To honor Lux Interior, founder and singer in the Cramps who died Wednesday at the age of 62, it seemed appropriate to list the efforts for which the band was best known - great song titles. The Cramps had the ability to be Ed Wood and the bastard offspring of half the cats who recorded for Sun Records in the late '50s. Sometimes it was the heroin talking, but for the most part, the Cramps stayed on point as well as the Ramones; you always knew what you were gonna get from a Cramps show or record, grinding, molten rockabilly. "Goo Goo Muck" served 50 different ways.

10. The Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon
9. I Wanna Get in Your Pants
8. Eyeball in My Martini
7. The Most Exalted Potentate of Love
6. Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs
5. Fissure of Rolando
4. Journey to the Center of a Girl
3. Don't Eat Stuff off the Sidewalk
2. Two Headed Sex Change
1. Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

John Martyn, the British singer-songwriter who developed alongside Nick Drake and never got his due for creating atmospheric and jazzy folk music, died Jan. 29. He was 60.
 A contemporary of  Drake, Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band and others in the 1960s British folk scene, it was Martyn's employment of jazz elements that gave his music a distinctive free-flowing ambient effect. Like Drake and, in America, Tim Hardin, he pushed the boundaries of pop-oriented acoustic folk music by emphasizing a hushed stillness in his songs.
His  groundbreaking work was 1973's "Solid Air," -the title track of which is an ode to Drake, who would die a year after that album's release. Stylistically, it was the perfect marriage of Martyn's trademarks - slurred vocals pushed to the bottom end of his tenor, prominent acoustic bass lines that prop up his acoustic guitar that crackled like a dying fire, the electric piano sprinkling in notes here and there and lyrics that conveyed unsuredness. He employed a slapping technique on both sides of the guitar that added an eerie sustain on chords and ascribed a prominence to notes that pierced the blur of his vocals.  "Solid Air" had erratic distribution in the U.S. and tracking down anything beyond expensive imports was near impossible in the 1970s. I remember hearing the album in a mall record store, becoming transfixed and then launching a search that would last four years.  Unlike Drake, whose contract with Island insisted that his records always stay in print, Martyn's albums seemed to come and go on a whim.
As a young fan of all the styles Martyn employed, "Solid Air" was a remarkable gem of an album to me. No other music had a similar affect and I remember being told somewhere in the mid-70s that if I liked Martyn I really need to also hear Drake, which led to me purchasing "Bryter Later," and Richard Thompson. Funny how time rewrites history: It seems that Drake has become the starting point for anyone looking to engage in or research that time and place, which to some point has led to a rejuvenated interest in the reissues and performances of John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Mike Heron and Vashti Bunyan. When Davy Graham died recently, his obit didn't get the best of placement in newspapers but it is truly staggering how many people his guitar playing influenced people. 
The best book on the development of the British folk music scene and its evolution into something commercially viable is Joe Boyd's "White Bicycles."As a manager, producer and concert promoter's right hand man, Boyd led a Forest Gump-like life in music that took him from the jazz and blues greats of the 1950s to Bob Dylan acoustic and electric years to Nick Drake and Pink Floyd. He admits to not getting Martyn and has anecdote after anecdote about Drake, whose short life is a source of endless fascination.
Someday, it would be wonderful to get the Thompson/Martyn point of view.

