Rock History: Rock's Social Conscience, Street Poets, Surging Female Stars, Rap Crossover, and Thrash Metal

George Thorogood & the Destroyers Cont'd

"I first saw Chuck Berry in 1966," said George, who has noted in concert that "If you don't like Chuck, you're out of luck." He added in his self-deprecating manner: "I guess you could say I went to the same school of rock as Eric Clapton. He graduated with honors. I graduated with a C+. But we learned some of the same things."

Live Aid's Legacy

"The whole atmosphere here feels great. This is the best of the big shows that we've done—including the US Festival a few years ago. People are nicer here," said Greg Hawkes of the Boston band, the Cars, which had just played their recent hits "You Might Think" and "Drive." "We ought to do this four times a year for everything—for all diseases and pestilence," said comedian Chevy Chase, waxing serious for a moment. Ears then perked up to the lounge's TV monitors when the now-deceased singer Harry Chapin, who started his World Hunger organization several years before anyone ever heard of Band Aid or USA for Africa, was shown on screen, saying, "When in doubt, do something." That message was not lost on Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary, who walked by at the time and glued his eyes to Chapin. "This whole event is a reactivation of something we all knew well in the '60s," Yarrow said. "So what if hunger is a safe issue. It's a beginning, and that's what is important." Another upsurge of social consciousness. A rebound for rock 'n' roll. A time to take stock. A great day, period.

The Rolling Stones "Steel Wheels" tour transformed the touring industry by capitalizing on corporate sponsors, lucrative merchandise licensing deals, and a robust after-market of film and television rights. This trend has become known as

Canadian Michael Cohl gets the credit for "package touring" which began with the Stones "Steel Wheels" tour where the promoter and the band shares all the rights and exploits many sources of revenue in excess of those of tickets sales.

Who moved to New York City at age 24 and hooked up with David Bowie's manager, Tony DeFries?

Johnny Cougar partnered with manager Tony DeFries... we mean John Cougar... or should we say... John Cougar Mellencamp?... Or how about John Mellencamp? Blame Mr. DeFries!

Bon Jovi Cont'd

Jon's ambition was evident when he said after the rampant success of the Slippery album: "I'll never be satisfied. I'm not happy that we have the number one album, single, CD, video and that I sold out every show... and that I can buy a huge mansion if I want to. Next year I plan to do better. I want a bigger record, more shows. I want to be able to buy two houses instead of one." Oh, and Jon Bon Jovi now has five kids too. He does everything in a big way—and they've been especially massive in Europe. They shocked many obsessives in the '80s when they headlined stadium shows in Europe over Van Halen. That would not have happened in the U.S. at the time. They also played in the Soviet Union in 1989 at the Moscow Music Peace Festival. Perhaps the crowning touch of Bon Jovi's ambition was the release of a box set in 2004 entitled 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong. It was adapted from an Elvis Presley title, 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong. Leave it to Bon Jovi to one-up Elvis in their marketing. The band never had great respect from its music-industry peers, however. The only Grammy that Jon ever won, ironically, was not for rock, but for country music. In 2007, he won for best country collaboration with vocals "Who Says You Can't Go Home," a duet with Jennifer Nettles. Still, his band has still headlined stadiums into the new millennium and most of his fans remain rabid females.

Paul McCartney and Bass guitar

Known for his iconic violin-shaped Hofner electric bass, McCartney's innate melodic sensibility carried over to his bass playing on Beatles records. His inventive bass lines on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band standout as some of the most creative bass parts in rock, and he consistently pushed boundaries with his exuberant playing. Paul began as a guitar player, and during the Beatles Hamburg years he picked up the bass when no one else in the band would do so.

Live Aid Performances

Likable imperfections were rampant throughout the day. Ozzy Osbourne slobbered through his brief reunion set with Black Sabbath, yet there was something so primitive and affecting during the song "War Pigs," as Ozzy flounced around in a Liberace-like cape, that fans had to be won over. The same when Canadian Bryan Adams interrupted his set to do a scratchy version of "Tears are Not Enough," the Canadian counterpart to USA for Africa's "We Are the World." Several people in the crowd raised Canadian flags, and the gut emotion of the moment far exceeded Adams' vocal problems. The best set of the day was a haphazard, grope-along effort from a reunited Led Zeppelin, featuring singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones, and sit-in drummer Phil Collins. They careened through "Rock 'n' Roll," "Whole Lotta Love" (with Plant screaming orgasmically) and "Stairway to Heaven," featuring the double-necked guitar expertise of Page, who tenderly embraced Plant afterward.

excerpts from Steve Morse's Globe review on Farm Aid Cont'd

Many daytime artists had left their own marks by debuting special songs for the occasion. Tanya Tucker sang, "Dear Mr. Johnson," a tender ballad about a farmer denied a bank loan. And rocker Bon Jovi came up with a pretty song asking, "Can you hear the voices calling in the heart of America?" Even if they didn't write new songs, many acts still went to extra lengths. Nelson and Arlo Guthrie duetted gloriously on Steve Goodman's train song, "City of New Orleans." Rock band Foreigner had a local, white-robed gospel choir join them on "I Want to Know What Love Is." Emmylou Harris joined Southern Pacific for a hot version of "Pink Cadillac." And surprise guest Roger McGuinn sang his old Byrds hit, "Turn, Turn, Turn," taken from a Biblical quote about how there is a time for every season. Bluesman B.B. King, one of only two black acts, played a classy, show-stealing set, while the best daytime rock sets came from two Los Angeles bands, the Blasters and X, along with '50s star Roy Orbison and comeback rocker John Fogerty, who reminded the crowd that "next time you sit down at a meal, remember it didn't come in a cellophane bag from Safeway. Some guy gave his whole life to it."

Genesis' puppets

No one could have predicted the evolution of the British band Genesis. They started as a progressive, art-rock group heavily into dramatic theater and costumes when Peter Gabriel was with them for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in the '70s, then became more of a pop band when Phil Collins took over as singer in the '80s. They scored a number of MTV-promoted hits and surprised with one of the most unique videos of the era. It was for "Land of Confusion," a no. 4 pop hit in 1986. It featured caricature puppets made by the producers of the British TV show Spitting Image. There were puppets of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, amid the political lyric of "Oh Superman where are you now / When everything's gone wrong somehow." The video won a Grammy for best concept music video.

Rock's New Street Poets

Okay, it's time to lighten up a bit and check out some of the quirky, street-oriented characters who soared during the '80s. When you think of a pop-rocker with nerve and feistiness, you've got to think of Billy Joel, who was a former boxer. When you compile a list of pesky outsiders with brains, Warren Zevon has to be on it. And if you recall your favorite high school wise guy, he probably loved John Mellencamp. As for Tom Waits, he was a latter-day Beat poet of whom Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg would have been proud. Let's take a look at these folks.

Tina Turner

One of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history occurred when Tina Turner released Private Dancer in 1984. The album sold 11 million copies boosted by its hits "Let's Stay Together" (a cover of an Al Green song), "What's Love Got to Do With It?," "Better Be Good to Me," and "Private Dancer," penned by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. She had freed herself from an abusive relationship with her musical partner and love interest Ike Turner. Tina also became a hotter-than-ever live act who played arenas and amphitheaters and was carried over the crowd in a cherry-picker, much as Mick Jagger used to do with the Stones. proved to be an unstoppable force. At the time of the following interview conducted by Lisa Robinson, Tina's record "What's Love Got to Do With It?" was no. 1 on the charts.

Sisters Doin' It For Themselves

Women started getting more airplay in the '80s, and they had to fight hard for it, which led to Eurythmics' Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin teaming up for a great duet, "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves."

John Entwistle of The Who

considered by many to be the consummate rock bass player. He took a bass solo on the hit "My Generation" in 1965. In collusion with drummer Keith Moon, he never stopped soloing behind the vocals of Roger Daltrey and they established one of the most ruckus rhythm sections in rock. Entwistle (known as "The Ox") learned french horn in school and switched to the bass when he was 15. His heavily distorted sound, "typewriter" technique (rapid-fire right hand plucking), and his array of custom-shaped basses became his trademarks. He was a true rock-bass virtuoso.

Spotlight: Origins of Hip-Hop Cont'd

Other early hip-hop innovators followed, including DJ Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler on January 1, 1958 in Barbados) and Afrika Bambaataa (born Kevin Donovan on April 10, 1960.) DJ Grandmaster Flash carried on DJing in the style of Kool DJ Herc, refining the use of break-beats into a technique called "cutting," which involves going back and forth between the two turntables seamlessly, so he could make parts of a song last as long as he wanted. After being inspired by a trip to Africa in the mid 1970s, Bambaataa turned the gang Black Spades into a musical group of break dancers, MCs, graffiti artists, and DJs, called the Universal Zulu Nation, influencing other gang members to do the same.

Beastie Boys

launched the rock/rap crossover into a totally new universe. They started out as a hardcore punk band but switched to a crossover style. They opened Run-D.M.C.'s "Raising Hell" tour in 1986, the same year the Beasties released the album Licensed to Ill, which was another example of perfect timing. It sold four million copies. The group at this time consisted of three New Yorkers—Adam Yauch (his show name was MCA), Michael Diamond (alias Mike D), and Adam Horowitz (a.k.a. Ad-Rock). The Licensed to Ill album was reviewed favorably in Rolling Stone magazine, though the headline was provocative: "Three Idiots Create a Masterpiece." It was also the first rap album to go no. 1 on the Billboard charts, though it was propelled by a variety of rock samples, not just raps.

Diane Warren

Another favorite song doctor from the '80s, more poppy has written for Elton John, Patti LaBelle, and Aerosmith, among others. She also has her music on 60 different soundtracks.

