There are a few unique versions; and of those, Darrell Scott’s up-tempo new grass arrangement is quite good.
Today’s version may not be one you’ve heard before. It comes from Tony Rice’s 1988 LP “Native American” and it is inspired by Tom Rush’s playbook. Tony Rice is a world renown flat-picker and I received a cassette copy of this LP from my friend John Sellards. I wore out this cassette on my daily commute between Beckley and Charleston, West Virginia in the early '90s. While Tom Rush's version was my favorite, Tony Rice's adaptation dropped Tom Rush to number two.
While I loved the whole album, “Urge for Going” was my absolute favorite. Rice’s low voice is reminiscent of Tom Rush, only Rice has a distinct South-Central Virginia twang. What makes this song isn’t Rice’s pleasing voice or his lightning fast acoustic guitar lead, its John Carroll’s piano. For half of the song, its only Rice’s guitar and Carroll’s piano. Just before the guitar lead, additional color is added by Mark Schatz on double bass. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Typically when its the blog's birthday, I give a quick and dirty about how we are doing. Unfortunately, Google cannot agree on the stats for the blog, as they count the information differently – one through Google Analytics via Blogger and through the Google Analytics platform. I’ll try to make some sense from both.
To date, there have been 787,614 pageviews on the blog. Sadly, total unique visitor metrics are no longer available; therefore, these cannot be ascertained.
The stats reflect that we have been visited by people from 197 countries and territories. Therefore, there are only a handful of geographic regions we haven’t touched. The Top 10 is below and Russia has moved into second place from fourth. That jump was a major one, as Russia entered the Top 10 last year; no new countries were added to the list below.
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
391,491
2
Russia
56,690
3
Germany
44,136
4
United Kingdom
43,477
5
Canada
26,737
6
France
26,077
7
Ukraine
8,640
8
Australia
8,162
9
Japan
7,945
10
Italy
4,622
As it has been for several years, September 28, 2010’s post regarding Elliot Murphy’s “Eva Braun” continues to be the most viewed page. Several new songs entered in the top list of posts. Patty Loveless’ version of “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” is now at fifth place. Two other songs that were added last September also made it to the Top Ten: Mason Proffit’s “Jewel” at sixth and Jesse Winchester’s “Quiet about It” at eighth. I believe that these two jumped into the top ten as they were the most recent posts to the blog and may be just a fluke caused by my absence.
More to come this and next year. Thanks for sticking around even when I haven’t.
Seven years ago today and 1700 posts ago, I began this blog on a rainy afternoon. Today we celebrate my seventh year along with my 1700th post. This is one of the few times where the year and post anniversary fell on the same day. Before we get into analysis of blog, let’s talk about today’s feature.
In honor of the 1700th post, I selected the hit recording from Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Album 1700.” The name came about as it bore the Warner Brothers catalog number of W-1700. I’m not aware of any other recording that was named in honor of its catalog number. The LP was issued in 1967.
The only hit from the LP, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was issued two years later. Written and originally recorded by John Denver under the title, “Babe I Hate to Go,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane’ was the biggest and final hit for Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was their only #1 single and was released on the Warners-7 Arts label, as Warner Brothers Records was branded at the time. It peaked at #1 in Canada and at #2 in the UK.
As for the blog, Google Analytics has changed their metrics again and much of the data we had previously reported is no longer available, so I’ll give a scaled down version of what we’ve offered in the past.
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our last analysis, Germany moved from number four to number two displaced the United Kingdom and Canada, which dropped from three to six. In addition, three countries, Brazil, Spain, and the Netherlands, dropped out of the Top 10 and were replaced by Russia, Ukraine, and Japan.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
305,028
2
Germany
39,254
3
United Kingdom
38,756
4
Russia
32,224
5
France
23,097
6
Canada
22,827
7
Ukraine
8,319
8
Japan
7,945
9
Australia
7,425
10
Italy
4,452
As it has been for some time, September 28, 2010’s post regarding Elliot Murphy’s “Eva Braun” continues to be the most viewed page. Google remains the prime source of driving traffic to the blog. Thanks for your support of Reading Between the Grooves.
Today is a day of celebration. Six years ago today I began this blog on a rainy Saturday afternoon. It was one of the better decisions I’ve made as I have rekindled friendships and made a number of new ones over the six year period. The last two years (especially last year) with the change in jobs, I’ve not kept up with the blog. In 2015, I’ve had long gaps without new posts. Hopefully, that will change.
Before we get to the stats, our final selection to celebrate the music of Deram Records, we bring you an album cut from Ten Years After fourth album for the label: “Ssssh.” In all, Deram released seven Ten Years After albums – five studio, one live, and a compilation album. “Ssssh” was their second album from 1969 and a number of cuts got some album airplay, no singles were issued from the album to my knowledge.
