Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: Atlantic Records

45 sides +/- obscure tracks
Zeroto180

Jan Rhodes 45 – Undefined Trouble Places Burden On The Listener

The full-page ad placed in Billboard‘s August 17, 1968 issue promised controversy: Bill Gavin, publisher of the influential Gavin Report is on record as saying “Mom (Can I Talk To You?)” by Jan Rhodes should be given airplay. If Gavin were still with us, I would very much like to

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"Washita Love Child"
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“Washita Love Child”: Jesse Ed & Eric Whatsisname

In The World of Indigenous America, Brian Wright-McLeod writes of the “powwow style” and its influence in popular music, as exemplified by such artists as Jim Pepper, Peter DePoe, and Jesse Ed Davis: Jesse Ed Davis (Comanche-Kiowa) began his work as a leading session guitarist in the early 1960s when

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"The Name Game"
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Naomi Neville = Allen Toussaint

Allen Toussaint was the headlining act for the 2009 Silver Spring Jazz Festival.  At that time, the festival venue was the parking lot behind the facade of the old JC Penney building, just prior to its conversion (using millions of taxpayer dollars) into the Live Nation concert facility that would

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60s/70s rock +/- pop
Zeroto180

Arif Mardin @ Muscle Shoals

Arif Mardin is a renowned producer, arranger, and music executive who also – surprisingly enough – recorded a couple solo albums for Atlantic.  This hard-hitting instrumental arrangement of Lennon’s “Glass Onion” (from the Beatles’ “White Album“) would be used as the (1) kick-off tune, (2) title track, and (3) debut

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"Scotch and Soul"
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Rufus Harley’s “Scotch ‘n’ Soul”

Rufus Harley‘s sole 45, “Bagpipe Blues” on Atlantic Records — an original amalgamation of Scottish highland and African-American musical traditions from 1965 — was undoubtedly the first of its kind.  45Cat‘s carey jeggs notes that Harley is “[p]robably the first jazz musician to play the bagpipes, although Albert Ayler also

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"Blind Bats and Swamp Rats"
Zeroto180

Johnny Jenkins: Bat-Friendly

Zero to 180’s tribute to the world’s only flying mammal continues into its second day with a B-side from Johnny Jenkins — “Blind Bats and Swamp Rats“: “Blind Bats and Swamp Rats“ Johnny Jenkins (1970) Written by Jackie Avery “Blind Bats and Swamp Rats” can also be found on Jenkins’

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"Sam Stone"
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“Sam Stone”: Top Ten Saddest Song?

My mother-in-law and her husband had a grand old time at John Prine‘s concert Saturday night at DC’s stately National Theatre.  The next morning we remarked on Prine’s “country outlaw” cred (as evidenced by the turnout of the biker-American community), and I thought to myself, perhaps I could scrounge together

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"Bumpin' on Sunset"
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“Bumpin’ on Sunset”: Organ + Strings

Thanks to brother Bryan for tipping me to a book that, amazingly, has only been written in the last couple years:  Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip.  Most of us music fanatics who live on this side of the Mississippi, sadly, have never had the opportunity to see

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60s/70s rock +/- pop
Zeroto180

Godfrey Daniel: Punk Doowop Revivalists

I discovered Godfrey Daniel‘s one and only album – Take A Sad Song – at the local library bookstore that sells donated materials, including record albums and 45s.  I was struck first by the label – Atlantic – and secondarily by the following somewhat cryptic text on the back cover:

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"Forever Young"
Zeroto180

Kitty Wells: Renegade Country Rocker

In that same October-November 2001 issue of No Depression, there was another piece that caught my ear — Bill Friskics-Warren‘s historical account that documented Kitty Wells‘ somewhat radical musical experiment with members of the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker Band in a brave attempt to inject her music with a

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