Copper
Music to my ears
Saved By the Light
It’s late and dad has his slippers and pipe Mom’s wrapping gifts by the fading firelight. “You going to help or just sit there all night?” Before he could answer...
The Sounds of Christmas: Batteries Not Included...
This article originally appeared in Issue 22. It’s a Copper tradition to have a holiday story by WL Woodward at this time of year, so we present it again here...
Rock and Roll – Missing In Action?
My wife Diana and I were in the European Café in Colorado Springs a few Saturdays ago when a guy came through the patio door, looked at me and asked,...
Tom Waits – Our Beat Storyteller, Part Three
I must apologize to my valiant readers (all four of you) for the time lapse between Part Two (Issue 142) and Part Three. (Part One appeared in Issue 139.) I had a crazy...
Tom Waits: Our Beat Storyteller, Part Two
In the late 1960s Tom Waits decided he wanted a career in music because he couldn’t think of anything else he could be good at. I believe that to be...
Tom Waits – Our Beat Storyteller, Part One
He was born when lightning struck a distillery near Pomona, somewhere between All Saint’s Day and All Fool’s Day. His essence spilled out of a busted bottle of Chivas Regal...
John Mayall Part Two – The Turning Point
As mentioned in a previous column (Issue 130), John Mayall was traveling back and forth between England and America, where he became enamored with the Los Angeles lifestyle. In 1969 he...
Chick Corea Returns to Forever
Armando Anthony Corea, known to the world as “Chick,” passed to the other side on February 9. We’ve been losing music icons in the last few years because of an...
John Mayall: British Blues Pioneer
Let’s get the silly stuff out of the way first. John Mayall was born in 1933 near Manchester, England to parents of dubious distinction. His dad was a dedicated boozer...
Those Christmas Movies
I don’t live my life by many rules. Basically, I have two. First, treat others as you would like to be treated. Second, don’t store super glue next to the...
Frank Zappa – The King of Freaky’s New Movie
A new documentary named Zappa will be released by Magnolia Pictures on November 27, 2020. I was incredibly fortunate to be a sent a screener for the movie in the hope I...
Giraffes and Whipped Cream Return: Frank Zappa
This article originally appeared in Issue 18. We decided to run it again, in edited and updated form, as a prelude to WL’s upcoming review of the new movie, ZAPPA, to be...
Home for the Pandemic
I will open with a YouTube video of the Holderness family panning the pandemic. These people are hilarious, and I recommend visiting their channel. Sometimes I feel as though...
The Music Lesson
I have found a book written by one of the best bass players on the planet about how to study Music and Life. I capitalize Music and Life because Victor L....
Travis Wammack – Memphis Royalty
We’re going to visit a guy today who is known to guitar players but not to the general public. Travis Wammack recorded his first record when he was 12 years...
Leland Sklar: The Bearded One
In the 1970s I was in a record shop in Hartford, Connecticut. I was a gigging (read, broke) musician. The great thing about record shops was you could go in,...
Little Richard: The Architect of Rock and Roll
This incredible story is about one of the most influential vocal stylists of our generation and generations to come. Giants will remember Little Richard and the debt owed to his...
John Prine – In Spite of Himself
I did a Copper piece on John Prine a year ago (Issue 80). However his passing on April 7 brought me back to the closet. John was a friend to all Americans and...
The Wrecking Crew: The Legends Behind the Hits
In 1966 Sonny and Cher were recording a song with Los Angeles session players. The bass player, Carol Kaye, related that she was on the session and was shown the...
Bassic Necessity
In his Issue 108 column Dan Schwartz related that Paul McGowan had proposed a series on why a bass instrument was necessary. Drums keep the beat and guitars and other...
The Gear That Changed My Life – The Bass Series
I am going to explore some bass stuff for a few columns here. It’s surprising and a little disconcerting that I haven’t explored this idea yet because I are a bass player....
Bear: The Owsley Stanley Story, Part One
In this new three-part series, you and I will explore the life and times of Owsley Stanley, who early on financed the Grateful Dead with money he made as a...
The Great Christmas Hymns
I was brought up Catholic because my mother was Irish and my father didn’t care. I never saw him in a church. At a certain point my mom stopped going....
The Gift
My dear wife Diana is one of those who begin buying Christmas presents in April. Yes I know it’s annoying. But how lucky is that girl? She has Christmas in...
The Bonzo Dog Band and the House on Daleville Road
I discovered the weirdness of the Bonzo Dog Band in the 1970s when living in a possessed A-frame house that was located at the end of a haunted road. I...