Until the 1971 hit on Columbia, “I’d Love to Change the World,” singles were just a nuisance that the record company released hoping that mainstream radio would pick up on it. With the exception of “I’d Love to Change the World,” it didn’t work and Deram had no hit records from Ten Years After.
To remedy that, we turned to the final cut on “Ssssh” and an Alvin Lee tune – “I Woke Up this Morning.” It really showcases how great a guitarist Alvin Lee was. Even as great a talent as Lee was, he needed a solid band and Ten Years After fulfilled that need. The band was rounded out by Leo Lyons on bass (always a joy to watch), Chick Churchill on keyboards, and Ric Lee on drums. Great stuff for a Saturday – rainy or otherwise.
RBTG’s Sixth Anniversary Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 95 declared followers of the blog – the same number as in March 2015 when we had our 1600th post. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers.
As noted above, we have not been vigilant in maintaining posts, but that hasn’t affected our overall numbers. With over 1600 posts, people have been visiting anyway even without new material that was forthcoming.
The cumulative statistics for the blog are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
190,254
Times Visited
213,983
Number of Pages Viewed
298,652
People Visiting 200+ Times
3,188
People Visiting 101-200 Times
1,557
People Visiting 51-100 Times
1,486
People Visiting 26-50 Times
1,418
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
191
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our 1,600th post, three new countries were added to the list: Tajikistan (in Asia), Cuba (in the Caribbean), and Chad in Africa . The Top 10 countries remain the same; however, former tenth position Spain knocked Netherlands out of the ninth position.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
105,359
2
United Kingdom
18,120
3
Canada
11,490
4
Germany
9,847
5
France
7,228
6
Australia
5,213
7
Italy
4,428
8
Brazil
4,224
9
Spain
3,416
10
Netherlands
3,397
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today, Reading Between the Grooves celebrates another milestone – our 1600th post. I’ll do a recap in a few minutes, but let’s talk about today’s selection. When I hear the number 1600, my mind typically goes to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the address of the executive mansion commonly called The White House.
What better way to celebrate post 1600, than to listen to the only hit by The Presidents. Their name wasn’t the only connection to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as their production company was called White House Productions and the band hailed from our nation’s capital. Produced by Van McCoy (remember “The Hustle”) in 1970, The Presidents scored decently on both the Hot 100 (at #11) and the R&B (at #5) charts with “5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years of Love).
Their only hit was penned by two of the three members of the band: Tony Boyd and Archie Powell. Billy Shorter rounded out the trio. The band would later rebrand as Trilogy and eventually as Anacostia; however, despite the name changes, The Presidents et al. were one-hit wonders. Anacostia continued to record into the 1980s.
RBTG’s 1,600th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 95 declared followers of the blog – up from 87 in August 2014. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers.
As noted with our 1500th post, Google+ remains a major source of new visitors; however, we’ve gained some notoriety in the last six months from Twitter. The hashtag feature works well on both Google+ and Twitter in attracting publicity. Just recently, we had a spike of visitors on February 27, 2015 – this would have occurred the day after we posted Rod Stewart’s “You Wear it Well.”
The cumulative statistics for the blog are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
173,546
Times Visited
195,260
Number of Pages Viewed
275,553
People Visiting 200+ Times
3,903
People Visiting 101-200 Times
1,538
People Visiting 51-100 Times
1,363
People Visiting 26-50 Times
1,300
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
188
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our 1,500th post, two new countries were added to the list: Liechtenstein from Europe and São Tomé and Príncipe off of the coast of Africa. The Top 10 countries remain the same; however, former tenth position Netherlands knocked Spain out of the ninth position.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
95,807
2
United Kingdom
16,550
3
Canada
10,416
4
Germany
9,163
5
France
6,638
6
Australia
4,512
7
Italy
4,147
8
Brazil
3,968
9
Netherlands
3,152
10
Spain
3,115
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Well, it’s our birthday – well anniversary really – for Reading Between the Grooves. Five years ago today, I came up with the idea to pass along my passion for recorded music to the masses and it has been a great ride. Nearly 160 thousand people have stumbled onto this blog since that rainy Saturday in 2009. Currently, I’ve penned 1,524 posts. Since I recently elaborated on the blog’s stats for our 1500th post, I won’t do that here. See me on the 1600th post after the first of the year.
For our Fourth Week Label feature and Feminine Fridays, I present a cut from the diminutive diva of rock: Ms. Pat Benatar. “Heartbreaker,” her first major single release, was issued during the fall of 1979. It was Benatar’s third single and her second release from her debut album “In the Heat of the Night.”
