Shows
RockPopandRollRemembering Todd Snider / Ep. 69Americana rocker. Songwriter and troubadour, proudly following the Prine/Kristofferson/Jerry Jeff lineage. Amazingly great, connective live performer. Loved the band he had as Todd Snider and the Nervous Wrecks. His solo writing and singing are from the soul. He died the weekend this was recorded. Just 59 years old.
Sad.
And I'm grateful to have heard him.
Take a ride with us through some of my favorite moments and songs by Todd.
2025-11-1755 minRockPopandRollThe Case for Jefferson Starship / Ep. 68
Jefferson Starship is an oddly overlooked band on classic rock radio. In the annals of late 70s-into-the-80s corporate AOR radio rock and roll, they sat firmly and fittingly with Boston, The Cars, REO, Styx, Foreigner, and the rest of that gang.
While those bands still get their four cuts played repeatedly on the classic rocker stations (and burn those few cuts out), Jefferson Starship was quietly placed to the side. Hmm. Let's revisit the rock of their catalog and see what we think.
2025-11-1359 minRockPopandRoll(Some more of) My Favorite Rock and Roll Cover Songs - Vol. 2 / Ep. 67So many great cover songs. My list is really long. That's why we have part two. Find Waylon Jennings, Todd Snider, Tom Petty, Pat Green, Cheap Trick, and a bunch more. Pretty simple, really. Dive into the magic on Rock Pop and Roll.
2025-10-1643 minRockPopandRollJohn Fogerty: Somehow Underrated? / Ep. 66John Fogerty's influence in rock music is somehow underrated - he's a quiet titan of rock and roll. The rocket blast that was CCR was short (around 1968-72), and he took long breaks from his music. He was burned by a contract held by a man, according to Fogerty, who stole royalties and made bad investments with their money, and held all the rights to those CCR songs - rights taken when the band broke up and Fogerty needed to get out of the contract.
And because of him stepping away from music on two different occasions, J...
2025-09-191h 00RockPopandRollMy Favorite Rock and Roll Covers / Part 1 / Ep. 65email: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
website: www.rockpopandroll.com
(Some of) My Favorite Covers:
From the earliest days of rock and roll, cover songs have been a vital part of the music’s forward movement, drawing on its past.
Long before we knew about digital discovery, one of the fastest ways for new artists to connect with audiences was to reimagine an existing hit and put it on an album or 45—infusing it with their own style, energy, and attitude. A Chuck Berry riff might get filtered through the Beatles’ harmonies, or an old...
2025-08-0854 minRockPopandRollINXS Rewind: Rock or Dance? And Why Not Both? / Ep. 64INXS recorded their biggest album, Kick, in Sydney and Paris, produced by Chris Thomas. Atlantic Records didn't like the record offered them $1 million to go back to Australia and record another album. The band said no. Good call. Kick was released in October 1987 and peaked at No. 1 in Australia, No. 3 on the US Billboard 20, and had four top 10 singles
But they had more than Kick. INXS’ music filled a niche, on the radio and in your head
They were a band that was electrifying live, had a charismatic frontman, and a mix of rock, pop, and...
2025-07-2242 minRockPopandRollThe Cuts of Billy Squier / Ep. 63Billy Squier spent the ’70s in New York City, playing with the rock band Piper. They toured with Kiss. Squier released his first solo album in 1980, The Tale of the Tape. “The Big Beat” got some radio airplay.
All of that changed with 1981’s Don’t Say No.
I count eight songs that were played, either on pop radio or, to a greater frequency and depth, on rock radio of the 80s.
Huge album. Billy Squier had made it.
One ill-conceived video stopped - mostly - his career.
But Squier hung aroun...
2025-07-1432 minRockPopandRollFirst Listen: New Doobie Brothers Album / Ep. 62The Doobie Brothers have been a band for more than 50 years. Their first album was released in 1972. It's now 2025, and they have a new record, called Walk This Road. And we're going to take our first listen to the album here on RockPopandRoll. How did they do? Would I listen again? Does it rock? Does it roll? Do we hear the echoes of "China Grove" or "BlackWater"? Dovwe want to?
Lots of questions that we answer together. Let's go.
www.rockpopandroll.com
email: rockpoprollpodcast@gmail.com
2025-07-0540 minRockPopandRollNot Just The Greatest Hits: Steve Miller Ep. 61Steve Miller music has a depth greater than his career-defiining Greatest Hits 1974-1978 album. That's what I think. In 1966, he formed the Steve Miller Blues Band. They backed Chuck Berry on his Live at Fillmore Auditorium album, released that year. In 1968, Miller released the psychedelic blues album, Children of the Future.
The Joker, from 1973, found him getting radio airplay, and the title song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Miller followed up with Fly Like an Eagle in 1976 and Book of Dreams in 1977 (The songs were recorded at the same time) with a ton of hi...
2025-06-2032 minRockPopandRollFirst Listen: New Album from John Cafferty / Ep. 60
As the frontman of John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, Cafferty rose to prominence with the soundtrack to the 1983 failed studio movie turned HBO cult classic "Eddie and the Cruisers".