The Adventures of Jeff Beck: The Finale
On March 9 and 10, 1981, Beck went on a stage in the UK for the first time since 1974, pre Blow by Blow. Appearing with the There and Back band, Jeff was...
The Adventures of Jeff Beck: Third Movement
Sorting through the flotsam that is rock lore to figure out how events happened, who was involved and when, especially through the substance addled ’60s and ’70s is like trying...
The Adventures of Jeff Beck: Second Movement
December 1965 found the Yardbirds recording an album in America at the studios of Chess and Sun. For these blokes from Britain that must’ve been cool as hell. Beck was about to...
The Adventures of Jeff Beck: First Movement
Geoffrey Arnold Beck was a war baby, a term exclusively used for kids born during WWII, I think because of the sheer trauma of the times. He grew up in...
NRBQ
In 1966 two kids who were not being watched carefully started a garage band in their hometown of Shively, KY. Terry Adams played keys and sang, brother Donn played horns...
The Wildweeds
“I’m listening to WDRC BIG D in Hartford!” In 1967 WDRC, a Hartford pop station (What’s Doing Round Conn.) 1360 on your AM dial, was running a promotional radio contest. Every hour the...
Django, Act 5
On January 29, 1947, Django Reinhardt landed in New York. Because of poor communications, Django was a late add to the new tour and Ellington didn’t have the arrangements for...
Django, Act 4
In 1940 the Nazi war machine engulfed France and Paris in a cloud of black smoke. Misery came to freedom lovers everywhere, not just the continent. The silver lining was...
Django, Act 3
The Hot Club On a night in 1934 Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli found themselves playing for Louis Vola in a pedestrian dance band at the Hotel Claridge. During a...
Django, Act 2
[Act 1 of the Django Reinhardt story appeared in Copper #86.] The Manouche poultices and remedies had kept Django alive but his mother Negros realized he was not recovering. Negros and friends took...
Django, Act 1
January, 1910, on a cold evening in Liberchies, Belgium a baby boy was born to a Manouche Romani couple named Jean Baptiste and Laurence Reinhardt. They named him Jean. He...
Listless
Last Christmas I was up late with my boys drinking Scotch and talking about music. Before things got too sloppy the subject came up on the ridiculous nature of best...
Steppenwolf
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs……There’s also a negative side.”...
Sean Costello
At times in everyone’s life someone comes along that thoroughly pisses you off. Think of the night Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend, along with a few other guys like John...
John Prine
If you google The Voice of Our Generation what pops to the top is Lena Dunham. Not only does it bug me that google has become a verb but I...
Arthur “Another Blind Guy” Blake
I’m not going to apologize for that. Think about it. I didn’t start this shit about blind guitar heroes. And the Lord said “So you got everything?” Moses. “Yes Lord.”...
Christmas and Us
When I was a kid, on Christmas Eve I heard my parents taking presents from an unused room next to the bedroom I shared with my younger brother. The full...
Bessie Smith Part 2
I am always interested in transitory events whether they be political, biographical, or musical. The emergence of the blues as first a song form and eventually an art form is...
Bessie Smith Part 1
The Lord was walking through the Garden. He was knitting what would one day be known as a Rubik’s Cube when He came across Adam and Eve. Both of them...
And The Beat Goes On
I have a recurring dream. I’m standing backstage at a theater of some kind and the curtain is closed. Next to me is a guy whose name apparently is Fred...
Hoagy Carmichael, Part 2
Back at IU Hoagy was going to class and stopped in at the old Book Nook and sat down at the piano. He’d been thinking about melody, how there was...
Hoagy Carmichael, Part 1
Hoagland Carmichael The sound of the neighbor’s rotary mower preceded the screech of the screen door opening. “Don’t ya slam that screen door young man!!” Bang! A whisk of a...
Charlie Patton: Father of the Delta Blues
It’s June 1929. A young man in his early thirties takes the long train ride, 750 miles, from Jackson, Mississippi, to Richmond, Indiana. It’s so hot in the coach compartment...
Rock This Town: Rockabilly, Part 2
During the 1960’s rockabilly was mainly heard on the nostalgia tours. Wanda Jackson, the ‘First Lady of Rockabilly’ had a hit in 1960 with ‘Let’s Have a Party’ a remake...
Move It On Over: Rockabilly, Part 1
Dave turned onto 13th Ave that runs west out of Ames Iowa, and into the farm country for a Sunday drive with Penny. Dave’s dad had recently bought a ’56 Chevrolet...