This concert raised money to ease famine in Africa through concerts in Philadelphia and London.

1985's Live Aid earned $70 million.

excerpts from Steve Morse's Globe review on Farm Aid

A spiritual peak was reached when floppy-hatted Neil Young, following a recitation of a letter he wrote urging legislators to support the Farm Reform Bill, played two of his most compassionate '60s ballads, "My My (Hey Hey)" and "Heart of Gold," with the latter dedicated to farmers' wives. Young's riveting set came after the scene-setting comic relief of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," sung by Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. The lyric was humorously changed to "Old MacDonald is up a tree and the government's got no sympathy. They got him down but he won't quit..." Almost all of the evening sets, just as at Live Aid, were memorable. Cash sang his timeless "Folsom Prison Blues." Bob Dylan, leaving his folk guitar behind this time, rocked out with Tom Petty's band. Backed by the ubiquitous pigtailed Nelson, he climaxed with his '60s protest song, "Maggie's Farm." In other evening highlights, Daryl Hall teamed with Billy Joel and Bonnie Raitt on the old Philly rocker "Expressway to Your Heart." Randy Newman did his nuclear war parody, "Political Science (Let's Drop the Big One.)" Country mega-stars Alabama harmlessly down-homed the crowd. Hard nosed Midwest rocker John Cougar Mellencamp jumped to the lip of the stage in a frenzied moment. And Billy Joel captured the night's more manic mood with "Only the Good Die Young."

Excerpts, some of them slightly reworked, from Steve Morse's Globe review

Amnesty International started 25 years ago when British lawyer Peter Benenson launched a letter campaign in the London Observer to aid two Portuguese students imprisoned for toasting freedom in their country. Those 25 intervening years of political action—and the hope of more to come—were celebrated yesterday in Giants Stadium during an 11-hour concert that was a genuine international plea for human rights. A sellout crowd of 55,000 fans, bearing up well under 85-degree heat that nonetheless felt like springtime next to the 95-degree oven of last year's Live Aid, heard musicians from Africa, America, Canada, England, Ireland, Jamaica, and South America all voice their determined support for Amnesty International's cause. "It's a great moment today to be part of this celebration of life and hope," Panama's Ruben Blades said from an end-zone stage flanked by twin scrims coated with the Amnesty logo of a brightly lit candle enveloped by barbed wire.

Human Rights Now!

Amnesty's "Human Rights Now!" tour for Amnesty International spanned 20 shows in 6 weeks. The performers were Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, and Yousou N'Dour. It took rock to some far-flung places such as New Delhi, Athens, Budapest, Zimbabwe, the Ivory Coast, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo. The shows began with the cast kicking things off with Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up" and ended with everyone singing Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom."

Guns N' Roses Cont'd

Axl's real name was William Bruce Bailey. He grew up in Lafayette, Indiana and had a rough relationship with his father and then his stepfather, a religious zealot who tried to steer him into a repressive lifestyle. Axl rebelled into sex, drugs, and rock & roll, but he also had a vicious temper that caused him to attack a fan at a gig in St. Louis, and walk out on the band during a gig in Montreal in 1991 (riots ensued both times.) Ironically, the slower song "Sweet Child o' Mine" became the band's first hit (MTV backed it strongly.) It was written for Axl's future wife Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers, though their marriage ended after just three weeks because of alleged physical abuse by Rose. The band's next hits were the heavier "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City." But success only turned Axl nastier. On Guns' 1988 disc, G N' R Lies, he shocked everyone with the song "One in a Million," a diatribe that used the terms "******s" and "******s." It also had the tune "Used to Love Her," which had a great melody but a horrible, misogynistic lyric in "Used to love her / But I had to kill her / And I can still hear her complain."

What singer had 33 Top 10 hits, becoming one of the top-selling acts of all time?

Billy Joel had his first hit with "Piano Man" in 1973 and was responsible for a steady stream of hits ever since, at least until 1993 when he released his last pop/rock album, River of Dreams.

Guns N' Roses

Breaking out of the high-decibel pack, They bridged hard-rock and metal to a degree not seen since Aerosmith. Their high-energy sound was the latest in anti-establishment venom in the '80s, but they're now so iconic that many mainstream, contemporary pro sports teams play Guns N' Roses hits to get their teams fired up in the arenas. Two of their enduring songs are "Welcome to the Jungle" (used especially by the Boston Celtics basketball team, who call their home court "The Jungle") and "Paradise City." Guns were fronted by mercurial singer Axl Rose, who upset everyone with how late he would get on stage (his selfish behavior was a key factor in breaking up the band.) But there's no question that Guns reinvigorated rock during the time of the "hair metal" bands, and the industry worked them up to fill the vacuum left by the departed Led Zeppelin. Guns opened a tour for Aerosmith and never looked back. Their 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction, become the top-selling debut of all time. It contained some nasty tunes and the album was a phenomenon. Guitarist Slash was to Axl Rose like Aerosmith's Joe Perry was to Steven Tyler—they were blood brothers who never did anything halfway. In fact, Guns N' Roses ended up asking Aerosmith manager Tim Collins to manage them later on, but Collins, who had finally gotten Aerosmith sober, shied away because Guns was still abusing every drug in sight. "No thanks, I've already seen that movie," Collins said.

Tom Waits Cont'd

But he was always proud of his craft, despite what the critics might say. "You know," he said, "there are a lot of people who come to see me and think that in order to do what I do, all you have to do is swallow a bottle of Teacher's, snap your fingers and growl." When I once met him after a show, he confided that his day's diet had consisted of three packs of cigarettes, three beers, and three hot dogs. That prompted a question about his health. Does he ever worry about it? "No," he fired back, "but everybody else seems to." He then added, "Hey, I'm sober as a judge when I write, and that's what matters. It takes a lot of discipline, so I really work at it and do the best I can. Besides, I'm not qualified to do anything else." went on to release a bevy of classic, under-the-radar albums, such as Swordfishtrombones in 1983. And he became a well-respected actor, appearing in Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and The Fisher King.

Decade's Positive Climax: Bonnie Raitt

But the '80s peaked with some great news—the unexpected comeback of Bonnie Raitt, a beloved blues-rocker and critic's favorite from the '70s who never got her full due until her Nick of Time album in 1989. Raitt's amazing comeback occurred after Warner Bros. Records dropped her after a 15-year run ended in lukewarm sales. Bonnie then switched to Capitol Records, hired producer Don Was, and turned topical on the title track "Nick of Time," which addresses the very adult concerns of aging, anomie, and a woman's worry of being too old to have a child sang bluesy contemporary pop songs in 1989.

This benefit concert series continues to this day.

Farm Aid has presented an annual concert for the past 26 years to promote food and family farms.

Paul Simon's Graceland

Few artists are more musically adventurous than Paul Simon—and this 1986 album proved it. Fusing his folk-pop background with the world music rhythms of South Africa, Simon recorded in South Africa for a stunning tour de force. Technically, he broke a cultural boycott imposed against the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time, but he was supported by the United Nations Anti-Apartheid Committee. The album introduced the Zulu vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and won album of the year at the Grammys. It spawned the hits "You Can Call Me Al" (with a video starring Simon and comedian Chevy Chase) and "The Boy in the Bubble," with the memorable verse, "These are days of miracle and wonder." It sold 14 million copies (Simon's biggest-selling solo disc) and Simon considers the title song to be the best song he's ever written.

Review of Human Rights Now!

For the most part, the Amnesty tour's message has been heard loud and clear. At the Costa Rican show, which was marred by rains from Hurricane Gilbert, Costa Rican singer Guatalupe Urbino got up and praised the performers by saying, "They're not important just because you've seen them on television. They're important because they're speaking for human rights and peace." The tour is not expected to make money—a $4-million deficit is forecast because tickets will have to be sold so cheaply in economically strapped cities like Harare (Zimbabwe) and New Delhi (India), which lie two weeks down the road. But economics aren't the essence of this tour. That was obvious from the acts that joined in unity last night. If they can overcome jet lag this well every night, then freeing political prisoners may not be as impossible as many believe.

Bonnie Raitt Cont'd

Fortunately, the song ends happily—the protagonist, who had seen her friends and parents struggling, finds a new love. Raitt, who wrote the song herself, sings: "I found love, darlin', love in the nick of time." The tune became a sensation and the album sold four million copies and factored in three Grammy awards. Further hits from it included "Love Letter" and a cover of John Hiatt's "Thing Called Love." And that was followed by 1991's Luck of the Draw album that had more hits in the sexy "Something to Talk About," the Stevie Wonder groove of "Good Man, Good Woman" (a duet with Delbert McClinton), and the very adult ballad, "I Can't Make You Love Me." Raitt sang about middle age and got away with it. went to Harvard's Radcliffe College and was the daughter of Broadway singer John Raitt, had steeped herself in the Harvard Square folk-blues scene, discovering blues artists like Howlin' Wolf and Mississippi Fred McDowell, and the great singer Sippie Wallace. Bonnie became an outstanding slide guitarist, though she once told me, "That's not really a compliment, because there aren't many female slide guitarists. I wish there were more." Raitt did her best to make that happen. Not only did she cofound the Rhythm & Blues Foundation (which aided pioneers and helped expose their work to a new generation), she also became the first female guitarist to have a guitar named for her—the Bonnie Raitt Signature Series Stratocaster. And she gave all royalties from its sales to programs helping to teach urban girls to play guitar.

