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  #1  
Old 02-22-2008, 03:07 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Default Danny and Janis

[I was putting up Shrine '69 reviews and came across this Danny mention]

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) , January 7, 1999

Section: E CUE

TWO VETERAN ROCKERS RECALL RAUCOUS PASTS

STEVE MORSE - BOSTON GLOBE

Two bloodied but unbowed rock veterans have just released entertaining autobiographies. Both live in the Boston area and are grizzled pros who have seen their share of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

One is Al Kooper, the former Bob Dylan organist whose "Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards" is as colorful as its title.

The other is Dinky Dawson, a madcap sound engineer who has worked with Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan and whose book, "Life on the Road," reads like a Jack Kerouac adventure story.

Both tomes have been published by Billboard Books and both are labors of love from authors who have lived life to the fullest.

"It's good fireside reading," says Dawson, who lives in Plymouth, Mass. "Have a couple of Red Stripes or Newcastle Brown Ales, and you'll drift into it."

Actually, you'll careen into it, which is how Dawson's career has gone.

The son of a steel mill foreman in Yorkshire, England, Dawson shares trenchant memories of a picaresque life of getting a beer bottle thrown at his van by The Who's Keith Moon and watching the Hell's Angels hand-deliver a shipment of West Coast LSD for the Mac, which promptly consumed it that night. And these tales are just the tip of the iceberg.

Dawson, 51, wrote the book with the aid of Carter Alan, author of "Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S." They created a real page-turner that has been selling fast through Dawson's Web site.

The anecdotes keep coming, as Dawson recalls seeing Janis Joplin chase (and catch) Fleetwood Mac guitarist Danny Kirwan for a romantic tryst. He also recalls seeing a young Rod Stewart working in a coatroom in Club Mojo in Sheffield and hearing a jam session with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and the Mac's Peter Green, though no one taped it.

Frankly, it's a miracle the book was published at all. Dawson, who also mixed sound for the now-defunct Channel club in South Boston, suffered a near-fatal brain disease a couple of years ago. He recovered, he says, through "acupuncture, vitamins and walking five miles a day."

He also has inked a deal with Salem-based Rykodisc to release a CD next month of a 1969 Mac concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Kooper's new book is a humorous account of his 40-plus years as a multi-instrumentalist and a producer for Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Tubes, among others.

Kooper, now 54, grew up in Brooklyn and talked his way into his first recording session with Dylan, offering to play a Hammond B-3 organ (he had never played it before) on Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."

Kooper also accompanied Dylan at the famed 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan went electric and was booed. Kooper says the crowd didn't boo Dylan because he went electric, but because he had rehearsed only 15 minutes of material. As for going electric, Dylan already had been preceded that day by electric sets from Paul Butterfield and the Chambers Brothers.

In addition, Kooper tells of introducing Joni Mitchell to Judy Collins (who recorded Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" for a big hit) and of playing in the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, though he pulls no punches in putting down the direction that BS&T went after he left: "If they can live with `Lucretia MacEvil' and their Las Vegas desecration of `God Bless the Child,' then God bless them."

Kooper talks about his wild days as a swinger and Percodan-abuser, a habit he eventually kicked by himself. He also recorded the acclaimed "Super Sessions" (with Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills on guitar), plus served as assistant stage manager at the Monterey Pop Festival. Kooper never fit in well with corporate structures, but did work in the artists and repertoire departments of Sony and PolyGram.

It's instructive to learn how much of a rock lifer Kooper is. Even when he was 14, Kooper played with the Royal Teens ("Short Shorts" was their hit) and didn't get home until dawn on his first gig with them.

Kooper recalls "sitting in the back of that taxi cab . . . with my Sears guitar and cheesy little 25-watt Ampeg Rocket amp in the seat beside me, watching the first sunrise I'd ever seen against the Manhattan skyline. Then pulling up in front of our house in Queens one step ahead of the milk truck. Passing my father on the front walk, he on his way to work, me just returning from mine. And that look on his face as he hurried past me, as if an inner voice was telling him, `Your son has been lobotomized by Martians carrying electric guitars. He'll never be the same again.' . . . Thus ended any pretense I might have had about leading a normal existence."

Neither Kooper (who now teaches at the Berklee College of Music) nor Dawson has led a normal life, but they've both written unusually good books about their travels. ------------ Dinky Dawson's Web site: www.dinkysworld.com
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  #2  
Old 02-22-2008, 03:10 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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[I've been uploading Shrine '69 reviews today; since David recently mentioned how Joel Selvin's reviews have been validated over time, I thought I'd post this one here]

FLEETWOOD MAC'S GREEN SINGS THE BLUES

3 stars
FLEETWOOD MAC
Shrine '69
Rykodisc, $16.98

After nearly 25 years of Stevie Nicks' billy-goat growl, it is difficult to remember that Fleetwood Mac started life as one of the best white blues bands in the world. And Peter Green, Mac's original lead guitarist and vocalist, sounds all these years later like the most authentically haunted voice of his British blues peers.

"Shrine '69," a previously unreleased concert recording from Los Angeles, to hit stores Tuesday, captures the band at one of its many peaks, sporting three lead guitarists -- Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan, a short-lived lineup that did little recording but played some sensational shows. While Spencer's '50s rock 'n' roll fetishism made for lively high jinks onstage, the set- ending "Great Balls of Fire" and "Blue Suede Shoes" don't hold up 30 years
later.

