Leonard Skinner

High school gym teacher and basketball coach Leonard Skinner died today in Jacksonville, Florida. He's the guy who who inspired the name of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

He was 77 and had Alzheimer's disease. He also outlived most of the band.

Singer Ronnie van Zandt, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing singer Cassie Gaines were killed in a plane crash that seriously injured the other band members on October 20,1977. Bassist Leon Wilkeson was found dead in his hotel room on July 27, 2001; replacement drummer Hughie Thomasson died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on September 9, 2007. On January 28, 2009, keyboardist Billy Powell died at 56. Wilkeson's replacement, Ean Evans, died of cancer on May 6, 2009.

A major recording slipped out this week

Jerry Lee Lewis is not only hanging in but still rockin. Mean Old Man was released on Tuesday. We're listening to the empathetic and rootsy duets album this morning. Nineteen tunes! Download it and send us your review.

David Hull is releasing his first solo album

The sudden late-in-life rock star resurrection of local teenage hero David Hull that we first chronicled four years ago to this day (September 3, 2006) has reached a new apotheosis with the release this month of his first solo album.

Soul in Motion is available for pre-order on i-Tunes and Amazon.com and will be celebrated with a release party on October 14th at the House of Blues in Boston. Dave reports that a video for the tune Pay Some Attention (above) has been shot and will be released soon.


Hull, the bassist from Stratford, Connecticut who found international success forty years ago with the Buddy Miles band, White Chocolate and the Dirty Angels. His connection to Seventies superstars Aerosmith (he and guitar partner Charlie Karp once planned a band with Steven Tyler) paid off at the end of the decade when he joined the Joe Perry Project. Hull would keep up a low-profile career based in the Boston area until 2006 when he was called back to the Majors, filling in on tour for Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton, who was sidelined with throat cancer. In the time since, he's kept up his chops with the James Montgomery Band, toured with a revamped Joe Perry Project and done more shows with Aerosmith.


The album drops September 14th. Hull tells his Facebook friends he's putting a band together, so expect a tour. Stay tuned.

Karen Carpenter book is pop culture classic

Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter stood out on the shelf of Book Soup and seemed like a good summer read. The details of the Seventies star's death scene seemed promising enough, but we admit we expected the book to be a camp clip job hagiography written by a fan.

As it turns out, Little Girl Blue is finely-written, exhaustively-researched and nothing less than a classic rock bio penned by a music teacher who's dedicated decades to the subject and wrung from it a revelatory tragic saga As far as we know, this is the first clear representation of the baleful star's life, no longer clouded by family censorship and shading, painting a vivid portrait of the family dynamics that fed Karen's anorexia, and compiling other juicy details like the fact that Karen had a "microphone voice"-- powerful on records but so soft that it could hardly be heard across a room, and revealing that the smarmy incest rumours about brother and sister were trumped by the fact that, after treatment for his Quaalude addiction, brother Richard Carpenter married his first cousin.

Randy L. Schmidt's music credentials come into play with a fascinating overview of their creative and recording process and the Carpenters' place in the music, cultural and political scenes of the Seventies. This book could get the Carpenters into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

ABBA ain't rock 'n' roll

Did Oral Roberts drop dead because he learned that ABBA is going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while KISS and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are not? We realize that Rolling Stone publisher Jan Wenner has control of the voting, but don't think it's the proper way to indulge in his late-in-life homosexual awakening (not that there's anything wrong with that, or with those Swedish swingers ABBA). We'll go out on a limb and and submit that ABBA is not rock 'n' roll, nor even part of rock 'n' roll culture, and that this latest stunt only makes the Cleveland hall a little more irrelevant.

BOYCOTT ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE UNTIL THE HUDSON BROTHERS ARE INDUCTED INTO THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME!

Let the movement begin now.

Let the movement begin here.

Boycott Rolling Stone magazine…

Until The Hudson Brothers
are inducted into
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And let the inspiration come from the picture above: former Mickey Mouse and Lou Perlman ward Justin Timberlake on his knees before disco pop queen Madonna, not at a Bravo, Nickelodeon or VH1 awards show-- but at last night’s Rock Hall induction ceremony.