Arena Rock Surges, and Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Returns

Get ready to hike the decibels—hard rock, pop metal, and heavy metal stormed back in the '80s. The British pop-metal act Def Leppard, though never critic's darlings, scored big with their hit "Photograph" and the Pyromania album. Britain's Iron Maiden succeeded with large-production arena spectacles and intelligent, above-average hooks that fostered their own fanaticism. Soon to come were thrash/speed-metal innovators Metallica and Slayer, along with sledgehammer thumpers Motörhead. Arena-filling bands that scored both at MTV and radio were in their prime in the '80s—among them Journey (a slick-sounding group with gooey high harmonies) and Foreigner (an improving act whose hits "Urgent" and "Jukebox Heroes" stood out from the pack.) Plus, the mega-decibel acts of AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, and Mötley Crüe hit new highs. And Aerosmith came roaring back. Iron Maiden's World Slavery Tour (1984-85) was staged with elaborate Egypt-themed props and a colossal version of their mummified mascot, Eddie.

Slayer Cont'd

Hailing from Huntington Beach, California, they merit mention here because they have had a profound influence on the speed-metal scene in the last 20 years. They first got national attention when producer Rick Rubin signed them to Def Jam Records in 1986, but then Columbia Records (Def Jam's distributor) would not release Reign in Blood because of the song "Angel of Death," which cited Nazi torturer Joseph Mengele. The album was then released by Geffen Records and went to no. 94 nationally. Slayer is still performing all these years later, which comes as a shock to some people. They were part of the Clash of the Titans tour with Megadeth and Anthrax in 1991 (the same year their Decade of Aggression Live disc came out); and joined the Tattoo the Earth tour in 2000. Also, grunge act Alice In Chains opened a tour for Slayer in the '90s and singer Layne Staley noted, "We survived a Slayer crowd every night for about 50 days and thought we could do about anything after that." Aside from the dual metal guitars harmonizing metal riffs, the pumping electric bass, musical excursions into double-time and quadruple-time (on the drums), stop-time riffs, and a heavy metal "shredding" guitar solo, you'll hear the prominent double bass drum playing of drummer Dave Lombardo—this technique has become a hallmark of the speed metal genre.

Warren Zevon Cont'd

He went through some low points in the '80s, but Zevon rebounded with 1987's Sentimental Hygiene album, recorded with some members of R.E.M. His 1989 disc, Transverse City, had the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on it. He kept writing out-there songs in the '90s like "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" and "If You Won't Leave Me, I'll Find Someone Who Will." He released the album Life'll Kill Ya in 2000, which was eerily prophetic because he died of cancer three years later. He did have the presence of mind, though, to record and release his last album, The Wind, an incredibly sensitive work that countered his image as Mr. Sarcasm and had Bruce Springsteen ripping on guitar on the song "Disorder in the House." The title track was also a heartfelt plea to his fans. When Zevon made his last appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman," he was asked if his disease had sparked any revelations. His answer? "Enjoy every sandwich." Watch video of Springsteen joining him on "Disorder in the House" from the The Wind album. Springsteen flew out from New Jersey to Zevon's home on Christmas Eve to do it in one take, then flew right back to Jersey. A sign of admiration from the Boss. (Hopefully this will be up on YouTube.)

Billy Joel

He's the best piano rocker since Little Richard and Elton John, but is also one of rock's greatest, most feisty lyricists. Joel was brought up in a tough working-class area in Hicksville, Long Island, where he boxed and got his nose broken, but where he also developed a great ear for street characters. He came from a musical family—his dad, Howard (a German immigrant who fled the Nazis), and mother Rosalind, met fittingly at a Gilbert & Sullivan production in New York. Howard left the family when Billy was eight, causing a lifelong yearning that he has poured into his music. Billy has explored—or should we say attacked—a vast array of styles from '50s doo-wop and '60s soul, to dance pop, psychedelic rock, love ballads, country, syncopated jazz, and classical melodies. His first hit was "Piano Man',' way back in 1973, and he has since had 32 more Top 10 hits, becoming one of the top-selling acts of all time. Joel's songwriting is extremely unique. Listen to his story song "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," which is really three tunes in one a la the Beatles' "Golden Slumbers" medley (which he patterned it after.) Joel moved to Los Angeles for a few years (where he worked in the lounge that inspired "Piano Man") but he was a New Yorker at heart and moved back after writing "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." He became a full-fledged star in the '80s with MTV-era hits "It's Still Rock & Roll to Me," "Innocent Man," and "Uptown Girl," with his new girlfriend—supermodel Christie Brinkley—making an appearance in the "Uptown Girl" video. He also became one of the first major acts to perform in Russia.

Springsteen's Oratory on Human Rights

Here's what Springsteen had to say from the stage in Toronto: "When I was a kid listening to rock 'n' roll, I got a sense of so many things," he declared over a gentle keyboard vamp. "I got a sense of life, a sense of possibility, and a sense of sex. But most of all in the early rock 'n' roll records that I bought, I got a sense of freedom. The singers always sounded so free. I remember I went down to the store and bought records my old man thought were junk, but in those three-minute records I heard moments of freedom. I thought, 'What if you could take those three minutes and stretch them into days or years? Or stretch them from childhood into adulthood? Or take those moments and give them to the people who need them the most?' If you believe in the power of the single human spirit, if you believe one man or one woman can still make a difference in these cynical times, then Amnesty International gives you the opportunity to put your ideals in service for your friends and neighbors. It lets you put your arms around the world. It lets that freedom ring."

Rock amphitheaters Cont'd

Interestingly, Bill Graham, the West Coast/Fillmore Auditorium promoter we studied in a previous lesson, opened the Shoreline Amphitheatre. And Don Law, the Boston promoter we also studied, opened Great Woods (now called the Xfinity Center—many amphitheaters now have corporate-sponsored names.) By having an equity interest, the promoters could get more money from parking, concessions, and merchandise sales. The goliath SFX (now called Live Nation) nationalized this trend by buying up most of the amphitheaters in the early '90s. The sheds breathed new life into many artists who had heavy suburban followings, notably James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band, the Steve Miller Band, and the Allman Brothers Band, among others. Modern Californians have booked Metallica into the Shoreline Ampitheater.

The role of the bass in rock

It was jazz man Jimmy Blanton in Duke Ellington's band who fundamentally changed the roll of the bass in popular music from that of a time-keeping instrument to adopting a melodic and more rhythmically complex function. Once Leo Fender's Precision Bass began showing up in music stores rock players began taking the electric bass guitar to its logical conclusion—cranking up the volume and expanding its creative potential. Jamerson is perhaps the most influential rock/R&B bass player.

Thrash Metal Slams In

It was only a matter of time before heavy metal bands sped up the tempo. The ensuing roar became known as "speed metal" or thrash. The "Big Four" of thrash were Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. They continued their popularity into the next century, especially Metallica, which broadened its sound and became a stadium act. The two most influential thrash pioneers were considered to be Metallica and Slayer. We'll look at their over-the-top styles next.

This electric rock bassist started out of French horn and was one of the first to record a bass solo on a single.

John Entwistle of The Who played a bass solo on their 1965 single "My Generation." He also played the French horn on a couple of Who sessions.

Live Aid: July 13, 1985 at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia

Promptly at 9 a.m. on July 13, 1985, folk singer Joan Baez stood before 90,000 fans and said, "Good morning, you children of the '80s. This is your Woodstock and it's long overdue." As media helicopters whirred overhead and a 90-degree sun inched its way upward, Baez christened the 14-hour Live Aid concert to end world hunger by singing "Amazing Grace" and "We Are the World." These were the words that opened Steve Morse's late-edition review of the event in the Boston Globe, but here's the more comprehensive piece that ran two days later: Rock 'n' roll reached a new low at last February's Grammy Awards, as many shallow, self-serving musicians donned their fanciest clothes, their poutiest expressions, and turned the ceremonies into one long and woozy ego trip. Saturday was a vastly different story, as the unprecedented Live Aid concert to end world hunger enabled rock music to reclaim a sense of idealism and respect that had been lost in an age of coldly marketed superstars and kinky overnight sensations. This was a show that totally redefined the nature of a rock concert—39 acts playing for only 20 minutes apiece in a TV-dictated format assured that—yet the risk-taking, non-show business spirit of rock has never been so vitally felt. Television audiences may not have felt it—especially if they only tuned into ABC's three-hour special and saw mostly truncated highlights of only the major stars—but the hearty 90,000 John F. Kennedy Stadium souls who passed a 14-hour endurance test know they saw the show of their lives.

Rock/Rap Crossover

Rock and R&B have always been close bedfellows, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise when rock was fused with rap, which was essentially the latter-day spin on R&B. Rap artists and producers have relied on the straight-eighth note drum groove as one of the genre's rhythmic foundations.

Run D.M.C.

Run D.M.C. consisted of three men—"Run" was Joseph Simmons (brother of Russell Simmons, Rubin's partner in Def Jam); "D.M.C." was Darryl McDaniels; and they were augmented by Jam Master Jay on turntables. The bass-and-guitar-heavy version of the song, which MTV pumped endlessly with a hit video, caused a sensation. "The song sent suburban meatheads jumping for their air guitars," according to Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Give it a listen. The song went to no. 4 on the pop charts and was on Run D.M.C.'s Raising Hell album. (Run and D.M.C. later stopped raising hell and found religion—Run became an ordained minister, and D.M.C. became a church deacon.)

