Pop Chronicles

The Pop Chronicles (1969 - 1971) were two radio documentaries which together "may constitute the most complete audio history of 1940s-60s popular music."[1] Many famous musicians were interviewed on this program.

Quotes

• You can't make a hit record out of nothing. ... It's baseless to think you can make any recording a hit, just by playing it over and over and over again.
  • Dick Clark, responding to payola charges, Pop Chronicles, Show 12 - Big Rock Candy Mountain: Rock 'n' roll in the late fifties. Part 2], interview recorded 3.11.1968.

• Now my attitude is very simple: I must do what artistically pleases me.
  • Bobby Darin, Pop Chronicles, Show 13 - Big Rock Candy Mountain: Rock 'n' roll in the late fifties. Part 3, interview recorded 11.5.1967.

• The things that were happening in 1955 were cosmic ... in terms of music history.
  • Frank Zappa, Pop Chronicles, Show 14 - Big Rock Candy Mountain: Rock 'n' roll in the late fifties. Part 4, interview recorded 3.5.1969.

• But now if I can wrap myself up in that song, and when that song gets to be a part of me, and affects me emotionally, then the emotions that I go through, chances are I’ll be able to communicate to you. Make the people out there become a part of the life of this song that you’re singing about. That’s soul when you can do that.[2]
  • Ray Charles, Pop Chronicles, Show 15: the Soul Reformation, interview recorded 3.8.1968.

• I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.
  • Joan Baez, Pop Chronicles,, Show 19 - Blowin' in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music, interview recorded 12.3.1967.

• I enjoyed all the records very much. I made them all from the heart. I made them all with art in mind, and all to reveal a picture of where I was when I made them.[3]
  • Phil Spector, Pop Chronicles,, Show 21 - Forty Miles of Bad Road: Some of the best from rock 'n' roll's dark ages.

• I ... started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out.
  • Nat King Cole, spoken in VOA interview broadcast on Pop Chronicles, Show 22 - Smack Dab in the Middle on Route 66: A skinny dip in the easy listening mainstream.

• The day you open your mind to music, you're halfway to opening your mind to life.
  • Pete Townshend, Pop Chronicles, Show 23 - Smack Dab in the Middle on Route 66. Part 2, interview recorded in London 2.5.1968.

• I used to get mad about people recording my things; now I got a new thing going. ... I don't get mad about them recording my material because they keep me alive.
  • Bo Diddley, Pop Chronicles, Show 29 - The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers. Part 3, interview recorded 3.17.1968.

• The softer you sing, the louder you're heard.[4]
  • Donovan, Pop Chronicles, Show 48 - The British are Coming! The British are Coming!: With an emphasis on Donovan, the Bee Gees and the Who.

• Soul is truth, ... no matter where it comes from, no matter how it is presented.
  • Lou Rawls, Pop Chronicles, Show 52 - The Soul Reformation: Phase three, soul music at the summit. [Part 8], interview recorded 10.12.1967.

External links

• The Pop Chronicles audio at the University of North Texas Music Library
• The Pop Chronicles Presents The Forties originally broadcast Sunday, November 5, 1972
• Index to Interviews at The John Gilliland Collection at the University of North Texas Music Library