“On the Dark Side” became a hit, topping the rock charts. It went top ten on the Hot 100. His music, eerily close to the sound of Bruce Springsteen, helped define a genre - heartland rock with an East Coast rock and roll, let's-cruise-the-beach-roads, sweaty, smoky rock bar vibe.
While not a massive star, Cafferty maintained a long touring career, especially in the Northeastern U.S., w...
2025-05-2946 minRockPopandRollFriday Bonus: Rusty Bladen and Neil Young / Ep. 59I've had a bit of a Neil Young obsession lately, \ intrigued by his long career, and how he continues to release new music, regardless of who might hear it. The beauty and genius of Neil Young. I also love to dig into his catalog and find songs I've missed, for whatever reason. He has a lot of music. There are some gems in the NY library. Indiana musician Rusty Bladen put together a band and found some of those gems as he debuts a "Tribute to Neil Young" the weekend this podcast drops.
Rusty has nine albums with...
2025-05-1620 minRockPopandRollThe Rock of Marty Stuart / Ep. 58Marty Stuart rocked the country radio in the early 90s and albums that blended Steve Earle-esque country rock with badass guitar playing and a nod to traditional country.
In this episode, we take a listen to the trajectory of Marty's music. Traditional country to modern country to where his music lives now: as rock music.
Did that really happen?
Stuart has more than 20 studio albums, has charted more than 30 times on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, won five Grammy Awards, and is an engaged member of the Grand Ole Opry and Country Mu...
2025-05-1546 minRockPopandRollInterview with Jonathan Rundman - Ep. 57Our episode features Jonathan Rundman, singer/songwriter from Minneapolis, who has a new Americana rock and roll album called "Waves".
It is a fascinating and fun talk about 80's rock music, The Silos and the circle of friends that includes Cracker, The Vulgar Boatmen, and all they that have influenced. If you dig 80s rock, his tales are what you might want. We talk about Bob Seger, the Rainmakers, The Hooters, and lots more.
Born and raised in the isolated Finnish-American communities of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and now based in Minneapolis, Rundman twists smart, cin...
2025-04-231h 29RockPopandRollFirst Listen: New Mitch Ryder Album - Ep. 56In this episode, we take a first listen to the new album from Mitch Ryder, called With Love the latest chapter in the career of the rock and soul icon. With the release of his 21st studio album, Ryder calls it one of the most honest works of his career—raw, autobiographical, and packed with his grit and soul. Produced by Don Was, the album marks a 2025 moment in Ryder’s decades-long career.
We'll also hear Ryder’s roots—from fronting The Detroit Wheels in the mid-60s with hits like “Devil with a Blue Dress On” and “Jenny T...
2025-04-1048 minRockPopandRollRockpile: Do You Know This Band? / Ep. 55Rockpile? The band? How were they well-known in roots rock music circles and not so much with radio listeners and album buyers? Or were they, and we just didn't realize it?
Rockpile began as the name of the first solo album by Dave Edmunds, released in 1972. Edmunds plays almost all the instruments except for bass and backing vocals, The album included a 1970 single, "I Hear You Knocking" - a #1 song in Britain
He billed his band as Dave Edmunds and Rockpile. It eventually included Edmunds (vocals, guitar), Nick Lowe (vocals, bass guitar), Billy Bremner (vocals, guita...
2025-03-2648 minRockPopandRollFirst Listen: New Bryan Adams Music / Ep. 54Here's my background. Love Bryan Adams. He did "Cuts Like a Knife", one of the great rock tracks of eighties radio. "Straight from the Heart", one of the great ballads of rock radio, and the windows down, summertime, turn it up loud, catch a little buzz, rock and roll of Reckless.
His eighties work is the foundation. And then he went into the nineties and worked with Mutt Lange and had a huge album. And then worked on some soundtracks, went ballad-heavy, and then lost his way.
Now I saw him live, would have been 1987. T...
2025-03-1826 minRockPopandRollAerosmith: The 80's (Mostly) and Beyond / Ep. 53Examine the post-1970's output of Aerosmith, because the path that they traveled was unlike how things usually and eventually play out in a career in a rock band. What was it, really?
There's roughly three stages to the Aerosmith career: First, a nearly decade-long run in the 1970s as a party, blues-rocking, Stones-emulating live band with rock radio stone-cold classics.
Secondly, a late 1970s into the early 1980s drug-hazed, hit-empty period that caused a fallout that cost them both guitar players, with the grind stretching into 1985 with a less-than-great ("Done With Mirrors") comeback album.
2025-02-2745 minRockPopandRollMaking Sense of Billy Idol - Ep. 52
Is Billy Idol a couple of hits and not much else? Is his career more than the peak "Rebel Yell", "White Wedding", and "Dancing With Myself"?
Surprises? I found some. The hits? Fewer than you might think.
He did have four top ten songs, but even they aren't what you might think initially. But he had some tunes that weren't big but did rock. We dig into a couple of those.