As legends of FM's freeform radio have passed away, the eulogies have lamented the lack of personalities and the end of their format-free visions on the radio dials. The same amount of respect needs to be paid to the men who birthed the world they fought, the AM radio programmers who were rebels in their own right.
Bill Drake, who died Saturday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley, was one of those men. His formula - which broke first in L.A. at 93 KHJ - was called the Drake format: less talk, fewer commercials, more music. Radio would be smart to heed it today
He took top 40 and made it music oriented rather than DJ-focused, even while he allowed the jocks to establish their own personalities.
The Boss Radio format debuted in 1965, and within five months, the station had 15% of the city's listeners. Robert W. Morgan, the Real Don Steele, Humble Harv and Charlie the Tuna were legends to us kids who relied on KHJ and, later on, KRLA, to alert us to the hippest and the latest. Weekly trips to the local music store to get KHJ's printed sheets of the top hits and new music were mandatory, whether you were 9 or 14 in the late '60s. My friend Robin Bivona used to stay up as late as possible and count the number of Beatles songs they would play while his mother wondered why her 11-year-old son wouldn't pay more attention to this new band called Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Drake's death inspired me to pull out a tattered KHJ compilation album, "30 Boss Goldens." Side one alone is phenomenal: The Association "Cherish"; James Brown "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag"; Bobby Fuller Four "I Fought the Law"; Keith "98.6"; Tommy James and the Shondells "Hanky Panky"; Love "7 and 7 Is"; the Five Americans "Western Union"; and Bobby Herb "Sunny." Among the other tunes: "I'm Your Puppet" by James & Bobby Purify, "96 Tears" by ? & the Mysterians, "The Rains Came" by the Sir Douglas Quintet and "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds. A great playlist.
On the inside of the gatefold album station DJs are photographed at concerts and backstage with Diana Ross, the Fifth Dimension. Sky Saxon of the Seeds and Brenton Wood. It makes the listener feel like they're part of a community, the DJs being their bridge to the stars.
Commercial radio does not build those sorts of allegiances any more. And once KHJ streamlined the sort of music it played in the early 1970s, it was obvious the evolution of "Boss Radio" was not one that would favor the variety it displayed in the '60s.
Break down that list of songs from "30 Boss Goldens" by format and by 21st century standards they would not stand a chance of being played on the same station. Look at a playlist on an iPod and it's highly likely multiple genres will be present, and in the listener's mind there's a logic to putting funk, punk and pop next to one another.
KHJ was a reflection of youth. It shaped an "anything goes" world and gave it a soundtrack that worked because the music stood the test of repetition. Could it be done today? Only if the music we discover through the Internet were curated better and the determining factor of popularity was not limited to sales.

Jerry Wexler had the sort of touch Miles Davis looked for in his playing: He knew which notes to not play.
Like the best record men, it often requires an individual to be a facilitator, the guy who knows how to manage a room and the people in it. He was no great knob controller - that was Tom Dowd's job - but he knew a good thing when he heard it. Or when he saw the way Southern musicians worked together in a way New Yorkers did not.
So many great records came from the man that it was alway easy to overlook the business deals that contributed to the financial downfalls of some studios and labels. He was a soul music guy, not a rock 'n' roller. he is the last of the great Atlantic team to die, passing away Friday morning   
at a hospice in Sarasota, Fla. He was 91.
Wexler was in the studio with Ray Charles, Joe Turner and Ruth Brown in the ‘50s; he shaped the career and records of Aretha Franklin and other soul greats in the ‘60s; and helped Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Linda Ronstadt forge new identities in the 1970s and ‘80s.
“I was presumably their overseer, they were my instructors” Wexler wrote in his 1993 autobiography with David Ritz, “Rhythm and the Blues.” “These were the artists who made my career and changed my life, infusing the business blues with a joy transcending all earthly matters.”

