I'm Buzzsnight, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast, and welcome to another look at this week in music history.

This is the week of August twenty fifth through August thirty first, and we got a lot to talk about.

So let's head over to the music history desk to Harry Jacobs.

Buzz, it's great to be here this week.

Another great week.

I've got some questions for you on information that we're talking about, So I hope, but as my mother used to say to me, I hope you got your listening ears on, young man.

I'm trying my best.

August twenty fifth, nineteen sixty seven, the Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Wales and this began their interest in TM transcendental meditation.

It changed everything.

Yeah, did you ever get into meditation?

Was that ever?

Not enough?

I have?

I do, but not enough.

It's you know, as they say, those that do, they refer to it as a practice, which means they're always practicing.

And as somebody who needs to probably practice at a lot of things, I should get back to the practice.

It's referred to as the practice of mindfulness, right, that's right.

Yeah.

In nineteen ninety four, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant reunited for MTV Unplugged to tape that was that was really neat to see, if you think about it.

Led Zeppelin was done, you know, nineteen eighty after Bottom, you know, had had left us, and then they reunited for Live Aid and I don't know that they got together again, certainly the full band, but to see Page and Plant together, I don't think.

I think there was that gap from Live Aid to nineteen ninety four?

Am I wrong?

I think you're correct, And I want to go back and listen and watch some of that if it's available.

I'm sure in some forms that it is, because that had to be pretty special, and I know it was, but I think it's worth going back and looking at.

It's so funny that you say that, because that's exactly where I'm when I said I have questions, I have stuff for you this week.

You know, we've known each other so long and we think along the same lines.

When I saw this come up, I thought to myself, Boy, is this available?

Can I get it on my phone?

Can I can I make a playlist out of it?

How do I find it?

And it's not available on iTunes?

It's not available on Spotify.

Okay, there are a couple of songs I think no Quarters available on Apple iTunes, but they have not made it available easily available.

You can buy the file online, you know, which no one does anymore, right, you know, meaning you can go to a website, download the MP three and put it on your phone or whatever.

But it's not one of those things that's available on streaming.

You can buy the DVD, not that any of us have DVDs anymore.

What you can do, the easiest thing to do is to go to YouTube.

That YouTube who was gobbling up the world of entertainment leading you know, fragmentation, you know, hands down.

But I think you can find the entire MTV unplugged on on YouTube.

That's the way to find it.

But no quarter, thank you.

What is and what should never be?

Battle of evermore?

Kashmir?

I think Kashmir is only on the DVD when the levy breaks the rain song just amazing.

I'll tell you Another thing to go look at and rediscover is Chris Robinson from The Black Crows with Jimmy Page.

Yeah yeah, yeah, it was great.

There was some great They went ripping through a whole lot of Love and maybe the Lemon song.

I mean, there's a bunch of bunch of great, great tunes done done there with Chris Robinson, Jimmy Page.

August twenty six, nineteen sixty eight, Hey Jude was released in the UK A Beatles moment.

Wow, no sorry, surprise, as Gomer Pyle would say, surprise, surprise, that's right.

August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety.

Here's the Stevie Rayvaugh tragedy.

We had a story about Stevie Ravon performing his last concert and he took that helicopter ride from Alpine and and he he didn't pass away right away after that accident.

He lived for a short period of time, and he passed away in nineteen ninety on this day, on August twenty seventh.

I had forgotten that he, you know, was still in you know, critical condition after that.

But what a what a loss too soon?

He would have still been creating amazing music, I guarantee sure.

And here's a meeting that you would love to have been at.

Every once in a while something comes up and you go, boy, I would love to have been a fly on the wall at this one.

On this day, August twenty seventh, nineteen sixty five, the Beatles met Elvis Presley at his home in Beverly Hills.

How about that for a meeting?

What was that?

Like, I guarantee it was the Beatles in awe And I guarantee you it was Elvis in awe.

