Sunday, January 31, 2010

Johnny Rivers at Jazz Fest 2007

Born in New York and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Johnny Rivers reminded the crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 28, 2007 that he was home.


Saturday, January 30, 2010

JR’s Vietnam Shows

Phu Bai and Chu Lai, February 22, 1966


Johnny Rivers opens the show for Ann-Margret at Phu Bai.



Fans clamor for Johnny Rivers' autograph backstage. Rivers had a big hit with "Poor Side of Town" in 1966, the year of this show in Vietnam.

Members of the band for Ann-Margret's 1966 Vietnam shows with two Vietnamese women at Phy Bai. At left is bassist Chuck Day; at right is guitarist Johnny Rivers. Next to Rivers is drummer Mickey Jones, who later that year toured Europe with Bob Dylan, was Kenny Rogers' drummer, and more recently had a regular role on the TV sitcom "Home Improvement."


Johnny Rivers signs an autograph for an MP at Phu Bai.



Guitarist Johnny Rivers and bassist Chuck Day play as Ann-Margret pauses between songs at Phu Bai.



A standard feature of Ann-Margret's shows was having servicemembers join her on stage for a dance. In the background is guitarist Johnny Rivers, who opened the show.

 
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JR at Jay Michael Concert - Poster 2007

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Villages announces 2010 series - with JR...

On June 12, The Villages welcome back singer/songwriter Johnny Rivers. Johnny was all over the airwaves in the early and mid-60's, and came back to score a few more hits in the 70's. He has left a significant mark on early rock and roll history with the songs he wrote and performed. He will treat concert goers to a selection of his hits that include "Secret Agent Man", "Maybelline', and "Poor Side of Town."


Taken from: http://www.fayettedailynews.com/article.php?id_news=4969

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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Johnny Rivers' Shadows on the Moon Review


There are voices that have followed us through our lives. We've heard them on our car radios as we've raced through the decades of our childhood. They have played like a soundtrack for our lives through the beaches, valleys, deserts and prairie roads we've traveled on our way to our present. Johnny Rivers carries such a voice. So much so, when he sings, we sit up and listen. We take notice because of our common history. When he first emerged in the mid-sixties at his now legendary engagements and live recordings at the Whiskey A-Go-Go, he created a tour de force that helped to break down the wall between pop and folk music. With recordings like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone," "Midnight Special" and "Memphis" he did what it took The Byrds five people to do; bring folk-rock to the musical stages of L.A. in the mid-sixties. His music played against the backdrop of merging of folk, rock and blues during the era of The Summer of Love when you were as likely to see Lightening Hopkins and Dave Van Ronk in Hollywood as you were to see The Doors or Otis Redding. Rivers absorbed these diverse forms of roots music into his own hybrid style which has carried his own folk-influenced trademark blues-rock style years beyond his last chart success.

For the last 25 years he's been underrated and largely unnoticed by the music industry he helped to establish back in the early 60's. So Rivers went his own way, recording blues, jamming in Memphis, reviving sometimes lost musical forms like blue-eyed soul, rockabilly, and country blues. He has remained a concert draw touring around the world to capacity audiences.

His new release, Shadows of the Moon went quietly into release in September. The CD brings Rivers to a place of textured folk/acoustic, world music, melodic jazz strains and straightforward lyric driven songs.

This is an album of dimension and vision lacking in much of today's mainstream music. Through every moment of this musical journey--and 'journey' is a much overused term today, to be sure--it is Rivers' voice that leads the way. With a still youthful and assured quality in his voice, he provides the musical avenue we walk with a set of well-crafted songs uncommon to mainstream records today. There is a clear and soulful mandolin, played by Rivers himself, as well as bass fiddles, steel guitars, dobro and drums which lay levels and texture of pure acoustic music.

