Oye Como Va
Black Magic Woman
Soul Sacrifice
Europa
Angel (ft. Sarah McLachlan)
Smooth (Featuring Rob Thomas)
Cry Baby Cry (ft Sean Paul & Joss Stone)
The Game of Love (ft. Michelle Branch)
Samba Pa Ti (Live at The House of Blues 2016)
Jin Go Lo Ba wEric Clapton (Crossroad 2004, Live)
Maria Maria (Official Video) ft. The Product G&B
Full Concert 08/18/1970 Tanglewood-Lennox, MA
Orleans’ best album is arguably “Waking And Dreaming”. The album was written almost entirely by John Hall and his then wife Johanna. The exceptions being; “The Bum” (Wells Kelly) and “Spring Fever” (Larry Hoppen, Marilyn Mason). The lineup for this album consisted of members:
Larry Hoppen, lead singer, songwriter and multi Instrumentalist of the soft rock group Orleans, passed away on July 24th, 2012. Hoppen, who’s brothers Lance and Lane were members of the group was 61. A distinctive, high ranged voice that blended well with the groups harmonies, Hoppen was the signature voice in the band. Following is a telephone interview with Larry from 2010:
Larry Hoppen also performed and/or recorded with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Livingston Taylor, Lulu, Graham Parker, Blues Traveler, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Michael Franks, Levon Helm, the late great Michael Brecker, the late great Chet Atkins, the late great Artie Traum, John Sebastian, Bela Fleck, Felix Cavaliere, Edgar Winter, Robbie Dupree, Spencer Davis, Rick Derringer, Mark Farner, John Ford Coley, Jimi Jamison, John Cafferty to name a few.\
Orleans is an American pop-rock band best known for its hits “Dance with Me” (1975), “Still the One”, from the album Waking and Dreaming (1976) and “Love Takes Time” (1979). The group’s name evolved from the music it was playing at the time of their formation, which was inspired by Louisiana artists such as Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers. Orleans was formed in Woodstock, New York in January 1972 by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter John Hall, vocalist/guitarist Larry Hoppen and drummer/percussionist Wells Kelly. In October of that year, the group expanded to include Larry’s younger brother, Lance, on bass. Drummer Jerry Marotta joined in 1976, completing the quintet.
Drummer Wells Kelly first met John Hall, an in-demand session player and member of the group Kangaroo, in the late 60s when he played with him in a group called Thunderfrog and later played on John’s first solo album, Action, released in 1970. In 1969 Wells joined the first incarnation of a band called King Harvest, who would have a hit a few years later, in 1973, with the song “Dancing In The Moonlight”, a song written by Wells’ brother, Sherman Kelly, and first recorded by Boffalongo, a group Wells joined in 1970 after leaving King Harvest.
Hall and his wife, Johanna, had just gained notoriety when their song “Half Moon” had appeared on their friend Janis Joplin’s posthumous album Pearl. Larry Hoppen, who grew up in Bayshore, Long Island but relocated to Ithaca, NY to attend college in the late 60s, was also a member of Boffalongo with Kelly. In December 1971, Wells was asked by Hall to move to Woodstock to join his band. John Hall, who had recorded and toured with Taj Mahal and Seals and Crofts, at the request of producer/pianist John Simon, had decided to relocate there to be close to Bearsville Studios and the musical scene there.
After a swing through Europe playing guitar behind Karen Dalton on a Santana tour, Hall decided to start his own band in Woodstock. After months of playing the Cafe Expresso with different rhythm sections, Hall called his old friend Wells Kelly (son of Cornell’s Dean of Architecture) in Ithaca and asked him to join his group. Multi-instrumentalist Kelly accepted the offer on the condition that he play piano. For a brief time, the band consisted of Roy Markowitz on drums, Bill Gelber on bass, and Kelly on electric piano. When Markowitz and Gelber left the band, Wells told John about his former bandmate from the Ithaca-based Boffalongo. Hall encouraged Kelly to call Larry Hoppen, who accepted the invitation to join the new group, christened Orleans by Wells, in late January 1972 and for months they would play as a trio, often switching instruments during the show.
Larry’s 17 year old brother, Lance Hoppen, was brought into Orleans around Halloween 1972 to play bass, freeing up Larry to play more guitar and keyboards.
Orleans found its core audience touring the clubs and college circuit of the northeastern United States, crossing paths with other up-and-comers such as Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits and Hall & Oates. Rolling Stone magazine called Orleans “the best unrecorded band in America”. Showcase performances in New York gave rise to a recording contract with ABC Dunhill Records and the release of the eponymous debut album in 1973, which had been recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with producers Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett at the helm.