Bo Diddley, the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose name is synonymous with a five-note beat and whose boastful story-songs were a precursor to rap, died Monday of heart failure. He was 79.
Yet as much as that beat came to define Diddley for the general public, it was only a small portion of his contributions to rock 'n' roll. When MCA issued its first Diddley boxed set, it revealed his talents as a songwriter, and his ability to work within the realms of do-wop and smoother forms of blues singing. As thoise early boxed sets went, it was probably the one that felt the most incomplete; his importance, unlike his peers, could not be captured in a  collection of hits. 
Diddley,who was born Ellas Otha Bates, had a heart attack in August, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa. He had been living at home in Archer, Fla., outside Gainesville, where he had been recovering.
One of the original voices of rock ‘n’ roll, Diddley’s music influence multiple generations of rock acts — Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen among them. He played a unique guitar with a rectangular body and was among the first musicians to incorporate distortion and reverb in his personal style. That aspect of the Diddley sound would influence hard rock in the 1970s; his use of a rhythmic pulse — created in a swell of guitar, drums and maracas — would also become a bedrock of funk.
The “Bo Diddley” beat is a syncopated 5/4 pattern that parallels the hambone rhythm of West Africa. It has also been defined as a “shave and a haircut two-bits.” Diddley told various stories about the genesis of his use of the beat: he had said it came from church music; from playing Gene Autry’s “Jingle Jangle”; and from his attempts to play the guitar like a drum.
It has been used for decades, forming the core of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” the Who’s “Magic Bus,” Bruce Springsteen’s “She’s the One” and George Michael’s “Faith.” George Thorogood has based the bulk of oeuvre on the Diddley sound.
Many of his songs have become staples of the rock canon, among them “I’m a Man,” “Who Do You Love,” “Bo Diddley” and “Roadrunner.” In 1955’s “I’m a Man” and 1959’s “Say Man,” Diddley created a rhyming the braggadocio that 20 years later would be employed in rap; in “Who Do You Love,” his line “just 22 and I don’t mind dying” brought an element of carefree danger and fearlessness that had never been heard in popular music.
His music was raw and adult-oriented, unlike that of his labelmate Chuck Berry, who chronicled the concerns of teenagers. Berry’s commercial success overshadowed Diddley on the rock front, particularly in terms of being able to sell music to American whites. Diddley’s only top 40 pop hit was “Say Man” although he had seven top 30 R&B singles between 1955 and 1959 and three more in the 1960s.
Diddley’s importance to rock ‘n’ roll became apparent when the harder-edged bands in the British invasion — the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Animals and the Who — sited him as an influence. John Lennon, on the Beatles first visit to the States, said meeting Diddley was at the top of his wish list of activities.
In his later years, he embarked on anti-drug campaigns and was a fervent gardener.

"Them Changes" is about as killer a song as you can find that mixes the harder edges of rock, funk and soul. Its creator, Buddy Miles died Tuesday at his home in Austin, Texas. He was 60.
He played with a number of performers and toured with Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots and Wilson Pickett. It was after a gig in Brooklyn, N.Y., where guitarist Michael Bloomfield, who had just left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, inquired if Miles would be interested in forming a new band. The band became the Electric Flag, which issued only one album with Bloomfield and Miles.
“Michael Bloomfield and I were looking for a drummer when we were starting the Electric Flag," Barry Goldberg said Wednesday. "We went to a show at the Paramount in New York and when Wilson Pickett came out and did “In The Midnight Hour,” the whole theater moved; it was like an earthquake.  Michael and I looked at each other and said ‘that’s our drummer!’  He provided the energy behind the group and was a great singer, to boot.  In a sense, he was ‘born’ with the Electric Flag.”
After the break up of the Electric Flag, Miles created the first edition of Buddy Miles Express  and recorded “Expressway to Your Skull” with Hendrix producing. The two alternated in returning favors: Miles played on Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”; Hendrix produced Miles’ “Electric Church”; and the two created Band of Gypsys after Hendrix broke up his trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
The Express was curtailed when Miles formed Band of Gypsys with Hendrix and Billy Cox; that band only made one album, a live disc recorded in New York.
Following Hendrix’s death in 1970, Miles restarted the Express and had considerable success. Their album “Them Changes was on the pop music chart for 74 weeks; the act had hits such as “Them Changes,” a cover of Neil Young’s “Down By the River” and a disco number “Rockin’ and Rollin’ on the Streets of Hollywood.” A minor hit, "Wholesale Love," 
Miles recorded a live album in Hawaii with Carlos Santana in 1974 that became a best-seller. Much of his work after that pairing was in the studio, often with superstar acts such as Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and Bootsy Collins.
He kept a relatively low profile until the mid-1980s when he was the talent behind the California Raisins, producing and singing on the three albums released by the animated characters.
Miles and Cox  reunited in 2006 to create the Band Of Gypsys Return,recording a CD, filming a DVD and touring. Cox and Miles used several guitarists to handle Hendrix's role: Eric Gales, Kenny Olson and Andy Aledort.
Cox says, "We had worked together on a project in Nashville in October.  I shall always remember that after our session in the studio, we hung out at the mall like kids.  We came back to my home and talked for hours that night. We were looking forward to reuniting as the Band of Gypsys in the late spring.  I will miss him dearly.”

