"THIS TELEVISION HOUR (IS) TRULY AMAZING AND VIEWING I HIGHLY RECOMMEND."
Bill Gardner
Morning Radio Personality,
KOOL 94.5
Phoenix
Billboard Major Market Air Personality of the Year
Radio & Records finalist 2002 Air Personality of the Year
Airline Transport Pilot/Instructor Airline Ground Schools
“JOHN LENNON’S JUKEBOX”
I do a regular feature as part of the 94.5 KOOL-FM Morning Show, called “The Bill Gardner Rock & Roll Legends Quiz,” with the story behind a song. “John Lennon’s Jukebox” is like forty of these, all in one hour! Imagine this: A forty song, portable jukebox that once originally belonged to John Lennon is discovered. Forty 45RPM singles, each one hand labeled in John Lennon’s own writing. John Lennon’s hand-picked forty favorite rock and roll singles that HE grew up with.
But the story gets even better.
PBS “Great Performances” producers go back and found many of the original artists that recorded these songs, show them the jukebox, and capture their reactions to the fact that the John Lennon was undoubtedly influenced by their hit records from the ‘50’s and 60’s!
Artists like the Isley Brothers, Fontella Bass, Bruce Channel and Delbert McClinton, Gary U. S. Bonds, legendary songwriters Leiber and Stoller, Stax Records Memphis musician and visionary Steve Cropper, and even some legends you didn’t know you knew…until you hear their songs and hear them play, sing, and tell their stories.
But “John Lennon’s Jukebox” gets better yet!
Rather than speculate that John Lennon might have been inspired by one of these classic oldies, John Lennon’s own words, assembled from radio interviews, have John Lennon narrating his own story telling how things he heard on these very songs as a young man, then directly became a part of hit Beatle songs we all know!
That well known opening guitar riff from the Beatles “I Feel Fine,” the opening notes to John Lennon’s “Instant Karma,” the harmonica on “Love Me Do, even the “wooooooos!” in “She Loves You” and other Beatle songs. You’ll hear where John Lennon heard the songs that inspired each of them.
Weaving between rare and classic film footage and still photos of vintage rock and rollers, and even the 1963 first known film footage of the Beatles performing one of these jukebox songs at the Cavern, Liverpool, then seamless transitioning back to 2004 comments from Sting, and many of the stars on the jukebox make this television hour truly amazing and viewing I highly recommend!
Great Performances "John Lennon's Jukebox"airs
Monday, Dec. 31 at 11 p.m. on Channel 8.