Was he a pioneer in blending punk attitude with mainstream rock and pop appeal, bringing a sneering, rebellious edge of pun...
2025-02-211h 01RockPopandRollEp. 51: What About The Hooters?
Radio friendly, some heartland authenticity, and a bit of Philly attitude.
Remember The Hooters?
“I don’t think we really fit into the ‘80s mold,” said lead singer and guitarist Eric Bazilian. “But we sure do show up on a lot of ‘80s playlists. If anything, I think we were a ‘70s band who had survived into the ‘80s.”
And you can hear a little in the first album - their major label release Nervous Night.
In the United States, they had three decent hits off that album. In 1985, the band played at...
2025-01-2349 minRockPopandRollEp. 50: My 45's - The 16 That Mattered Most
This is the 50th episode of Rock, Pop, and Roll. In honor, here are, of the 100's of 45's I owned, the 16 that I think shaped my musical journey.
It's what resonated. The building blocks of what I liked. Straight emotion - with no judgment of what was cool.
It's what made me move. Made me think and feel stuff I didn't quite yet understand. Bubble gum. Rock of the 50s and 60s. Some 70s country. A lot of hits. A few that weren't. And records I bought because I heard them on AM radio...
2025-01-011h 00RockPopandRollEp. 49: Hall and Oates - How Many Albums Were Actually Great?Daryl Hall and John Oates made lots of albums. And had a strong run of early hit singles.
"Wait For Me"
"Sara Smile"
"She’s Gone"
"Rich Girl"
What was the Hall & Oates heyday? The string of albums that they created at their career pop-rock apex? It came in the 1980's: Voices. Private Eyes. Big Bam Boom. Rock and Soul Part 1. Maybe even Live at the Apollo.
Were they great albums?
Early on, as artists tend to do, Hall & Oates had trouble clearly defining their sound, alternating among folk, soul, r...
2024-12-0541 minRockPopandRollEp. 48: Simple Minds: Before and After The Breakfast ClubThe rise and slide of the Simple Minds - one of the most successful and influential bands in the UK during the 1980s. A mix of new wave, post-punk, and rock. Multiple UK Top 10 hits. But it took "Don't You (Forget About Me)" to break them big in the US. They rode that stand-alone single into one hit album here in the States.
When Once Upon a Time was released in 1985 - without "Don’t You" on it. "Alive and Kicking" was the lead single - essentially the band’s 2nd American single. It went to #3 on the B...
2024-11-1540 minRockPopandRollEp. 47: Play Me 5 - Bryan AdamsWe play just five songs from an artist's catalog - from all the albums, the singles, the live albums. The music game is called "Play Me 5".
Can we hear a band or performer in five songs, and find the reason - a bit of the understanding - as to why they are who they are and why they matter in the rock and roll continuum?
That’s it. Let's go. This episode, it is Bryan Adams.
Why does Adams, a rock and roll singer from Canada, have a place in rock and roll histor...
2024-10-1823 minRockPopandRollEp. 46: A New Springsteen Fan Who Just Saw Him in Concert for the First TimeThis episode is a conversation with a 30-something Bruce fan who came to Bruce Springsteen's career only recently. We talk with Brandon Fitzsimmons, who started his journey with Springsteen during the downtime he had during COVID in 2020. He did a deep dive into Springsteen's catalog, and most interesting to me, just saw Bruce for the first time at a show in Pittsburgh in the fall of 2024, driving 6 hours to see a 74-year old Springsteen and the E St. Band. What was that like? We talk about it, and how Brandon started - and went all in - in his Bos...
2024-09-2346 minRockPopandRollEp. 45: In Appreciation of Greg KihnGreg Kihn, the California-via-Baltimore pop rocker passed away in August 2024, leaving behind a truly great FM radio hit with “The Breakup Song” and his biggest song, “Jeopardy”, that hit #2 and found heavy rotation on MTV. The same song was famously parodied by Weird Al Yankovic. Kihn also had a long career as a rock radio DJ on KFOX, and he wrote books.
But mostly he was a guy who just kept rocking. After a run of yearly albums for more than a decade, from the mid 70's to the mid 80's, he released his final album (Rekihndled) in 2017...
2024-08-2222 minRockPopandRollEp. 44: Seven Albums I Love
Albums that may not have seen big sales - a couple did - but that are worth turning up. We talk about who, why, and how come they rock. And a couple of bonus albums too.
James McMurtry
Melissa Etheridge
Rick Springfield
Warren Zevon
Todd Snider
The Gaslight Anthem
The Elms
***
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2024-06-2151 minRockPopandRollEp. 43: The "Play Me 5" Game - Bob SegerWe play just five songs from an artist's catalog - from all the albums, the singles, the live albums. The music game is called "Play Me 5".
Five songs that do two things:
1. Give a representation of the artist - the musician - the band - the singer.
2. Find songs that reveal a bit of the magic of the performance or the musicians. Or both.
Can that work? I don't know. That's the idea and intent. Can we hear a band or performer in five songs, and find the reason - a bit...
