Rock singer jimi hendrix died today in london, according to a Police Source from an overdose of drugs. Janis joplin was found dead last night. The cause of death was said to be an overdose of drugs. Jim morrison, the lead singer for the doors, a rock music group, is dead. He was 27. The early years of the 70s are sad in music. Because you lose people. And you lose the beatles. The small gathering on saville row is only the beginning. The event so momentous that historians may someday view it as a landmark in the decline of the british empire. The beatles are breaking up. It was a death for a lot of people. Rock n roll as we understood it in the 60s, are no longer with us. Being without the beatles never. And i wonder what im doing here with no drummers and no nothing like that. You might know i lost my old band or i left it. Imagine theres no heaven its easy if you try for so long, you kind of waited for the next beatles album to see where music was going. And we just hoped that the music they would come up with individually would be that good. You know, i no longer, oh, the beatles need an album. You and paul go write 20 songs tomorrow kind of thing. I just write when i feel like it. Imagine all the people you know, yoko, youve even been called the dragon lady who brought the beatles apart or took them all can we please give her the credit for all the nice music that george made and ringo made and paul made and ive made since they broke up. Because she did it. The fact is, yoko ono did not break up the beatles. Time broke up the beatles. Money broke up the beatles. Business broke up the beatles. A desire to go off and do their own stuff broke up the beatles. Hes a fleshier, heavier beatle these days. Respectably married. When the kids come to his concerts, they dont scream anymore, they listen. The significant thing is that both john lennon and Paul Mccartney made music in their own particular ways that was focused on the fact that they were deeply in love with a woman. But im not the only one mccartney went home, made the record where he plays all the instruments on his own. This cozy domesticity, beautiful, wonderful, warm music. Its going to look roughly like this. This is our First Showing of it. This is just the mockup, folks. The new album with atlantic. Its going to be called i sell records. Doesnt matter if im with the beatles or not. If they dont like the record they wont buy it. Ringo to who this day people dismiss way too much. Has tremendous success in the 70s. And George Harrison stockpiling these amazing songs, explodes like a supernova, an album all things must pass may be the greatest beatles solo album of all. You dont need no passport over the years, now, such a lot of songs mounted up i only wanted to do. I got a quota of one, or two per album. Were you held down by the other fellows . Well, very subtly, yes. Id just like to thank you all for coming here. You all know its a special benefit concert. Ravi shankhar went to George Harrison and said, a terrible thing is happening in bangladesh what can we do . That created the first major superstar benefit concert ever done. The concert for bangladesh was the grandaddy of all issuethemed concerts. Not only did you get George Harrison, you got eric clapton. It got dylan out of hiding. It put two beatles back on the stage again. It was unparalleled at the time and may still be unparalleled. A great deal of music of the 70s was people who had succeeded in the 60s finding new ways to express themselves in the 70s. Do you have any idea why your group particularly has lasted as long as it has . Because we stay together, i suppose. For a few years, the Rolling Stones had taken a lot of casualties. Even brian felt that he wasnt going to be around that long. Not everybody makes it. They were fighting for like where do we secure our foothold now . 1971, the Rolling Stones leave their home for tax purposes to go live in france. And record this record. Exile on main street. In a very hot, uncomfortable, muddysounding studio. That record is the embodiment of a band making masterpieces on a daily basis. And i remember reading the review saying this was a debauched album. I didnt know what debauched means, but ive got to get some of this debauchery stuff. Having come out of the 60s which was its own animal. The 70s had to show a new skin, it had to shed the old one. Ooh yeah i was never very confident of my voice as a singer. I thought rather than just sing, which would probably bore the pants off everybody, id like to kind of portray the songs. And i turn myself to face me and i never caught a glimpse david bowie has always been a game changer. He really has taken the promise of rock that the beats kicked off and taken it all sorts of interesting places for others to follow. Chchchchanges time may change me but i cant trace time i said that time may change me but i cant trace time when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. I remember setting up shipstation. One or two clicks and everything was up and running. I was printing out labels and saving money. Shipstation saves us so much time. It makes it really easy and seamless. Pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and its ready to go. Our costs for shipping were cut in half. Just like that. Shipstation. The 1 choice of online sellers. Go to shipstation. Com tv and get 2 months free. This year i took some time off from touring and went off on some adventures of my own. And this is kind of a a letter back home. Ooh california oh california im coming home oh make me feel good rock n roll band im your biggest fan california im coming home you look to the horizon that you want to move toward. And that horizon was here in l. A. Thats where the Record Companies were. And theres lots of sun. The way i got to california was just really simple, i got there in a 57 chevy by skipping my finals that year in college. Virtually no one was from southern california. Theyre all drawn to the light. And the light is the Troubadour Club. Things happened gradually until we played the Troubadour Club in los angeles which holds 250 people. It just happened on the