In this candid conversation, Johns talks about growing up in the shadows of legendary musicians, the complicated family legacy behind his famous name, and how the blues became more than music. It became a way through.

Will Johns on Bluesdaddy, rock-and-roll shadows, and finding salvation in the blues

Will Johns was born close enough to rock-and-roll history to hear it through the walls, but Bluesdaddy: Born Into Noise, Raised on Chaos, Saved by the Blues (Genius Book Publishing, Oct. 1, 2026) is not a book about glamour. It is about what happens after the myth fades, when the names on the record sleeves become family, absence, pressure, disappointment, rescue, and memory.

The son of legendary producer Andy Johns and nephew of Glyn Johns, Will grew up with a last name that carried both weight and expectation. Around him were figures who helped define modern music: Eric Clapton, George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Boyd family. But as Johns makes clear, proximity to fame did not mean protection from chaos.

In Bluesdaddy, Johns writes with humor, bruising honesty, and a survivor’s instinct for turning pain into rhythm. The blues, for him, became more than a genre. It became a language for grief, endurance, family wreckage, hard-won self-knowledge, and the strange grace of being saved by sound.

In this conversation, Johns reflects on his childhood, his complicated inheritance, the recognition that helped crystallize his identity as a contemporary blues artist, and the full-circle honor of being inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.

Q: You describe Bluesdaddy as a story about being “born into noise, raised on chaos, and saved by the blues.” When did the blues first become more than music for you and start becoming a way to survive?

A: Well, I would have to say that in 2011, when I was contacted by Clive Rawlings from Blues Matters magazine in the UK, the subsequent article generated a lot of interest from the UK blues scene. Up until that point, I had always considered myself a rock, blues, and funk player/artist. From that point on, due to the recognition of my song “On My Back” and its nomination for Best Blues Song in the UK Blues Awards, this crystallized my creative vision as a contemporary blues artist, and everything seemed to make more sense... and cents! The moral of the story seemed to be: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The blues was always there inside and just needed to be recognized and nurtured.

Q: Many people would assume growing up around Eric Clapton, George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Boyd family was glamorous. What do you think people misunderstand most about being raised in the shadow of rock-and-roll mythology?

A: Well, in my case, I was raised by my mum, who had her own set of difficulties she was dealing with. We were relatively poor and relied heavily on support from her sister Pattie and others most of the time. I would spend weekends and occasional holidays at Pattie and Eric’s and be a part of that world for fleeting moments, but then I would be returned to my normal life, which was sometimes very difficult. My mum left my dad in L.A. when I was very young, so I didn’t get to grow up with the rock-and-roll lifestyle that most people assume I enjoyed. I had to parent my mum a lot of the time, as she was overly fond of getting out of it in any way she could, and as often as she could.

Q: Your father, Andy Johns, and uncle Glyn Johns helped shape some of the most important records in rock history. How did that legacy inspire you, and how did it complicate your search for your own identity as an artist?

A: Honestly, Glyn was not an inspiration to me at all. I only ever knew him as a mean and dour man who discouraged my initial attempts at songwriting and performance. I remember him saying to me when I was about 20, “If you haven’t made it by now, you should give up.” I also remember he always had the worst halitosis, the worst bad breath imaginable. I’m pretty sure no one was ever bold enough to tell him. Andy, like his brother, could also be very disparaging about my singing, saying, “It’s better when you don’t sing.” Only because Jack Bruce had told me that I could sing well was I able to ignore those negative comments, which usually came when Andy was hungover from a bender. Still, coming from such a well-known musical family, of course these days I can appreciate the drum sounds and recording techniques of both the Johns brothers. But the personal relationship dynamics were less than inspirational for me.

Q: The book suggests that celebrity is the setting, but not the story. What was the deeper human story you most wanted readers to understand about your life?

A: I wanted to get across to readers that music saved me from a life of pain and misery. We know music is a healing phenomenon that brings people of all walks of life and all nationalities together with love. I also wanted readers to understand that devotion to mastering an instrument requires a certain amount of discipline and ruthless relentlessness. The main motivation for me to complete the book was to record some of the absurdities of my life’s reality, which even I still struggle to comprehend, for my two sons, Charlie and Eddie. I wanted to help them understand some of the challenges I faced and explain a little bit about where they came from. Sometimes a father figure can come unexpectedly as a friend, and the kindness of strangers can sometimes outweigh one’s own family’s capacity to give.

Q: You write about chaos, addiction, family instability, love, loss, and road-life absurdity with humor and candor. Was there a particular story or chapter that was hardest for you to revisit?

A: One of the hardest chapters of my life to revisit was when the dark times of the pandemic hit. It literally was so life-changing. From performing with Eric Clapton at the Ginger Baker tribute concert, to the world shutting down during the tour, to getting so ill I nearly died, it was a lot. Then the breakup of my marriage and the dissolution of the family home fueled the release of Bluesdaddy, the album. Of course, now I would not change a thing. Some of the things that happened subsequently while finishing the book all combined to make for an incredibly emotional and transformational experience.

Q: Your induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2025 seems like a powerful full-circle moment. What did that recognition mean to you after spending so much of your life trying to become more than a famous last name?

A: The induction into the Blues Hall of Fame was such an honor and the greatest accolade I could have ever dreamed of. To then have Buddy Guy actually say of my playing, “Now that’s what you call the blues,” was immeasurably fantastic. My mum always used to say, “Some people play the blues and some people play the blouse.” It was meant humorously, but within that anecdote was a lesson that, to me, meant you have to really mean it. You can’t fake it. For the longest time in my life, I wondered if I was playing the blouse, so Buddy’s words meant everything to me.

Read Bluesdaddy

In Bluesdaddy: Born Into Noise, Raised on Chaos, Saved by the Blues, Will Johns steps beyond the mythology of his rock-and-roll upbringing to tell the much more personal story underneath it—one of family, addiction, loss, survival, and the music that helped carry him through.

Bluesdaddy releases October 1, 2026, from Genius Book Publishing.

Order Bluesdaddy today and discover the story behind the music.

by Will Johns with Marshall Terrill

Some people grow up listening to rock history.

Will Johns grew up inside it.

His father, legendary producer and engineer Andy Johns, helped shape records by the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and some of the biggest names in rock. His mother, Paula Boyd, was part of the famous Boyd family. Pattie Boyd was his aunt. To Will, Eric Clapton was not an untouchable figure on an album cover—he was a complicated presence in Will’s childhood who would eventually teach him to fish, to fly-cast, and, in more ways than one, how to find his own way into music.

That alone would be enough material for one hell of a memoir.

But Bluesdaddy: Born Into Noise, Raised on Chaos, Saved by the Blues is about much more than the famous names.

It is about the boy standing in the middle of all of them.

Will’s childhood moved between London, Los Angeles, Ireland, and a constantly changing collection of homes and adults. There was glamour, certainly—but glamour could turn dangerous without warning. His father was frequently away. His mother could be brilliant, funny, loving, and deeply unpredictable. Other adults entered his life, sometimes offering safety and sometimes adding to the chaos.

As his aunt Pattie Boyd writes in the book’s foreword, Will saw far more of that adult world than the people around him realized.

And through it all, there was music.

Guitar cases were furniture. Amplifiers hummed in the background. Recording studios smelled like warm electronics, lacquer, old wiring, and possibility.

In a world where the rules could change without warning, music followed rules Will could understand.

Plug something in.

Turn it up.

Make a sound.

If something is broken, repair it.

If the note is wrong, play it again.

That thread runs throughout Bluesdaddy. Music isn’t simply the setting for Will’s story. It becomes the thing he can return to when almost everything else changes.

And plenty changes.

Over the course of the book, Will takes readers from a chaotic childhood into his own life as a musician: the bands that almost made it, the tours, the relationships, fatherhood, loss, financial uncertainty, broken alliances, and the strange mixture of luck, talent, persistence, and sheer stubbornness required to keep making music for a living.

Then came 2020.

Will became seriously ill with COVID. His lungs struggled. His voice—the instrument at the center of his identity—disappeared.

So naturally, he decided to make a blues album.

While still recovering, he began recording the album that would become Bluesdaddy, built around the music of artists including B.B. King and Muddy Waters and an original title track about a father who plays the blues both at work and at home.

Musicians sent in their parts while Will was still too sick to sing. Slowly, his voice returned.

And just as it did, his sixteen-year marriage ended.

Nearly dying.

Losing his voice.

Getting divorced.

Recording an album.

Learning to walk uphill again.

And then watching Bluesdaddy reach No. 1.