As well-crafted as the music is, Shadows on the Moon is matched by strong material from songwriters like Michael Georgiades(former partner of Bernie Leadon of The Eagles), Jack Tempchin("Peaceful," "Easy Feeling," "Slow Dancin Swaying to the Music"), and Jimmy Webb(well, you know Jimmy Webb-I hope). The first six songs of the album are penned by Georgeiades, a long underrated songwriter. These songs add a concept of cloaked messages about the passage of a generation and the pull toward spirituality. Most significant of these songs are "Hard Heart," "Somebody to Love" and the title track "Shadows on the Moon." "Hard Heart" powerfully addresses the excesses and insensitivity of the political, ethical and moral shortcomings of the Bush years in a clever way cloaked in a love song. "Somebody to Love" is a prayer for the need for love in the world.

The last six songs focus on the personal journey through love, renewal and redemption. Songs like "Walk in the Rain" and "Beautiful World" speak of daily personal joys that become more precious as we grow older. The beauty of songs like "Slips Away" and "Where Words End" by Jimmy Webb bring home the answer to the problems posed on the first six songs sometimes dealing with the disillusionment of the past. These songs point to the need to come home to our own lives, aside from a collective ideal, to find virtue and fulfillment there. A bonus track "The American Dream," adds humor to the album and gives the Johnny listener a lighter look at the recent economic crisis.

While this album brings together a diversity of writing styles, instrumentation which clearly produces a feel of modern folk-rock, it never loses it's pop sensibility of appealing arrangements and accessible production which can play as just a feel good listen or allow a deeper listen into the insights of the writing and the soulful vocal Johnny Rivers brings to each song in his own unique way.

Finally, driving force and cohesive thread that runs through the album's concept, material and music is Rivers' distinct, familiar voice calling our memories back to the magic times we lived through but never allowing us the comfort of nostalgia. Instead, through some fine acoustic music, skillful songwriting, and that one-of-a kind voice, challenges us to find our life and passion in today's turbulent world.





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This is JR!







"LIFE IS A GAME"


"CLOSER TO YOU"


"BROWN EYED GIRL"



Hey where did we go,
Days when the rains came
Down in the hollow,
Playin' a new game,
Laughing and a running
Skipping and a jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our hearts a thumpin' and you
My brown eyed girl,
Your my brown eyed girl.




Whatever happened
To Tuesday and so slow
Going down the old mine
With a transistor radio
Standing in the sunlight laughing,
Hiding behind a rainbow's wall,
Slipping and sliding
All along the water fall, with you
My brown eyed girl,
Your my brown eyed girl.




Do you remember when we used to sing,
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da



So hard to find my way,
Now that I'm out on my own.
I saw you just the other day,
My how you have grown,
Cast my memory back there, Lord
Sometime I'm overcome thinking 'bout
Making love in the green grass
Behind the stadium with you
My brown eyed girl
Your my brown eyed girl

Do you remember when we used to sing
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uxJoVgiI4
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Saturday, January 2, 2010

March 9, 1966



Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, March 9, 1966: On their way to Vietnam, where they were to spend 15 days performing for the troops, singer-actress Ann-Margret and her band got a closeup look at a B-52 bomber on an Andersen AFB runway. From left to right are Charles Day, Ann-Margret, Johnny Rivers and Mickey Jones. As they were visiting, the entertainers watched as a B-52 returning from a mission over Vietnam made a successful landing in spite of a faulty right rear landing gear.
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JOHNNY RIVERS The singer, not the Song



http://www.whiskyagogo.com/articles/609999.html

"JOHNNY RIVERS The singer, not the song" - A Biography at Whisky Archives!
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"Maybelline" & "Memphis" (1964)


JR



LIBERTY RECORDS


SIDE A: SUMMER RAIN / FIRE AND RAIN
SIDE B: POOR SIDE OF TOWN / A WHITER SHADE OF PALE



  • Special Thanks to Zé Henrique who sent me this photo.

Johnny Rivers - Blue Suede Shoes (live)