The group’s second record, Orleans II, recorded at Bearsville Studios, was originally released in Japan and Europe in 1974 but ABC declined to release it in the US since they felt there were “no hit singles” on the album and dropped them from the label. Orleans II was finally put out in America in 1978, combined with the first album, as a double LP called Before the Dance. It was also released as a CD in Japan in the 1990s under its originally slated title Dance With Me.
However, it was not until Orleans was heard at Max’s Kansas City, then produced, by Chuck Plotkin, then head of A&R for Asylum Records, that the band scored its first Billboard Hot 100 charting with “Let There Be Music”(#55), taken from their third album, Let There Be Music, released in March 1975.
The follow-up single, “Dance With Me” (reshaped and re-recorded from Orleans II with Plotkin at the helm), brought Orleans to No. 6 on the pop charts and into the mainstream of American pop music. Atypical of the high-energy, earthy, R&B/Rock n’ Roll mix of styles they had been previously identified with, “Dance With Me” cast the band in a more “soft-rock” light and landed them a tour with Melissa Manchester.
While recording their next album, Waking and Dreaming, in the spring of 1976, the group was joined by second drummer Jerry Marotta, freeing Wells Kelly up to sing more and play keyboards.
It was the smash hit “Still the One”, from Dreaming (released in August 1976), that cemented Orleans’ relationship with the American public. While the single was climbing the charts to a peak position of No. 5, the band did a major cross-country tour with label-mate Jackson Browne.
In early 1977, however, internal stresses and disagreements over material and musical direction prompted guitarist/songwriter Hall to announce his intention to leave the band in search of a solo career. “Still the One” was chosen as the theme song for the ABC television network (the parent of ABC Records). Since then, it has been used for numerous commercials and movie soundtracks. The follow-up, “Reach”, peaked at No. 51 in March 1977 and Hall left the band in June 1977 after touring commitments were satisfied. Marotta departed not long afterwards to join Hall and Oates and eventually moved on to Peter Gabriel’s band.
After several months of mulling things over and working with other musicians (Larry joined Jerry Marotta in the backing band for Garland Jeffreys while Kelly worked with the Beach Boys), the Hoppen brothers and Kelly decided to continue on in late 1977, bringing in new members R. A. Martin (vocals, sax, horns, keyboards) and Connecticut musician Bob Leinbach (vocals, keyboards, trombone), who’d played with Larry Hoppen during the Ithaca years and had completed a stint with the group The Fabulous Rhinestones. The new lineup signed a contract with the Infinity Records label and their debut there, Forever (April 1979), produced the No. 11 hit “Love Takes Time”. In 1979 Orleans continued to tour with artists such as Stephen Stills and Chicago. Collectively, the three Orleans’ hits have been aired over 7 million times.
In 1980 Infinity went bankrupt after a proposed deal to record an album with Pope John Paul II (who was on a tour of the US in the fall of ’79) fell through. Infinity was absorbed into MCA Records, who failed to promote their next album, simply titled Orleans. This last, recorded in Woodstock, featured only the Hoppens and Wells Kelly as Orleans since the others had left earlier in the year. Nonetheless, the album featured guest appearances from all past members, including John Hall, who was in the process of forming the John Hall Band with Leinbach as a member. Orleans was produced by Englishman Robin Lumley, mixed at Trident Studios in London and featured Lumley’s friend, Phil Collins, contributing backing vocals to a track.
After their 1980 release, the group added Dennis “Fly” Amero (guitars, vocals), keyboardist Lane Hoppen (brother of Larry and Lance) and drummer Charlie Shew (at that time going under the pseudonym Eric Charles) to play alongside Wells Kelly then replace him when he left by early 1981 to relocate to NYC.
Orleans then signed with the fledgling Radio Records and recorded their next album, One of a Kind, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the summer of ’82. The album (released in September 1982) included brand new band member Michael Mugrage replacing Amero on guitar at the request of the album’s producers Don Silver and Ben Wisch. Jerry Marotta briefly rejoined the band to play on the album but was replaced by drummer Nicholas Parker after its release. But Radio, likewise, went bankrupt just as One of a Kind was hitting the record store shelves.
Now without a record label, Orleans struggled in the early 80s, playing mostly small clubs in the Northeast and at this same time, Larry and Lance formed a side group, Mood Ring, with Bob Leinbach, Nicholas Parker, singer/songwriter Robbie Dupree (of “Steal Away” fame) and various others who drifted in and out, to play for fun, mostly at parties and clubs. Mood Ring played some club dates in 1984 billed as Robbie Dupree and Orleans (As of the late 2000s, Mood Ring have reconvened to do occasional concert dates).
But after a tough two-week stint in Bermuda in July 1984, Larry lost his voice one day into the gig due to a combination of air-conditioning and high humidity. After this, he returned to his home in Woodstock and decided to take some time off to allow his voice to heal.