Sure, that's what I Other than that, I've never seen anything really detailing that or Paul McCartney talking about that would be interesting to hear the perspective of fall or Ringo to this day.

You know, I've never heard a story about it.

I've never seen a picture of it.

I was unaware of it.

YEP.

Nineteen seventy nine U two signed their first record deal with Island Records, and you know, it was really off to the races from there and really and their success in the US is due in large part to their connection to our friend, your your former co worker, Carter Allen.

That's right.

They slept on the floor at the Carter Allen apartment.

I think, yeah, WBCN in Boston w ZX and Boston Carter Allen.

But BCN was instrumental in signing in playing you two and others across the country.

This is the power of radio back, you know.

In the in the early eighties where a radio station like BCN would play something and rock radio around the country would follow it.

People would say, you know, bcn's onto something with his band from Ireland, and Carter was a supporter, and as you just said, you know they slept at his place, right you saw the video.

There's video and I'm sure you heard the story of YouTube playing at Gillette Stadium ten twelve years ago and and them playing a song, and in the middle of the song, I forget, I forget what it was, but you know, Bono starts this little rap about being able to hear the bells and hear the bells, and at one point he says something about Carter Allen.

Yeah, and BCN, And I remember thinking to myself, well, Carter Allen's been in my living room.

How cool is that?

But you know, can you imagine being Can you imagine being Carter and being at a You two show with thousands of people at Gillett and Bono is singing your name.

I know, well, Carter one of the best human beings on the peace of the earth.

So yeah, listen, he's a vegetarian.

Aside from that, I love him well.

I can't get him to eat a steak.

August twenty eighth, nineteen sixty four, Bob Dylan introduced the Beatles to marijuana.

How do we know though, that it was on that day and that listens a week before or a week after?

Or who wrote that down?

Did somebody commit this somewhere?

This is I'm sure it happened.

Yeah, I'd like some irrefutable evidence.

Yeah.

I don't think anyone in this life would would remember or speak on it is.

This is a fact that we can't you know what, I watch a lot of crime TV.

This cannot be corroborated.

There you go, that's right right.

Nineteen eighty one, MTV broadcast the first MTV Video Music Awards on August twenty eighth.

They use shows they met.

Those were great shows to watch.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nineteen eighty two, Queen played to one hundred and thirty thousand people in Leads, a band I wish I had seen with.

Freddy Must It must have been amazing.

I'll tell you what.

Let's have been Rucus August twenty ninth, nineteen fifty eight.

Michael Jackson was born and Indiana.

I don't remember his mom's name, but his father was Joe Jackson.

And not the singer Joe Jackson.

But no, not look Sharp or Sunday Papers.

Joe Jackson.

Different Joe Jackson, and this Joe Jackson was not a nice man.

No, it's correct anyway.

Nineteen sixty six, another Beatles story.

The Beatles played their final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

You know why this is an interesting story.

Why that that's an interesting place for them to have ended their live performances because the acoustics were terrible.

No, because that is the site of their first concert in the US.

Oh there you go.

Okay, Yeah, first and last concerts.

You know, first concert in the US and last commercial concert.

Pretty unique, was there?

Hysteria this week in nineteen eighty seven entered the US charts.

Def Leppard great great piece of work, deafth.

Lep a masterpiece for them really.

August thirtieth, nineteen sixty nine, Stones headlined the Isle of Wight Festival.

Legendary Show, Legendary festival, right yep.

Nineteen ninety three, I've left us some room here Billy Joel played the final show at the Old Boston Garden.

Probably a good time to do a little debrief of the documentary.

If you want, we could talk about the Old Boston Garden.

Our mutual friend Rich Creswick used to run that building after Larry Molter.

He once took me on the roof of the New Boston Garden and then he took me to where the New Boston Garden and the Old Boston Garden are next to each other.

And if I'm lying, I'm dying.

You can't walk between those two buildings.

Oh, I have you seen it.

I've done the same thing.

It's crazy, yes, absolutely crazy.

Anyway, Billy Joe played the last of his shows at the Garden.

