By Laura Smiley - Summit FM Sales Director

By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor

For three dates in February of 1963, Sam Cooke gathered up a group of musicians and held some late night recording sessions to make a record he really wanted to make.  Recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood, Cooke, brought in pianist Ray Johnson, lead guitarist Barney Kessel, bassists Cliff Hils and Clif White, drummers Hal Blaine and Ed Hall, René Hall on rhythm guitar and a 16 year old lad named Billy Preston on organ. This ensemble would record what many critics and fans regard as Cooke's finest hour, 'Night Beat.' 

History may have forgotten, but in his prime Sam Cooke was a major force to be respected at every turn. From the late 1950s onward, Cooke delivered a long run of hits including  'You Send Me,' 'Chain Gang,' 'Cupid,' 'Only Sixteen,' 'Another Saturday Night,' Twistin’ The Night Away,' and 'Havin’ A Party,' to rattle off a handful. His smooth and invitingly soulful voice struck a chord that crossed racial boundaries without a blink and would inspire singers across the board. Rod Stewart has often said he wanted to "be" Sam Cooke. 

The idea for 'Night Beat,' was simple, Sam would assemble a core group of players he knew and record a batch of songs he wanted to record, seemingly without any thought of hit singles, formula or pleasing anyone but himself. What got put down on tape those three days turned out to be pure soulful magic. Not that his prior catalog of records aren't great, but the addition of strings and other extras could, at times, distract from the main attraction, Cooke's beautiful voice. 'Night Beat' let's Cooke's vocal shine alone ni the spotlight. 

Some songs written by Cooke, others by a variety of writers, and all seamlessly fitting together and though not a 'concept album' as such, in a way, it is conceptual musically as it evokes the late night sessions with some of Cooke's purest vocals atop a hybrid of blues, soul and pop that allowed Sam's vocals to be front and center. 

In a Goldmine magazine feature, the legendary Al Kooper said, "Each song is like another moody painting always in the appropriate, tasteful frame," adding, "This is intimate Sam Cooke and his favorite musicians having some genuine fun in the studio, with obviously no eye toward ramming up the pop charts." The sessions were engineered bby RCA staffer David Hassinger, who would later make a name for himself working with the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and Frank Sinatra among others. 

The world weariness he puts forth on "Get Yourself Another Fool" is a lesson in how to put one's heart on the line in song while his take on Willie Dixon's 'Little Red Rooster' adds a gallon of soul the the blues classic, creating one of the most unique and powerful versions of the much loved blues standard. The album was released at the tail end of summer, 1963. In 2007, the Guardian included 'Night Beat' on its list of '1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die,' noting that Cooke always "brought a spiritual intensity to every cute mainstream confection he recorded, but his beautiful voice was never more mesmerizing than on this hushed and gracious album." 

Sam was very pleased with the way the record came out, and signs pointed to the possibility of doing another in this style, but that was not to be. Cooke was killed on December 11, 1964 at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles by the motel's manager, Bertha Franklin. The story behind that involved with Franklin and Cooke entwined in a heated argument in the motel office, and as the two struggled, Franklin grabbed a gun and shot him. 

Sam Cooke left behind a wonderful catalog of recordings from his early time with gospel group the Soul Stirrers on through is pop chart success, but arguably his purest recordings are found here, on 'Night Beat.' 

By Ryan Humbert - Summit FM Contributor

The Americana Music Association was formed in 1999, and since that time has helped American roots music assume an elevated and secure place in the artistic and commercial life of the nation. What began as an informal gathering of dedicated colleagues has grown into a movement endorsed by major media and iconic artists. The Recording Academy added the category of “Best Americana Album” in 2009, and Merriam-Webster included the musical term into the dictionary in 2011.

The Americana Music Association has not only been a refuge for artistry in a time of tumult for popular music, but as well, a resource for hundreds of upcoming artists, songwriters, musicians, and producers. Today, Americana is one of the best selling music genres according to Billboard’s Top 20 album charts - with artists like Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, The Civil Wars, The Lumineers and more, becoming the mainstream and not the exception.

The highlight of the associations' annual AmericanaFest (happening this week in Nashville, TN) is the Americana Music Awards, taking place at the historic Ryman Auditorium.

Here are the five songs nominated for "Song of the Year" at this year's awards. Enjoy!

Don't forget to tune into the Americana Roundup, every Sunday morning from 9 to 11AM on The Summit FM -- hosted by Ryan Humbert, lead singer of the Shootouts. For more information, visit AmericanaRoundup.com.