In the meantime, Kelly went on to join Steve Forbert’s Flying Squirrels in 1981 and also played with Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers before joining Meat Loaf’s Neverland Express in 1983. While on tour in England with Meat Loaf, Wells was found dead on the front stairs of a London flat he was staying at on the morning of October 29, 1984, after a night of too much partying.
Wells Kelly’s untimely death was the catalyst for a reunion of Hall and the Hoppen brothers. John and Bob Leinbach joined Larry up in Ithaca to play at a memorial for Wells (Lance had been unable to make the wake due to another commitment). Then in 1985, through the Halls’ connections in Nashville, the reunited lineup of John Hall, Larry Hoppen, Lance Hoppen and Bob Leinbach relocated there and by 1986 Orleans had cut the Grownup Children album, with guest appearances from heavyweights like Chet Atkins, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner and Bela Fleck, under the direction of famed Nashville producer/MCA label chief Tony Brown. During their Nashville period, the band added bassist Glen Worf and drummer Paul Cook (who was eventually replaced by Tommy Wells) for concert dates.
By 1988, John and Larry began to realize that, while Nashville was a great place for them as songwriters, it was not so accommodating to Orleans’ career as a band. They decided to relocate their activities back to Woodstock, NY and brought in New York native Peter O’Brien on drums. Lance decided to stay in Nashville to work on sessions and writing and was no longer available for all Orleans’ gigs, so bassist Jim Curtin joined to be Lance’s sub, as needed, between 1989 and 1994.
Orleans slowly re-established their presence in the Northeast over the next couple of years. In 1990 Robbie Dupree approached them to make a live album, mostly for their growing fan base in Japan. Two shows at Woodstock’s Bearsville Theater were recorded, as the group was joined by Lance, Bob Leinbach, Paul Branin (sax, guitar) and special guests: Rob Leon, John Sebastian and Jonell Mosser.
The double Orleans Live CD set came out in Japan in February 1991, followed in April by their first trip to perform in Japan (with a lineup of John, Larry, Lance, Leinbach, O’Brien and Paul Branin). 1993 saw the American release of Orleans Live: Volume 1, a single disc CD version and the first release on the band’s own Major Records label. Live Volume 2, featuring the rest of the show, was soon to follow.
Still without a “traditional” label in the USA, Orleans recorded a new album, Analog Men, for the Japanese label Pioneer. It came out there in 1994 and was followed by a return to Japan for more shows. Later that year, Orleans played at Woodstock 94, which was right in their backyard, in Saugerties, NY. Bob Leinbach once again rejoined the group for this show and continues to make occasional guest appearances with them.
The following year found them touring as an acoustic trio (John, Larry and Lance). While most of the venues were small listening clubs, the real highlight of ’95 was being the opening act on the Can’t Stop Rockin tour with Fleetwood Mac, REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar.
Orleans continued on, but in late 1997, decided to take a break. John and Lance were spending more and more time in Nashville doing sessions and touring with various Nashville-based artists and Larry, who’d remarried and started a family, relocated to Florida in 2000 and formed his own Larry Hoppen Band. Since 1997 Larry has also been involved with Voices of Classic Rock, who since 2003 have been known as RPM (Rock & Pop Masters), a touring, constantly shifting, group of lead singers of popular 70s/80s groups (Toto, Survivor, Santana, Rainbow, etc.).
In the summer of 2001, nearly four years after their last gig, Orleans (John Hall, Larry, Lance and Peter O’Brien, with Bob Leinbach guesting) reunited on Labor Day weekend to play the Opus 40 Amphitheatre in Saugerties. After this, the band decided to remain together and continue on.
In 2003, having subbed gigs for Peter O’Brien the previous year, Charlie Morgan (ex-Elton John) became their new drummer and brother Lane Hoppen rejoined the band on keyboards after nineteen years.
Orleans continued to play live and record. Their latest studio album, Dancin’ in the Moonlight, was released in late 2005. The current lineup includes Larry, Lance and Lane Hoppen, Charlie Morgan and the returning Dennis “Fly” Amero (who replaced John Hall when he began his campaign for Congress in 2006) on guitar.
Born: March 2nd, 1950
Birthplace: New Haven, CT
Died: February 4th, 1983
Location of death: Downey, CA
Cause of death: Anorexia
Remains: Buried, Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park, Westlake Village, CA
Gender: Female
Religion: Methodist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer, Drummer
Father: Harold Carpenter (d. 1988)
Mother: Agnes Carpenter (d. 1996)
Brother: Richard Carpenter
Husband: Thomas James Burris (m. 30-Aug-1980, div. 1982)
Official Website:
http://www.richardandkarencarpenter.com/
Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters. She was a drummer of exceptional skill, but she is best remembered for her vocal performances of idealistic romantic ballads of true love. The Carpenters signature song is “We’ve Only Just Begun” which remains a popular wedding ballad. She suffered from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder of extreme weight loss dieting, which was a little-known illness at the time. Although she had begun recovery with a doctor supervised program and regained 30 lbs (14 kg), permanent damage to her body had been sustained from the years of extreme weight loss dieting and she died at the age of 32. Her death was attributed to heart failure, from complications related to her illness, which caused her to believe mistakenly that she needed to lose weight.