Although Benatar had a possible future in classical voice, she didn’t pursue this career path. Choosing to rock instead, Chrysalis Records gave her a shot and she became one of the better known female vocalists in the 1980s. Although receiving a great deal of airplay, “Heartbreaker” only charted at #23. Although it wasn’t her best known recording, “Heartbreaker” served to introduce this musical legend to the rest of us.
Today we celebrate Reading Between the Grooves 1500th post. The timing of this auspicious occasion, however, is right in the middle of our Second Week Special – this month it’s “Mocking Byrds” – a look at covers of songs by The Byrds. We’ll deal with this first and then talk about the stats for this 1500th post.
Earlier this week, I mentioned that my affinity towards The Byrds goes back to 1966 with my first purchase of a 45 RPM single by the band. Later in the early 70s, they were the subject of my first cassette tape purchase. That album was “The Notorious Byrd Brothers.” This collection saw great personnel changes of the original members of The Byrds.
All five original members are believed to be present on this album, but only two, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, were constants. There was a great deal of tension regarding the recording of the album, but despite this, “The Notorious Byrd Brothers” is often cited as a critical success for the band and it is considered more cohesive in style even though the band at the time was anything but cohesive. For more, see a former post regarding this album that is still one of my favorites by The Byrds.
For today’s feature, we dip into the album’s depths for a little known tune named “Dolphin’s Smile.” It was written by David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, and Chris Hillman. If you listen to the outtakes of this recording, there was quite a bit of angst exhibited towards Michael Clarke on the recording of “Dolphin’s Smile.” In a word, he was not getting it and it took at least 15 takes for him to capture the spirit that the other three members and the engineer wanted.
For today’s cover, we provide a live version by Blue Coupe at Don O’Dell’s Legends Studio in Palmer, Massachusetts. Blue Coupe features three multi-instrumentalists that are no strangers to the rock music scene. For this number, Dennis Dunaway, formerly of Alice Cooper, is on bass and he is joined by the two Bouchard brothers who had been members of Blue Öyster Cult during their heyday.
Albert Bouchard, who was BÖC’s drummer, is playing the six-string acoustic and Joe Bouchard, BÖC’s bassist, is on the 12-string acoustic. All three as well as a couple of female back-up vocalists do an amazing job capturing the spirit of The Byrds’ original sans the sound effects, Moog synthesizer, and of course drums. The name Blue Coupe is an amalgamation of their former bands’ names: Blue Öyster Cult and Alice Cooper. Good stuff for our “Mocking Byrds” feature.
RBTG’s 1,500th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 87 declared followers of the blog – up from 76 in February 2014. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. As noted with our 1400th post, Google+ remains a major source of new visitors.
The cumulative statistics for the blog are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
155,273
Times Visited
174,399
Number of Pages Viewed
249,046
People Visiting 200+ Times
2,819
People Visiting 101-200 Times
1,364
People Visiting 51-100 Times
1,210
People Visiting 26-50 Times
1,088
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
186
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our 1,400th post, four new countries were added to the list: two from the Caribbean (Caribbean Netherlands and the British Virgin Islands), one from Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), and one from Africa (Mali). The Top 10 countries remain the same; however, former seventh position Australia knocked Italy out of the sixth position.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
84,957
2
United Kingdom
14,668
3
Canada
9,309
4
Germany
8,194
5
France
5,828
6
Australia
3,888
7
Italy
3,820
8
Brazil
3,671
9
Spain
2,793
10
Netherlands
2,789
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today, we celebrate the 1,400th post on “Reading Between The Grooves,” but before we analyze what’s happened during the last 100 posts, we’ll also finish off our Second Week Special: “It was 50 Years ago Today.” This week in 1964, The Beatles’ first album on Capitol Records became the #1 album in the US.
“Meet The Beatles!” would stay at this slot for 11 weeks until it was unseated by “The Beatles’ Second Album.” The titles of Capitol’s first two albums were misnomers, as they discounted Vee Jay’s release, “Introducing . . . The Beatles,” which predated “Meet The Beatles!” by ten days.
While “Meet The Beatles!” had a similar cover to the second UK release, the two albums only shared nine songs. While “With The Beatles” had six songs not penned by the band, “Meet The Beatles!” featured only one tune not written by John, Paul, or George – “Till There was You.”
Written by Meredith Wilson for “The Music Man” in 1958, Paul McCartney learned the song through Peggy Lee’s recording, and it became part of the band’s set list as early as 1962. Their version of “Till There was You” features an impressive acoustic guitar lead by George Harrison.