If this was fiction, an editor might suggest toning things down.

But perhaps the most fitting moment comes much later.

After all the uncertainty, sacrifices, lonely flights, sold guitars, missed opportunities, and years spent simply finding a way to keep playing, Will finds himself onstage with one of the architects of the music that saved him:

Buddy Guy.

Buddy points at him.

“Take a solo.”

Will does.

No showing off. No thinking about awards, careers, or everything it took to get there. Just playing.

When he finishes, Buddy Guy delivers five words:

“Now that’s what you call the blues.”

It is difficult to imagine a better ending to this particular story.

Because Bluesdaddy isn’t really about growing up adjacent to rock royalty.

It’s about what happens when the noise dies down.

What remains after the famous names leave the room, the bands break up, the relationships change, the money runs out, the body fails you, and life refuses to follow the set list?

For Will Johns, one thing keeps waiting.

The music.

As he discovers across decades of playing around the world, the blues travels remarkably well. It crosses countries, accents, backgrounds, and politics because underneath all of those differences are people doing much the same things: loving their families, losing people, struggling, laughing, sharing stories, and trying to keep going.

That may be the real story of Bluesdaddy.

Not that Will Johns was born into music.

But that, again and again, music brought him back to himself.

Bluesdaddy: Born Into Noise, Raised on Chaos, Saved by the Blues

by Will Johns with Marshall Terrill

From Genius Music Books, an imprint of Genius Book Publishing.

For readers who love the blues, rock history, music memoirs, and stories about surviving the chaos long enough to find your own sound.

Their music was part of my childhood, long before I ever imagined becoming a writer…. well that’s not entirely true, listening to Paperback Writer did get me dreaming! Decades later, a line written by John Lennon would become the title of my book, Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed.

This month, I finally made it to Liverpool.

I originally shared this story on my personal Substack, Moments of Grace, but it felt at home here too, because underneath the Beatles pilgrimage and my complete inability to behave like a normal 55-year-old woman inside John Lennon’s childhood home 😂, this is also a story about music history, creativity, dreams, and the things that shape us long before we know where they’re leading.

So come along with me to Liverpool...

Fair warning, this is a long one. 😂 But I waited about forty years to get to Liverpool, so apparently I have a lot to say. Grab a cup of tea and come along with me. ❤️

Before I even knew who the Beatles were, I knew their songs. Instead of lullabies, my father would sing “When I’m 64,” “Rocky Raccoon,” and on and on. The Beatles became the soundtrack of my life before I was old enough to understand who they even were.

I was only nine when John Lennon died, but his death rocked me. I remember sitting on our living room floor sobbing.

By seventh grade, my best friend, who I am still friends with to this day, used to laugh and tease me, saying, “Kids our age don’t like the Beatles.”

When I was thirteen, I saw Julian Lennon for the first time on MTV, singing “Valotte,” and I was… in love.

My best friend at the time was in love with Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, so naturally we made a perfectly reasonable plan… when we turned eighteen, we would move to London, find Julian and Nick, and marry them.

How we were going to afford to move to England, locate these two famous men, or convince them to fall madly in love with us were minor details we didn’t bother working out.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. 😂

But the dream of going to England never left me.

In 2010, Curt and I got married. For our honeymoon, we decided to go to Iceland, where his family is from, but I still had that itch to go to England.

I’d had a couple of opportunities to go when I was younger, but something always held me back. Once, my grandpa offered to help finance the trip, but I would have had to go alone, and I was WAY too shy and introverted for that.

Another time, a man I’d met in an online group offered to pay for my trip.

I think we can all agree I made a wise decision turning that one down. 😂

So, since we’d already be relatively close on our honeymoon, we added London, and since we were there, we might as well take the Chunnel to Paris too, right?

While in London, of course we went to Abbey Road. For the Beatles-loving little girl inside me, it was a dream come true.

But Liverpool was still a dream waiting.

Curt is every bit as big a Beatles fan as I am. His record store is named Tangerine Tree, from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Our son is named Jude. My book is titled Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, a title I truly believe was given to me by John Lennon, but THAT is another story.

Liverpool had been on our list forever, and yet somehow, after sixteen years of marriage and sixteen years of traveling somewhere new for our anniversary, we still hadn’t made it there.

Last month we had decided that next year, we’re finally going to Liverpool.

Well...

As John sang, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

Because Liverpool was about to happen MUCH sooner.

We had just returned from our big trip of the year, Mexico, and absolutely were NOT planning another adventure anytime soon.

Then I read that Boy George was going to be performing as Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar in London.

I’ve been a huge Boy George fan since I was about fifteen, and my mom raised me on Jesus Christ Superstar.

There was just one catch…

Boy George was performing for only three weeks. And only in London.

Curt was upstairs tucking Jude into bed when I read the article. When he came back into the room, I looked at him and said, “Uhm… apparently we’re going to England next month.”

I was only half joking, but even as I said it, my mind was already spinning.

How could I make this happen?

I fully expected Curt to tell me I was crazy. We’d JUST taken a big trip. Our bank account would absolutely disagree with this plan.

Three weeks later, we were in England. 😂

We figured we’d already planned to go the following year. We were simply going a few months early!

And then, while we were preparing for the trip, we found out Boy George had pulled out of the show. 😕

I laughed my little butt off!

Everyone asked, “So… are you not going now?”

Uhm, NO.

OF COURSE WE WERE STILL GOING.

Because somewhere along the way, this had stopped being a trip to see Boy George. This was Liverpool! A place I’d been imagining since I was a kid. And my inner child was absolutely NOT letting me back out now!

We arrived in London late, got to our hotel, crashed for the night, and caught a train to Liverpool the next morning.

I don’t think I fully understood until we arrived that this wasn’t going to feel like ordinary sightseeing. I wasn’t simply visiting places associated with a band I loved.

I was about to step inside the songs that I had been listening to my entire life.

Day One — Liverpool & The Beatles Museum

After a quick stop at the hotel to drop our bags off, we made our way to Mathew Street.

A street that I had grown up reading stories about. I’m pretty sure I was doing more jumping up and down than walking with any semblance of composure. 😂

I honestly had a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that I was really there!

Our first stop was the Beatles Museum. I figured it would be cool, but I was unprepared for the jaw-dropping three floors of Beatles history we encountered!

Everywhere I turned was something I’d seen in photographs, documentaries, or read in books, except now it wasn’t on a page or a screen, it was right there in front of me!

That dress! Seriously. I WANT THE DRESS. 😂

Day Two — The Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles Story & The Cavern

Curt and I were talking just last night about how neither of us has completely processed everything we saw and experienced.

There were so many moments when we’d look at each other with that same expression:

Are we really here? Are we really doing this?

Day Two started with the Magical Mystery Tour.

Is it a little cheesy? Yes. 😂

Did we absolutely HAVE to do it? Also yes.

And I loved every minute of it!

We drove through the Liverpool neighborhoods where John, Paul, George and Ringo grew up, passing their childhood homes and places we’d heard about in songs and stories our entire lives.

And then we went down Penny Lane.

Penny Lane.

There was the barber shop, the shelter in the middle of the roundabout. We both felt like we were suddenly inside the song, or as our guide said… living a day in the life of Paul.

And then we arrived at Strawberry Field.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” has been one of my favorite songs since childhood, and now a line from that song is the title of my own book: Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed.

Standing at those famous red gates felt almost like two versions of me had suddenly met each other.

The little girl who grew up listening to John Lennon and the woman standing there decades later, with words he wrote now sitting on the cover of a book I had written myself.

That day we only stopped outside the gates. We’d be coming back the following morning to actually visit Strawberry Field, so for now we climbed back aboard the bus and continued our Magical Mystery Tour.

Next came The Beatles Story.

And once again I find myself thinking...

How do I explain this without simply saying OH MY GOD, BEATLES EVERYWHERE?! 😂

And then, of course, we had to go to the Cavern.

Because really...

How do you go to Liverpool on a Beatles pilgrimage and NOT go to the Cavern Club?

Technically, the Cavern we walked into isn’t completely the original club. The original was closed and filled in during construction work in the 1970s, and the Cavern was later rebuilt nearby using thousands of bricks recovered from the original site.

But honestly, I didn’t care.

You walk down those stairs into that dark, crowded cellar with the brick arches and music playing, and you can almost feel what that world must have been like.

This was the place where the Beatles played over and over again before the screaming crowds and stadiums. Before America. Before they became THE BEATLES.

I’d spent my whole life loving the Beatles, but Liverpool was introducing me to the boys.

John. Paul. George. Ringo.