2024-05-0133 minRockPopandRollEp 42: Why the J. Geils Band Matters
More known as a party band than they were rock royalty, the J. Geils Band is still a rock band of the era that gets tossed aside, despite a decade of incendiary live shows and more hits than some may recall. One of my favorites. Played them loud. Learned some history too. I seriously rocked the “Blow Your Face Out” live cassette in my $2,000 brown Buick Skylark back in 1986.
It’s really not just that the J. Geils Band is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But they probably aren't getting in. Yet the...
2024-03-1049 minRockPopandRollEp. 41: Underrated Rockers: John WaiteJohn Waite was in The Babys, out front of two pop hits that both peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, ("Isn't It Time" and "Everytime I Think of You") His solo career started with a really good but forgotten 1982 debut album Ignition, which produced the single "Change". It didn’t chart on Billboard's Hot 100 during its initial release (June 1982) but was #16 rock track on AOR radio stations and was produced by the great Bob Clearmountain. And Patty Smyth sings background vocals on "Change"
But it was the album No Brakes that gave him his career a rea...
2023-12-0434 minRockPopandRollEp. 40: The Scandal TracksOn this episode, take a tour with us - to the early 80’s - to Scandal, as we drop into the short history of the band that released an EP that was a scattering blast of five songs - including “Goodbye To You” and “Love Has Got A Line”. At the time, it was the best-selling EP in the history of Columbia Records. But did I ever really listen to, back in 1982 or 84 or 87 or whenever, all the five songs? Maybe.
Around this time, in 1982, Pat Benatar was coming towards the end of her best run. Scandal had that vib...
2023-10-1732 minRockPopandRollEp. 39: The Rock and Roll Gospel of Henry Lee SummerHenry Lee Summer latched on to the sound of pop and rock radio in the 80s and rode that bad boy to a couple of late-decade hits, and a handful of good, heartland rock and roll albums.
But in his home state - Indiana - Summer was more than couple nice radio hits and a handful of albums. Weird that he could be, maybe? Really not. His story is like a lot of local-but-more-music heroes. Cleveland and Providence and Pittsburgh and Toronto. Artists like Donnie Iris, Kim Mitchell, John Cafferty, and Joe Grushecky.
Henry Lee Su...
2023-08-0342 minRockPopandRollEp. 38: 80’s Roots Rock and Roll - What We Were HearingI thought it might be simple. Who were some of my favorite roots rock bands from the 1980’s and 90’s? And why? This episode turned into a deep dive into what still feels like it was only skimming along the surface of a genre that was hot for about five years and before fading back into where it was before, into a mostly forgotten sub-genre that I still love.
"Roots Rock" was a name that was branded on a sound that came of age in the mid-'80s. Some guitar rawness. Some harmonies. Roots rock had twang and guit...
2023-06-121h 13RockPopandRollEp. 37: Who Is Truth And Salvage Co. and Why Their New/Old Album Rocks
A band named Truth and Salvage Co. was formed in 2005, made a couple of albums, and broke up only to return in 2022 with a lost album that was released - again - with a sound that it should have always had.
Late in 2022, the band came back, finding a nice way to revisit a career that sputtered and eventually splintered.
It was 2009 when Black Crowes Chris Robinson signed the group to his label and gave them the opening slot on his band's tour that year. The band released its debut album (produced by R...
2023-04-1321 minRockPopandRollEp. 36: 80s Rock Radio Hit Songs That Top 40 Missed (Mostly)
Rock hits but not Top 40 hits? What’s that really mean? We take a listen to some great throwbacks to a time when rock radio was more than day-after-day classic rock, same song, repeat cycle that it is today. Go back to when album rock stations (and for a brief time, Rock40 stations) made the radio a place for listeners to find a little bit of variety - and get surprised - with their rock and roll. We hear songs that were hits on rock radio but not top 40, and one track that was a top 40 hit and o...
2023-02-1133 minRockPopandRollEp. 35: Muscle Shoals, Bob Seger, and the Odd Story of Old Time Rock and Roll
Located alongside the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the studios there helped create some of the most important and resonant songs in rock and roll.
On this episode, we look back at bit of the history of the Muscle Shoals sound, a trio of FAME Studio house bands, including the great "Swampers", and how Detroit's Bob Seger fused their sound with his heartland rock to produce some underappreciated but great songs - and one song ("Old Time Rock and Roll") that has been played way too much, burned deeply into our music brains, but...
2023-01-1329 minRockPopandRollEp 34: Why Am I Just Now Discovering Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders?
Pat Todd has been called the most sincere rock and roll singer/songwriter on the planet.
His first group, the LA-based Lazy Cowgirls, called it quits in 2004 after nearly 25 years together. Pat Todd, raised in Indiana, formed a new band, the Rankoutsiders.
In them, I hear Jason and The Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites in their prime, cowpunk, and gassed up the guitars with bang-bang-bang drums, all driven in 5th gear.