As of last night, Madonna is in. Tina Turner is not.

Leonard Cohen is in. Lou Reed is not.

John Mellencamp is in. The MC5 are not. Neither are The Faces, The Stooges, or The Monkees.

Or The Hudson Brothers.

The weakening of the Hall is the work of Jann Wenner, the Rolling Stone magazine publisher who has inserted enough of his minions onto the Hall’s board to control the voting and keep out the greats out while putting cronies and personal favorites in (see Fox.com's Roger Friedman's story on the "Rock Hall of Shame".

And high on the list of the neglected, forgotten greats are Bill, Mark and Brett Hudson, the brothers who were the kings of youth and pop culture in the Seventies, who worked and palled with the group including Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and John Lennon, whose work was influenced and equally by The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, and who continue to be relevant and influential thirty years on, working with the likes of Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osbourne and Neil Innes.


The Hudson Brothers were an American rock ‘n’ roll band from Portland,Oregon that rose to international fame in the Seventies with hits like "So You are a Star" (1974; Billboard #21), "Rendezvous" (1975; Billboard #26), "Lonely School Year" (1975; Billboard #57), and "Help Wanted" (1976; Billboard #70).

The group was formed in the 1960s by young Beatles-influenced school kids Bill, Mark and Brett Hudson, and first named The New Yorkers (after the Chrysler), after winning a "battle of the bands" contest. In spring 1967 they released "When I'm Gone" (SCE-12190) on Scepter Records, following that in August 1967 with the Indian-influenced "Mr. Kirby" (SCE-12199) and "Show Me The Way To Love" (SCE-12207) in the falloff that year. By October 1968, The New Yorkers had switched to Jerry Dennon's Pacific Northwest label Jerden Records and issued "Adrianne" (#906), and, in March 1969, "Land of Ur" (#908) in March 1969. Also in 1969, The New Yorkers recorded "Lonely" (#7318) for Warner Bros. Records and "I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City" (#32569) for Decca Records.

They changed their name to Everyday Hudson in early 1970, releasing "Love Is The Word" (Decca #32634).

For the spring 1971 release of "Love Nobody" on Lionel Records (L-3211), their name was shortened to Hudson. This name was also used in 1972 after switching to the newly re-activated Playboy Records, with the release of "Leavin' It's Over" (P-50001), Billboard Bubbling Under Chart #110. In 1973 Hudson signed with Elton John's Rocket Records and released "If You Really Need Me" (MCA-40141), which was recorded in France and produced by Bernie Taupin. It was followed by "Sunday Driver" (MCA-40317).

Their first record release as The Hudson Brothers came in September 1974 with their chart record "So You Are A Star" on Casablanca Records (NES 0108; Billboard #21), followed by "Coochie Choochie Coo" (NES 816) in 1975, Billboard Bubbling Under Chart #108. They returned to Rocket Records for more 45 RPM charted songs in 1975 with producer Bernie Taupin, later switching to Arista Records in 1976. Yet another name change back to Hudson came in 1980 on Elektra Records, and then to The Hudsons in 1983 on Columbia Records.

The Hudson Brothers albums include "Totally Out of Control" on Rocket Records, Billboard 179 in 1974; "Hollywood Situation" on Casablanca Records, Billboard 176 in 1974; "Ba-Fa" on Rocket Records, Billboard 165 in 1975; "The Truth About Us" on Arista Records in 1978; and "TV's Hudson Brothers" on First American Records, also in 1978. "Those Damn Kids" on Elektra Records in 1980 was released under the name Hudson.

They also starred in The Hudson Brothers Show, a TV variety hour Wednesday nights on CBS in the summer of 1974, followed by The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show on CBS Saturday mornings, from September 7, 1974 to August 30, 1975, in a half-hour format, and Bonkers!, a half-hour syndicated comedy show in 1978, produced in Britain by ATV and distributed by ITC. The three brothers also starred in Hysterical, a horror-comedy film released in 1983.

All three remain active today in the music and movie fields. More on their influence to come. Meanwhile...

No Hudson Brothers?

No Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!