Four young men walking these streets, playing tiny clubs, writing songs, teasing each other and dreaming about what might happen next.

They couldn’t possibly have known what was coming.

Well... maybe John did! 😂

Because if there was one thing we kept hearing throughout Liverpool, it was that John always insisted he was going to be famous.

Day Three — Strawberry Field & The National Trust Homes

“Let me take you down cause I’m going to…”

The day before, we’d only stood outside those famous red gates.

This day, we went inside.

Strawberry Field today is very different from the place John knew as a child. The children’s home itself is gone, but the grounds remain, along with a museum dedicated to its history, John’s connection to it, and the song it inspired.

John’s childhood home, Mendips, was just behind Strawberry Field, and as a boy he would climb over the wall to play there. Aunt Mimi was NOT pleased with this and was always after him to stop.

John’s response to her was essentially, They’re not going to hang me.

And suddenly a lyric I’d heard my entire life took on an entirely new meaning.

“Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real. And nothing to get hung about.”

All I could think about was that little boy climbing over the wall. Before he was John Lennon, just a mischievous kid hopping a fence to visit a place he loved, knowing full well Mimi was going to have something to say about it when he got home. 😂

And then, later that afternoon...

I walked into the house where that little boy had lived.

Mendips — John Lennon’s Childhood Home

We didn’t enter through the front door because the family rarely used it themselves. It was reserved for “company.”

Instead, we went around the side of the house and entered through the kitchen... the way John would have.

The moment I crossed the threshold, my breath caught. My eyes immediately filled with tears.

I was inside John’s house!

Even now, sitting at home writing this, I feel like I need to pinch myself.

I was standing in the rooms where John was just John.

Before the Beatles. Before Beatlemania. Before stadiums, screaming fans and photographers. Before the entire world knew his name.

This was where he ate breakfast. Where he laughed and cried. Where he got yelled at by Mimi for hopping a fence! 😂

It was also a place that held heartache and grief. His mother, Julia, was killed just outside, after leaving that very house when John was only seventeen.

I thought about that too as I stood there, the grief those walls had witnessed, and the boy who had to somehow keep growing up inside them.

I stood in his bedroom. I walked the hallway he walked. I looked through the windows he looked through.

And I kept thinking about the boy who had lived there. The boy whose music would eventually travel across an ocean and somehow become part of the soundtrack of my own life.

There are places you visit and think: Wow. This is incredible.

And then there are places you feel.

Mendips was one of those places for me.

I wish I could explain the enormity of what I felt standing inside that house.

I don’t think I can.

20 Forthlin Road — Paul McCartney’s Childhood Home

Next we went to Paul’s.

Just as it had when I entered John’s house, the emotion bubbled up and spilled over when I crossed this threshold.

Paul used to refer to Mendips as “the posh house,” but while Aunt Mimi wasn’t always thrilled about John’s friends hanging around, Paul’s dad, Jim, encouraged the boys and their music.

So they came here.

Eventually, all four Beatles walked across these floors.

And knowing that, knowing that I was now walking across them too…

This wasn’t a replica in a museum.

This was Paul’s house!

This was where teenage boys sat around with guitars and started creating songs without knowing people would still be listening to them more than sixty years later.

Standing there, I couldn’t help thinking about another Paul moment I’d had a few years earlier.

Curt and I had splurged on third-row seats to see Paul in Seattle. Before the concert, we happened to be standing on the corner when his car pulled up!

And Paul waved at us.

PAUL. WAVED. AT. US. 😂

I have video evidence of this moment, which unfortunately also means there is video evidence of me screaming, “I LOVE YOU, PAUL!” like a 16-year-old girl in the middle of Beatlemania! 😂

I wrote about that experience at the time and shared the video, so if you’d like to witness me completely lose all sense of dignity, you can see it here. 😂

Paul McCartney!

And now, just a few years later, here I was standing inside the house where he had grown up. Where many of the songs I’ve listened to my entire life were written.

Our guide told us that Paul wrote “When I’m 64” here when he was only fourteen!

“When I’m 64.”

One of the songs my father used to sing to me when I was a little girl.

That one got me.

He wrote “Michelle” in this house. My middle name is Michelle because of that song.

So learning that a song that had literally become part of my name had its beginnings inside the house I was standing in...

Yeah.

That got me too. ❤️

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take many photographs inside Paul’s house, but that’s okay. Some of my favorite things from that visit aren’t things I could have captured in a photograph anyway.

Because just when I thought the experience couldn’t become any more special, our guide gave us one final surprise.

He played us an audio message from Paul himself, a message that can only be heard while inside the house.

So there I was, inside Paul’s childhood home, after walking through rooms where John and Paul had played and written together, listening to Paul’s voice speaking to the people who had come all this way to stand where their story began.

I don’t think my brain had caught up with my heart all day.

I’m still not sure it has yet.

Day Four — The Casbah Coffee Club

Being inside John and Paul’s childhood homes was absolutely the emotional highlight of Liverpool for me, but the Casbah was a very close second.

For those who aren’t giant Beatles fans like me, The Casbah Coffee Club was created by Mona Best—“Mo”—the mother of Pete Best, who would later become the Beatles’ drummer before Ringo.

Mo decided to turn the basement of her family home into a club where teenagers could gather and listen to music. It was where the Beatles would perform together for the very first time.

They became her “house band.”

But first, she needed to get it ready.

John, Paul, George and their friends helped paint and decorate the walls, turning an ordinary basement into a club where they could play.

Long before the Beatles became THE BEATLES, this tiny basement was part of where it all began.

Most people associate the Beatles’ beginnings with the Cavern or Hamburg, and of course both played enormous roles in what they became.

But the Casbah was truly where it began.

Paul has even said, “We helped paint it and stuff. We looked upon it as our personal club.”

And their handiwork is literally still on the walls.

Stars. Dragons. Rainbows. Silhouettes.

And then there’s John…

Because apparently John Lennon could not simply help decorate a wall without also carving his name into it. 😂

He carved JOHN into the wall, Mo caught him doing it and gave him a whack and a good scolding.

Did he learn his lesson?

Nope!

After returning from Hamburg, John decided the wall needed an update.

JOHN I’M BACK. 😂

Mo caught him again, and this time she confiscated his knife.

The Casbah isn’t large. You can see that a bit from the photos, but being there is something entirely different!

Roag Best told us there were nights when they packed as many as 1,200 people into the club, literally shoulder to shoulder.

Eventually Mo had to move them to a larger stage, and even then there were times the lads were playing with their backs practically against the wall because the crowd was pressed right up against them.

Finally, she brought in garden fencing to use as “security gates.”

Standing there, I honestly couldn’t figure out HOW they fit that many human beings into that tiny basement! 😂

I tried to soak it all in, taking myself back in time…

The heat, the noise, the bodies packed together. The music bouncing off those low ceilings. John, Paul and George playing with the crowd practically on top of them.

Oh, how I would have loved to have been there!!!

Day Five — Back to London & Jesus Christ Superstar

Eventually, we had to say goodbye to Liverpool.

We still had Jesus Christ Superstar waiting for us.

Side note: the Beatles made a famous appearance at the London Palladium in 1963, which was watched by around 15 million television viewers.

So yes, even on Jesus Christ Superstar night, I managed to find a Beatles connection. 😂

Jesus Christ Superstar has its own history in my life. My mom introduced me to it when I was young, and I’ve loved it ever since.

I’ve seen several productions over the years, including one with most of the original film cast. That performance will probably always hold the number one spot in my heart.

But this one came in a very close second.

Sam Ryder absolutely took my breath away.

When he sang Gethsemane, the response was electrifying.

If you’re familiar with Jesus Christ Superstar, you know.

If you’re not, the entire show can hinge on this song.

Jesus has to be able to take you there… the fear, the anger, the pleading, the resignation, the humanity of knowing what is coming and asking whether it really has to happen.

If your Jesus can’t pull off “Gethsemane,” something is missing from the entire production.

Sam Ryder didn’t just pull it off.

He absolutely freaking NAILED it.

When he finished, the Palladium erupted.

The applause was thunderous.

And it just... kept going!

I’ve seen Jesus Christ Superstar enough times to have very high expectations for this show, and I don’t say this lightly, Sam Ryder was phenomenal!

Sitting there in the London Palladium, I couldn’t help thinking about how this whole trip had happened.

A few weeks earlier, I’d been sitting at home reading an article.

Boy George.

Herod.

Three weeks only.

London.

“Uhm... apparently we’re going to England next month.”

😂

And then, Boy George never even made it to the stage!