first night. Every great songwriter i can think of came through the troubadour. Jackson browne, j. D. , linda ronstadt, joni mitchell, james taylor. The big sea change was people writing their own songs and expressing themselves. Is it difficult to reveal it constantly to so many people . Why do you have to do this . I feel an obligation to people and to myself to try and share myself, maybe as honestly as i can. I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out well i hit the rowdy road and many kinds i met there many stories told me all the ways to get there ooh so on and on i go the seconds tics the time out theres so much left to know and im on the road to find out everyone was just trying to do whatever came into their head. In the early days paul and i, we wanted to be the goff and king of england. They were very big those days. We had no idea who the people were, the mysterious mr. King was. Wrote the songs, chains the beatles did, im into something good. Which was part of the british invasion. We did discover this remarkable woman, carole king. Carole king made the transition from being behind the scenes woman to a star in her own right. I feel the earth move under my feet i feel the sky tumbling down i feel my heart start to tremble whenever youre around carole king is the embodiment of what happens. Because in the 60s she is trying to write hit songs for other people. Then in the 70s with tapestry, its the definition of an album of selfexpression. Let me go into my house in Laurel Canyon and tell you about my life. After church you always went out for pancakes. If you were lucky enough to ride in one of the girls cars you know what you are listening to . Tapestry. There was a lot of very important women who were some of the most significant writers and contributors to music at the time. Were going to do a song written by my friend john david souther, one of my favorite california songwriters and one of my favorite singers. Its called faithless love. She was in many ways my greatest collaborator. I became a professional songwriter because of the best voice of my generation was doing my songs. Faithless love like a river flows raindrops falling on a broken rose for my money, linda is still underrated just for sheer singing power and style and emotion. And the night falls in like a cold dark wind faithless love like a river flows there have been articles and things that identify me with the l. A. Sound, me, Jackson Browne and the eagles. We need some new blood in this town. Were starting to get stale. She rings like a bell through the night and oh you love to love her the original Fleetwood Mac was a fourpiece, fullon blues band. They were an english band that became a dual citizenship band. They were as american as they were british. All your life youve never known a woman tainted by the wind we had an album out, two years previous to joining Fleetwood Mac, called buckingham nicks. Nick really liked the music. They asked us to join. Rhiannon Fleetwood Mac, first, stevie and lindsey album for sure changed our lives. We had arrived. Freedom describe being rich and famous in california. This is it, kid. Freedom freedom hit records sometimes bore an audience. Oh, well, theyre not going to have another hit. Or, this one isnt as good as that. Record companies, like frothing at the mouth, the image of the band was becoming a whole thing. So we were getting ready to make rumors. With everyone falling apart. If loving you isnt the right to do how can i ever change things that i feel stretching the band. Theres five people, five free, independent, quite strongminded, quite stubborn individuals. If i could baby id give you my world two lovely couples, john and chris married. Their marriage was on the rocks. And stevie and lindsey might as well have been married. That all was falling apart. You can go your own way go your own way you can call it another lonely day we were testifying. And rumors became the church. Oohooh let me tell you now we were shocked. Not only were they incredibly talented but they looked like us. I didnt want you around no pretty faces always stand out in a crowd how long you been singing . Three years. See you went to grab it right away. Snatch it right out of my hand. Michael was precocious, he knew he was cute. You would watch him go from that to commanding a stage in front of 15,000 people. Amazing. Ooh baby give me one more chance one two three oh darling ive been trying to let you go the only American Group to have four consecutive number one records. Oh oh oh for the first time young black kids had their beatles. Hey, man. You dont know . The jackson five. Thats us. And thats no jive. The jacksons were the last act from the classic motown hitsville system. Motown was a very unique place. A lot of other companies were being run by businessmen. We had a music man at the helm. Berry gordy was a songwriter. Ironically, here he was trying his best to make black music that would cross over to the white world. Ended up making the greatest black music ever. He created a machine. Where you take the artist, polish them up. Make them a great package that they can play the Ed Sullivan Show and kill. Back in the 60s, marvin gaye wanted to be frank sinatra. He was clean, svelte, cleanshaven, debonaire. All that changed in the 70s. Why cant i make a record like the beatles . Im selling records like they sell. Why cant i have that artistic expression . Punish me with brutality talk to me honey so you can see whats going on whats going on yeah whats going on tell me whats going on ooh marvin gaye was affected by the vietnam war. His brother was in vietnam. So hes hearing all these stories about whats going on over there. Hes seeing the protests here. And its changing him. He holds up a mirror to america. Look at yourselves, america. Hes talking about the war. Hes talking about poverty. Changing artists in a way that berry gordy is not super happy about. Everybody thinks were wrong they do initially he did not want marvin to do whats going on. Motown was supposed to be nonthreatening and you have marvin gaye making a protest record about the war. That