How had I not heard of Pat Todd until 2022?
I have no idea. But now I have and find a ne...
2022-12-0725 minRockPopandRollEp. 33: Remembering the Brilliance - and the Chaos - of Jerry Lee LewisThe passing of Jerry Lee Lewis signifies the passing of one of the few remaining architects of rock and roll. That piano and that voice, recorded in a way that sounds like dim light, beers, AM radio rock and roll, cigarette smoke, and always the underlying idea that a fight might break out. He made music filled with gospel roots, country music, piano boogie woogie, fire, preaching, loving, sexing, and edge-of-explosion rock and roll.
We dig into his career and find the rockabilly beginnings. The rock and roll detonation. The country hits. The duets and collaborators. And the at...
2022-10-3126 minRockPopandRollEp. 32: More of the Minneapolis Sound (part 3) - Soul Asylum, Gear Daddies, Husker Du, and MoreBar band swagger.
Like many Minneapolis artists we have been talking about, there were a number of rock and roll bands that paid lots of night-after-night dues in rock clubs and van tours. They too recorded critically-acclaimed, small-label indie albums before eventually landing a big deal. Or not.
Artists - Just like Prince did - heard themselves on top 40 radio stations alongside other cuts from bands playing something different than their core sound, and artists took part of those sounds as their own. Styles weaving into each. Grabbing something from another band and slipping that so...
2022-10-1237 minRockPopandRollEp. 31: The Other Minneapolis Sound (part 2) - Americana, Pop Punk, and Rock and Roll
There are small towns known for a musical signature - a sound that you call the Bakersfield sound or the Muscle Shoals sound. There are sounds and bands and vibes tied to big cities like zydeco drums and street sounds of New Orleans, the funk and gloss of the Motown Sound of Detroit, and the stew of garage rock into new wave that was Boston. Like the swampy soul of Memphis, the sound of the 90’s grunge and alternative rock in Seattle, and the 60’s and 70’s groove and soul with Philadelphia.
There is a signifi...
2022-09-2029 minRockPopandRollEp. 30: Mixing Prince and Heartland Rock and Roll in MinnesotaThis particular podcast episode found its inspiration in one of the Spotify-exclusive Rock Pop and Roll Radio Shows that we've made. They live on Spotify and were created to give me a chance to make an old-school radio show. Listen for 90 minutes to one and hear stories plus the whole song, something we don't do on the podcast. A callback to the great radio of the 70's and 80's.
I was working on a podcast about Minneapolis roots rock/heartland rock bands and how they were oddly influential in the 1980's musical landscape. Then I remembered this Pri...
2022-07-2534 minRockPopandRollEp. 29: The Greatness of Joan Jett and Why She Rocks UsTake a minute to think about Joan Jett. More than one song. More than just "I Love Rock and Roll", as great as that radio song is. She's called “The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “The Godmother of Punk.”
Let's think about the rock and roll in her catalog and the influences she ultimately passed along. In the podcast, we talk about her career and how - somehow - she's may even be a bit undervalued as one of the rock and roll greats.
Jett's self-titled solo debut was released in Europe in 1980. In the US, the is th...
2022-06-1331 minRockPopandRollEp. 28: The Continuing Echo of Tom Petty Lives Through Mike Campbell - and Many OthersThe continuing story of the the echoing Influence of Tom Petty...and how Mike Campbell has taken that influence and made some magic.
I hear lots of bands than dig for that bit of Petty magic within their sound. The Wild Feathers. American Aquarium. Turnpike Troubadours. Eddie Vedder. Cody Canada. Band of Heathens. Petty left us too early. His influence has stayed. I thought it would but you never know. Some artists just have louder echoes.
And now, Heartbeakers guitarist and his band, Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs, have an album out - released in early...
2022-04-1222 minRockPopandRollEp. 27: Taylor Hawkins and the Foo Fighters - Only Rock and Roll?On the weekend we recorded this, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died. He was 50.
People are fans. We aren’t friends. If it feels awful or heart wrenching to fans, know his friends feel it harder and bigger and sadder.
I'm a superfan of what the Foo Fighters represent. The fervor of how they play rock and roll. The satisfaction and pride they seem to feel when they are doing what they do. The Spirit of the Foo Fighters. What he brought to them. The fun. The wow. The fanboy love of rock and roll, played in...
2022-03-2709 minRockPopandRollEp. 26: Georgia Satellites - The Loud Crunch of Lost Rock and RollGeorgia Satellites are owners of one fluke hit from their self-titled debut album - a Chuck Berry-ish throwback-for-the-80s radio. One song amidst their bucket of barroom rockers. Those songs don’t come around Top 40 too often anymore. The “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” or “Jealous Again” type of songs are outliers. So is "Keep Your Hands to Yourself". It rocketed all the way to #2 on the top 40 singles chart in early 1987. Bon Jovi kept them out of the top spot with "Livin' on a Prayer".
And why do I still think about the band? They really weren't anything new. Bu...