Live Aid Performances Cont'd

So good was this informal set that some fans, who also felt this was the highlight of the day, left for the exits even though the heavy artillery of Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Dylan, and Hall & Oates was still to follow. Jagger, who did a stunning two-hour soundcheck the night before at the stadium, was in prime form. It now appears that the Stones will not do their stadium tour this fall (their next album probably won't even be out until Christmas, sources said), so Jagger went overboard in Philly, bumping and grinding with Turner on "State of Shock" and "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," electrifying the crowd in the process. Hometown idols Hall & Oates stretched their own limits by backing up former Temptations Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin for some sleek Philly soul, as they had done at the Apollo Theater's 50th anniversary show in New York earlier this year, then they backed Jagger and Turner. Even Madonna took some risks, adding a special song for the show, "Love Makes the World Go Round." And a specially worked-up duet between Valerie Simpson and Teddy Pendergrass, making his first appearance since being confined to a wheelchair following a car accident three years ago, was spellbinding.

Bands on Live Aid

Some bands were just business as usual—the Beach Boys, Judas Priest, and REO Speedwagon fell into that category—but almost every group made some attempt to acknowledge the immensity of the occasion, if only to say, as Robert Plant did, "Quite a day, eh?" It was inspiring, too, to see how discussions about hunger continued backstage despite a glitzy scene of stars and hangers-on walking romantic gravel paths between air-conditioned trailers and carpeted outdoor lounges with potted plants, deep-cushioned rattan chairs and TV monitors. "This is a wonderful combination of music and technology for a great cause," said Graham Nash. Asked if it weren't a long way from Woodstock, though, he quipped, "No kidding."

What singer became a well-respected actor, appearing in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Some other films Waits acted in include Short Cuts (1993), The Fisher King (1991), The Two Jakes (1990), Rumble Fish (1983), The Outsiders (1983).

This guitar player led a blues revival in the mid-1980s and was part of the first white act to win the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation Award in Memphis for blues entertainer of the year.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble earned the Blues Foundation's W.C Handy award for Entertainer of the Year in 1984. The W.C. Handy Blues Foundation Award is now called the "The Blues Music Awards" and are presented annually by the Blues Foundation which is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Stevie Ray Vaughn Cont'd

Stevie followed his guitar-playing big brother Jimmie to Austin in the '70s, but his big break didn't come until he was invited to play the Montreux Festival in Switzerland in 1982, where he was seen by David Bowie. Bowie enlisted him to play on his blockbuster comeback album Let's Dance in 1983 and asked him to go on tour, but then things turned sour. Stevie pulled out of the tour when he realized that his regular band Double Trouble, with whom he'd been playing in Texas bars for the past five years, was not going to open some of Bowie's shows as promised. He didn't want to leave his group in the lurch, especially with their own album, Texas Flood, on the way. Nor did he like the idea that Bowie's management sought veto power over any interviews he might want to do. And he claimed that Bowie only paid his sidemen a max of $300 per show. For example, that was a pittance compared to Bowie's astronomical intake of as much as $1.5 million for the short-lived US Festival in California. Bowie's tightness with the purse made him a joke in the press, especially in Europe, but Vaughan said diplomatically, "It was just one of those things that didn't work out."

Stevie as a singer

Stevie was also a strong singer, having been influenced by Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Howlin' Wolf, and B.B. King. And he was extremely generous—he made a live concert album, Blues Explosion (which won a Grammy for best blues record) and invited Koko Taylor and former Muddy guitarist Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson to play on it. He also did a session for Johnny Copeland's Texas Twister album and played on and coproduced a comeback album by Lonnie Mack called Strike Like Lightning. But tragedy struck in 1990 when he was killed in a helicopter crash after a "Guitar Greats" concert where he had performed alongside Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jeff Healey at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin in front of 30,000 people. Blues music never recovered and has not been represented as much on the radio or in the market ever since, except for Clapton and occasional acts like Susan Tedeschi, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Jonny Lang.

Stevie's Discography

Stevie's Texas Flood album in 1983 was a mind-blower. It stayed on the charts for six months. It contained his fast-accelerating "Love Struck Baby" and "Pride and Joy," along with a cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Tell Me." The next year saw the album Couldn't Stand the Weather, which had Vaughan's ear-opening cover of Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)," complete with whammy-bar, feedback-laced brilliance. The next year, he became the first white act to win the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation Award in Memphis for blues entertainer of the year. Alas, he also got mixed up with alcohol and cocaine, which factored into his falling off a stage in London and ending up in rehab in Atlanta. "I was drinking a lot and doing things to give me extra energy, then drinking to take the edge off," he said. "I realized you don't have to drag the bottom with your life. There's plenty of blues out there in the world without having to do 'em yourself." He was lucky enough to save his career and he peaked with a co-headlining tour with Jeff Beck in 1989. As Beck noted, "Stevie is just amazing. He's a tough act to follow—and his guitar is 10 times louder than mine."

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Texas-based, arrived in the '80s, combining electric blues from Albert and Freddie King with a yen for Hendrix rock. He was a dynamo in concert and played in a power trio format with drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon, collectively known as Double Trouble. (Shannon had previously played with the albino blues star, Johnny Winter.) Stevie was raised in Dallas but dropped out of high school. He became a club legend in the city, where he developed his dirty, lowdown blues sound and quicksilver technique. "I didn't really think of playing fast," he once told me, "but when you grow up in Texas and everybody is older than you, they always want to battle to see who can play a boogie faster than anybody else. We used to play 'Jeff's Boogie' by Jeff Beck, and I'd try to keep up with them, then just floor it." mixed his blues with a shot of guitar histrionics Like country great Chet Atkins, Vaughan was glued to his guitar as a youth. "I played it on the curb, on the porch, in my room or walking down the street," he said. "And if I didn't have my guitar with me, I'd either want it or was taking a break." Other kids often scorned his obsessive efforts to learn licks by Lightnin' Hopkins, Albert King, Freddie King, the Yardbirds, and the Who. "I remember I had to put the guitar down if I had to fight somebody," he said. "We lived in a tough neighborhood in Dallas and some of the kids couldn't understand why I wanted to play guitar and not go rip somebody off."

Conspiracy of Hope: June 15, 1986 in New Jersey

The "Conspiracy of Hope" concert for Amnesty International was at Giants Stadium in New Jersey in front of 55,000 people. It hoped to raise $3 million in donations. U2 and the Police were the headliners—U2 modestly allowed the Police to be the final act in deference to their seniority, but the Police were rusty and had just reunited, so they had serious trouble following U2. It was one of the worst performances I ever saw by them. (The "Conspiracy of Hope" tour included six shows nationally, but the Police only played three.) Still, it was all for a good cause—and other acts such as Sting, Peter Gabriel, Bryan Adams, Joan Baez, Lou Reed, Ruben Blades, and the Neville Brothers also performed. "Some people say that rock 'n' roll is just noise. But for us, it's a positive noise. It has woken us up, and I hope will wake up many others as well," said U2's Bono at a press conference under a tent next to the stadium. "This is a concert by the free to help the unfree," added Canadian star Bryan Adams. "The people we're talking about aren't bank robbers, and they don't steal cars. We're talking about people who are put away for their beliefs." "We've tried to keep control of this by getting only artists who are committed," said producer Bill Graham, who admitted that last year's Live Aid concert "became a bandwagon of some people who didn't belong there." Six former political prisoners from around the world added their emotional thanks to Amnesty International for helping free them. They included Viktor Davydor of the Soviet Union, who was sent to a Siberian psychiatric hospital for trying to distribute Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book, The Gulag Archipelago, and Sonny Venkatrathnam, who was imprisoned for seven years in South Africa.

Rolling Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour

The Stones hadn't toured since 1981—which was followed by a frosty period between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards—so this tour was a welcome revelation. Keith had been disgusted that Mick would want to put out a solo album rather than record with the Stones. When Jagger put out the solo disc Primitive Cool in 1987 (to bad reviews), Keith retaliated with his own album, Talk Is Cheap, which got good reviews. They finally buried the hatchet and hooked up for the Steel Wheels album and tour in 1989, arguably the best tour of their later years. I caught the debut in Philadelphia and early on they played these four songs in a row: "Start Me Up," "Bitch," "Shattered," and "Sad Sad Sad." Heaven for a Stones fan.

This Long Island band capitalized on a resurgence of rockabilly and became an MTV favorite in the 1980s.

The Stray Cats, like other American rockers such as Hendrix, James Taylor, and Crissie Hyndes before them, moved across the pond (in 1980) and found success in England before coming back to the U.S. with a record deal.

Historical Perspective

The '80s were a tense time internationally. In 1980, the United States boycotted the Olympics in Moscow. Four years later, most Eastern bloc countries boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles. In 1983, 241 Marines were killed by a suicide bomb in Lebanon. The Iran-Contra affair was revealed in 1986. For much of the decade, the U.S. and Soviet Union were at odds. Then, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin and challenged Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall,'' in reference to the Berlin Wall. His wish was finally granted in 1989. There was widespread famine in Africa—and rockers stepped up to help, evoking memories of rock's social justice days in the '60s. Rock's humanism gave rise to the Live Aid concerts in 1985. They were held in both Philadelphia and London on the same day and featured just about every superstar imaginable. Also, the ad hoc group USA for Africa released the "We Are the World" single, featuring a starry cast including Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Patti LaBelle, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, and others. Another benefit single, "Do They Know It's Christmas," written by Live Aid founder Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, had an ensemble of 36 British artists. Rock was exploding in many different directions. Some took a street approach, like Billy Joel, Warren Zevon, John Mellencamp, and Tom Waits. Some looked back, hence the revivals of blues and rockabilly. Some extended the slickness of MTV to include ubiquitous "hair metal'' bands and arena rockers. Some experimented with a rock/rap crossover (Aerosmith and Run D.M.C.) and some acts just turned up the volume and the speed, creating the hardcore/thrash movement that slam-danced everyone in sight.