Karen Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Agnes Reuwer Tatum and Harold Bertram Carpenter. When she was young, she enjoyed playing baseball with other children on the street. On the TV program This Is Your Life, Carpenter stated that she liked pitching. In the early 1970s, she went on to play as the pitcher on the Carpenters’ official softball team. Karen’s brother, Richard, had developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. Karen showed less interest in music as a young child. The family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey.
When Karen entered Downey High School, she joined the school band. The conductor (who had previously taught her older brother) gave her the glockenspiel, an instrument she disliked. After admiring the performance of a friend named Frankie Chavez, she asked the conductor if she could play the drums instead. She and Richard made their first recordings in 1965 and 1966. The following year, Karen began dieting. Under a doctor’s guidance, Karen, who stood 5’5″ (165 cm) and weighed 145 pounds (66 kg), went on the Stillman Diet. She rigorously ate lean foods, drank 8 glasses of water a day, and avoided fatty foods. By September 1975, Karen’s weight dropped to 91 pounds (41 kg).
From 1965 to 1968, Karen, her brother Richard, and his college friend Wes Jacobs, a bassist and tuba player, formed The Richard Carpenter Trio. The band played jazz at numerous nightclubs and also appeared on a TV talent show called Your All-American College Show. Karen, Richard, and other musicians, including Gary Sims and John Bettis, also performed as an ensemble known as Spectrum. Spectrum focused on a harmonious and vocal sound, and recorded many demo tapes in the garage studio of friend and bassist Joe Osborn. Many of those tapes were rejected. According to former Carpenters member John Bettis, those rejections “took their toll.” The tapes of the original sessions were lost in a fire at Joe Osborn’s house, and the surviving versions of those early songs exist as acetate pressings. Finally, in April 1969, A&M Records signed the Carpenters to a recording contract. Karen Carpenter sang most of the songs on the band’s first album, Offering (later retitled Ticket to Ride). The issued single (later the title track), which was a cover of a Beatles song, became their first single; it reached #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Their next album, 1970’s Close to You, featured two massive hit singles: “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.” They peaked at #1 and #2, respectively, on the Hot 100.
Karen CarpenterKaren Carpenter started out as both the group’s drummer and lead singer, and she originally sang all her vocals from behind the drum set. Eventually, she was persuaded to stand at the microphone to sing the band’s hits while another musician played the drums, although she still did some drumming. (Former Disney Mouseketeer Cubby O’Brien served as the band’s other drummer for many years.) After the release of Now & Then in 1973, the albums tended to have Karen singing more and drumming less. Karen rarely selected the songs she would sing and often felt she had very little control over her life. She dieted obsessively and developed anorexia nervosa. At the same time, her brother Richard developed an addiction to Quaaludes. The Carpenters frequently canceled tour dates, and they stopped touring altogether after their September 4, 1978, concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In 1981, after the release of the Made in America album (which turned out to be their last), the Carpenters returned to the stage and did some tour dates, including their final live performance in Brazil.
Karen’s drumming was praised by fellow drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O’Brien, Buddy Rich and by Modern Drummer magazine. According to Richard Carpenter in an interview, Karen always considered herself a “drummer who sang.” Carpenter started playing the drums in 1964. She was always enthusiastic about the drums and taught herself how to play complicated drum lines with “exotic time signatures,” according to Richard Carpenter.
1979, Richard Carpenter took a year off to cure a dependency on Quaaludes, and Karen decided to make a solo album with producer Phil Ramone. Her solo work was markedly different from usual Carpenters fare, consisting of adult-oriented and disco/dance-tempo material with more sexual lyrics and the use of Karen’s higher vocal register. The project met a tepid response from Richard and A&M executives in early 1980. The album was shelved by A&M CEO Herb Alpert, in spite of Quincy Jones’ attempts to talk Alpert into releasing the record after some tracks had been remixed. A&M made the Carpenters pay $400,000 to cover the cost of recording Karen’s unreleased solo album, which was to be charged against the duo’s future royalties. Carpenters fans got a taste of the album in 1989 when some of its tracks (as remixed by Richard) were mixed onto the album Lovelines, the final album of Carpenters’ new unreleased material. Seven years later, in 1996, the entire album, featuring mixes approved by Karen before her death and one unmixed bonus track, was finally released.