About a decade ago, a friend solicited my help to try to track down the master recording of a pretty obscure work,  "I Need a Vacation," the flip side of Jim Backus' enticingly odd recording "Delicious." (It's billed Backus and Friend, who is actually Phyllis Diller). It was to run over the closing credits of a short film he had completed.
The only clue he had was the label and the name M. Garson as the songwriter. Garson also played piano on the Dr. Demento-approved A side. The quest took me to a few publishers and finally the home of the master recording. But only "Delicious" existed in their log; no one knew where "I Need a Vacation" might be or if it even existed.
Somebody tipped me that Mort Garson had been living in San Francisco. I was pleased to discover that he was actually listed in the phone book. (Pre-Internet, this stuff took some time). He was truly gracious: We talked for a half-hour and he reminisced about the craziness of that session and how he was more than ready to get back into scoring films. He never mentioned  any of his classic work or "Our Day Will Come," nor the fact that his music would be sampled by Massive Attack.
He died Jan. 4 and with him, the motto: No job too silly to take seriously.
Never did track down the master of "I Need a Vacation," but the recording exists here: 

Lucky Dube, the South African singer who in the mid-'80s turned his back on traditional mbaqanga and developed a highly politicized version of African reggae, was shot and killed during a hijacking Thursday in Johannesberg.
"He was an artist who was committed to nurturing a true Africa identity, building a unity spirit of a new nation in a new world," said South Africa's Arts & Culture minister Pallo Jordan.

A composer of gorgeous melodies, one of the most sensual was "A Remark You Made," the flowing ballad that followed "Birdland" on Weather Report's 1977 commercial breakthrough "Heavy Weather." Weather Report has never received its proper due from the jazz or the rock worlds. It was the one band that balanced songcraft with improvisation, technique with taste valued over dexterity. They embellished the jazz tradition with a rock energy by using sonic touches of the Middle East and Africa - and after a broad and booming jam, they'd return to hushed, intimate tunes. Every other fusion band  wanted to fall into a groove and sit there or else clobber the listener over the head with  blazing instrumental passages. Weather Report occupied a spot alone in that world.
Once Jaco Pastorious joined the band on bass, he became the focal point - and why not? He was the good-looking showboat untethered to the histories of jazz or rock. He seemed to be a man who landed here from outer space. Zawinul, though, was the anchor. Seated behind his keyboards, he made jazz sound adventurous and grounded, a point driven home in the recent big band album "Brown Street" and   on Columbia Legacy's Weather Report boxed set.
He died Tuesday in Vienna of a rare form of skin cancer. He was 75.

Max Roach, the legendary jazz drummer, bebop founder, band leader, and civil rights activist, who died in his sleep Wednesday night in New York City. He was 83 years old.
Blue Note Records issued the following statement:

Along with drummer Kenny Clarke, Roach redefined the role of the drums in jazz during the bebop revolution of the late-1940s and early-50s, participating in many of the movement’s seminal recordings with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. In the mid-50s, Roach co-led a quintet with Clifford Brown that was one of hard bop’s premiere bands up until the trumpeter’s untimely death in a car accident in 1956.
Roach was also an outspoken advocate for civil rights and racial equality, and in 1960 he created one the great protest records with "We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite," a seven-part suite featuring vocalist Abbey Lincoln that addressed slavery and racism in America.
Roach only released one album as a leader on Blue Note in 1996, an orchestral suite titled Max Roach with the New Orchestra of Boston and the So What Brass Quintet, but he was an unmistakable force on numerous classic recordings from the label’s early days, including Bud Powell’s "The Amazing Bud Powell: Volume 1" and Thelonious Monk’s "Genius of Modern Music: Volume 2," as well as Miles Davis’ "Birth of the Cool" (Capitol) and Duke Ellington’s "Money Jungle" (United Artists).

Phil Rizzuto, the legendary shortstop and announcer who bled Yankees pinstripes, died today at the age of 89. His "holy cow!" exclamation played a role in one of the funniest episodes of "Seinfeld" and his foreplay play-by-play in Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" remains a classic marriage of baseball and rock'n' roll.