Stray Cats

The 1980s also saw the revival of rockabilly music, which had first propelled Elvis Presley and the rest of the Sun Records roster in Memphis in the '50s. It was revived by the Stray Cats, a Long Island trio that moved to London in the early '80s and became a sensation over there with the hits "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rock This Town." England had always been a hotbed of rockabilly music—and the Brits embraced ducktailed singer Brian Setzer, bassist Lee Rocker, and drummer Slim Jim Phantom. Their music was then fed back to the U.S. via the Stray Cats' Built for Speed album in 1982, which featured "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rock This Town." Both became hits again in the U.S. The Stray Cats' retro sound was in marked contrast to the new wave and synth-pop sounds that had become big in England and the U.S. The Cats, however, suffered from oversized egos and broke up in 1984. Setzer even admitted that "success went to our heads." He later popped up playing the role of Eddie Cochran (at the request of Cochran's mom) in the Ritchie Valens biopic, La Bamba, in 1987. Lou Diamond Phillips played Valens, Marshall Crenshaw played Buddy Holly, and all the Valens music was redone by Los Lobos, who had a smash hit with "La Bamba," which contributed to huge sales for the soundtrack. Years later, the Stray Cats would stage occasional reunions, but their most successful offshoot was the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which expanded from rockabilly into swing music and won a sizable block of fans.

Rock amphitheaters

The 1980s saw the rise of summer amphitheaters (widely called sheds) that moved a lot of rock shows outdoors, catering to suburban crowds that were less inclined to drive into the cities to the indoor arenas that had dominated the biz. The trend helped tilt the rock industry toward a summer focus—it was estimated that 50 percent of a year's shows were now taking place in the summer (which was one way of avoiding winter tours that could lead to expensive cancellations because of snow and ice.) The 22,500-capacity, San Francisco-area Shoreline Amphitheatre opened to much acclaim in 1986. And the 19,900-capacity Great Woods Center for the Arts opened the same summer in the Boston area. "The trend in the concert business was that regional promoters wanted a piece of real estate," said Gary Weinberger, a partner with Tony Ruffino in New Era Productions, which opened the Oak Mountain Amphitheater in the Birmingham, Ala. area in 1984.

In promoting this benefit concert, promoter Bill Graham said, "We've tried to keep control of this by getting only artists who are committed. Live Aid became a bandwagon of some people who didn't belong there."

The 1986 Conspiracy of Hope consisted of six concerts in the U.S. that featured the Police, U2, Springsteen, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, and Peter Gabriel.

Steve Morse's partially edited Globe review on Human Rights Now!

The Amnesty International tour has been to five cities in the past week—Paris, Turin, Barcelona, San Jose (Costa Rica), and Toronto. Jet lag, to say the least, has started to take its toll. Sting was seen yesterday napping in a lounge of the Four Seasons Hotel. About 170 people, including musicians, crew, Amnesty dignitaries, and Reebok sponsors, are on the tour, traveling in two chartered DC10s. Nerves are reportedly a little frayed, especially after a 10-hour flight from Barcelona to San Jose, then another six-hour hop to Toronto with a show the next night. No wonder a juvenile pillow fight broke out on that flight. Despite the jet lag, the bands rallied quite miraculously in their first North American performance last night. Extra adrenaline came perhaps from the sheer immensity of this global pitch for human rights. The tour is going places that few acts have dared go—no major rock act had played Costa Rica since Santana in 1971—but by all on-stage accounts, at least, it's been a resounding success. Last night fell right in line, as a capacity 16,000 fans (paying up to $400 a ticket from scalpers) witnessed a transcendent mix of music and idealism. Canadian artist k.d. lang was also added to the show. Most important, the mainly over-30 crowd didn't just soak up the sound, but more than 5,000 signed letters in the lobby to help free 11 singled-out political prisoners around the world—from Jiri Wolf, a Czechoslovakian accused of attempting to organize an independent trade union, to Ugandan professor Charles Kagenda-Atwooki, who dared criticize his government's human rights record.

Farm Aid: Sept. 22, 1985 in Champaign, Illinois

The Farm Aid concert was held in the college town of Champaign, Illinois, in the University of Illinois' football stadium, in front of 88,000 people. The concert was organized by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young, as a fundraiser to help family farmers keep their farms amid widespread mortgage debt. It was located in a county where 90 percent of the residents were farmers and it raised $9 million. All 2,255 hotel rooms in the area were filled, so many members of the 1,300-strong media contingent were forced to stay in private homes with farmers. I was one of them and the experience proved illuminating, since I learned first-hand what family farmers were going through thanks to the conglomerates that were squeezing them out. As singer Joni Mitchell said the day before at a press conference: "I don't like a lot of modern farms with their new feeds and all the antibiotics they feed cattle. They don't even smell like farms. But I'm here because a lot of people in the cities just don't seem to care. They're more interested in watching their movies and videos." The performers included Farm Aid founders Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp (they still anchor the Farm Aid board, though Dave Matthews has also since joined.) The show was highlighted by other appearances by Mitchell, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, and Don Henley.

Guns & Roses Legacy

The Guns saga became more warped with the release of the double albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II in 1991. One of the songs, "Back Off Bitch," showed Axl to be up to his old misogynistic tricks. Another, "Get in the Ring," was his way of threatening music journalists who had slammed him. The set did include the great ballad "November Rain," which showed Guns still had a soul. But Guns then got clobbered by the arrival of the grunge scene, most notably Nirvana, whose hard, punk-edged rock quickly eclipsed Guns in popularity in 1992. Guns replied with The Spaghetti Incident?, a covers album with versions of songs by the Stooges and the New York Dolls, among others. Slash then left the band and Guns didn't release another record for 15 years. Axl remains the only original member, but he still made dubious headlines by refusing to attend the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

Review on Human Rights Now Cont'd

The audience also heard the performers espouse time and again the United Nations-approved Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reads, utopian as it may sound: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." T-shirts with these lines written in eight languages were selling briskly in the hallways. This was a concert that truly knew no boundaries. Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour opened with an impassioned set; lang came out and electrified with her Alberta prairies country-rock; Chapman, solitary in the spotlight with her battered acoustic guitar, showed that stark simplicity still can cut most deeply into the heart; Gabriel, playing with most of N'Dour's band, set the tone with a new techno-tribal song "Of Hope and Peace," before finishing with "Biko," his ever-eloquent glimpse at South African martyrdom. Sting sang of freedom in Chile while a video showed elderly Chilean women, the wives of jailed dissidents, holding hands in a show of peace; and Springsteen, though he opened with "Born in the USA," immediately negated the song's nationalism with the universal plea of "Promised Land." The only out-of-sync note came from Chapman, the onetime Cambridge folkie, now national sensation. When she sang "people gonna rise up and take their share," from the song "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution," it didn't imply the non-violent revolution that Amnesty is all about. It was a curious sentiment to be expressing at an event that was closer in spirit to Mahatma Gandhi than Che Guevara.

Revivals: Blues and Rockabilly

The blues was an essential influence on early rock & roll, and its tonality and rhythms have been woven into its fabric ever since. We've seen that forms faithful to the roots of blues music have kept recycling back into the picture time and again later. Texas native Steve Ray Vaughan carried the banner in the '80s with his band Double Trouble, whose incendiary live shows were the stuff of legend. Delaware's George Thorogood & the Destroyers carried the banner on the East Coast, and opened major stadium dates for the Rolling Stones. Rockabilly music from the '50s keeps coming back as well. The Stray Cats put their own stamp on it and became an international sensation.

Cassettes peak, then fade rapidly

The cassette market peaked in the late '80s, but then started to take a nosedive. The sale of compact discs surpassed them in the early '90s. Sales of cassette players dropped seven percent to about 3.4 million in 1993, but that same year found the sale of CD players topping five million, which was up 21 percent from the year before. Cassette sales kept plummeting until it just had four percent of the market in 2001. Here are some staggering stats: the sale of pre-recorded music cassettes dropped from 442 million in 1990 to 274,000 by 2007. Most music labels had discontinued them a few years before. What other music formats will we see become obsolete in the not-too-distant future?

Bon Jovi

The most popular hair metal band. Singer Jon Bon Jovi (born John Bongiovi) was a former shoe salesman who was sometimes termed a poor man's Bruce Springsteen because of his similar New Jersey roots. Jon was very ambitious—he broke into the music biz by sweeping floors at a recording studio, then built a solid band (anchored by guitarist Richie Sambora, who had toured with Joe Cocker) and enlisted the services of "song doctor" Desmond Child (more on him in a minute), who had written for Aerosmith, Cher, and KISS. Bon Jovi and Child teamed up on the Slippery When Wet album, which sold 12 million albums after its release in 1986. Its songs included the number ones "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer." Bon Jovi was also ahead of the curve by finding a focus group of fans and asking them to choose among the 30 songs originally written for Slippery When Wet. Such consulting of fans has become very popular in today's Internet age. The album also set records for most Top 10 songs from a hard-rock album (five) and most number of weeks consecutively for a hard-rock album at no. 1 in Billboard (eight!).

Soundtrack shocker

The movie The Breakfast Club became a blockbuster, youth-market hit, spurred by a no. 1 song, "Don't You (Forget About Me)," by Simple Minds, a Brit ensemble starring Scottish singer Jim Kerr. The band never jelled in the U.S. until this song was released," a synth-flavored piece of ear candy in 1985. Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music had turned down the song, and the Simple Minds weren't keen on doing it, either. Kerr called it an "inane" song, but no doubt laughed all the way to the bank.