But Green is a joy to behold. He found a voice -- both singing and playing guitar -- so deeply personal, so full of foreboding and yearning, that he easily transformed B.B. King's "I Need Your Love So Bad" into a minor masterpiece entirely his own. He sings on more than half the CD, and his silvery, biting blues guitar punctuates every number. While Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck wound up better remembered, Green was the consummate British
bluesman.

The release inaugurates the "Dinky Who?" series, live recordings from the archives of sound engineer Stuart "Dinky" Dawson. Fleetwood Mac '69 was a good place to start, not only because this high point in the group's long history is neglected in existing recordings, but also because you just can't have too much Peter Green.

-- Joel Selvin
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  #3  
Old 02-22-2008, 04:37 PM
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sharksfan2000 sharksfan2000 is offline
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Dinky Dawson's book has more to say about Danny and Janis. Would be fun to hear that Hendrix / Clapton / Green jam session had it been recorded, though most of those old jam sessions that have been preserved seem to be less interesting than you'd hope them to be (the ones from the Tea Party recordings for example).

As Joel Selvin writes for my local newspaper, I've seen plenty of his reviews, and frankly I'm not overly impressed. But he's demonstrated on a few occasions that he's a fan of Peter Green, so he can't be all bad!
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Old 02-23-2008, 01:19 AM
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aleuzzi aleuzzi is offline
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[QUOTE=sharksfan2000;743039]Dinky Dawson's book has more to say about Danny and Janis. /QUOTE]

Okay, this sort of came out of left field for me. Had no idea these two souls were at all romantic with one another. What does Dawson say of them?
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Old 02-23-2008, 11:09 AM
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sharksfan2000 sharksfan2000 is offline
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OK aleuzzi, here's what Dinky Dawson has to say in his book......although I don't know if I'd call it "romantic"

He first mentions that Janis "made eyes" at Danny during Fleetwood Mac's set when she came onstage with them during their shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in January 1969. Next mention is that Janis turned up before their soundcheck in Stockholm - that would have been the 1 April '69 show - looking for Danny. As Dinky says, she got right to the point, telling Dinky "I want to f*** him!" He says that the band showed up shortly afterwards and that Danny was uncomfortable since he'd heard that Janis was in town. Peter told Danny "She's going to get you", and John McVie added "There's no way out, Danny."

Dinky writes that Danny didn't want to attend a party being thrown for the band after their show so he wouldn't run into Janis, but Dinky told him "Just take your punishment like a man." Dinky writes that Janis was right at the door and grabbed Danny as soon as the band arrived. Dinky says he told her "Be careful with him, he's still a young man" and that she replied "That's why I want him. Now don't you guys worry, he's in good hands now!"

Dinky continues that the following morning as the band was checking out of their hotel, he saw Danny sitting in a chair in the lobby. He yelled at them "You left me, you bastards!" but Dinky said he had a huge smile on his face. Dennis Keane asked him "Good or what?" Dinky writes that Danny replied "Too good, I'm sore all over!" and he joked "I think I'm going to get married!" Dinky mentions that he ran into Janis a few weeks later in London and that she asked if he brought "you-know-who" but that's the last he writes about her in his book.
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Old 02-23-2008, 11:11 AM
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aleuzzi aleuzzi is offline
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This is hilarious...and not a little, uh, scary.
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Old 02-23-2008, 02:52 PM
zoork_1 zoork_1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sharksfan2000 View Post
[..]...Next mention is that Janis turned up before their soundcheck in Stockholm - that would have been the 1 April '69 show...
Do you (or someone) know more about the 1 April '69 show?

/z
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Old 02-23-2008, 03:31 PM
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sharksfan2000 sharksfan2000 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zoork_1 View Post
Do you (or someone) know more about the 1 April '69 show?

/z
Sorry, I don't know more about that show. I've heard of some bootleg recordings that are supposed to be from that show but it seems very likely that they are actually from other Stockholm shows (mostly 4 November '69 or 1 April '70). Dinky Dawson barely mentions the show itself in his book, just mentioning that it took awhile to get the crowd warmed up but that they were really into it by the end.
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Old 02-23-2008, 11:52 PM
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wondergirl9847 wondergirl9847 is offline
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OMG, how bizarre! LOL Danny and Janis..wow. Texas gal wants British guy. Yep, sounds good to me. Heh.
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Old 02-24-2008, 04:49 AM
zoork_1 zoork_1 is offline
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Quote:
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Sorry, I don't know more about that show....

Thanks anyway...

/z
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Old 03-07-2008, 05:59 PM
Ms Moose Ms Moose is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sharksfan2000 View Post
Dinky writes that Danny didn't want to attend a party being thrown for the band after their show so he wouldn't run into Janis, but Dinky told him "Just take your punishment like a man." Dinky writes that Janis was right at the door and grabbed Danny as soon as the band arrived.
No wonder that poor Danny later said that he had to stop life on the road because he couldn't handle the women (I think he is qouted saying that in Mick Fleetwood's book).

Ms Moose
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Old 06-15-2018, 08:07 AM
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This stuff is crazy! Thanks for putting it up! I don't think I will ever hear the song "Piece of My Heart" and not think of all of this!
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Old 06-15-2018, 06:51 PM
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Geeesh, how did I miss this tidbit of information?! Danny and Janis?!! Somewhere between bizarre and erotic, but probably more gross than anything!! JANIS JOPLIN?!!!! It had to be a case of rape on Janis' part! Poor Danny! The crazy life of rock and roll!
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