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Hear Monty Python strangle John Denver
04.17.2015
09:22 am
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Original pressings of Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album included a 15-second track called “Farewell to John Denver,” in which the late poet laureate of Colorado sings a line of “Annie’s Song” before he is strangled to death. In the Pythons’ defense, Denver begs in the lyrics: “let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms” (though he does not, as far as I can tell, come on Annie’s pillow).
 

 
The track was removed from the album when Denver sued the Pythons for unauthorized use of his song. Terry Jones replaced it with a stammering apology to the listener titled “Omitted on Legal Advice.”

The item which follows has been omitted on legal advice. Uh, once again we apologize for that pause in the record which was owing to the, uh, original item being omitted on legal advice. However, I’m pleased to say we can now go on with the record, so here we are with “Finland, Finland.”

In 1997, the year of Denver’s actual death, “Farewell” was restored on the reissue of Contractual Obligation Album. It also appears on the CD version of Instant Record Collection: The Pick of the Best of Some Recently Repeated Python Hits Again, Vol. 2.

Incidentally, though I’m not a fan of Denver’s music, I always thought he was a righteous dude for standing up to the PMRC.

Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.17.2015
09:22 am
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Charlie Rich declares war on John Denver and pop-country at the 1975 CMAs—or does he?
06.13.2014
11:40 am
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Charlie Rich and John Denver
 
Fans of rock music and hip-hop love to reminisce over aberrant behavior at awards ceremonies, whether it’s Jarvis Cocker cheekily interrupting a “messianic” Michael Jackson production number at the 1996 Brit Awards, Kanye West running roughshod over Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, or Ol’ Dirty Bastard upstaging Shawn Colvin at the 1998 Grammies with his insistent reminder that “Wu-Tang is for the children!”

One doesn’t associate such antics with the Country Music Awards, but when it comes to unscripted shows of disrespect, the CMAs may well boast the grandaddy of ‘em all. In 1975 Charlie Rich pulled a stunt so magnificently contemptuous, country music fans are still arguing over what Rich meant by it.

In order to appreciate the moment, a little background is in order. Like many musical genres—metal, punk, and rap come immediately to mind—country music has its perennial battles over who represents the heart of the genre, pitting the old-school likes of, say, Johnny Cash against those pop singers who represented the “sellout” impulse of watered-down country-lite in order to appeal to a much larger audience. During the mid-1970s country music was going through a civil war of sorts between the “authentic” core of the art form and the audience-ready pap that was threatening to dilute the genre’s identity. In 1974 Charlie Rich had won the CMA for “Entertainer of the Year”—nobody could argue with his country music bona fides—while “Female Vocalist of the Year” had gone to Olivia Newton-John, a figure about whom one could fairly argue whether she had anything to do with country music at all. Disgruntlement could be discerned in the farthest reaches country music industry. As “Trigger” at the Saving Country Music website states,
 

At the 1974 CMA Awards, a firestorm erupted when Olivia-Newton John was awarded the “Female Vocalist of the Year.” This created a backlash, including many traditional country stars met at the house of George Jones and Tammy Wynette and decided to form “ACE” or the Association of Country Entertainers to attempt to fight the influx of pop stars into the genre.

 
A year later, when it came time for Rich, as the reigning award-winner, to present the award to the 1975 Entertainer of the Year, he came fully prepared to make a strong point. Taking the stage after Glen Campbell’s intro, Rich, in his unsteady, slurred vocal patterns, betrayed signs of recent intoxication—it is said that Rich had been enjoying gin and tonics backstage. After reading aloud the nominees—John Denver (punctuated with a loooong deadpan pause), Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Ronnie Milsap, and Conway Twitty—Rich managed to peel apart the envelope. After glimpsing the name of the 1975 winner, Rich suavely produced a Zippo lighter from a pocket, set the card on fire, and, smirking, coolly intoned, “My friend, Mr. John Denver!” Poor Denver, whose cheerful visage was being piped in from distant Australia—yet another sign of his distance from the country music scene?—clearly had little way of knowing what had happened.
 