Karen lived with her parents until she was 26 years old. After the Carpenters became successful in the early 1970s, she and her brother bought two apartment buildings in Downey as a financial investment. Formerly named the “Geneva,” the two complexes were MHrenamed “Close To You” and “Only Just Begun” in honor of the duo’s first smash hits. Both apartment buildings can still be found at 8356 and 8353 (respectively) 5th Street, Downey, California. In 1976, Karen bought two Century City apartments, gutted them, and turned them into one condominium. Located at 2222 Avenue of the Stars, the doorbell chimed the first six notes of “We’ve Only Just Begun.” As a housewarming gift, her mother gave her a collection of leather-bound classic works of literature. Karen collected Disney memorabilia, loved to play softball and baseball, and listed Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and Dionne Warwick among her closest friends.
Karen dated a number of well-known men, including Mike Curb, Tony Danza, Mark Harmon, Steve Martin and Alan Osmond. After a whirlwind romance, Karen married real estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980, in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Burris, divorced with an 18-year-old son, was nine years her senior. A new song performed by Karen at the ceremony, “Because We Are In Love,” was released in 1981.
The song “Now,” recorded in April 1982, was the last song Karen Carpenter recorded. She recorded it after a two-week intermission in her therapy with psychotherapist Steven Levenkron in New York City for her anorexia, during which she had lost a considerable amount of weight. In September 1982, her treatment took a negative, downward slope of events when Carpenter called her psychotherapist to tell him she felt dizzy and that her heart was beating irregularly. She was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and hooked up to an intravenous drip, which was the cause of her much debated 30-pound weight gain in eight weeks.
Karen Carpenter returned to California in November 1982, determined to reinvigorate her career, finalize her divorce, and begin a new album with Richard. She had gained 30 pounds over a two-month stay in New York, and the sudden weight gain (much of which was the result of intravenous feeding) further strained her heart, which was already weak from years of crash dieting. During her illness , she also took thyroid replacement medication (in order to speed up her metabolism. Ms. Carpenter had a normal thyroid and did not need the medication. She only took it to try and lose weight.) and laxatives. On December 17, 1982, she made her final public appearance in the “multi-purpose” room of the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, singing for her godchildren and their classmates who attended the school. She sang Christmas carols for friends.
On February 4, 1983, less than a month before her 33rd birthday, Karen suffered heart failure at her parents’ home in Downey, California. She was taken to Downey Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead twenty minutes later. The Los Angeles coroner gave the cause of death as “heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa.” Under the anatomical summary, the first item was heart failure, with anorexia as second. The third finding was cachexia, which is extremely low weight and weakness and general body decline associated with chronic disease. Her divorce was scheduled to have been finalized that day. The autopsy stated that Carpenter’s death was the result of emetine cardiotoxicity due to anorexia nervosa, revealing that Carpenter had poisoned herself with ipecac syrup, an emetic often used to induce vomiting in cases of overdosing or poisoning. Carpenter’s use of ipecac syrup was later disputed by Agnes and Richard, who both stated that they never found empty vials of ipecac in her apartment and have denied that there was any concrete evidence that Karen had been vomiting. Richard also expressed that he believes Karen was not willing to ingest ipecac syrup because of the potential damage it presented to her vocal cords and that she relied on laxatives alone to maintain her low body weight.
Her funeral service took place on February 8, 1983, at the Downey United Methodist Church. Dressed in a rose colored suit, Carpenter lay in an open white casket. Over 1,000 mourners passed through to say goodbye, among them her friends Dorothy Hamill, Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark, and Dionne Warwick. Carpenter’s estranged husband Tom attended her funeral, where he took off his wedding ring and threw it into the casket. She was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003, Richard Carpenter had Karen re-interred, along with their parents, in a Carpenter family mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California, which is closer to his Southern California home.
Carpenter’s death brought lasting media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia. In the years after Carpenter’s death,a number of celebrities decided to go public about their eating disorders, among them actress Tracey Gold and Diana, Princess of Wales. Medical centres and hospitals began receiving increased contacts from people with these disorders. The general public had little knowledge of anorexia nervosa and bulimia prior to Carpenter’s death, making the condition difficult to identify and treat. Her family started the “Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation,” which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and eating disorders. Today the name of the organization has been changed to the “Carpenter Family Foundation.” In addition to eating disorders, the foundation now funds the arts, entertainment and education.
On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6931 Hollywood Blvd., a few yards from the Kodak Theater. Richard, Harold and Agnes Carpenter attended the inauguration, as did many fans. In 1987, movie director Todd Haynes used songs by Richard and Karen in his movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In the movie, Haynes portrayed the Carpenters with Barbie dolls, rather than live actors. The movie was later pulled from distribution after Richard Carpenter won a court case involving song royalties; Haynes had not obtained legal permission to use The Carpenters’ recordings. On January 1, 1989, the similarly titled made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story aired on CBS with Cynthia Gibb in the title role. Gibb lip-synced the songs to Carpenter’s recorded voice. Both films use the song “This Masquerade” in the background while showing Karen’s marriage to Burris.