And yet because of that one article, we’d ended up having an adventure I’d dreamed about for most of my life!

And now I was sitting inside the London Palladium watching one of the best productions of Jesus Christ Superstar I’d ever seen.

All because the thing that originally brought us there... didn’t happen.

There was something wonderfully fitting about that.

Day Six — Abbey Road

We had been there before, 16 years ago, but how many times do you get a chance to visit Abbey Road?

Of course we went again!

And Now I’m Home...

Well, I’m home in body anyway.

I think my heart is still somewhere in Liverpool.

And as I’ve been writing this, I’ve realized something.

It wasn’t just 55-year-old me who took this trip.

That little girl whose father sang Beatles songs to her was there.

So was the nine-year-old sitting on the living room floor crying when John Lennon died.

And definitely the thirteen-year-old who was absolutely convinced she was moving to London and marrying Julian Lennon someday. 😂

And then there was me now, a writer who somehow ended up using John Lennon’s words for the title of her own book.

Maybe that’s why the houses affected me as much as they did.

I wasn’t thinking about John Lennon and Paul McCartney, THE BEATLES, when I stood in those rooms.

I was thinking of two kids, John and Paul, who had no idea what their lives were going to become.

Okay, John apparently thought he did. 😂

But standing in John’s bedroom, Paul’s living room, and that crazy little basement they helped paint, I kept thinking about beginnings.

About being young and having these huge dreams when you have absolutely no idea where life is actually going to take you.

I certainly didn’t.

At thirteen, I thought I was going to move to London, find Julian Lennon and marry him.

That didn’t exactly work out. 😂

But that little girl DID make it to England!

It took her about forty years longer than she planned, and Julian was nowhere to be found 😂, but she got there.

And I think that’s what I love most about all of this.

I had one idea of how that dream was supposed to happen when I was thirteen.

Life had a completely different one.

Hell, I had a completely different idea of how this trip was supposed to happen!

We booked the damn thing because I wanted to see Boy George, and he didn’t even show up. 😂

And somehow, it became so much more than the trip I’d originally planned.

Which makes it pretty hard not to come back to John one last time...

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. ❤️

A Little Beatles Connection

If you’re wondering about the book I mentioned above, Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed takes its title from “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

It’s a meditation book written especially for people who struggle with traditional visualization—including people with aphantasia and ADHD—and somehow that title feels even more special to me now that I’ve finally stood at the gates that inspired the song whose words ended up on my cover.

Available in English… Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed

and now available in Spanish here… Vivir es Facil con Los Ojos Cerrados

Will has just released his sixth studio album, On Top of the World, and this September he will publish his deeply personal memoir, Bluesdaddy: Born into Noise, Raised on Chaos and Saved by the Blues.

The title says it all.

Will was born into one of rock music’s most legendary families. He is the son of famed producer and engineer Andy Johns, whose work can be heard on classic albums by Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. His uncle is legendary producer and engineer Glyn Johns, and his mother is Paula Boyd, making him the nephew of Pattie Boyd and Jenny Boyd.

That also meant George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Mick Fleetwood were family. Eric wasn’t simply one of the greatest guitarists in history—he was “Uncle Eric,” and the man who inspired Will to play guitar.

But Bluesdaddy isn’t a story about celebrity. It is a story about growing up surrounded by brilliance and addiction, fame and dysfunction, and ultimately finding salvation through the blues.

Today, Will has built an impressive legacy of his own. He has been nominated for Best Original Blues Song at the British Blues Awards three years in a row, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Chicago in 2025, and is currently touring with The Cream of Clapton Band. This September, he will also perform at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival in Texas.

In our conversation, we talk about what it was really like growing up inside one of rock’s most famous families—and how Will found his own voice as an artist.

More from Will Johns

Will Johns Official Website

Listen to On Top of the World on Spotify

The Cream of Clapton Band

Songs Mentioned in the Episode

Eric Clapton — “Crossroads”
Will Johns — “Sitting on Top of the World” Acoustic
Eric Clapton — “Pretending”
Will Johns — “Move It”

For more information about My Rock Moment, visit MyRockMoment.com.

Follow My Rock Moment on Instagram for photos, news, and upcoming episodes.

Bluesdaddy is available for pre-order now. Find it here… Bluesdaddy Pre-order

Will Johns was born into the kind of music history most of us only read about. The son of legendary producer Andy Johns and nephew of Glyn Johns, Will grew up close to names like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, and Cream.

But Bluesdaddy is not a glossy backstage tour or a simple story about rock-and-roll royalty.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the shadow of greatness, a guitarist trying to find his own voice, and a man learning that proximity to legends does not protect you from pain, chaos, addiction, loss, or the hard work of becoming yourself.

With humor, honesty, and the grit of someone who has lived through the noise, Will Johns tells a story about music, family, survival, and the blues as both inheritance and rescue.

Bluesdaddy is available for preorder now from Genius Book Publishing and is scheduled for release on September 1, 2026.

Will Johns was born close to rock-and-roll royalty. That did not make life easy. It made the ghosts louder.

The son of legendary producer Andy Johns and nephew of Glyn Johns, Will grew up in the orbit of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, Cream, and the complicated mythology of modern music. He saw the rooms most fans only imagine. He knew the people behind the records. He inherited stories, wounds, expectations, and a name already tangled in history.

But Bluesdaddy is not a backstage victory lap. It is the story of a boy searching for steadiness, a guitarist searching for his own sound, and a man learning that being near greatness does not save you. The blues does.

With humor, bite, and disarming honesty, Johns traces a life of unlikely refuge, family chaos, musical apprenticeship, road-warrior absurdity, addiction’s shadow, love, loss, near-misses, and moments so surreal they could only happen in rock and roll. He plays with heroes, loses opportunities, survives collapses, sells treasured guitars, and keeps chasing the sound that tells the truth.

When Buddy Guy finally hears him play and says, “Now that’s what you call the blues,” the moment lands not as celebrity approval but as something deeper: recognition earned the hard way.

Bluesdaddy is the story of a man born into noise, raised on chaos, and saved by the blues.

If you love music memoirs, rock-and-roll history, or stories about finding your own voice after being born into someone else’s legend, this is one to add to your list.

Preorder Bluesdaddy today through Genius Book Publishing.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty is not a traditional biography or a simple decoding of Dylan’s lyrics. Instead, it’s a thoughtful, reflective collection of essays about art, music, imagination, and the way certain songs stay with us long after we hear them.

The evening will include reading, reflection, conversation, and even a few Dylan songs performed by Kevin as he explores the questions at the heart of the book: How do songs fit into the world of art? Where does songwriting come from? And what are we really seeking when we seek mirth and beauty?

If you’re in the Bronx area, this sounds like a lovely, intimate event for readers, music lovers, Dylan fans, and anyone who enjoys thinking deeply about creativity and the human experience.

Event Details
June 17th, 2026
7:00–8:30 PM
Riverdale Neighborhood House
5521 Mosholu Ave, Bronx, NY

Books will be available for signing, and the event is open to all.

You can also learn more about Seeking Mirth and Beauty through Genius Book Publishing.

Bob Dylan - Seeking Mirth and Beauty

“That big fat moon, is gonna shine like a spoon”

(As I post this, a spaceship is racing toward the moon with four people aboard)

A line in a Dylan song suggested once that the first step in inventing our doom was touching the moon. Maybe and maybe not. I do know this though. We build rockets to take us to the moon, and those rockets are an incredible accomplishment. They are a wonderful testament to the ingenuity and technical skills and imagination of humans. But a rocket is not that thing we want to have. The rocket is not the great achievement. A rocket is just a tool that we make to get us a greater prize. Rockets are not the goal. We didn’t want great tools. We wanted to get to the moon. And we can go a step beyond even that in our thinking here—because we didn’t even really want to go the moon. NASA scientists were pretty confident that there wasn’t going to be much there. And Neil Armstrong proved them right. What we wanted to see is what it feels like to be a human being on the moon. What does it feel like to be a human here on earth and to know that we have put a man on the moon. What would be the effect? That’s what we wanted to know. And we didn’t do that so that just one person would know what it feels like to be able to go to the moon. We weren’t doing this for Neil Armstrong. We all wanted to know, in an articulate way, just what it feels like to know humans could get to the moon, but we didn’t all have to go in order to establish that particular array of cells in our brains. When Neil Armstrong got there, to some extent we all got there. He made a template of knowing and I laid that template across a small area of my brain and then I had something of what he had. And it was worth it. A picture is worth a thousand words—and we got both. He brought back words and pictures. We got the knowledge that we could do that. And we got a big bag of moon rocks.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for all mankind,” wasn’t just graceful eloquence. That was us standing there in an inch of moon dust, and that first step we took on the surface of the moon threw open wide the doors of our perception.