You know, we spoke in between episodes one and two.

We were both excited.

We shared a lot of observations during that time.

We were wondering about the kind of the cliffhangers that were left.

But a couple of takeaways from you, now that you've seen all of it from the.

Documentary, Well, I think, first of all, his appreciation for, you know, classical music, and he just his deep love of it to this day, how it shaped much of the music.

I hadn't thought about it in that regard, how he sort of walks through it so brilliantly, so that's one thing.

The other thing is.

I did not realize the story about his I guess we would say his former brother in law that essentially almost ran Billy and his empire truly into the rocks in terms of the bankruptcy.

And I remember there was always a conflict that had happened.

We didn't know the depth of it and the detail of it, but how Billy was just his back was against the wall in terms of his finances and how bad that was.

So there's that, and then the way his real struggles were chronicled as well, which I was familiar with.

I remember, in particular familiar with what was going on because whatever it was.

Fifteen years ago, the New York Times wrote a big article in the magazine section of the Sunday paper about what was going on in Billy's life and his true challenges and a lot of the difficult stories about car accidents and whatnot.

So the degree of what was going on, really, you know, comes through in the documentary.

But it's an honest, candid, insightful documentary, and it really showcases an artist whose legacy I certainly believed in, but it further cemented that from me for sure.

He you know, it was interesting that the classical music piece you just touched on at one point, I forget what it was.

Maybe it was, you know, my Life, But he sits at the piano talking about classical music and how you know, really a lot of what he's doing comes from classical music.

And he starts playing My Life as a classical piece yep, And they go, oh boy, he's really really a great pianist, right, And I understand now I didn't understand why he didn't want to be compared to Elton.

In the first part, he kind of takes a shot at Elton about, you know, he's not really he's a five finger piano player.

Like he makes that remark something along those lines like he's not really a great piano player, and all of us we go, he's you know, you hear Levon or Ticking or Tiny Dancer or you know Rocketman.

You go, man, Elton John, what a piano player?

For Billy Joel to go, He's not really, you know that great a piano player, kind of rough, but then you watch Billy plays piano and you go, holy ship, Billy's a piano player.

Right.

So that was interesting.

The other thing, which was just sad, and it made me sad because I'm I'm Jewish, was learning the story about his his father's history, I mean so much with his dad, but his father, you know, the two of them being estranged, and his grandfather, they were German Jews, yep, And they owned this textile factory and his grandfather was essentially forced to give up his business in Germany.

They were run out of They were run out of Germany.

In a sense, they were lucky.

First of all, they were lucky they didn't get sent to concentration camps.

But they were run out of Germany.

But then they took that factory, a Jewish factory, and they turned it into the place where the prison uniforms were made for those going to the concentration camps.

Just horrific, unbelievable.

I know, a true historian, you know, a fan of classical music, student of classical music.

Just an overwhelming documentary.

If you haven't seen it, get to it.

I also had just sorry, Harry had Steve Cohen, who was the executive producer Billy's longtime collaborator over the years, on the podcast talking about it, and he tells a neat story about he and Billy watching it as it was a finished product and how uncomfortable that is being with the guy that this two part special is about.

But check out the episode with Steve Cohen, who's the EP of S.

So it goes absolutely, and so it goes sorry, and so it goes.

August thirty first, nineteen seventy four, the Stones released It's only rock and roll But I like it.

Oh it ain't that the truth?

Yeah, great, alum.

In nineteen ninety seven, Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris that I believe, if I'm correct, that happened in a tunnel yep in Paris, high speed crash.

I think running from paparazzi.

As I recall, you know, tributes, the tragedy, tributes worldwide.

The funeral televised Elton John's Candle in the Wind getting remade for her, and just you know, awful a moment.

Yeah, yeah, quite a moment.

And with that buzz, that is the end of the week ending August thirty firsts in the music history.

Well, Harry, that is a quite a week, but they all are amazing weeks.

Thank you for this and I want to thank all of you for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast and checking us out an Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.