In loving memory of Spencer 1969 – 2000
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ lead vocalist is multi-instrumentalist Grace Potter, who attended St. Lawrence University for two years before pursuing music professionally. In addition to lead vocals, Potter plays Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer Electric Piano and electric and acoustic guitars. The other members of the band are Scott Tournet, on guitars (including slide guitar) and harmonica, drummer Matthew Burr, Catherine Popper on bass guitar and vocals, and Benny Yurco on electric guitar and vocals. Bryan Dondero played bass guitar, upright bass, and mandolin with the group until his departure in early 2009.
The band was originally formed in late 2002 when Burr saw Potter perform folk songs in a student-run venue called The Java Barn on the St. Lawrence campus. Burr approached Potter about starting a band, citing James Brown and The Band as musical influences he heard in Potter’s voice and original songs. In the spring of 2003, Burr invited guitarist Tournet to join the group, thus cementing the founding members of the band that would become Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
The group independently recorded and released one album, Nothing But the Water in 2005. An older album, Original Soul (2004), was a solo release from Potter. Following extensive airplay on Vermont Adult Album Alternative radio station WNCS the band signed a deal with Hollywood Records in December 2005 and re-released Nothing But the Water on May 23, 2006.
“We’ve been fighting with that one for years. It’s a tricky thing, and it’s still sometimes a touchy issue, but Grace is so damn cool about it,” Tournet offers. “She really wants us to be a band, and announces us like 20 times – sometimes too much – on stage. So, I feel bad when I get frustrated with something because it hurts her a lot. Even without Hollywood [Records], local people do this stuff to us. We were on Vermont Public Television recently to help [during a pledge drive]. I was born and raised in Vermont but we were just ‘the guys’ behind Grace. When we’re in the van together it’s so much fun, and there’s not that kind of energy. We all have our voices. It’s pretty democratic, but when we get outside of our little world it’s funny what people try to put on you.”
“It’s not really a label thing. We’ve been fighting this battle since the beginning,” adds Potter. “[Hollywood] has been really supportive of the band angle. There’s times when the label would fly me out separately without the band. That stuff freaks me out. But, I think they’ve learned their lesson because the meltdown occurs from the inside out. Our band is such a core, and there’s such a molten center to it that they’ve figured out they can’t play that card with us. It’s not a Gwen Stefani scenario.”
Potter admits to being bullied as a kid growing up. “There’s so much we can do as adults that have been through hard times. Ya know, I was bullied as a kid and definitely had my awkward years, and I think that there’s a responsibility for people who’ve been through it, like me, to explain to the younger generation, who might feel stuck in these moments, that it really does get better. That you define and create your life. Everybody is faced with resistance in their lives. It’s our responsibility to take control of our own fates.”
In 2006, the band won the Jammy Award for “Best New Groove” and was nominated for two more Boston Music Awards: Album Of The Year (major) for the re-release of Nothing But the Water, and Female Vocalist of the Year (for frontwoman Grace Potter). Potter played Hammond Organ and sang lead vocals alongside Joe Satriani, Steve Kimock, Reed Mathis, Willy Waldman, and Stephen Perkins during that appearance. They played a cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer”, to a standing ovation.
“Everybody, especially when you’re in a band and tour for a living, is always trying to find that place they’re getting to, but we figured out a long time ago, on the road traveling around, that’s not the point,” Potter says. “Getting to the destination usually sucks. It’s not just the journey that matters, LIFE matters. It’s not just about goals.”
“When I wrote ‘Paris,’ I was listening to the Kinks nonstop, and I was going for something with a big, primal riff, like ‘You Really Got Me.’ It was the first time I ever really just said, ‘I’m not going to try to tell a story, and I’m not going to try to communicate an emotion. I’m just going to say, basically, “I want to have sex right now.”‘ It’s my favorite song to perform. That and ‘Medicine’ are the sexiest, feistiest and the most fun of anything we’ve ever done.”
The group released its second album, This Is Somewhere, on August 7, 2007 on Hollywood Records and toured that fall supporting Gov’t Mule for its October and November North American tour.
“This is what we do,” says Potter. “We’re balancing it out a little better now, slowing down, working our way up in the world, being healthy about touring. As long as we can do that we can do this forever. People aren’t stupid. They can tell if you’re emulating ‘performance’ rather than joy. I see bands all the time where the guy in front is a ringmaster trying to keep everybody excited but the look on his face is one of terror. He might be smiling but I don’t believe it. I just think, ‘Dude, you could be working at Kinko’s right now.’ The other thing is that fame hungry bullshit trip. Some people get off on themselves so much they need that buzz from thousands of people.”