In the same way, Dylan writes those songs and delivers them by way of his forceful will and talent, providing for us the tools we need so that we can all see and feel that place within— “that hollow place where martyrs weep and angels play with sin.” Because if just one person can get there, to where Dylan got, or to where Neil Armstrong got, or even to where Jackson Pollock got with his flung house paints, then we can all get there—and be there. And some of us have done just that.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty is the title of a new book about songs and art, centering on the songs of Bob Dylan, from which this essay is lifted.

Genius Unbound is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Discover more reflections like this in Seeking Mirth and Beauty.

What if the stories behind your favorite songs were even more fascinating than the music itself?

Jim Berkenstadt—known as the Rock and Roll Detective®—has spent decades uncovering the hidden truths, myths, and mysteries woven into music history. In his latest book, Mysteries in the Music: Case Closed, he dives into legendary questions, conspiracies, and long-debated moments—from Elvis Presley to Nirvana—and brings them into the light through firsthand interviews and deep research.

This is more than music history—it’s storytelling, investigation, and discovery all rolled into one.

Meet Jim Berkenstadt

Jim Berkenstadt is the Rock And Roll Detective®. A true Sherlock Holmes, Berkenstadt uncovers the lost history and mysteries hidden within decades of popular music. An international authority on The Beatles, his recent book, The Beatle Who Vanished, is a multi-category Amazon Best Seller and headed to the silver screen. He currently serves as Co-Executive Producer and Script Consultant on the Ecosse Studio feature film based on his book.

He has co-authored three other books: Black Market Beatles; The Beatles Digest;
and Nevermind Nirvana, and edited John, Paul & Me: Before The Beatles. Berkenstadt’s books have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame permanent Library and Archives. He also served as an expert on two Reelz TV series: Celebrity Legacies and Celebrity Damage Control.

His next book and TV project is entitled Mysteries in the Music: Case Closed, which is coming on March 4, 2022.

Berkenstadt consults to The Beatles, the Estate of George Harrison (he served as the historical consultant on Martin Scorsese’s HBO Emmy winning documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World), and other classic rock artists.

He lives in Wisconsin.

About the Book

“Mysteries in Music: Case Closed” is a book that uncovers the hidden, strange, and fascinating stories in the history of rock and roll. Jim Berkenstadt, known as The Rock And Roll Detective®, has spent years digging into these mysteries.

You’ll travel back to the 1950s to find out who really discovered Elvis Presley. In the 1960s, a famous folk musician tried to create a supergroup with members from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—what happened? Learn how some big-name artists used fake names to hide who they were. Explore a mysterious CIA situation in Jamaica in 1976, involving an election and the reggae legend Bob Marley. Did The Beach Boys really steal a song and its copyright from the infamous cult leader Charles Manson, keeping all the money? And dive into the secrets behind Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album, which many consider the most influential rock album of the 1990s.

These mysteries have fascinated rock and roll fans for a long time because no one has asked the right questions or looked deeply into the evidence—until now. After many years, the untold stories of pop and rock music history are finally uncovered, revealing the truth in “Mysteries in Music: Case Closed.”

Ready to uncover the stories behind the songs?
Explore Mysteries in the Music and step into the world of rock’s greatest unanswered questions—now answered.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty by Kevin Kane is one of those books—a reflective, thoughtful exploration of music, meaning, and the quiet truths that live between words.

In this excerpt, Kane turns his attention to Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”—not just as a song, but as something larger… something that lingers.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty: The answer my friend . . .

Blowing in the Wind is not Dylan’s best work as a songwriter. The brilliance of the song peeks through, but it’s in the simplicity, in the stark imagery, and in the ambiguity the song uses to delineate a hard and an ineffable truth—it’s not in the songwriting. Sometimes with popular music it’s just the song that is brilliant—and not the songwriting.

What was incredible was that Dylan was able to write an iconic folk song, foundationed deep somehow, but set in no specific time period at all. Because that’s not where his talent really lies. Though he did write quite a few of those iconic folk songs. Of course, he says that Blowing in the Wind took just five or ten minutes to write. It took me just one listen or two—just three or four minutes to get the words and the chords of that song in my head. There’s not much there. No more than there is in Oh, Susanna. Which may not be much either, but is still—all that there is in the world. All of the ache and the mystery and the wonder that could ever be found in one place. There are a lot of questions in Dylan’s song and few answers—and not very good ones—and if you need to know what those answers are, well, you know where to look. They’re blowing in the wind.

About the Book

Seeking Mirth and Beauty is a meditation on music, art, and the deeper emotional currents that shape our experience of both. Through personal reflection and cultural insight, Kevin Kane explores how songs—especially the simplest ones—can hold complexity, contradiction, and truth all at once.

It’s a book for readers who love music, but even more for those who have ever felt something they couldn’t quite explain… and found it echoed in a song.

You can explore more from here:👉 Seeking Mirth and beauty

This week, we’re featuring two authors who take us straight back to the golden age of pop-rock—Mark Arnold and Charles F. Rosenay!!!

If you’ve ever found yourself smiling the second you hear “Happy Together”… you already know why this one matters.

Why This Book Stands Out

Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A–Z (AM Radio to Zappa) is more than a music book, it’s a deep dive into a band that helped shape the soundtrack of a generation.

This isn’t just a highlight reel of hits. It’s a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes look at The Turtles—from their early days to their evolution into Flo & Eddie and beyond.

With hundreds of pages of research, interviews, and commentary, it’s the kind of book that both longtime fans and curious newcomers can get lost in.

A Personal Thread That Runs Through It

One of the things that makes this book special is the heart behind it.

Charles Rosenay shares how his love for The Turtles started as a kid, singing along with his family on long car rides, discovering their music in the most ordinary, joyful moments.

That feeling—music as memory, music as connection—runs through the entire book.

About the Authors

Mark Arnold
A respected pop culture historian and author of multiple books on music and entertainment, known for his deep research and thoughtful analysis.

Charles F. Rosenay
A pop culture personality, author, and longtime music enthusiast whose passion for classic bands shines through in both his writing and storytelling.

Together, they bring both knowledge and personality, which honestly fits The Turtles perfectly.

Featured Book

Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A–Z (AM Radio to Zappa)

This 400+ page deep dive explores:

• You love 60s pop-rock and the stories behind the music

• You enjoy discovering bands beyond their biggest hit

• You like music history that feels fun, not academic

• You’re curious about the personalities behind the songs

It’s part history, part tribute, and part celebration of a band that was always more than just one hit.

Why You Might Love This Book

• You grew up with ‘60s or ‘70s music

• You love discovering the stories behind the songs

• You enjoy music history with personality (not dry, academic writing)

Final Thought

The Turtles were never just “Happy Together.”
They were funny, creative, a little unconventional and full of heart.

And honestly… this book feels the same way.

Explore the Book

👉 https://geniusbookpublishing.com/products/not-just-happy-together-color-paperback

Your Turn

Have you listened to The Turtles?
Or is there a band from your past that still instantly takes you back?

From blues harmonica to Broadway orchestras to late-night bar bands, this piece looks at what happens when musicians serve the song—and when they don’t. Along the way, it raises deeper questions about creativity, interpretation, and the strange space where art lives once it leaves its creator.

For the Sake of the Song

The multi-instrumentalist artist known as Guinga has a given name which is impressive. Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar. Guinga is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, who suggested on NPR, on Jan 4, 2020, that he considered the song he was singing to be one of the instruments that he played, a unique instrument making a sound that expresses ideas and feelings for him—but that before you can play it, you have to first make the instrument. You have to create the song. And then, you have to learn to play it. Seems just what any serious player does, similar to what someone like Bob Dylan has done all along over the years.

“It’s all about the song,” Dylan said one time, adding “My only job is serving the song.” Dylan’s performances and recordings are not about a personality or a rock star up on a stage. They are not about winning his audience’s approval with flashing instrumental ornamentation. Dylan has more often than not totally ignored his audience. He definitely does not invite them to pick up his fragile and precious instruments and manhandle them—in fact he flees from the sound when they try to sing along. It’s all about the song, which is there, and has always been there, whether he played it alone with a six-string guitar when he was starting out, or on some long-ago records let Emmy Lou Harris add her soaring harmonies or let Scarlet Rivera’s gorgeous violin lines feel their way around his voice or let Mike Bloomfield’s electric blues band charge things up. Nothing changed when Dylan went electric. The song remained the same. He was playing songs as instruments—and honoring the song. Usually, the performances sounded great. Sometimes in later years the performances sounded lousy. But the songs were just as good.