2022-03-2329 minRockPopandRollEp. 25: Huey Lewis and The News - After the 80’s
Huey Lewis and the News were a bar band that was better than a bar band. That’s such a lazy way to describe a band anyway. A bar band is a good thing anyway, right? That means they cut their chops live and can make a crowd - big or small - happy. Lewis and the band just happened to have the songs, the performance chops, and the talent to take that bar band moniker and make it huge.
There’s a long history of bar bands who had some fame and a hit or three and have a bit of a...
2022-02-2128 minRockPopandRollEp. 24: Jackson Browne and the 80’s - Rating his Singles and his DecadeLet's do a little Jackson Browne history: Browne wrote several songs for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band early on - he was briefly a member in 1966 before they were signed. He co-wrote the first Billboard Top 40 hit for the Eagles in 1972 with "Take It Easy". Browne released his debut album in 1972, which had one Top 40 hit, "Doctor, My Eyes" (#8) and another that should have been "Rock Me on the Water" (#48)
With his third album, Late for the Sky, he reached number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. It was hi...
2021-12-2327 minRockPopandRollEp. 23: Power Pop and Why it Still RocksWith this episode, we're cranking the power pop sound. A lot of bands fit this genre so the episode is a teaser – a primer if you will. Not everything that ever happened, but a taste of that sound. Some history, some not-so-talked about bands, and the roar of guitars bashing, sugared harmonies, and cracking drums.
We dive into some rocking rabbit holes to talk about bands and artists, and hear throwbacks to the sounds of many, including Marshall Crenshaw, Rockpile, Phil Seymour, and Donnie Iris.
Cheap Trick may be the biggest of the genre, still doi...
2021-11-0535 minRockPopandRollEp. 22: The Case for U2: The Biggest and Best Band of the 1980s?Who was the best and biggest and most consistent rock band of the 1980s? That’s a question that was banging around my head. I have a winner. And you aren’t going to like it. Or maybe you will.
I was thinking about who truly, really was the kings of rock and roll bands of the 1980s and I can’t say no to U2. Springsteen and the E St. Band Right are up there, but The River was 1979. Then it was Nebraska. So Bruce is really one band album in the decade. Petty? Always solid. Prince? I mean...
2021-09-2127 minRockPopandRollEp. 21: The Curious Case of The RomanticsIt is the curious case of The Romantics. Detroit rockers worth another listen. 60s garage rock. Pop punk. Ear worms for those who like hard candy. Detroit attitude.
The group's debut was a 1978 single "Little White Lies on Spider Records, followed that year by the Bomp! single "Tell It to Carrie".
Here's what you know for sure about the Romantics: "What I Like About You”.
Would seem like a strong start, right? But the song wasn’t a hit when they released it. Sort of, but not really. #49 on the Hot 100 – didn’t crack the top 40...
2021-07-1733 minRockPopandRollEp. 20: The Essential 7 Albums of Tom PettyIn the years since Tom Petty’s passing, his music rings authentic and sounds just as it was meant to be - timeless. We uncover why he is, and they are, the band that has best represented American Rock music for 40 years – a deserved title for Petty and the Heartbreakers. And we choose the Essential 7 - the albums of Tom Petty.
It’s a band with a long history, going back to the original Mudcrutch days. Giving them the nod as the quintessential American rock and roll band is no small honor. Petty and his boys owned the who...
2021-07-0229 minRockPopandRollEp. 19: The Last Rolling Stones Album That Really MatteredThe Rolling Stones spent much of the 1980s on the struggle bus. After a couple of good early decade albums, they were fighting amongst themselves, Keith Richards didn’t want to be in the band. Mick Jagger made a solo record. So did Keith. The 1986 One Hit to the Body single was about all they did right. Harlem Shuffle was weak. The early decade live shows weren’t strong. The Rolling Stones pretty much had fizzled out as a group.
Then they made Steel Wheels. The final album they would make that really mattered. We take a listen...
2021-05-3015 minRockPopandRollEp. 18: Elton John in the 80's - Rating the SinglesHow do you follow up the 70’s if you are Elton John? Can you successfully. The 1980's Output of Elton John: How Was It? Rating his 80s singles.
In 1970, Elton’s first hit single, "Your Song", from his second album, Elton John, became his first top ten in both the UK and the US. His most commercially successful period was 1970–1976, with the albums Honky Château (1972), Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) and his first Greatest Hits compilation.
In this episode, we talk about how Elton’s piano playing is integra...
2021-04-1037 minRockPopandRollEp. 17: More than Celebration / The 80's Output of Kool & The GangKool & The Gang mastered the transition from funkmeisters to smooth pop R&B. A band since 1964, they are still tour ready. Top 40 radio dug them for the better part of ten years. I mean, really loved them.
The band's first taste of pop success came with the release of their fourth album Wild and Peaceful (1973), which contained the US top-ten singles "Jungle Boogie" (#4) and "Hollywood Swinging" (#6).
Disco didn’t really work for them. Back in the 70's, they had more in common with Sly and the Family Stone than Donna Summer. We dig in to the 80’s...