McCartney sang lead on the tune and had an interesting pronunciation of the word “saw,” which comes across as “sarw.” In addition, the song was the second tune played by The Beatles on their Ed Sullivan Show debut on February 9, 1964.
RBTG’s 1,400th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 76 declared followers of the blog – up from 70 in September 2013. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. Since our last evaluation, Google+ has become a major source of new visitors.
The cumulative statistics for the blog are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
137,223
Times Visited
153,177
Number of Pages Viewed
221,404
People Visiting 200+ Times
2,161
People Visiting 101-200 Times
1,083
People Visiting 51-100 Times
989
People Visiting 26-50 Times
963
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
182
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our 1,300th post, three new countries were added to the list: two from the Caribbean (Sint Maarten and Curaçao) and one from Africa (Somalia).
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
74,412
2
United Kingdom
12,774
3
Canada
8,253
4
Germany
7,154
5
France
4,952
6
Italy
3,474
7
Australia
3,306
8
Brazil
3,176
9
Spain
2,493
10
Netherlands
2,468
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today is the fourth anniversary of Reading Between the Grooves as well as being the 1,300th post. For the last several yearly anniversaries, I’ve been able to time these with a post numbered in one hundred increments. Within a month or two, we’ll also celebrate 200,000 page views – too bad that hadn’t come sooner to join this auspicious occasion.
We’ll get into the details concerning this anniversary after we take care of today’s post from Parrot Records. As we’ve done on another occasion during the Thursdays Repeats and Threepeats during the Fourth Week Label Special, we’ve featured a song that was released by two different artists on the same label. Written by Bert Berns, “Here Comes the Night” was recorded in 1964 by two British Decca artists whose singles were issued on Parrot Records in the US.
Lulu’s Version
The first release of “Here Comes the Night” is slower than the eventual hit version and it has a different opening. Of course, it is sung from a female’s perspective. While in comparison to Them’s hit version, it is unusual, but I really like its treatment.
Issued as a non album single, Lulu’s recording was released in November 1964 and peaked only at #50 in the UK. Although marketed in the US on Parrot, it failed to chart. So for my American readers, this may be the first time you’ve heard this particular recording.
Them’s Version
The well known version of “Here Comes the Night” was recorded by the Belfast, Northern Ireland band “Them.” In addition, it was recorded before Lulu ever heard the tune. Berns had just written the song and had an idea of a repeating guitar riff. He brought the song to Them and the band worked on the tune for four days as it evolved.
Berns, who produced the record, utilized Jimmy Page on second guitar, Phil Coulter on second keyboards, Andy White on second drums and backing vocals, and Tommy Scott on backing vocals. Of course, Van Morrison sang lead. Although it was slated to be issued as Them’s next single, Decca held off on its release and brought Lulu into the studio to record her version. It even used the same guitar riff employed by Them.
Although both were on the same label, Decca (and ultimately Parrot in the US) rush released Lulu’s version. Needless to say, Them was not very happy with the decision; however, the band felt some vindication when Lulu’s version tanked. The label waited until March 1965 to release Them’s version and it did quite well in both The UK and Ireland where it charted at #2. Its US showing on Parrot was not as spectacular, as it only peaked at #24.
RBTG’s 1,300th Post / Fourth Anniversary Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 70 declared followers of the blog – up from 67 in June. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
122,170
Times Visited
135,789
Number of Pages Viewed
197,782
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,952
People Visiting 101-200 Times
844
People Visiting 51-100 Times
801
People Visiting 26-50 Times
784
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
179
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
63.4%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
26.6%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
11.0%
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
Since our 1200th post, Spain overtook the Netherlands for the ninth spot. Four new countries and territories were added since June 2013. They include one from Europe (The Faroe Islands), one from the Caribbean (Haiti), and two from Africa (Rwanda and Burundi, which at one time were part of a single nation).
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
66,032
2
United Kingdom
11,160
3
Canada
7,428
4
Germany
6,216
5
France
4,189
6
Italy
3,132
7
Australia
2,908
8
Brazil
2,828
9
Spain
2,213
10
Netherlands
2,189
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today’s post marks our 1,200th edition of this blog and before we summarize the activity of this blog, we’ll head to today’s musical selection. Not as famous as “The City of New Orleans” or “Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie’s ode to counter-culture activity is probably his third best known recording.
From his 1969 album “Running Down the Road,” “Coming into Los Angeles” increased in popularity as it was one of the songs Arlo performed live at Woodstock later that year. According to Geoff Boucher of the LA Times who got the story from Arlo, the song chronicles a late 60s flight from London to Los Angeles by Mr. Guthrie.
