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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 yhis Saturday as we play "The Songs Lennon & McCartney Gave Away!"

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE

I Walked with a Zombie may be the best movie with the dumbest title in motion picture history. Cranked out by the b-movie horror unit at RKO pictures in 1943, this low budget gem is far better than you might expect.

This was the second in a string of really good low-key horror movies produced under the supervision of Val Lewton, one of filmland’s most underappreciated artists.

RKO had two rules Lewton had to follow. One, he had to produce his films on a small budget. Two, he had to use titles the studio’s marketing department had already dreamed up and tested. The studio didn’t care about the actual plots, as long as Lewton used the titles.

So after they saddled Lewton with The Cat People and he turned that title into a really great horror movie, they gave him an even sillier title for his follow-up.

I Walked with a Zombie concerns a young nurse (Frances Dee) who arrives at a sugar plantation on the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian. She is to care for the invalid wife of the plantation’s owner, played by Tom Conway. The wife appears near catatonic and is given to taking silent, dreamlike walks at night. The local legend is that the wife is not sick, but actually dead and returned to life as a zombie by the island’s voodoo practitioners.

This was a time well before George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, when zombies were not malevolent flesh-eaters, but merely soulless reanimated bodies who, according to legend, were employed as free labor on plantations throughout the Caribbean.

It soon becomes apparent to the young nurse that there is more to the story than she is being told, particularly as it relates to Conway, his somnambulant wife and his half-brother (James Ellison). She also finds herself falling for her employer, who is obviously still married – but is it to a sick woman or a zombie?

The film relies more on your imagination than trying to scare you with special effects. The climax of the picture takes the young nurse and the sleepwalking wife/zombie through the wilds of that island to a climactic voodoo ceremony. As with most of Lewton’s films, the viewer is left to decide for themselves whether the events are supernatural or can be explained away by more mundane coincidences.

The plot is actually cribbed from Jane Eyre, as Lewton was a fan of classical literature and longed to be making costume dramas instead of these low budget thrillers.

Lewton served as the producer and often the un-credited co-writer of his films. For directors, he gave a start to some young guns who would go on to much greater fame, including Robert Wise (West Side Story) and Mark Robson (Von Ryan’s Express). I Walked with a Zombie was directed by Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past), who also went on to a long, successful career.

All of Lewton’s horror films did well at the box office, but genuine critical acclaim would have to wait until the 1970’s. Today’s Lewton’s movies are hailed as some of the best b-movies in Hollywood history, studied and praised by master filmmakers like Martin Scorcese, who narrated a televised tribute to Lewton a few years back.

If you want something this Halloween that’s more creepy than bloody and more cerebral than slashing, check out I Walked with a Zombie, readily available on either disc or from streaming outlets.

Hey, wait till you hear this one!

Debut albums. They really have never been “make-it-or-break-it” kind of releases as many of rock’s greatest acts had less than stellar initial offerings. But the reverse can sometimes be a bit of a curse.

Here are just a few debut albums that may also be these artists’ best albums:

The Doors – Their first, self-titled LP was an instant classic, giving us “the long version” of “Light My Fire,” which clearly indicated the way rock was going to go in the next few years. It also contained bona fide classics like “Break on Through,” “Soul Kitchen,” and “Twentieth Century Fox.” Add to that one of the obligatory roots blues numbers so popular at that time, “Back Door Man,” and a weird 1925 German opera song written by playwright Bertold Brecht & composer Kurt Weil, “Alabama Song.”

And of course, the cherry on top, the long, stream-of-consciousness ramblings of “The End” (allegedly recorded while Jim Morrison was tripping on acid). While the Doors had a long, successful career until Morrison’s tragic end, as far as the critics were concerned nothing ever matched up to their maiden voyage.

Led Zeppelin – The band actually began life as “The New Yardbirds,” thrown together by Jimmy Page to cover some gigs the Yardbirds had been contracted for before they decided to break up. However, once they got together, Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham decided it made more sense to create a musical identity that owed nothing to the Yardbirds’ past. Their first album was actually recorded before the band even had a record deal. They financed it themselves. This gave the band total creative control. The album was an instant favorite on the newly emerging string of “progressive” radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial. With songs that remained live favorites for years like “Communication Breakdown,” “Dazed and Confused,” and “Good Times Bad Times,” this LP instantly established Led Zeppelin as one of rock’s top acts when it was released in 1968.

Unlike the Doors, many of the group’s subsequent albums were better than or at least equal to this first offering.

Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell – Marvin Aday, under his stage name Meat Loaf, was touring with a National Lampoon stage show. For some reason, fledgling composer Jim Steinman was also along on that tour. The two bonded and began working on a rock opera project based on Peter Pan that Steinman called Neverland. That soon morphed into taking 3 songs from the Neverland project and combining them with 4 new Steinman songs to become a project we now know as Bat Out of Hell.

Unable to get any record label interested in them, Mr. Loaf and Steinman recorded the album by themselves over a two-year period (1975-76). Somehow, the duo landed Todd Rundgren as their producer.

What followed was a series of brutal rejections by virtually every major label. Finally, the album secured a release in 1977 through the tiny Cleveland International label. It went on to sell more than 43 million copies (making the major labels look pretty stupid) and established Steinman as a composer who went on to have hits with artists as wide-ranging as Barry Manilow, Bonnie Tyler, and Boyzone.

Unfortunately, Meat Loaf never did find much success singing anyone else’s songs. After their long-delayed Bat follow-up Dead Ringer stiffed, a brief period of feuding between the two ensued. Eventually, they patched things up and Meat Loaf went on to record 3 more LPs of Steinman’s compositions.

The Cars – By the late 70s, much of rock was mired in over-produced, self-important sludge. The remedy was a back-to-basics movement dubbed “new wave.” And one of the leading proponents of that wave was this little band from Boston led by Ric Ocasek. Their debut album, released in 1978, has some interesting parallels to the Doors. Both LPs came out on Elektra Records. Both featured multiple cuts that got extensive FM airplay, and most critics considered both debut albums to be each band’s best.

While the album peaked at #18 on the Billboard chart, it had remarkable staying power and wound up at #4 when the magazine released its year-end chart covering sales & airplay for all of 1978.

With a second side that featured each track seamlessly segueing into the next, band member Elliot Easton has said of the album, "We used to joke that the first album should be called The Cars' Greatest Hits.”

As the first generation for whom consumption of marijuana spread beyond avant-garde bohemians and jazz musicians, it has been interesting to watch the growing legalization of what we called pot and the kids call weed. Okay, not as dangerous as our parents warned us, but how beneficial is it?

Growing legalization has finally led to scientific studies of the various claims made about marijuana. Studies have confirmed that marijuana has some benefit in reducing chronic pain as well as helping people with sleep problems. But surprisingly, there’s still a lot we don’t know. As with many mind/mood-altering substances, it appears that everyone has different tolerance levels, so medical experts stress newbies should start slow and actually keep a journal of how much marijuana they’re taking and what the effects are.

Also, as the idea of smoking anything has decreased in popularity, gummies and other pot-infused edibles have now overtaken smoking/vaping as the most popular way to consume weed.