Their song “Apologies” was featured on the American television shows All My Children, Kyle XY, One Tree Hill, and Brothers & Sisters, and the song “Falling or Flying” was featured on the hit drama shows ER and Grey’s Anatomy and appeared on Volume 3 of the latter’s soundtrack.
On August 2, 2007, the band made their network television debut on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This was followed by appearances on ABC’s Good Morning America on August 7, 2007 and CBS’ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on August 10, 2007.
In 2008, the group opened for the Dave Matthews Band for three dates: a two-night stand at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga, New York June 20–21, and June 24 at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The band played a full set at the Mile High Music Festival on July 20.
In November 2008, Bose began using “Ain’t No Time” in their North American iPod SoundDock sales displays.
Hollywood Records released the news on May 11, 2009 that T-Bone Burnett would be producing a new project with Potter, tentatively scheduled for fall of 2009. The project was deemed as a solo collaboration and both Potter and Burnett spoke very highly of the project to the press. By November 13, the band posted a new release date for the album, pushing it back to spring 2010. Hollywood Records shelved the T-Bone Burnett album in favor of a true band album, released June 8, 2010. The album was produced by Mark Batson, with “Tiny Light” as the first single. The video for “Tiny Light” was shot in Los Angeles during February 2010 with director Paul Minor.
During the 2009 Bonnaroo Music Festival, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, along with playing their own set, joined Gov’t Mule and moe. on stage for their shows. Potter and Tournet joined Gov’t Mule onstage, while with moe. they one-by-one replaced the band during moe.’s five hour set and played four of their own songs to be replaced back by moe. in a musical collaboration known as “A Hostile Takeover”.
In 2010, the band appeared on Almost Alice, the companion soundtrack for Tim Burton’s feature film Alice in Wonderland, with a cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit”.
The band appeared at Hangout Music Festival on May 15, 2010 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Potter appeared as a guest on stage with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, singing vocals for “St. James Infirmary Blues” and joined Gov’t Mule on a cover of “Gold Dust Woman”.
In late May 2010, Vermont specialty chocolate maker Lake Champlain Chocolates created a new chocolate bar in conjunction with Grace Potter called Grace Under Fire. The dark chocolate contains pistachios and red pepper flakes.
On the eve of their eponymous album release date, the band announced on Facebook and Twitter that they were going to perform a free concert on Burlington, Vermont’s Church Street Marketplace the following day. The hour-long concert attracted thousands of viewers and became a huge local media story. The band sold merchandise and hosted a meet and greet with fans for three hours following the concert.
The group released their third studio recording, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, on June 8, 2010. The album peaked at #5 on iTunes Top 100 album and #2 on iTunes Rock Albums Chart. The opening track, “Paris (Ooh La La)”, and iTunes bonus track “Fooling Myself” was in the Top 40 and Top 100, respectively, on iTunes Rock Songs Chart. On July 19, 2010, as a launch to their second single from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, the band premiered the video to “Paris (Ooh La La)” on Hulu.
Potter also wrote a track titled “Something That I Want”, which was performed on One Tree Hill. In 2010, she re-wrote some of the lyrics and Disney chose it to be featured during the closing credits of their 50th animated feature Tangled, which Potter sung by herself. The movie soundtrack was released on November 16, 2010. There are good weekends and then there’s the one Grace Potter had to kick off December. After stealing the show at the ‘VH1 Divas Salute the Troops’ special, Potter and the Nocturnals rode that wave of publicity to the top of the iTunes album charts, knocking off the Beatles. She also has a key song in the new Disney animated film, ‘Tangled,’ which toppled ‘Harry Potter‘ at the box office.
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On February 9, 2012, Grace Potter announced the title of their upcoming fourth studio album, The Lion The Beast The Beat, noting that they collaborated with The Black Keys member Dan Auerbach. Song titles such as “Star”, “The Divide”, “Parachute Heart”, “Never Go Back”, and the title track.
Collaborations
Recorded between tours during the summer and fall of 2004 at the band’s Waitsfield rehearsal space, Depart So Slow featured the songwriting of singer/guitarist Scott Taylor with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals providing musical backing. It was engineered and mixed by Nocturnals guitarist Scott Tournet.
In 2008, Potter recorded a version of “I Want Something That I Want” with Bethany Joy Galeotti (One Tree Hill) on a track from the acoustic sessions from One Tree Hill. In addition to this collaboration, Potter also served as guest composer in the seventh episode of the show’s sixth season, “Messin’ With the Kid”. Potter appeared as herself on the show, performing “I Want Something That I Want” with Galeotti’s character Haley James Scott. She also performed “Ah, Mary”.
In 2009, Potter was featured on the track “Ordinary Man” by fellow Vermont singer-songwriter Gregory Douglass on his album Battler.