While on the flight, he opened up his suitcase to find that someone from London included a present of a couple of kilos of contraband. Needless to say, Arlo was extremely nervous especially when he was going to go through customs. Apparently, as the song doesn’t record an arrest or any harassment, he was able to re-enter the US with the unnamed illegal substance.
Boucher explained the line in the song about the “Chickens flying everywhere around the plane.” It refers the extreme turbulence the plane experienced on its flight over the Arctic and the stewardesses were dropping chicken dinners in the process.
About two weeks ago a friend and I were talking about Arlo’s music and I remembered this song. I hadn’t heard it in years and it is perfect for our Wooden Music Wednesday feature as Arlo plays an acoustic guitar throughout the tune. The fine electric guitar leads were courtesy of Clarence White of The Byrds.
RBTG’s 1,200th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 67 declared followers of the blog – up from 59 in January. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
113,311
Times Visited
125,553
Number of Pages Viewed
184,355
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,695
People Visiting 101-200 Times
790
People Visiting 51-100 Times
609
People Visiting 26-50 Times
585
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
175
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
63.3%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
26.4%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
10.3%
The Top Ten Charts
On January 28/29, 2013, Google apparently changed its algorithm on how it counts visitors for sites using its analytics feature. There was a marked drop of page views on January 29 to levels that were lower than two years ago. January 29 also was the date of our 1100th post.
Because of this, we will not be bringing you the Top 10 charts for songs and dates, as these will no doubt remain static because the current numbers are unusually low. The overall numbers are up and we have more dedicated followers; however, this is not translating in the daily page view category. We will only be able to provide the Top Ten Visitor Countries.
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
The rankings remain static when compared to the previous two anniversaries; however, Spain is poised to take the ninth spot soon. Three new countries and territories were added since January 2013. They include one from Europe (Kosovo), one from the Caribbean (Guadeloupe), and one from Oceania (Solomon Islands).
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
60,629
2
United Kingdom
10,351
3
Canada
6,971
4
Germany
5,690
5
France
3,749
6
Italy
2,961
7
Australia
2,697
8
Brazil
2,656
9
Netherlands
2,051
10
Spain
2,050
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today’s post marks our 1,100th edition of this blog and before we get into the nitty gritty of the numbers thus far, we’ll head to today’s musical selection. Since it is Tasty Licks Tuesday, I thought I might share a number from Junior Brown. If you are not familiar with this iconic guitarist, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Brown plays a custom made guitar that combines a six-string electric guitar with a neck from an 8-string lap steel. Because of this combination, his “guit-steel” is fastened to a stand that allows him to switch between guitar necks. He keeps his steel in a pocket that rests above the six-string.
Typically, Brown has been pigeonholed into the country genre; however, he has recorded Jimi Hendrix tunes with remarkable agility and aplomb. In today’s selection, Brown shows that he is equally adept in performing par excellence in the surf guitar realm.
His “Surf Medley” incorporates The Chantays’ “Pipeline,” The Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run,” The Marketts’ “Out of Limits,” and Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man.” If you haven’t heard anything else of Brown’s music, I would encourage you to check out his other videos.
RBTG’s 1,100th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 59 declared followers of the blog – up from 57 in September 2012. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
101,474
Times Visited
112,018
Number of Pages Viewed
166,866
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,527
People Visiting 101-200 Times
486
People Visiting 51-100 Times
459
People Visiting 26-50 Times
488
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
172
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
63.44%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
27.81%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
8.75%
The Top Ten Charts
As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
The rankings remain static when compared to the previous 1,000th Anniversary. Eight new countries and territories were added since September 2012. They include one from Europe (Gibraltar), one from the Caribbean (Dominica), and the remainder from Africa (Angola, Benin, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
53,741
2
United Kingdom
9,325
3
Canada
6,348
4
Germany
4,717
5
France
3,176
6
Italy
2,788
7
Australia
2,450
8
Brazil
2,446
9
Netherlands
1,875
10
Spain
1,816
The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access
While most people (6,010) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. Elliott Murphy’s “Eva Braun” reentered the top 10 and Mike Deasy’s “All God’s Children” placed in the top listing for the first time. This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct access of these ten songs.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. All but two of the selections, the number one and number six slot, came from the last 100 days. Five of the pages were from new features that were added since September – the Second Week Special and the Fourth Week Label Special.
The #1 day is an anomaly as it represents a day that had intensive viewing of the entire blog by two new visitors. These two individuals spent a great deal of time on the blog and looked at hundreds of pages during one single weekend.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. Except for Sandy Denny’s version of “Easy to Slip,” all of the other positions on this chart were featured during the last 100 posts. As with the Top Ten Days, five of these positions were from our two newest categories.