2021-03-2723 minRockPopandRollEp. 16: Three Bands That Sounded Like Other BandsThere’s always been bands that had some part of their success because they – a little or a lot- sounded like other bands. The Beatles and Badfinger. The Beatles and a band called the Knickerbockers with a 1965 hit song called “Lies”. “Oh Sheila” was a hit for the band Ready For the World that had a sound like Prince. An R&B singer named Fontella Bass sounded a whole lot like Aretha Franklin with a 1965 hit called “Rescue Me” - Greta Van Fleet sounds eerily like Led Zeppelin. So did the 80s band Kingdom Come.
And I always kind of wonde...
2021-02-0138 minRockPopandRollEp. 15: Bob Seger - 5 Big (But Almost Forgotten) HitsAs big as Bob Seger is on the radio – arguably one of the top half dozen classic rock artists to still have a big footprint on rock radio – in his entire career, he actually only had seven top 40 hits that cracked the top 10. He spent a lifetime on the road. A classic rock mainstay. But big top 40 hits? Hardly.
Bob Seger’s only #1 hit? - "Shakedown" from 1987 and the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack.
His other top 10’s?
“Night Moves” #4 in 76
“Still The Same” #4 in 78
“Against The Wind” #5 in 1980
“Fire Lake” #6 in 1980
But there are other tunes that...
2021-01-0426 minRockPopandRollEp. 14: Brian Setzer's Underappreciated Heartland Rock AlbumBy 1982, and 1983, Brian Setzer’s group, The Stray Cats, had earned three top 10 hits: “Rock This Town”, “Stray Cat Strut”, and “She Sexy and 17”. And in late 1984? That was the year Setzer decided to break up Stray Cats in the midst of their success.
Why?
He told the Los Angeles Times in 1986 that he thought the band had run its course. “I didn’t want to make another rockabilly album.”
Setzer made a couple album in the two years away from the Cats, including one that stands out as a forgotten but near classic take on hear...
2020-12-2223 minRockPopandRollEp. 13: The Good and a Little Bit of Bad / Rod Stewart in the 1980sOn this episode of Rock Pop and Roll, we focus on the peculiar history of Rod Stewart.
Some Good and a Little Bit of the Bad: Rod Stewart In the 1980’s.
Rod Stewart is nearing 60 years in the music business, right up there with the Rolling Stones and The Who. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, inducted in 1994. He released 32 solo albums, not counting live and greatest hits compilations.
During the 1960s, Rod Stewart was a part of the Jeff Beck Group. In 1969, he joined The Faces. If you don’t know...
2020-11-1339 minRockPopandRollEp. 12: 3 Underrated, Under the Radar 80s Rock Bands that Never Hit the Top 40RockPopandRoll / Episode 12
• A legendary – maybe the most legendary Australian rocker - who couldn’t break through in the US
• An influential Cowpunk band that had big names push them
• A rock band from the United Kingdom that had millions of fans and only one American sorta hit.
This week on RockPopandRoll, our show is:
"3 Underrated, Under the Radar Rock Bands that Never Hit the Top 40"
Host Rob Nichols, a radio vet and longtime music writer, revisits rock and roll and pop music from the playlist of the decade of the 80s
The...
2020-09-1843 minRockPopandRollEp. 11: 6 Rick Springfield Songs You'll Dig If You Like "Jessie's Girl"RockPopandRoll / Episode 11
Remember Jessie’s Girl? #1 in 1981? It is the iconic power pop song that threw musician Rick Springfield, a musician on lean times, back into the music game. He’d been in music since the late 60’s in Australia. A rocker, blessed and cursed. Great looking dude, with the “I’m on a TV show albatross” to carry. He was a career songwriter and guitar guy who had already waded through the teen idol swamp and come out OK. Mostly.
This week on RockPopandRoll, our show is:
Power Pop and Rick Springfield: Here’s 6 Songs You’ll...
2020-08-2329 minRockPopandRollEp. 10: The Knack - Re-ExaminedTheir debut album was “Get the Knack”. It had one monster song, a lesser follow-up single and then the band rode the wave of success as best they could, before breaking up, reforming, and never duplicating the initial explosion. But how could they, right? The rest of their albums? Nothing as good. Or even close. But they kept the idea alive that you could be a band that takes the tropes of 60s rock and roll and 70s power pop, blend them, and make a sound that was their own.
Thanks for listening to the podcast...
2020-08-0139 minRockPopandRollEp. 9: The Great 80s Best Albums: Reckless from Bryan AdamsYou ask me what is the greatest rock/pop guitar album of the 1980s and I say Reckless from Bryan Adams. Lyrically, it's mostly sophomoric. No deep thoughts. But that was never the strength of Bryan Adams. His reason for being was that he made straight-ahead rock and roll music that never ventured into pop-metal – though his 1991 album Can't Stop This Thing We Started – produced by Mutt Lange – did make him sound like Def Leppard. Bryan Adams was radio rock for the 80s. Other than "Heaven", it was guitar and drums, shouts and rasps, stops and starts. Hooky rock and roll. ...