Potter contributed again to One Tree Hill in the show’s eighth season. Various artists covered Gavin DeGraw’s hit song “I Don’t Want to Be” to be played over the show’s opening credits. Potter contributed her cover for the eighth episode of the season, Mouthful of Diamonds.
Potter sang on the track “You and Tequila”, on the September, 2010, album Hemingway’s Whiskey by country music singer Kenny Chesney. Chesney joined the Nocturnals when they opened on October 30 for The Avett Brothers at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
She also found a friend and inspiration in Chesney. “I thought I knew everything there was to know about country music. I kind of wrote it off and filed it away. But doing that record with him, and that song in particular, ‘You and Tequila,’ really opened my mind to how amazing that whole world of songwriting is,” she says. “I went down to Nashville and the process of songwriting in Nashville, I loved it. It’s really organic. I made a lifelong friend in Kenny. He was texting me all night in ‘VH1 Divas’ telling me how proud he was of me.”
That concert, which featured Potter teaming up with Heart, might lead to even more collaborations, though nothing is definite yet. “There was a lot of jiving going on backstage, a lot of good girl time, so you never know,” she says. “The thing I really loved about the show was it really was a genre-bending moment for everybody. There was pop, there was soul, there were pop princesses and Paramore comes in and has sort of the younger crowd, alternative vibe. There’s a lot going on there and a lot musically that could be done.”
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals released “Things I Never Needed” on June 8, 2010
Singles
“Ah, Mary” (2007)
“Apologies” (2007)
“I Want Something That I Want” (2008)
“Tiny Light” (2010)
“Paris (Ooh La La)” (2010)
“Never Go Back” (2012)
George Harrison, MBE (February 25, 1943 – November 29, 2001) was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as “the quiet Beatle”, Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as their Western audience. Following the band’s break-up he was a successful solo artist, and later a founding member of the Traveling Wilburys. Harrison was also a session musician and a film and record producer. He is listed at number 11 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.
Although most of The Beatles’ songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison’s own songs, from With The Beatles onwards. His later compositions with The Beatles include “Here Comes the Sun”, “Something” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. By the time of the band’s break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970, from which two hit singles originated: a double A-side single, “My Sweet Lord” backed with “Isn’t It a Pity”, and “What Is Life”. In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for former Beatle Ringo Starr, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison.
Harrison embraced Indian culture and Hinduism in the mid-1960s, and helped expand Western awareness of sitar music and of the Hare Krishna movement. With Ravi Shankar he organised the first major charity concert with the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh. In addition to his musical accomplishments, he was also a record producer and co-founder of the production company HandMade Films. In his work as a film producer, he collaborated with people as diverse as the members of Monty Python and Madonna.
He was married twice, to model Pattie Boyd from 1966 to 1974, and for 23 years to record company secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias, with whom he had one son, Dhani Harrison. He was a close friend of Eric Clapton. He is the only Beatle to have published an autobiography, with I Me Mine in 1980. Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.
Harrison was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on 25 February 1943, the last of four children to Harold Hargreaves Harrison and his wife Louise, née French.
He had one sister, Louise, born 16 August 1931, and two brothers, Harry, born 1934, and Peter, born 20 July 1940. His mother was a Liverpool shop assistant, and his father was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship’s steward on the White Star Line. His mother’s family had Irish roots and were Roman Catholic; his maternal grandfather, John French, was born in County Wexford, Ireland, emigrating to Liverpool where he married a local girl, Louise Woollam.
Harrison was born in the house where he lived for his first six years: 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool, which was a small 2 up, 2 down terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with an alley to the rear. The only heating was a single coal fire, and the toilet was outside. In 1950 the family were offered a council house, and moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke.
1987
His first school was Dovedale Primary School, very close to Penny Lane, the same school as John Lennon who was a couple of years ahead of him. He passed his 11-plus examination and achieved a place at the Liverpool Institute for Boys (in the building that now houses the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts), which he attended from 1954 to 1959.
Harrison said that, when he was 12 or 13, he had an “epiphany” of sorts – riding a bike around his neighbourhood, he heard Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” playing from a nearby house and was hooked. Even though he had done well enough on his 11-plus examination to get into the city’s best high school, from that point on, the former good student lost interest in school.
When Harrison was 14 years old, he sat at the back of the class and tried drawing guitars in his schoolbooks: “I was totally into guitars. I heard about this kid at school who had a guitar at £3 10s, it was just a little acoustic round hole. I got the £3 10s from my mother: that was a lot of money for us then.” Harrison bought a Dutch Egmond flat top acoustic guitar. While at the Liverpool Institute, Harrison formed a skiffle group called the Rebels with his brother Peter and a friend, Arthur Kelly. At this school he met Paul McCartney, who was one year older. McCartney later became a member of John Lennon’s band called The Quarrymen, which Harrison joined in 1958.
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