The instrument you play, if it’s a song, may have lead guitar riffs, a wailing tenor sax and great bass lines set around it, and it may not. Those other instruments that people play are frames for a work of art and there are lots of them available. In many shapes and sizes. There are lots of players, and many musical instruments available. You don’t need to use them all. The song is just one of the instruments artists can use.

Sometimes the song is not the most important instrument. Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic” was a great piece of art when it came out in the sixties. But the actual song is just a barely sketched out framework, a skeleton—and he used it to hang an electric guitar performance on. In that case the performance itself was the key to the highway. Musical instrumentation on “Crosstown Traffic” included Jimi’s rhythm guitar, played in a pyrotechnic manner that makes it sound like a lead guitar. That’s the genius and beauty of that particular song. It’s the performance that we revel in there. Hendrix could have sung something else, picked another song, because for that particular work of art, the song wasn’t the instrument, the performance with his guitar was the instrument.
On the other hand, with some works of musical artistry, the song is in fact the essential figure, the “crux of the biscuit” as Frank Zappa put it. The reason we are there. And that song can be figurative or abstract. A story related with words and a tune or an image of musical colors and lines. A song can tell you something. Or it can be something. Dylan almost always uses the song as his main instrument. His guitar playing is sometimes rudimentary, and sometimes extraordinary, whether he’s playing rock and roll, or traditional folk or blues, but his guitar playing is not why we are there. His guitar playing doesn’t really matter. If guitar virtuoso Bruce Langhorne had been playing the rhythm guitar for Dylan on his first record, as vague accusations suggest, it wouldn’t be cheating and it wouldn’t make any difference. When the Monkees or the Beach Boys used session musicians in the studio, it didn’t matter either. It was the songs that mattered. And it was the performance, which is also an instrument.

Sonny Terry, the great blues harmonica player, originated a part in a 1947 Broadway play called “Finian’s Rainbow”. The character he played was a black blind harmonica player—and Sonny Terry was perfect for the part, because that’s what he was, a black blind harmonica player. Musical orchestrations were credited to Broadway music-arrangers Robert Bennet and Don Walker, but Sonny Terry marched to his own drummer, and he created his own portion of the score—which he played perfectly as a character on the stage while a ballet dancer danced alone in a dream sequence, halfway through the second act. It was a great little tune that Sonny Terry had come up with and he played it just right every time—just the way he’d created it—which was with room to move.

Sonny Terry was fired soon after the play opened. The problem was that he had created a work of art, a song for the harmonica, not a note-by-note score written on paper with indelible ink. What he actually played in the theater was sometimes in 3/4 time and sometimes in 4/4 time. Sometimes it was a twelve-bar blues and sometimes it was a thirteen-bar folk song. He played with his eye on the same glimmer of light, the light he had seen way off in the distance, when he worked out the piece originally. He did that six nights a week and Wednesday and Saturday afternoons too, standing up there on that Broadway stage—and he played perfectly what he first heard every single time. Having spent his entire life in darkness seemed to present few problems for Sonny Terry when it came to finding a song and playing it right.

Sonny Terry was a great blues harp player. He worked with guitarist Brownie McGee for years and they never had any problem keeping time with each other. They didn’t talk much; in fact, they didn’t speak to each other at all. They’d had a falling out early on and didn’t speak for the last twenty years they toured together. Separate buses, separate hotels, separate dressing rooms. They would meet out on the stage, night after night, and up there, under the white-hot stage lights, Brownie McGee could always play his guitar in close step with Sonny Terry’s harp. Brownie McGee could do it, but the union musicians in that Broadway orchestra pit trying to play along with Sonny Terry’s harp found themselves all over the place. Sonny Terry called what he did “whooping and hollering the blues”. Those Broadway musicians called what they did “playing the notes as written.” It didn’t work out, because they were following the black and white markings on sheets of paper propped open on their music stands rather than following the genius standing there up on the stage playing the tune as he had heard it.

I worked as an actor when I was younger, and I auditioned for and got that same part that Sonny Terry originated—in a revival of “Finian’s Rainbow” produced in a regional theater. I was a young white man playing the part of an old blind black man blowing a blues harp. I was close enough for regional theater—because I could blow a decent blues harp and how many regional actors can do that? I could play the music—and in that production, they needed someone who could play the blues harp more than they needed someone who could play blind or black or old. I tried to play the harmonica part just the way they showed me, note for note, as transcribed by the musical director. They wanted it the way the player on the cast recording had played it and I could make it sound exactly like that—but not every time.

The small regional orchestra they’d engaged, well-trained musicians who were insurance men and shopkeepers by day, went chopping through the night, looking for the dawn, following directions to the letter. We were doing all right. But the poor little ballet dancer trying to hit her marks, moving to the music I was playing, stomping my foot and honking all over the place, was flummoxed. Why, I figured, didn’t she just listen to what I was playing and dance to it?

“Twirl around a little bit more, up on your toes there, if you need to,” is what I wanted to tell her. She was crying one time when she came off the stage. I had really outdone myself, really nailed it that night and I thought she was weeping because we had done so well together. We were really hitting it—there was some life in what we were doing, and everyone there knew it. I felt the pure joy of performing well surging through me. We had gotten down deep to the core of the composition, to the spirit of the song Terry had originally played. I was Sonny Terry, and I was the new south and I had been to the crossroads for a flickering moment. I had been to the mountain! I had heard something on high and I had played it—and maybe I had gotten a little full of myself and tooted my own horn a little more than was written. But how would I know? A twelve-bar blues doesn’t have to have forty-eight beats, does it? The dancer was just swirling away, a dervish in silk veils, she was hearing it too, the song Sonny Terry had heard, coming from some far-off place, and she was moving with her whole mind and body to the whooping joy we both felt as we pushed our way through the darkness. I took the lead, going first, to light our way. And she followed. I thought. It turned out that one of us had messed up badly. Afterwards the dancer and the musical director suggested it was me. I felt bad because she was trying so hard, and there I’d gone and made her cry.

I played more recently, with a great session keyboard player one night in a bar in the Bronx, at some sort of a benefit where he and his band invited solo acts up to join them, to pick a song—any song—and see if they couldn’t play back up. I didn’t want to test them or challenge them. I wanted to play some music. It’s fun to do that with a great house band. They were doing songs from the radio. Lots of hits from the sixties and seventies. I think they covered something by The Ohio Express or maybe it was “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies. They were good musicians, and they made every song sound just like it had sounded on the radio. I figured I’d do “Quinn the Eskimo”. A little Manfred Mann song I’d heard long ago that Dylan wrote and never released on a studio record. That was in line with what other players were doing that night and would be easy to follow even if you didn’t know it. I got up on the stage and told the keyboard player I was going to be playing “Quinn the Eskimo” in the key of G.

“It’s in C,” he said.

“It is?” I was impressed and I wondered how he knew that. Still, I had sung it in G when I was starting out a long time ago and I had the cross harp already stuck in the rack around my neck.

“Not tonight, it’s not,” I told him. “Tonight, it’s in G.” I thought I was being amusing. It’s a simple song. What do they care what key it’s in? So, I played it in G—and the drummer and the bass player and then the keyboard player kicked in as I played through the progression once and then I really got started, singing the song. Howling along. Not too bad, I thought to myself. Playing cross harp to beat the band in between verses. Then at the end of the second verse, the backup singer with the red hair, shaking her tambourine, leaned over close and hissed in my ear, “It goes up a third at the end of the chorus.” Just trying to be helpful I guess.

“The Might Quinn” is a great little song. I’m banging it out on the guitar, but it’s the song making the sound, not my guitar. My guitar and harp outline the song, decorate it, give it something to sit on, but I am playing a song. As my main instrument. Maybe I’m not doing the Manfred Mann version. But I know that song, and I know what it’s about. It’s about three minutes. Just three chords—and you sort of pound ‘em out. It’s a passion play and a warning. So you sing it with a passion and as a warning. And sometimes you sing it in the key of G. It doesn’t make any difference.

“When Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody’s gonna run to him . . .” That’s the score. “G” chords are big and bright. You stroke on one of those for a few bars, then you pull your breath in on the C harp for a bit, get a good head of steam up, huffing and puffing in and out, and then you start singing the song. A little way into it, you change to the “D” chord. And when it feels about right, you go back to the “G” for a degree of resolution. You know when to do it. It’s a great song to hear, and a blast to sing, it brings you right back to the beach blanket you were lying on in 1967 when Cousin Brucie first played it on the WABC top-forty radio, and you didn’t even know it was a Dylan song.