2020-07-1425 minRockPopandRollEp. 8. The Great 8os Best Albums: Sports from Huey Lewis and The NewsSports isn't fancy. It's rock music played tightly and with enthusiasm by the band, recorded cleanly. The songs are first-listen friendly and held up after the set became a monster hit, spending more than a year all over Top 40 and rock radio. It ultimately ranks as one of the great pop-rock band albums of the 80s. Huey Lewis and The News earned themselves lots of hits singles, with a couple really good album tracks. It is bar band rock and roll with a shine, as they made a radio-ready album with really great harmonies, and big, fat sugar smack hoo...
2020-07-0621 minRockPopandRollEp. 7: Friday 45 - Tommy Conwell and The Young RumblersThis episode is "Friday 45" and features Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers. The band released Rumble in 1988, followed by Guitar Trouble in 1990. Conwell ended up in Philadelphia and The Hooters’ producer Rick Chertoff got Conwell and the Rumblers signed to Columbia and he produced “Rumble” After the band released their first album on their own “Walkin’ on the Water” in 1986, which was produced by Conwell and The Hooters’ bassist Andy King.
They had two radio hits in addition to the featured 45, with "If We Never Meet Again", and "I'm Seventeen". In 2019, Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers finally released a...
2020-06-2613 minRockPopandRollEp.6: Five Overlooked Minor Hits For Five Big 80s BandsThe thing – one of the things – I can't stand about classic rock radio stations, and why they have become unlistenable, is the playlist that has stagnated. It's not that the bands are at fault. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Foreigner, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Bob Seger, Journey, Pink Floyd – they all rock, right? But when the typical classic rock and roll station in the US plays the same 3 or 4 songs from each band and has played those same songs since 1990, how can you stop me from hating what the stations sound like?
My point of contention is the deep...
2020-06-1024 minRockPopandRollEp. 5: Five Hair Metal Songs and Bands That MatterDid Hair Metal change the world? Well, some of the songs and the bands were part of the continuum that is rock music. It was really a flash - a bomb of hairspray rock and roll that hung around for about five years.
We always like to offer a bit of an explanation. A Definition. A clarification of what we are searching for. What is Hair Metal? Pop Metal? Glam Metal? How is it different than hard rock? What makes it what it is?
Sugary background vocals. That 80s era snare drum - the gated reverb...
2020-05-3132 minRockPopandRollEp. 4: What is a Momentum Radio Hit? The Story of Four 80s BandsThis episode is a look at four bands that had a big hit and then tried to capitalize on it with something called a "momentum hit" in the 80s. Or at least most had the followup hit.
What's that even mean? Here's how we define it: Sometimes a band would have a hit single, getting significant radio play on rock or top 40 stations, and then follow it up with a song was usually not as good, but was still a hit, because the fans of that big hit single wanted more of that same sound.
S...
2020-05-2232 minRockPopandRollEp. 3: Friday 45: Tom Cochrane and Red Rider - "Big League"It's our Friday series that takes a look at, and a listen to, one great single of the 80s that deserves another spin.
There once was a band called Red Rider.
The lead singer, Tom Cochrane, joined that Canadian rock band in 1978 and served as their lead singer and main songwriter for more than ten years. He recorded six studio albums with Red Rider. By 1986, the band was billed as "Tom Cochrane & Red Rider".
It's a band never had a song in the Top 40 in the United States, although you might remember a rock...
2020-05-1610 minRockPopandRollEp. 2: Little Richard: Making Rock and RollIn this special presentation of RockPopand Roll, host Rob Nichols remembers the songs and what made Little Richard a legend – and architect – in the making of rock and roll.
Little Richard passed away at age 87 on May 9, 2020. Of all the patriarchs of rock and roll music, Little Richard may have been the most outrageous, had the most hits in the shortest period of time, and could arguably be ahead of Elvis in his early takeover of the rock and roll libido of millions rock and roll fans.
He was a screaming, inspired, piano playing black man ve...
2020-05-1221 minRockPopandRollEp.1: Five Forgotten Great Rock/Pop Songs of The 80'sWhile there are many great songs and music from the 1980s, there are lots of tunes that have gotten lost. Music that was a hit, yet still somehow slipped away from classic hits and classic rock radio stations. Some of the songs were big hits, and it is tough to fathom how they are not remembered better or talked about more, and some songs had a flash of notoriety and slipped away. In this episode, we revisit five of these songs, in our episode 1 podcast of FORGOTTEN GREATNESS- 5 SONGS OF THE 80’S on RockPopandRoll.
Host Rob Nichols fin...
2020-05-1225 minRockPopandRollRockPopandRoll (Trailer)A brand new podcast that takes a deep dive into the retro greatness of 1980's music and radio. The show is the intersection where rock music, pop music, power pop, guitars, drums, memorable tunes, and guilty pleasures come together. Join host, Rob Nichols, along with artists, writers, and friends as they dig into the music.
2020-05-0501 min