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today is a momentous occasion for Reading Between the Grooves, as we have now broken the one hundred thousand mark for unique and unduplicated visitors. It took us nearly three and one half years to reach this many visitors to the blog – but the numbers are growing at a much faster pace than in the past.
It took us nearly two years to reach the 25,000 mark. This was accomplished on June 10, 2011 which was 620 days following the establishment of this blog. We reached the 50,000 mark 246 days later on February 11, 2012. Our next milestone was 75,000 unique visitors which occurred 180 days after the previous record on August 9, 2012. Today’s 100,000 visitor record comes only 164 days after the last record was set.
I wanted to utilize a song that fit the occasion with a similar theme in its title, and I found Luke Slott’s “One Hundred Thousand Veils.” The song was written for International Human Rights day which occurs annually on December 10 and appears on his 2012 EP “The Light of Unity.” Slott provides the acoustic guitar, piano, and vocals on this track.
The lyrical content of “One Hundred Thousand Veils” addresses religious
persecution, but specifically the heinous persecution of those who
practice the Bahá'í faith in Iran. While Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians may occasionally suffer persecution in Iran, all three are afforded at least some protection by the government. Bahá'ís, who are the largest religious minority in Iran, are not provided the same rights, as they are considered both religious and political enemies of the state.
Although my own religious beliefs differ in practice from Bahá'í tenets, I sympathize with their plight. Persecution and human suffering in any form needs to be abolished. Slott, an Irish singer/songwriter, has made “One Hundred Thousand Veils” as a free download, and from what I can see, he has already touched the hearts of many individuals across the world with this message.
“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Well, being that today is the 1,000th post and simultaneously the third anniversary of “Reading Between the Grooves,” it is the planned D-Day for this blog; however, at about 35 posts out, I started getting requests to keep it going. “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” We’ll answer that later, but right now, let’s talk about the song of the day. I think it is a fitting title for the day I release my decision on closing down this blog or continuing it.
Back in 1982, CBS Records in the UK released The Clash’s single “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Since it charted at 17, which is a moderately good position, Epic Records in the US put out “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” not once, not twice, and not even thrice. The US single was released four times in 1982 and 1983.
The first release was a one-sided single that was hoping to capture some sales as the price was less than a conventional two sided 45 rpm. This special release was numbered as ENR-03571 and the tactic of issuing a low priced single flopped. There was another problem – while The Clash did well in the UK, they did not have that large of a following in the US. 1983’s “Rock the Casbah” and its memorable video would change that.
In June 1982, a conventional single of “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” with “Inoculated City” as the “B” side was released as Epic 14-03006. Within six weeks, a third configuration with “First Night Back in London” was issued as Epic 34-03061. Finally in January 1983, Epic re-released the final version with “Cool Confusion” as the flip as 34-03547.
I remember CBS and numerous independent promoters beating me up about this song. Although I could see this song charting on an album rock station, I didn’t think it would fit Top 40 radio – and apparently I was not alone as the song only peaked at #45.
I even had one promoter to promise to send me one of every album in the CBS catalog that included Columbia, Epic, Portrait, and a handful of other labels. As tempting that offer was, I opted not to take the promoter up on his offer. I don’t really think he was really serious about this – but you can never be too sure.
In 1991, the single was re-released in the UK where it charted the second time at the #1 spot.
From the album “Combat Rock,” Mick Jones sings the lead on the song while Joe Strummer and Tex-Mex/rockabilly artist Joe Ely are singing the Spanish backup lyrics. The Spanish is not the typical Castilian version, but rather an Ecuadorian dialect.
While I didn’t add the record thirty-years ago, I still like the song, and its message is fitting for today.
Should The Blog Stay or Should It Go?
After much deliberation on this subject and the support of a number of people, I have decided to keep it going. Here are some of the comments that influenced my decision:
I really enjoy the music you provide on your blog, most of which I have not heard for years, some of it not at all. While I don't log-in every day - and even less often over the past few months- I do truly love listening and reading.
I only just came across this blog last week...please keep going!
Hard to pick a favorite feature. I dig Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays AND Saturdays!
I can't get enough historical information about music.
Porque se nota que sabes de que hablas,como lo escribes, aunque tenga que traducirlo y sabes porqué, pues porque si uno ama la música esto se nota. Translated by Babelfish as “Because it shows that you know of what you speak, how you write, even if you have to translate it and you know why, well because if one loves the music this is noted.”
I always learn something new, and just plain like listening to music.