Effects of Conspiracy of Hope/Review Cont'd

The music continued with galvanizing sets by Miles Davis (joined by Carlos Santana), Lou Reed, and U2, highlighted by "Pride (In the Name of Love)," their tribute to Martin Luther King. And the Police peaked with "Invisible Sun," with Sting's lyrics appropriate for the occasion: "I don't want to spend my time in hell / Looking at the walls of a prison cell / I don't ever want to play the part / Of a statistic on a government chart." It was obvious, too, that more fans were being educated. Lines formed to sign petitions and send postcards to free six selected prisoners from around the world. "So far, this is the best of the benefit concerts," said '60s activist Abbie Hoffman as he moved through the celebrity tent. "The beauty of Amnesty is that it is nonpartisan and hasn't chosen sides in the Cold War. That's why Ronald Reagan won't telephone today to offer congratulations." An added note: Amnesty's membership in the U.S. went up by 45,000 after the tour.

Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith

The new era dawned when Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith were approached by producer Rick Rubin (of Def Jam Records) to team up with New York City rappers Run-D.M.C. for a fresh, adrenalin-rush version of Aerosmith's '70s hit, "Walk This Way." The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Aerosmith was coming off a down period, and Run-D.M.C. was looking to cross over to the rock market. "We didn't even know the name of the group (Aerosmith)," said Run. "All we knew was we liked the beat." Added Rubin: "I loved sitting in the studio with Joe Perry, having him do a solo and being able to say, 'I know you can do it better.'"

Business Spotlight: Desmond Child - "Song Doctor"

The pressures of stardom can choke off anyone's songwriting ability, so it became popular in the '80s to hire a "song doctor"—someone who could come in and write with a band, or deliver new songs outright. Desmond Child was in particular demand. He cowrote or wrote 70 Top 40 singles among the overall 3,500 tunes he has created. When Aerosmith needed songwriting help, he came in to collaborate on the hits "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" and "Angel" from their 1987 comeback album, Permanent Vacation. As Aerosmith singer/lyricist Steve Tyler said, "The first time we met, we wrote 'Angel' in about an hour and 45 minutes—and I'm not bullshitting. The guy is a f------ genius." Child also helped write "Crazy," another Aerosmith hit in 1993. His first big hit was with Kiss, "I Was Made for Loving You," in 1979. KISS singer Paul Stanley then recommended him to Bon Jovi, with whom he had more hits. He wrote with the band in the basement of guitarist Richie Sambora's house, crafting the hits "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Bad Medicine," and "Livin' on a Prayer," inspired by Desmond's scuffling life when he drove a cab in New York City in the '70s. Child, who came from Gainesville, Florida (the hometown of Tom Petty), had a band in the '70s called Desmond Child & Rouge, which made two albums for Capitol Records but had no hits. He now prefers writing with other people. "I'm a collaborator. I enjoy the energy," he said in 2010. "The biggest challenge is making sure that the people you write with are putting in as much effort as you are." His other clients have included Michael Bolton, Cher, and Colombian star Shakira

Benefit Concerts in Vogue

The world's social problems compelled many rock acts to action in the mid-'80s. In 1985, Live Aid raised money to ease the horrific famine in today's Eritrea and Ethiopia that claimed some 400,000 lives. Simultaneous Live Aid concerts in Philadelphia and London earned $70 million and was watched by an estimated 1.9 billion people worldwide through satellite hookup. It was major muscle flexing by the rock industry, but also a major social statement. Then came Farm Aid—organized by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp—a few months later, which aimed to help family farmers in the Midwest keep their land during a time of widespread bank foreclosures. Farm Aid continues today with yearly concerts. Rockers then embraced Amnesty International, which attempts to free political prisoners from around the world. The "Conspiracy of Hope" tour marked Amnesty International's 25th anniversary in 1986, and featured performances from U2 and the Police. That was followed by the "Human Rights Now!" tour for Amnesty in 1988, which traveled to several continents (playing in India and Africa) and included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Sting, and Youssou N'Dour. Not all rock philanthropy was on the concert front. We spoke with Huey Lewis about his observations when recording the charity single "We Are The World" in 1985, which sold over 20 million copies. Proceeds were donated to the USA for Africa fund.

Excerpts, some of them slightly reworked, from Steve Morse's Globe review Cont'd

This so-called "Conspiracy of Hope" concert was a marriage of '60s activists such as Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Yoko Ono, and Peter, Paul & Mary, with their counterparts from the '70s (Jackson Browne, Peter Gabriel, and Joan Armatrading), and the '80s (the Police, U2, Little Steven Van Zandt, and Bob Geldof.) To be honest, the music hit some dull patches—including extremely dry, inhibited sets from Armatrading and Browne—but still there were enough highlights (especially from unheralded acts like the reggae band Third World and Latin ace Blades) to merit speaking of this event in the same breath as Live Aid and Farm Aid. As politics, the marathon day succeeded best of all. Compassionate speech-making flowed in steady waves from the stage. Mary Travers captured attention when she said, "The world is a very small place. If the accident in Chernobyl taught us anything, it was that if we won't live together, then we will die together." This was followed by the singing of "Blowin' in the Wind," the Bob Dylan protest standard that she has sung in El Salvador, the Soviet Union and China. As for political message-making in song, none was better than the inspired acoustic version of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," sung by Live Aid braintrust Bob Geldof. "How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside?" he sang in a gruff voice that inspired another sonic boom ovation. Little Steven Van Zandt, fresh from an anti-apartheid rally the day before in Central Park during which he sang his hit "Sun City" with U2, Geldof, Browne, Ono, and Black Uhuru, delivered the afternoon's most seething set. With his gypsy scarf twisting in the warm breeze, he climaxed with the fitting reggae-rock of "Sanctuary" and a brand new manifesto, "I'm a Native American."

Traveling Wilburys

This was completely unexpected—a supergroup gathering of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. It started with Harrison looking for help to record the B side of a single, then they rehearsed in Dylan's garage and the jams led to a breezy, laid-back debut album in 1988. It was playfully called Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1, and playfulness was the order of the day. The melodic flair of the songs "Handle With Care" and "End of the Line" made them hits, but Orbison, who had been enjoying a comeback in the '80s, died after its release. The Wilburys went on without him to record a second album, also strangely titled Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3, but it lacked the same spark. were a ridiculously star-studded group.

The Rockman

Tom Scholz, founder of the band Boston, was also a noted inventor. Besides customizing a lot of multi-tracking gear in his home recording studio in the Boston suburbs a la Les Paul, he invented the Rockman (a low-cost, guitar mini-amp) and the PowerSoak (a device designed to tame the volume of those über-loud, 100-watt Marshall amps so as to get a pleasantly distorted sound at a reasonable volume.) The buzz on the Rockman was so great that 3,000 orders were received before the first one was available. Such guitarists as ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Journey's Neal Schon, and Ted Nugent got one. And Def Leppard's Hysteria album was made using only Rockman technology. Scholz founded the Scholz Research and Development company and by 1987 the company had grown to 30 employees in its Waltham, Massachusetts headquarters and brought dozens of guitar amps and effects to market. Scholz amassed inventor's rights on 34 different patents. He had graduated from M.I.T. with a bachelor's and master's degree in mechanical engineering, then worked for Polaroid as a senior product designer before his music career took off.

Live Aid: July 13, 1985 at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia Cont'd

Unlike Woodstock, this was a fairly conservative crowd—the abundance of American flags waving on the field and the loud booing during a video of the Soviet band Autograph testified to that—but minds were definitely blown open by the end. Led Zeppelin fans, for instance, were forced to admit they liked at least a couple of songs by Duran Duran, while the latter's pubescent fans had their prejudices smashed by seeing how post-40 types like Eric Clapton, Patti LaBelle, the Four Tops, and Tina Turner could still brew up a storm. There was a humanity not just in the day's social message to stop hunger, but also in the vulnerability of the stars themselves. Bob Dylan, who decided to play three acoustic songs with the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and Ron Wood after the three met while jamming with Texas guitarist Lonnie Mack at New York's Lone Star Cafe the previous week, raised some hackles with his sloppy performance, yet even the mistakes (and Wood's miserably out-of-tune guitar) had a bizarre nobility. At least this wasn't lip-synching on Solid Gold. This was music with an organic life of its own. It may have looked bad on television, but to kids in the audience the musicians were merely "jamming." And to some people, that's still preferable to bland perfection. The same with Crosby, Stills & Nash. I'm told they bombed on television—which focuses so unerringly on every flaw—yet in person they retained a charisma that lifted the crowd as much as any act all day. And this charisma still carried over to the moment they were joined by former member Neil Young—in another example of the risk-taking that went on—for a lovely reading of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart."

Tom Waits

a retro beatnik who was living out of his car in L.A. when he started. His deep, raspy voice and Beat poet-inspired raps aren't for everyone, but he has written many songs popularized by others: "Ol' 55" (for the Eagles), "Downtown Train" (a hit for Rod Stewart, also performed by Bob Seger), "Jersey Girl" (Springsteen covered it), and "Strange Weather" (recorded by Marianne Faithfull.) He is one of rock's renowned cult favorites. "I'm an acquired taste rather than a party snack," he told me in an exclusive interview in 1980. He opened a tour for Frank Zappa in the '70s but was often booed. His tales of losers and the lovelorn were a tough sell. Waits, who also dated singer Rickie Lee Jones for a while, came into his own with the R&B-slanted 1980 album, Heartattack and Vine, followed the next year by his soundtrack for the Francis Ford Coppola movie, One for the Heart. Coppola, who had directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, took a special shine to him. was the son of two San Diego schoolteachers, but dropped out of high school. He developed a reputation for frequenting lowlife districts and late-night haunts, writing about skid rows, midnight diners, prostitutes, and sundry streetcorner jive characters. For several years, his band would check into Holiday Inns while he stayed in seedy flophouses. "They just became too dangerous," he told me in an exclusive interview in 1980. He also refused to go back to the seedy Tropicana Motel, a place he lived in for several years and was once frequented by Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. "No, it wasn't hard to give up the Tropicana," he said. "That place is a sewer, with a lot of stupid English guitar players crawling around the pool."