Charlie Rich
 
Wait—he set fire to the card?! When you watch the video, you can see no small defiance in Rich’s eyes, and the audience laughs at the gesture, as it will laugh at anything odd and unexpected. But what did Rich mean by it? At this point we get varying interpretations. The Country Music Hall of Fame has this to say about the incident:
 

At which point he pulled out his Zippo lighter and set fire to the card holding the name of his successor. Rich held the burning card up for the cameras on the nationally televised live show and smiled a big smile of triumph. The message to anyone watching seemed clear: in Rich’s eyes, a West Coast neo-folkie like John Denver, who had built his career on pop radio, was not welcome in country music.

 
As Rolling Stone points out, not everyone agrees that Rich was looking to make so strong a statement, in particular Rich’s own son:
 

Most people interpret the event as a protest against country music’s pop crossover (the CMA blacklisted him from future shows), but Rich’s son disagrees, blaming the incident on an accidental combination of prescription pain medication and a few too many gin and tonics: “Anybody that knows anything at all about the history of my father will know that it simply wasn’t in his mind set to judge someone for not being ‘country enough,’ ‘blues enough,’ rock enough’ or ‘anything enough.’”

 
Charlie Rich Jr.‘s lengthy and eloquent account can be found on his website—it’s well worth reading for anyone interested in the affair. He claims that his dad disliked the competition implied by doling out awards for art, was fond of Denver, never had a bad thing to say about any musician, and was on pain medication on the night of the show due to broken bones in his foot.

This defense is undercut by Rich’s own statement, at the start of his remarks, that the CMA in his hand is “the most beautiful thing in the world right here.” Personally, I think the gesture was partly a joke, partly the result of mixing meds and booze, and partly a sincere expression of annoyance at the notion of John Denver as a country music legend—it’s everything mixed up together. Rich may not have realized that the “statement” value of the gesture would tend to outweigh every other part of it, that observers would be eager to emphasize the anger inherent in it over every other impulse. For me, it remains a beautifully ambiguous gesture, combining both anger and whimsy, and is all the more resonant for being impossible to pin down. 
 

 
H/T The Little Lighthouse radio program

Posted by Martin Schneider
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06.13.2014
11:40 am
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Werner Erhard interviewed by John Denver on the ‘Tonight Show’ 1973
08.24.2011
07:24 pm
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Werner Erhard Training Seminars (est) were hugely popular in the 1970s. Erhard took elements of Zen Buddhism, Freud, Dale Carnegie and Scientology and incorporated them into a rigorous workshop program lasting several days, a kind of psychological bootcamp, the goal of which was to improve the participants’ lives.

Erhard, a former used car salesman, was an effective and charismatic pitchman for teachings that were not without merit. He took his cues from some of the best, including the venerable and entertaining Alan Watts.

I knew dozens of people who took the workshops and felt they were useful. Others felt they were a waste of time.

Erhard’s reputation was the subject of several smear campaigns that were later revealed to be based on false information. One in particular, a 60 Minutes report, was devastating to Erhard’s career and was later renounced by CBS, which aired it, as being built on a foundation of outright lies and rumors. Accusations of sexual abuse, incest, and physical abuse were found to have been fabrications.

The damage was done and Erhard’s training seminars never regained the level of popularity they enjoyed before the bad press. Allegedly, Scientology was behind some of the rumors that helped topple Erhard’s est empire. L. Ron Hubbard didn’t like the competition and his organization can be ruthless when it comes to destroying a perceived “enemy.”

The essentials of Erhard’s teachings were really nothing new, but they set the stage for the new age/self help scene that has permeated American pop spirituality for the past four decades. Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson and ‘The Secret” all owe a debt of gratitude to Werner Erhard for kneading the modern brain into a nice quivering blob of supplicant meat.

Mr. Rocky Mountain High interviews Werner Erhard on the the Tonight Show on September 24, 1973
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.24.2011
07:24 pm
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