Only discovered this a few weeks ago through the BLUES IN F story. I know a number of DC based folks with chops and historical knowledge (Big Joe Maher, Bill Kirchen) that can channel this sort of musical cultural stream-of-consciousness and tell stories like this but they’re not writing like you are. Selfishly, I say DONT STOP! Cut back if that'll keep you in the game.
I found your blog through family history connections but music comes higher up priority list than family history. Hope you keep going - but if not thanks for your brilliant efforts thus far.
I always enjoy reading your posts on the groups and the music that I grew up with. It helps me start discussions about the music with my college age children. Always good to learn new things!
I ended up on your blog in a roundabout way... from one of your community posts 23andMe, actually. Seems we have similar interests. I'm an author and teach journalism and mass communication at a state university, I play the guitar. I love music and pop culture. I'm 53 and have fond memories of Heart, the Allman Bros., the Doors, you name it. Great stuff, thanks.
I enjoy the insight into various music.
I have more than one favorite... u r a walking AMERICAN musical treasure trove ... if you cease this blog it will have an effect on those who don't even yet know it exists...but will read it later on in their lives... speaking of, you have your own to live and do as you must... if I were you, I would try to sell the service to a magazine or some other media... u get paid, we get the goods...win/win...unless the mag charged for the blog...
I enjoy the wide variety of music you post. You've certainly added to my musical knowledge.
I learn a lot about music I didn't know before.
I love music, and you seem to have good taste in music.
It's just a great ideas with great execution
Perceptive comments, all-encompassing tangential thoughts, clarity of vision.
You can never get enough wild stuff that slipped through the cracks
I love finding out the interesting tidbits you include about the various songs and bands (from my 'youth')
I love reading all the blogs, even if they're not music that I'm usually interested in. I love learning new things about music and these blogs really branch out into some areas I'm not always familiar with.
I'm gonna miss these blog [posts] if they disappear.
Okay, I'm in a little more than a bit of a panic with only 35 posts to go. What will I do for music information? It's part of my daily routine.
I enjoy your posts....reminds me of days gone by.
I note that you are planning only a few more posts? I would urge you to carry on. Good criticism is all too rare on the internet.
I asked what features people liked the most, and of our current choices, the top three favorite features are One-Hit Wonder Wednesday at 30.43%, Tasty Licks Tuesday with 21.74%, and Saturday’s Bubbling Under Feature with 17.39%. It looks pretty good for those features to continue. I will probably scale back some when I need to – as I did last year.
In October, I will be moving and expanding TV Thursdays to Media Mondays and incorporate music from motion pictures as well as from TV shows, commercials, and live performances. Thursday’s feature will be Thursday’s Repeats and Threepeats – songs that were released more than once. I have a great one scheduled for next week. Over time, I will switch out some of the other categories when I feel that their life is abating.
In addition to the two daily changes, I plan to do a special focus outside of the daily parameters every second week of the month called the Second Week Special. My plan for October is to feature six rock songs that utilize the mandolin. Other features will be related to instrumentation, musical genre, record label, songwriter, or some other theme.
Thanks for participating in the survey and encouraging me to continue. If you want to know how this blog has done from the beginning, see the section below. Thanks again.
RBTG’s 1,000th Post/3rd Anniversary Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 57 declared followers of the blog – up from 51 in June 2012. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
81,821
Times Visited
90,610
Number of Pages Viewed
134,212
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,376
People Visiting 101-200 Times
486
People Visiting 51-100 Times
311
People Visiting 26-50 Times
331
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
164
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
64.96%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
26.16%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
8.88%
The Top Ten Charts
As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
The rankings remain static when compared to the previous 900th Anniversary. Nine new countries and territories were added and include the following: Andorra, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and Tanzania.
Outside of large portion of Africa and some countries in Asia, the unreached nations include smaller countries and islands. Most of the island nations that are not represented were located in The Caribbean and Oceania.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
44,529
2
United Kingdom
7,568
3
Canada
5,136
4
Germany
3,654
5
France
2,468
6
Italy
2,210
7
Australia
2,026
8
Brazil
1,966
9
Netherlands
1,467
10
Spain
1,415
Locations where RBTGs has been accessed. Click on the map for full sized image.
The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access
While most people (5,149) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks’ “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away” rejoined the Top 10 this time.
The most significant move was Fairport Convention’s “Matty Groves,” which moved from six to four on the chart. This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct access of these ten songs.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. One day did not have associated content for that particular day.
All but one of the selections, the number one slot, came from the last 100 days. The #1 day is an anomaly as it represents a day that had intensive viewing of the entire blog by two new visitors. These two individuals spent a great deal of time on the blog and looked at hundreds of pages during one single weekend.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. All but two of these days are new to this chart and eight are not older than 100 posts.