could potentially ruin good money. You dont lightly talk about the government. Why i i want to know whats going on right now ultimately when he agrees to put out whats going on, berry tells marvin, okay if you are right, ill learn something. If im right, you will learn something. And of course, as berry will say, i learned something. Every artist at motown was suddenly also wanting to try their chance at freedom. When people say, so, they put you in one category. They say, he is a soul artist. Thats all they expect for you to sing. Thats all they want you to sing. Thats not true. Soul is being able to express yourself. Stevie wonder went to berry gordy and he negotiated his creative freedom. And he used every bit of it. Very superstitious writings on the wall Stevie Wonder making some of the greatest records anyone has ever made in popular music in america, back to back to back. Its the equivalent of shooting a perfect shot from half court with your eyes closed. Music in my mind. Oh, he made it. He aint going to do it again. Talking. Oh my god he did it. And then suddenly songs in the key of life. You believe in things you dont understand what the beatles did in the 60s i feel Stevie Wonder was the person to do that for music in the 70s. Hi there, welcome aboard. You are right on time for a beautiful trip on the soul train. Whats your pleasure and whats your treasure . Bet your bottom we got them, baby. Soul train finally offered america its first view of afrocentricity. It was a new idea to say, black is beautiful. I would literally run home from church to get to see soul train. It was the one reliable place to see the artists you loved. Theres no question soul train broke a lot of artists and introduced a lot of artists to audiences that they had never performed for. Ten years before he did the moonwalk, Michael Jackson debuted the robot in 1973 on soul train. People had done the robot before. But there was a way he did it. It was faster. It was sharper. And it was street. I could just see his bouncing. Because there was so much precision to it. Dancing dancing dancing shes a dancing machine oh baby. Rock, music that infuriated so many people in the 50s and 60s. The music that so many thought too loud, vulgar, and somehow dangerous to our morals. Rock has not only refused to go away, it has become an institution. Heart was a big deal. Because in the decade dominated by a type of rock n roll that rhymes with rock and begins with a c, but i wont go on further, they were willing to play with those guys and succeed on their terms. The stuff from the 60s, thats way too hippie, now we have to up it a notch. The audiences had come to expect a better standard of performance. A better quality of lighting and sound and staging. They have come to expect a show. We still have time and i still defy every time i think about it i want to cry in the 70s the groups started to become more theatrical. They realized just giving them the music isnt enough. We have to give them something to look at. More naked people. More misbehavior. More overthetop stuff going on. Just just more. Oh young child playing stadiums was too unreal. It would just be a sea of faces into infinity. With your sweet bag of lies crazy crazy crazy on you crazy on you stadium tours put a lot of people near music at the same time. What they also do is force the musicians to play to the back of the hall. In the 70s that distance between the performer on stage and that audience grew. If you went to any big arena rock shows, it was always about the star up here and the audience down here. And this sort of iconography of the rock star as this huge figure. Crazy crazy on you it was bound to happen, but it comes as a shock nevertheless. In a poll taken by a leading pop Music Magazine in england, the beatles came in second. The most popular rock group in england these days is called the led zeppelin. In their 20s, theyre rich, powerful, temperamental, and pampered. Theyre the led zeppelin, a rock group on tour. In the vernacular of the record biz, where to be merely big is nothing, zeppelin is very big. To get around, zeppelin uses a chartered 707. The kind of plane president nixon uses. But the president s plane doesnt have an organ nor a 15foot mirrored bar, nor in the private quarters does it have two bedrooms and a fireplace. Im a bit upset theres not a pool table on board. Apart from that, i think its about the best way to travel. Americans are now spending 2 billion a year on music. Thats 700 million more than the whole movie industry grosses from ticket sales in one year. About three times the amount of money taken in by all spectator sports. Im telling you rock n roll basically is no different than ibm, examination, sara lee, chevrolet. Supply and demand. Its the same business. Rock n roll had been a little gritty novelty business. It was not the center of the world in the 50s and 60s. In the 70s it becomes the main event. That has repercussions in all sorts of positive and negative ways. The total cost of this tour is 3. 5 million. Now the gross of the tour is in the region of 11 million. So yeah, its a living. It was so decadent and over the top and money just whoo being thrown against the wall. Could be a bit of a hypocrite, you know, if youre consistently evoking the ideas of young people and bouncing off the ideas of young people, taking young peoples money and putting it in your pocket, you know. Really what you are is a middleaged family man. And its only the hypocrisy that im worried about. Bruce springsteen was trying to reclaim the soul of rock n roll by going back to basics. Using emblems from the past that were kind of being discarded at that point. Every day you sweat out on the streets of a runaway American Dream using a sound that was not what was on the radio, was not what was mainstream rock. Suicide machine spring from cages on highway nights stepping out over the line whoa Bruce Springsteen created his own counterculture. It just speaks exactly to the american spirit. You couldnt hit it on the head more than Bruce Springsteen did. Baby we were born to run yeah yes we were born to run was a towering