How hard it could it have been to follow me? I wasn’t playing Larry Coryell or Chick Corea up there in 7/11 time. I don’t care what kind of musician you are, if you have any music in you at all, you should be able to listen to me—and bang along. Because I’m not that complicated a player and three-chord rock and roll songs are not that hard to play. And if you don’t know how, I’ll be happy to show you the way.

Some players are sidemen by nature I guess. Players of notes. Their job is to support, to follow. To play it right—and there’s a magazine they make for them to read. I’ll tell you about it. It’s called Guitar Player and they used to have a regular feature, every month, called, “You’re Playing It Wrong.” I used to enjoy Guitar Player magazine, but I think sometimes that it takes a lot of nerve to tell musicians that they are playing it wrong. Maybe actually they’re playing “Purple Haze” right and Jimi was playing it wrong. It’s possible.

The pinnacle for these perfect players is to work behind what’s left of The Five Satins or Tony Orlando for forty or fifty shows a year. That’s what that keyboard player did for a living. I think he had toured with The Letterman or The Dave Clark Five or some group like that. But with me—an amateur if ever there was one, he didn’t have the chops. When I got down from the stage, they played a song by the Monkees—perfectly. Maybe it was “Last Train to Clarksville” that night. But who could remember? I do know that if you closed your eyes, you were on the beach, and it was 1967 again. Sounded cool. Just like it had sounded on the 45-rpm disc I had bought after first hearing it on the radio. Except without the warp and woof that comes from leaving your records in the back seat of the car on a hot day.

The version they played that night probably came in at two minutes and forty-nine seconds, just like The Monkees’ recording did, on that number one single they had released fifty years before. Every inflection just right, picture perfect. I would bet that even the Monkees themselves, as good as they were, with hired session musicians playing Neil Diamond songs written for them to record in the studio, couldn’t have done it any better. The keyboard player explained to me later in the evening what the problem was with what I had done up there. “That’s not how Quinn goes,” he told me.

“Pretty close, though,” I thought to myself. You could play that song slow with a tuba player off to the side and with The Newark Boys’ Choir behind you and it’d still be “Quinn the Eskimo”—the song that Dylan wrote. The exact same song that Manfred Mann did so well and that The Grateful Dead and Phish and Counting Crows and probably Jimi Hendrix all did so well at one point and maybe even The Mantovani Orchestra, who covered it once, except with them it was probably done without the vocal so it wouldn’t scare people stuck in the elevator.

I don’t think Sonny Terry ever played “Quinn the Eskimo”, but if he had, I suspect he would have played it “to the beat of his own drummer,” and it would have been just perfect, “however measured or far away,” from the original version. Because whether he was sitting alone or standing in front of a big Broadway crowd, wherever Sonny Terry sat was the head of table. And however he sang a song, even a Dylan song, it was the song he was serving, every single time. If we had to move ourselves a little, to the right or to the left, to hear it, well that was on us. And if you don’t believe me, ask Guinga.

Kevin Kane explores these ideas more deeply in his book Seeking Mirth and Beauty: Musings on How Things Come to Be, a reflective collection of essays on music, creativity, and the enduring pull of artists like Bob Dylan.

Rather than decoding songs or retelling familiar stories, Kane invites readers to consider why certain music stays with us—and how art connects to memory, feeling, and imagination.

Learn more about the book here:
Seeking Mirth and Beauty

Some books arrive with a quiet confidence. Others arrive at exactly the moment when the world seems ready to listen.

Stalebread and the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band is one of those moments.

This book represents years of deep, careful research by Michael Shurtz into a story that sits just outside the usual spotlight of jazz history. Not because it isn’t important—but because it has been hiding in plain sight. Street corners. Homemade instruments. Newsboys. Music made from whatever was at hand, long before anyone agreed on what to call it.

We’re proud of this book not because it stands apart from the rest of our list, but because it embodies what we value most as publishers: curiosity, rigor, heart, and a willingness to follow the story where it actually leads.

Which makes this week especially meaningful.

On Thursday, January 15, 2026, Michael Shurtz will be the keynote speaker on opening night of the New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival, held at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. His talk will be livestreamed by the museum at
5pm PT / 8pm ET on the New Orleans Jazz Museum YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/NOLAJazzMuseum

There’s something quietly perfect about that setting. A book about music born from ingenuity and necessity being celebrated in a space dedicated to the living roots of that tradition. No grand revisionism. No inflated claims. Just a story finally being told in full.

If you care about where music comes from, how culture actually forms, or how creativity survives when resources are scarce, this is a story worth spending time with.

We’re honored to have helped bring it into the world.

It wasn’t staged. He just snapped it in his studio, surrounded by decades of music history, and it stopped me in my tracks.

Stolen Moments Book Photo by John Lenac

There’s something poetic about seeing the book in this space — guitars, gold records, framed legends. These are the environments I’ve spent my life documenting. To have Stolen Moments land among them feels... full circle.

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What Stolen Moments Is

“If you see something about to happen, get it. Put the camera up and click. Two seconds later you won’t have the chance again. You have to look for those stolen moments.”

That’s been my philosophy for almost 40 years as a concert photographer. From Neil Young to Robert Smith, Joe Walsh to Dave Grohl, I’ve chased the fleeting, electric, human moments that happen onstage — and often just before or after.

In Stolen Moments, I’ve pulled together some of my most iconic shots — many of them rare or never before published — into one definitive collection.

Available now from Genius Book Publishing:

👉 Buy the Book: Stolen Moments

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What’s Inside

The book spans decades, genres, stages, and styles. But the heart of it is the same: catching lightning in a frame. It’s a visual love letter to the raw, real, soulful energy of live music.

If you’ve ever stood in a crowd and felt your heart sync to a drumbeat... this book is for you.

The conversation dives into their lifelong love of pop culture, the making of their comprehensive Turtles encyclopedia, now also available in softcover—choose black-and-white on Amazon or the full-color edition directly from Genius Book Publishing.

Get the full color edition here - Not Just Happy Together

If you’ve ever had “Happy Together” stuck in your head — or followed the wild web of music legends from Frank Zappa to Alice Cooper — we published a book you’ll want to know about.

Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles From A → Z (AM Radio to Zappa) has been out for a bit, but it’s still making waves. The Boston Harold just featured it with a fun, deep-cut interview with the authors about the band’s wild ride — from AM radio stardom to psychedelic side quests and beyond.

Check out the piece here:

🔗 [New book chronicles history of The Turtles (Boston Harold)](https://bostonharoldpodcast.blogspot.com/2024/03/new-book-chronicles-history-of-turtles.html?m=1)

We’re always thrilled to see readers and music lovers rediscovering this story. If you’re into band lore, rock memoirs, or just curious how The Turtles ended up in the Zappa orbit — this one delivers.

And if you are ready to dive into the book, find it here… Not Just Happy Together

To celebrate his life and legacy, we’re sharing a special audio tribute:

Featuring a roundtable of musicians, historians, and friends — Godfrey Townsend, Charles Rosenay, Mark Arnold, and Andy Cahan — this heartfelt episode reflects on Mark’s life, his music, and the joy he brought to audiences around the world.

Why Mark Mattered

Mark Volman’s music — and his spirit — helped define a generation. This tribute episode reminds us why his voice (literally and creatively) mattered so much. It’s a joyful, moving, and at times hilarious conversation that captures the groovy magic of the '60s and beyond.

About the Book

Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A‑Z (AM Radio to Zappa) is our definitive, all‑color paperback look at one of rock’s most enduring and beloved bands. Written by Mark Arnold and Charles F. Rosenay!!!, this book spans everything from The Turtles’ earliest days as The Crossfires to their chart‑topping hits, their theatrical turn with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, and their later work as Flo & Eddie.

If you’ve loved “Happy Together,” you’ll find even more to discover here: every song, every album, this book deep dives into the stories behind the music, plus includes interviews with band members and associates offering new revelations—even for longtime fans. It’s a celebration of Mark Volman’s legacy, his craft, and the joy that The Turtles’ music continues to bring.

Order the book here: Not Just Happy Together: The Turtles from A-Z

When Mark Volman of Flo & Eddie and The Turtles passed away at the age of 78 on September 5, 2025, it was a true gut punch. Not only was Volman the last Turtle standing by being the final original Turtle still touring (lead singer Howard Kaylan retired in 2018), he also personified what The Turtles were about.