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Today is our 900th post of “Reading Between the Grooves.” We are in the home stretch because when our one-thousandth post is made on September 26 – our third anniversary, I am retiring this blog. It will be a fitting time to close the annals on this work. The fat lady has not sung yet, so we still have a 100 more posts to go. We’ll look at the blog in retrospect in a few paragraphs, but for now more important info comes with today’s blog post.
On Saturday, I learned of the tragic end of Bob Welch. Three months ago, he had spinal surgery and was apparently told that he would not recover and would be an invalid. He apparently told friends that he did not want his wife of 27 years, Wendy, to bear the burden of caring for him. He was found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the chest on Thursday, June 7. Welch was 66 and was survived only by his wife.
Bob Welch laid the groundwork for Fleetwood Mac’s rise to pop stardom via his replacements and friends Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham; however, his many contributions as a member of Fleetwood Mac for four years have largely been ignored. When the band was inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Welch was not invited to the ceremonies. Others who served in the pre-Buckingham/Nicks' version of the band, however, were inducted.
It is thought that a lawsuit for back royalties several years previous was the catalyst for Welch to be snubbed by his former band mates. During his tenure, Welch contributed to five Fleetwood Mac albums: “Future Games,” “Bare Trees,” “Penguin,” “Mystery to Me,” and “Heroes are Hard to Find.” Welch inspired the titles of two of those albums, “Future Games” – as he penned the title cut, and “Mystery to Me” that was named after a line found in his song “Emerald Eyes.”
I have already featured his two best known songs with Mac, “Sentimental Lady” from “Bare Trees” and “Hypnotized” from “Mystery to Me.” For the purpose of extending your understanding of Bob’s contributions to Mac, here’s a classic from 1971 “Future Games.” His distinct guitar rhythm technique and octave runs are recognizable on this cut.
When Welch left the band, he went on to form the band Paris which recorded two albums. His next album, “French Kiss” was originally slated to be “Paris 3”; however, it became his first solo album and produced three hits “Sentimental Lady,” “Ebony Eyes,” and “Hot Love, Cold World.” While Welch released twelve albums (including compilations), he only had one other Top 40 Hit, “Precious Love” in 1979.
Mainstream Americans are probably more familiar with Welch’s solo material, but I wanted to feature one of his Fleetwood Mac contributions to emphasize his pivotal role in the band. The world mourns Bob’s passing.
RBTG’s 900th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 51 declared followers of the blog – up from 41 in February 2012. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
65,975
Times Visited
73,349
Number of Pages Viewed
92,533
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,198
People Visiting 101-200 Times
483
People Visiting 51-100 Times
288
People Visiting 26-50 Times
255
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
155
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
65.25%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
25.47%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
9.30%
The Top Ten Charts
As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
The rankings remain static when compared to the previous 800th Anniversary. New countries and territories added include the following: Åland Islands, Bahamas, Cameroon, French Guiana, and Madagascar.
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
36,488
2
United Kingdom
6,238
3
Canada
4,082
4
Germany
2,943
5
France
1,949
6
Italy
1,735
7
Australia
1,647
8
Brazil
1,590
9
Netherlands
1,195
10
Spain
1,103
The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access
While most people (4,392) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. Two new pages joined the list –Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Up Above My Head.” This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct access of these ten songs.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. Only two of the selections came from the last 100 posts and two days since February that had no associated content placed in the top ten.
The #1 and #4 days are anomalies as they represent two days that had intensive viewing of the entire blog by two new visitors. These two individuals spent a great deal of time on the blog and looked at hundreds of pages during one single weekend.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. All but two of these songs are new to this chart and eight are not older than 100 posts.
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves and remember, this blog will be wrapping up with our 1,000th post on September 26, 2012. The countdown begins.
Associate Provost and Professor of Mass Communication at Alderson Broaddus University and an adjunct faculty member at Southern New Hampshire University.
Graduate of Marshall University, West Virginia University, Southern New Hampshire University, Kentucky Christian University and Mountain State University.
Dissertation on institutional rebranding (see newriver.net) was the 2009 international winner of the Alice L. Beeman Dissertation Award for Outstanding Research in Communications and Marketing for Higher Education Advancement and was the 2008 Leo and Margaret Goodman-Malamuth Outstanding Dissertation Award for Research in Higher Education Administration.
Placed as a winner in five Active Industry Research Contemporary Hit Radio "Pick the Hits" competitions from 1983 through 1987. Each competition had 31 winners. Placed 2nd (1st among radio participants), 6th, 10th (twice), and 21st in the five competitions.
Awarded 14 gold & platinum records and an international sales award from various record companies. Winner of 30 Public Relations awards.