Slayer

added a whole new aggressive edge to rock. The band is like a musical attack dog—the pile-driving riffs keep coming fast and furiously—while the crowd gets worked into a frenzy. Slam-dancing at a Slayer concert is dangerous—the group got banned from one club in Boston, for instance, because fans gave each other eight broken noses during a night of aggression in the pit. The band even carried a security advisor who was a Vietnam veteran who would try to talk to the crowds before the shows to warn them to keep things in check. It wasn't easy. Led by shouter Tom Araya, Slayer provoked a lot of the mayhem through classic thrash-metal albums like Show No Mercy (1983), Hell Awaits (1985), and Reign in Blood (1986.) Slayer's choice of subject matter has even included serial killers and Nazi torturers. They've been called "the most extreme of the thrash bands," according to The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock.

Metallica

arrived at a time when "big hair and small ideas dominated heavy metal," as one critic wrote. They ended up starting a whole new genre called thrash metal—with bustling, speed-metal riffs that were influenced by the hard-rock of Motörhead. They took the music into a new world of brutally pulverizing riffs that drew an audience looking for something more than hair metal and more than the amusing antics of Van Halen and Def Leppard. Originally from Los Angeles, moved to San Francisco—once the bastion of peace-and-love flower power—and turned the city, and the country, on its head. They got their first break when Megaforce Records, an independent label in New Jersey that sprang from a metal-oriented record store, released their first album and helped organize their first shows on the East Coast. Their 1983 debut was shockingly titled Kill 'Em All. Its anger-laced songs addressed the apocalypse and other sufferings. Singer/guitarist James Hetfield was like an unchained, growling beast. One popular underground hit from the album was "Seek and Destroy." The song was about street violence and Hetfield sang as if his life depended on it. The band had bad luck a few years later, though, when bassist Cliff Burton died in Sweden when their tour bus went off the road because of ice. (They added Jason Newsted in his place.) They transitioned to Elektra Records and their music continued to be dark, foreboding—and fast—in 1986's Masters of Puppets (with the anti-war song "Disposable Heroes") and 1988's ...And Justice for All, which had the tune "One," with lyric content inspired by Dalton Trumbo's novel, Johnny Got His Gun, about a soldier who ends up losing his limbs. This was about as far from the Top 40 as possible, but it was turf that Metallica staked out with passionate venom.

The Beastie Boys and their sound

became known for taking literal riffs from Led Zeppelin and AC/DC songs and grafting raps and other instrumentation around them. Grafting hard rock to their rap and punk creations was the idea of producer Rick Rubin, who helped bring the Beasties to the masses. In doing so, the Beasties were thus the first to expose sampling to a large mainstream audience. Their song "Rock Hard" was anchored by a sample of AC/DC's "Back in Black." Listen to these two versions. Another tune, "Rhymin & Stealin," lifted the prominent drum beat of Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." Yet another, "She's Crafty," took the guitar riff from Zep's "The Ocean," while the Beasties' What Comes Around" had the snare-drum intro from Zep's "Moby Dick." Jimmy Page of Zeppelin was reportedly furious at the theft (ironic, since Zep had been accused of that themselves), though Beasties engineer Mario Caldato later said the Beasties camp spent $250,000 toward rights and licensing of the Zeppelin samples. The Beasties were signed to Rick Rubin's Def Jam Records, but later went with Capitol Records and then started their own label, Grand Royal, which also put out discs by Sean Lennon and Luscious Jackson. were obnoxious wise guys when they started—they unveiled an inflatable penis in concert—and they set a tone of unbridled hedonism with their hit, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)." Later, however, Beastie Adam Yauch had a religious conversion. He became a Buddhist in the '90s and an avid fundraiser for the "Free Tibet" campaign by putting on his annual Tibetan Freedom Concerts. He was fighting for more than a right to party at this point. The Beasties later became just the third rap act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following Run-D.M.C. and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

John Mellencamp Cont'd

could be cynical (and even some of his entourage has called him by his sometime show-biz nickname the "lil' bastard"), but he kept showing a winning knack for writing straightforward melodies atop very frank, no-nonsense lyrics. For much of the '80s, Mellencamp was a hit factory, scoring with "Crumblin' Down," Pink Houses," "Authority Song," "Small Town," and another anthem, "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." However, in 1987 he turned more reflective with his Lonesome Jubilee album, which departed from his guitar-based rock to feature the talented Lisa Germano on violin and accordion. The album also dug deeper lyrically, as on the song "The Real Life," a confessional tune about a 40-year-old still holding on to his purpose. That's Mellencamp in a nutshell. Nothing could deter him from his stubborn path, not even a heart attack in 1994. He wisely quit smoking after that, but he returned to the road. In a homage to record making from the early days of rock, Mellencamp worked with producer T Bone Burnett for his 2008 release Life, Death, Love and Freedom, which was recorded in mono at Sun Studios in Memphis.

Mötley Crüe

got lumped in with the hair metal craze, though they had more substance than the norm. They also lived the "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" lifestyle to the fullest. Drummer Tommy Lee dated celebs Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson (later starring in a sex tape with her that got leaked to the Internet.) They broke big on MTV with a cover of Brownsville Station's "Smokin' in the Boys Room" in 1985. They had formed in L.A. when guitarist Mick Mars promoted himself in a music trade paper by saying "LOUD RUDE AGGRESSIVE GUITARIST AVAILABLE!" Some people saw Crüe as a legitimate metal force, but they're best known for pop-metal hits "Dr. Feelgood" and "Girls, Girls, Girls." There are concert clips of the latter in which band members arrive on stage on motorcycles while scantily clad women twirl on harnesses overhead. The group's hedonism was unparalleled and they did much to revive the glam-rock era by dressing in high-heeled boots and bright, spandex costumes. Bassist Nikki Sixx, who stole his first guitar when growing up in Seattle, confessed "We wanted to be the loudest, grossest band in rock. We'd do anything to get attention." Unfortunately, singer Vince Neil did just that. He was convicted of vehicular manslaughter in 1984 when he drove drunk and got into an accident that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas Dingley and injured two others. He served 20 days in jail, fulfilled 200 hours of community service, and coughed up $2.6 million in damages. Nikki Sixx, Mötley Crüe's dominant songwriter, suffered a heroin overdose in 1987 and was declared legally dead at the time. It's a miraculous story, but on the way to the hospital, he was attended by a medic who was a Crüe fan who revived him by giving him two adrenaline shots to the heart. That inspired the Crüe song "Kickstart My Heart," which became a hit.

Donna Summer

had a huge career, but was perhaps unfairly typecast. She was known as the "Queen of Disco" but was bursting with talent that ran the gamut from gospel to rock. Born in Boston as one of seven kids, Summer was a child prodigy who performed at the Boston rock club the Psychedelic Supermarket when she was 17, then moved to Munich, Germany where she starred in the hippie musical Hair at age 18. That's where she hooked up with electro-pop producer Giorgio Moroder, who steered her in a disco direction along with his label, Casablanca Records. Some of her late '70s disco hits had a rock flavor (including "Hot Stuff," a no. 1 hit in 1979), but that rock energy mushroomed in the '80s when she sought to get away from being typecast as a disco diva. The apex came on the driving "She Works Hard for the Money," a no. 3 hit in 1983. Summer has been overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but after her death in 2012, the nominating committee chairman, Jon Landau, told Billboard that "the voters have failed" by not getting her in and he hoped to remedy that in the future. Billboard also noted that other members of the Hall of Fame have dabbled in disco during their careers, citing Rod Stewart ("Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"), the Supremes, the Jacksons, and the Rolling Stones ("Miss You.")

George Thorogood & the Destroyers

hailing from Wilmington, Delaware, was a showman. He copied Chuck Berry's duck walk in concert and played incendiary slide-guitar homages to Elmore James and Hound Dog Taylor. He started in a trio with bassist Billy Blough and drummer Jeff Simon and they became the first major-selling act on Rounder Records, a Cambridge-based indie that specialized in folk and bluegrass but took on the Destroyers because of their passion for roots music. George had a surprise 1978 hit for Rounder with a cover of Hank Williams' "Move It On Over," then later switched to EMI Records and had some big hits for them in the '80s. These included "Bad to the Bone" (with rock pioneer Bo Diddley joining them in a heavily-aired MTV video) and "I Drink Alone." The Destroyers' hedonistic rock-blues landed them an opening slot on the Rolling Stones' tour in 1981, the same year that George & Co. did the unthinkable by playing "50 states in 50 days" on their own. They were workhorses whose party rock was contagious. George called it "noise with a beat." And they did the "50-50" tour by piling into an old Checker Cab they had bought in Philadelphia, averaging 200 miles between each gig, with some days exceeding 500 miles. Thorogood saw himself as just a link in the blues-rock chain. As he said years later, "Before us there was Canned Heat, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, J. Geils, the Savoy Brown Blues Band, the Yardbirds, the Bluesbreakers and don't forget Elvis Presley, who did stuff by Big Boy Crudup. I'm just following the trail, though sometimes I feel we're the last card-carrying guys."