Losing Mark Volman was like saying goodbye to your rock & roll uncle, always there to bring a smile and a song, always there to entertain his family, which was his audience. This meant great singing with a sense of humor & fun, with Volman regularly performing such antics as tossing a tambourine high into the air (and usually catching it), or spoofing his music contemporaries. He also entertained us with some fine guitar work.

When we were putting together our "TURTLES A-Z: AM RADIO to ZAPPA" book (www.NotJustHappyTogether.com), we wanted it to be the most comprehensive (and enjoyable) work on the band. Since we were including interviews by as many principals connected to The Turles as possible. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan were musts, but Howard was retired and reclusive, while Mark wasn't his healthiest. We miraculously got Kaylan to agree to a great interview (and we don't believe he's granted one since), but we didn't want to pressure or disturb Volman. Instead, by permission, we included an interview conducted by a colleague.

We hope that Ron Dante (The Archies) decides to continue the legacy of The Turtles' songs, but it will never be the same without Mark. It's a shame he wasn't able to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Let's hope that happens while Howard is still with us. The era of “Happy Together” will never truly be over, but without Mark, the world of The Turtles will be a lot less happy.

by MARK ARNOLD and CHARLES F. ROSENAY!!!

(photo below Charles F. Rosenay!!! with Mark Volman)

Those Old School Records takes you through the history of rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, and more from 1946 to 1987 through the lens of top-charting 45 RPM singles. With over 1,000 songs, labels, release dates, suggested pairings, remakes, answers, and other detailed information, Those Old School Records leaves no musical stone unturned.

At over 400 pages, Those Old School Records will answer many of your questions about the origins and history of these chart-topping songs.

Arthur Big Boy Crudup “That’s All Right” Victor/RCA 1946

Style: Blues

Where from: Omaha, NE

Where recorded: Chicago, IL

Suggested pairings: Blind Lemon Jefferson “Right Of Way Blues” 1927; Tampa Kid “Keep On Trying” 1936; Son House “My Black Mamma” 1930; Jimmy Rushing “Boogie Woogie” 1938; Arthur Big Boy Crudup “Keep Your Arms Around Me” 1944; Arthur Big Boy Crudup “If I Get Lucky” 1941

This blues combo—with Arthur Big Boy Crudup, guitar and vocal; Ransom Knowling, bass; and Judge Davis, drums—was recorded in September 1946. “I wasn’t making money off those records to amount to nothing,” Crudup told an interviewer as he was paid a flat sum for each song during recording sessions. Between sessions, he sharecropped or moonshined to support his family.

In March 1949, record technology radically changed with the marketing of the 45 RPM record by RCA/Victor when a reissue of Arthur Big Boy Crudup’s original of “That’s All Right” was the first blues 45 issued by RCA/Victor.

Remakes: Elvis Presley 1954; Marty Robbins 1955

It’s said that Presley financed a Crudup session he made for Bobby Robinson’s Fire Records in about 1959 which resulted in a later remake of “That’s All Right,” though Robinson claimed Presley had nothing to do with the record.

Get the full book here: Those Old School Records

Looking for the book? Get it here Head Bangin Radio

• 336 full color pages

• softcover edition

• a complete discography of the entire TMQ catalog of over 100 LPs and EPs

• well over 350 images of the albums, colored vinyl, and inserts

• the underground tale of how Trade Mark of Quality came into being

This book is essential for record collectors and dealers.

In that hot summer of ’69 two longhaired music freaks created an underground LP record album of unreleased tracks by one of their music gods and put it out on the streets of Los Angeles. No one had ever been crazy enough to do such an audacious thing before. The god’s official record label was not amused but the music fans were thrilled. Were these guys pirates or heroes? It was so much fun the first time, they soon pressed up even more records of forbidden musical fruit. They were on a roll. The following year, in 1970, one of the culprits put The Pig image in a circular logo with the name “Trade Mark of Quality.” TMQ and Pigman were born!

With a cast of outrageous characters, here is the story of Trade Mark of Quality aka TMQ aka The Pig, the first bootleg record label of its kind, spawning many later imitators. From the end of the '60s to the mid '70s, TMQ and Pigman led the way, trotting down a muddy trail, feeding the habits and needs of music addicts around the world. Who were these fellow travelers? Carl? The Greek? Merlin? Hans? Rob Snout? Casper? Sheldon? The Blue Hasslebeast? Ol’ Fred? (Not to mention, The Brooklyn Boys, The Record Suits and The Feds!) What was the connection between TMQ and the Viet Nam war, revolutionaries, guns, pot and the moon landing? It’s all here!

Included in A Pig’s Tale is not only the Trade Mark of Quality and Pigman saga, but reproductions of all the rubber stamped and illustrated album jackets from every genuine TMQ record release, including the earliest releases from ’69 right up to the last titles in 1976. Everything you ever wanted to know about the real TMQ label is here: A complete discography of artists and track listings, sources of recordings, catalog numbers, master tape and record matrix info, colored vinyl pressings, record labels, graphics, photos, vintage news clippings, articles and more, all collected together, at last, in one volume.

A Pig’s Tale by Ralph Sutherland and Harold Sherrick, with their unique point of view, guides the reader through the never before told history of Trade Mark of Quality. It’s all here for the music lover and fan, the hardcore record collector, and the just plain curious.

WARNING! THESE EVENTS COULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED IN ANOTHER TIME AND PLACE!

(Pigman says, “Be cool, put some sounds on the turntable and groove on with ‘A Pig’s Tale’!”)

Part 1: Prologue

A TIME AND PLACE

The 1960s was a unique time in history. It was an era of change and great upheaval in politics, events, and culture resulting in clashes between generations. There was a new generation coming of age with their own views of how the world should be. They were the “baby boom” kids of their WWII parents, who didn’t have a clue what was going on with their offspring, and it scared the shit out of them. It was a new world and their compass could no longer find north. Presidents and the government were lying to America and young men shouting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” were being sent, against their will, to the slaughter in Viet Nam. For what and why? It was a decade of protest, Black civil rights, revolution, riots, assassinations, anti-war demonstrations and, at the same time, a search for justice and peace expressed through free love and drugs, unprecedented creativity in new colorful art, design and fashion, innovative theatre and cinema, and most important to this story: music.

Music was a big part of this revolution. It was the glue that held it all together. It was the DNA essence in the minds of those kids screaming in the streets, making love or just stoned out of their minds at some love-in. Unlike now, music then wasn’t just some standalone tune you downloaded from “the cloud,” listened to with your earbuds, then just deleted when you tired of it. At that time, a long-playing record album was an artistic “concept” made up of songs. When one of the music icons of the day released a new LP, people couldn’t wait to storm the local record shop on that first day of release to grab a copy to take home, and to play it over and over on their stereo sound system, until every nuance on every track was etched into their brains. They held the album jacket looking at the cover, reading the back liner notes, listening to the lyrics and tunes, wearing out those LPs, until it became a permanent part of their psyche. It was part of their life. Even to this day, 50-plus years later, those music memories are deeply imprinted. Whatever was going on around or inside those young heads at that time, for better or worse, that moment is forever alive in that music.

The end of the decade was fast approaching. That groovy ‘60s “Summer of Love” airplane would crash land on December 6th of 1969 at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. At a free outdoor Rolling Stones concert, as they performed “Under My Thumb,” an 18-year-old Black man was killed by a Hell’s Angel in front of the stage. It was an ugly finale to a decade of hopeful optimism, tainting the memory of Woodstock the previous summer.

Our story here begins earlier that year as two bizarre events occurred in that July of 1969. A brave astronaut in a white space suit stepped down a ladder and actually walked on the moon. Meanwhile, back on terra firma, two long-haired music freaks in Los Angeles had put together a strange double LP record album. What the hell was it? The whole world knew about the guy on the moon. But very soon, many who were into the music of that time would hear about this mysterious record album which would first hit those smoggy L.A. streets like a small explosion. The very existence of this album would have been impossible without what had gone before in the 1960s. It was the product of a particular time and place unlike anything before. Was it a statement against The Establishment and those who wanted to control and manipulate the minds and lives of a new generation? Was it a big “Fuck You!” to those who would dare to tell them what music they should or could not listen to? Or was it just some crazy scheme cooked up by a couple of wacko record collectors? Whatever it was, when these two guys created this “underground” record album, they really didn’t have a clue what they had unleashed, or that the world of music and the record business would soon be dropped on its ear….

This is just the beginning. A Pig’s Tale is available now.

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