We're all about the history of rock & roll at BoomtownAmerica.com!
Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host, “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).
Join us today as we play "The Songs Lennon & McCartney Gave Away!"
A lot of bands have gone through name changes before they hit the big time. We thought it would be fun to mention just a few of them and what they originally were known as…
1.) Chicago - They originally went by the name Chicago Transit Authority. Upon the release of their debut album, the actual Chicago Transit Authority threatened to sue them. So they shortened their name to just the city of Chicago. That name is in the public domain, and they couldn’t be sued.
2.) Electric Light Orchestra - They began as a rock band named The Move. After some initial personnel shifts, the three members of the band that were left, Roy Wood, Bev Bevan, and Jeff Lynne, decided they wanted to take the band’s sound in a different direction, one that might fuse elements of classical music with rock. So, they added some members who played string instruments and renamed themselves Electric Light Orchestra. By their third album under that name, Roy Wood departed, and the other members carried on.
3.) Beatles - Of course, most true Beatles fans know the group underwent several name changes, including the Quarrymen and the Silver Beetles, before settling on the name that made them famous all over the world.
4.) KISS - Believe it or not, the band started out with the name Wicked Lester before they wisely decided on the shorter and more easily marketed name we know them by today.
After years of diet advice that turned out to be dead wrong, it seems most of us of a certain age need to get more protein in our diets – not more veggies, or whatever else seems to be the food fad of the moment.
Here are some simple ways to ensure you’re getting the protein you need:
Breakfast: Ditch the low-protein, high-carb cereals for eggs. If you’re watching your cholesterol, many of the liquid egg products use egg whites and leave out the yolks (which is the part that contains the cholesterol). Greek yogurt is also a great substitute.
Snacks: There are many snacks, located in the same aisle at the grocery store where you find the crackers, that are made from high-protein ingredients that, again, skip the carbohydrates. Nuts are also high in protein.
Lunch & Dinner: Meat is always high in protein. Once again, if you’re watching your cholesterol, keep to fish and white meats.
The experts also recommend that you eat the protein portions first. They take longer to digest, meaning you may not want to eat as much of the other dishes, which can also help with weight control. Also, spread out your protein consumption throughout the day, rather than loading up at one meal or another.
In television’s early days, the hands-down, most popular, can’t miss genre was Westerns. Especially when it came to kids’ programs.
One of the many lies that TV peddled so easily in those more innocent days was that the American West was somehow virtually unchanged from its post-Civil War heyday. Sure, there might be telephones and here and there a jeep to help with the ranching, but people still preferred to ride horses and settled their disputes with a good ol’ six-shooter.
One Western that bucked that trend was Sky King, who not only didn’t ride a horse; he didn’t even ride in a car. No sir. Sky King help keep law and order along that still untamed frontier in an airplane! Not just any airplane – but in the legendary Songbird!
Right off, how fortunate was it that his parents thought to name him Schuyler (a.k.a. “Sky”) and that his last name was King? I mean, talk about wacky coincidences!
And while he didn’t ride horses, he must have been raising them because, like any self-respecting Western hero of the 1950’s, he lived on a ranch, the Flying Crown.
Sky wasn’t actually a lawman. He was just a private citizen with a private plane (first a Cessna T-50 and then a Cessna 310-B). Lucky for him (and us), the local sheriff was always needing his help and he had a niece who frequently got herself into trouble.
Sky was played by Kirby Grant, a little long in the tooth (already in his 40’s when the show began) and just a wee bit beefy to make an ideal Western hero. But we hardly noticed. His niece, Penny was played by Gloria Winters. Every so often Penny’s brother, Clipper (played by Ron Hagerthy), would show up just to relieve the monotony of constantly rescuing Penny.
The show actually got started on radio in 1946 (with a totally different cast). It made the jump to TV in 1951 as a Sunday afternoon show on NBC. It moved to Saturday mornings on ABC in 1952 and then actually moved to a prime-time slot on Mondays during the 1953 TV season.
When ABC cancelled the show in 1954, it remained in production and began selling to local stations in syndication.
Production ceased in 1959, but the show continued on as CBS broadcast reruns as part of its Saturday morning line-up (sponsored by Nabisco) all the way until 1966. Most Boomers remember the show best from this CBS run.
For years, there were rumors that Kirby Grant had actually shacked up with his younger co-star Gloria Winters after the show ended. As titillating as that thought might be, these rumors were not true.
Gloria actually married a member of the Sky King production crew, Dean Vernon and settled in California.
Kirby Grant and his wife Carolyn moved to Florida, where he founded the Sky King Youth Ranches of America that provided homes for abandoned and orphaned children. He died in an automobile accident in 1985 on his way to Cape Canaveral to watch a space shot.
That was ironic as many of America’s astronauts have claimed they first got interested in flying by watching Sky King.
Many male American males have claimed they first got interested in girls because of Sky’s niece, Penny (see “Pencil Thin Mustache” by Jimmy Buffet).
We’d like to think that somewhere the Songbird is still out there, patrolling those “Western skies!”
Before Saturday morning cartoons, rock 'n' roll, video games and the internet, here was the real danger to America's "moral fiber;"