John Mellencamp

has a zest for life that hasn't stopped. When you think of honest, Midwest rockers from the '80s—the so-called "heartland rockers"—you think of Bob Seger first, then Mellencamp. His candidly lyrical portraits of small-town life, as in "Jack and Diane" and "Pink Houses," caused the Village Voice to once write an article on him with the headline "Revenge of the Suburbs." Mellencamp has not been a critic's favorite, but he remains a popular favorite. He came from a farming family of Dutch descent in Seymour, Indiana, then moved to New York City at age 24 and hooked up with David Bowie's manager, Tony DeFries. A problem developed, however, when DeFries renamed him Johnny Cougar and his first album came out under that name, which came as a surprise to Mellencamp, who has been living that name down ever since. It took his fifth album, American Fool (1982), to yield some hits in the anthemic "Hurts So Good" and the homespun "Jack and Diane," whose protagonists he describes as "two American kids doing the best they can. ]

Carol Kaye

is an unsung hero of rock bass. She was a jazz guitar player working in Los Angeles and made her mark as a session bass player and a member of "The Wrecking Crew," an ensemble of studio musicians in L.A. who are responsible for recording countless hit records in the 1960s. Her bass parts grace records by the Beach Boys, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Sony & Cher, Phil Spector productions, Sam Cooke, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, etc.

Business Spotlight: Promoter Michael Cohl invents the "Package Tour" with "Steel Wheels"

made the 1989 "Steel Wheels" tour the most lucrative in history up to that time. The business logistics of "Steel Wheels" became the template for the mega-tours that have followed. How did he do it? He started by competitively bidding for the rights of the tour, beating out an incensed Bill Graham. In doing so, Cohl offered the Stones a guarantee of $70 million dollars (they ended up grossing close to $100 million.) Then he earned the Stones $6 million by enlisting Anheuser-Busch and their Budweiser beer brand to sponsor the tour. The next move was to encourage the band to roll out an unprecedented merchandising and product licensing junket. Major retailers such as Macy's carved out exclusive Stones sections into their floor-plans and hocked "Steel Wheels" branded t-shirts, $400 leather jackets, skateboards, sneakers, any almost any product that had enough surface area to print the Stones' lips logo. On top of that, a concert movie cable television pay-per-view event earned the band millions more. Concert touring had become profitable in a big way if the band had the cache. began working as a rock promoter in 1969. Besides liking rock & roll, there's little doubt that they were also very fond of the piles and piles of money they were raking in on the "Steel Wheels" tour.

The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh

moved the bass into uncharted waters with his improvisational approach and fearless harmonic exploration. While many bass players try to anchor the band to the drum groove, Lesh seemed not to care about this function and demonstrated that his approach could pay huge musical dividends within the fluid framework of the Dead. Originally a trumpet player, Lesh aspired to write serious music and studied with Italian composer Luciano Berio before picking up the electric bass after meeting Jerry Garcia. Lesh was serious about sound, and electric bass manufacturer Alembic, Inc. was founded as a bass guitar research and design firm for Phil Lesh and Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane.

Warren Zevon

nother writer with a unique street sense, a rock outsider who first bubbled into view in the late '70s when Linda Ronstadt scored hits with his compositions "Hasten Down the Wind" and the satirical "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." He got hooked in with the Southern California country-folk-rock crowd (Jackson Browne produced his early albums), but Zevon was a mindfully independent type who usually did his own thing. He was born in Chicago but grew up in Arizona and California as the son of a professional gambler. His dad won a Corvette in a card game and let Zevon drive it to New York to check out the folk scene there. Zevon was gifted, and had an ability to write witty, sardonic lyrics, as in his frat-boy smash, "Werewolves of London," which had this funny street poetry: "I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand / Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain." No one else wrote like that. songs were recorded by many of his contemporaries. Zevon became a clown prince of the party circuit, but unfortunately, his problems with alcoholism made for some severely inebriated shows, including one I saw when he could barely stand up afterward. He fueled that party spirit with hits like "Excitable Boy" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money." The latter had this outlaw verse: "Now I'm hiding in Honduras / I'm a desperate man / Send lawyers, guns and money / The shit has hit the fan." Again, only Zevon wrote like that.

Metallica Cont'd

playing "Metal Militia" to a militia of rabid metal fans in 1983. Watch Hetfield announce his debut album and rail against the censorship of the original lowbrow record title Metal Up Your Ass. also had punk overtones. Singer Joey Ramone of the Ramones said, "A band like Metallica were basically taking our sound but they're doing it their way." Metallica opened a tour for Guns N' Roses in 1992 and released a notable concert album, Live Shit, a year later. But it was 1991's groundbreaking Metallica album (also known as The Black Album) that expanded the group's sound. They softened their hard edges somewhat, but didn't sell out. And the disc yielded their biggest tracks in "Enter Sandman" (which MTV embraced) and "The Unforgiven," a booming power ballad that won yet more fans. It sold 25 million copies worldwide. And the video for "Enter Sandman" was later listed at no. 38 on MTV's "Top Videos of All Time." Metallica's ascent was symbolized by their headlining a stadium tour with Korn and Kid Rock in 2000. They also became embroiled, however, in a lawsuit in 2000 against Napster, the controversial file-sharing website where consumers could download songs for free. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, in particular, spoke out against Napster but the band received a harsh backlash from some fans and they eventually withdrew their lawsuit.

Ampeg

set the standard for bass amps and helped rattle many rafters with their SVT amp.

Mötley Crüe at the 1983's U.S. Festival

sponsored by Apple Computer founder Steve Wozniak. The concert featured a New Wave Day, Rock Day, Heavy Metal Day, and a Country Day. It was not a charity concert and it featured the top acts of the day including the Clash, David Bowie, U2, Van Halen, and Waylon Jennings.

Springsteen's Nebraska

threw a curve ball at his fans with 1982's Nebraska, a folk-edged album which he recorded on a Teac 4-track cassette player at home. He originally was going to record it with his E Street Band, but liked the acoustic demos so much that he put them out instead. It was a one-man project—Bruce played acoustic guitar, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine, organ, plus an electric guitar on just one song. The subject matter was dark, talking about a serial killer in one tune, and cops on a couple of others. Johnny Cash later recorded two of the songs, "Johnny 99" and "Highway Patrolman." But the album ended with a spark of light in "Reason to Believe," a Bruce classic with the line "people find some reason to believe."

Yes' Chris Squire

took the distinctive trebly sound of the Rickenbacker stereo bass and turned it up to 11. Like Entwistle, McCartney, and Casady, Squire transformed the bass into a lead instrument at times. His playing was powerful and melodic. His virtuosic playing suited the complex progressive-rock arrangements that Yes championed. Squire was a big influence on many, including Geddy Lee of the hard-rockin' Canadian progressive rock band, Rush.

Spotlight: Origins of Hip-Hop

trace back to a style of talking or chanting over a rhythm or beat, called "toasting," which emerged out of Jamaica in the early 1950s. Toasting was often part of "blues dances," which took place in large halls or outdoors in the slum and often featured African-American R&B music. In the early '70s, Jamaican-born Clive Campbell, also known as Kool DJ Herc, introduced "break beat" DJing in the South Bronx, New York. He would set up the same song on two turntables, and after one turntable played the break section (a point of isolated drum rhythm) of the song, where the beat played without vocals, he would switch to the other in order to extend the section. This technique enabled break dancers (known as "B-boys" and "B-girls") to keep dancing to the "funkiest" parts of the song and allowed people to interject words, similar to toasting, in what came to be known as "shout-outs." As the shout-outs became longer and more descriptive, they discussed more and more about life as it was lived in the poor neighborhoods of the South Bronx.

Tracy Chapman

was a shy but powerful singer-songwriter who grew up poor in a broken home in Cleveland. But she got some good breaks, winning a scholarship to Wooster (a highly rated prep school), which led to Tufts University in Boston. She was a busker on the streets of Harvard Square and a star in its coffeehouses (which, was ground-zero of the underground folk music scene in the late '50s and early '60s.) She brought a new, soulful take to folk-rock. Her socially conscious lyrics and strong alto voice earned her immediate attention with her debut, Tracy Chapman, in 1988, which helped her win three Grammys. She also became a prominent part of the Amnesty International tour that we looked at earlier in this lesson. "Fast Car" music reflected the folk music of the early '60s. interesting musical fusion performing "Baby Can I Hold You Tonight" with Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti at a 2000 concert for to raise money for aid to Tibet and Cambodia.

Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone

was a true innovator. He helped to popularize the "slap-bass" technique where the right hand is used to slap and yank the strings, creating a snappy percussion effect. Graham began playing professionally in his teens in the San Francisco Bay area in a trio with his mother. When the organ broke in the club they were working, he switched to bass and began emulating the sound of a drummer with his slapping technique. He is a big influence on Bootsy Collins, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Les Claypool of Primus. On the 1971 track "Thank You for Taking Me to Africa" we hear the slapping technique that Graham pioneered.

Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane

was recognized during the late '60s as one of rock's finest and most aggressive bass players. He was born in Washington, D.C. where he picked up the bass as a teen. He joined San Francisco's Jefferson Airplane in 1965. His bass lines snaked through the Airplane's songs with a growly, distorted, and aggressive rumble. Casady's style was rooted in the blues and his bass playing exemplified acid-rock improvisation. Casady can be heard playing bass on Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" along with Steve Winwood of Traffic on organ on the album Electric Ladyland. Today he plays in both acoustic blues and electric settings in Hot Tuna with the Airplane's former guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. This 1969 recording of the Jefferson Airplane at New York's Fillmore East demonstrates the classic walking patterns of the inimitable Jack Casady.

Hair Metal Brings the Ooze

were pushed endlessly by MTV. These excessively coiffed hair metal acts, who also featured spandex clothes and audiences flush with young, impressionable females, included Poison (whose singer, Bret Michaels, later launched a cheesy reality TV show in which he took women on the road in hopes of selecting a girlfriend from among them), Warrant, and Mötley Crüe. The Electric Blowdryer: An essential piece of hair metal rock gear. Hair Metal band Nitro from L.A.