By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor

After parting ways with Genesis in 1975, vocalist Peter Gabriel anxiously set off on his own path. Many critics, and some fans, assumed the band would fail without Gabriel, but for most fans there wa a sense of excitement wondering what each camp would come up with. While time would show the grand commercial success of Genesis over the post-Gabriel years, it also shone a bright light on the artistic rise of Gabriel as a solo artist. 

With his debut album in 1977, Gabriel scored a modest hit with 'Solsbury Hill,' toured the world and proved he was not stuck in the past, adopting a new look and streamlined sound while showcasing many great songs. With album number 2 a year later, he continued on course expanding the parameters of 'pop' with such songs as 'On The Air' and 'D.I. Y.' This was 'Art Pop' for an era embracing many new sounds and in many circles turning its collective back on the past. Gabriel was one of a handful of the progressive rock brigade that was able to escape the wrath of the punk generation by showing his interest in new sounds and styles. 

Though he has had an incredible career, one that continues to this day, for many it is his third solo album which, like the first two, was titled simply 'Peter Gabriel,' that still stands as his greatest moment on record. Released in 1980, it had a very modern sound that has actually aged quite well. Produced by Steve Lillywhite, and engineered by Hugh Padgahm, this young duo had only recently been responsible for the album 'Drums And Wires' by XTC, a very modern sounding record with a unique drum sound.  

That drum sound, using 'gate reverb,' would go on to be exploited and become 'the' drum sound of the 1980s used on countless records including 'I Know There's Something Going On' by ex-Abba star Frida and most famously , Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight'. That approach can first be heard on the opening track of Gabriel's third, 'Intruder.' It is a powerful assault of sound. In addition, it was Gabriel's idea to have the drummers on the album forgo use of cymbals, thus presenting a clean and direct rhythm with no flourishes, a very unique approach. 

The album is full of amazing songs including 'And Through The Wire,' featuring guitar by the Jam's Paul Weller, 'I Don't Remember,' with Dave Gregory of XTC on guitar, and 'Biko,' the classic tale of South African activist Steven Biko. 'Games Without Frontiers,' was a Top 10 hit throughout Europe and Canada, but just failed to hit the US Top 40, though it is undisputedly one of Gabriel's classics and includes none other than Kate Bush on backing vocals. 

Since its release 43 years ago the album regularly shows up on various 'all time classics' or 'best of the 80s' lists. It is a seamless journey through Gabriel's artistic vision at the time that holds up incredibly well all these years later. It’s a rare case of an album that at once sounds like the era from which it came, and yet, there is something about it that still sounds modern, if not futuristic. A very unique slab indeed and we are happy to call it a Summit Essential. 

By Marc Lee Shannon - Summit FM Contributor

Wellness can be achieved by virtue of completing a journey and maintain a lifestyle. But it can also be magnified by our ability to appreciate and be thankful for the things that we already have! Summit Wellness continues to hum the melody of connection between feeling good and feeling grateful!  

Gratitude is a monthly feature contributed by Matt Anthony, Digital Media Producer and on-air host for the Summit FM. Matt reflects on instances where we might uncover more ways to appreciate what’s in front of us, and how those instances might contribute to our overall health and well-being. 

"Four Walls and a Roof"
By Matt Anthony - Summit FM Contributor

Our house is a very, very, very fine house 
With two cats in the yard 
Life used to be so hard 
Now everything is easy 'cause of you. 
“Our House” – Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young 

There was a night this past winter where I simply couldn’t sleep. This is rare for me, as I usually hit the REM-cycle as soon as my noggin hits the pillow.  (Donna jokes with me that my love-affair with my pillow is legendary. And I usually respond that if she weren’t in my life that I would probably propose to it. I love it that much.) 

But nothing was moving me towards la-la land. I thought of work. I thought of the past. I thought of the future. I even tried to hum a song, count sheep, even meditate from a horizontal position.  But my brain was moving in about 72 different directions. 

So, I inhaled deeply, and then I exhaled. And I tried to arrive at focusing on something for which I was grateful. And it suddenly occurred to me, wrapped up there in thick blankets, in a warm bedroom in the middle of an Alberta Clipper, lying next to the woman I adore and my head resting on the other love of my life: I have everything I need. 

“Just know you’re not alone 
‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home.” 
“Home” – Phillip Phillips 

I thought of homeless people. I thought of families that live together in large numbers, congregating in small, crowded rooms that they might be forced to share. I thought of someone who might be alone after the death of a loved one, the space in that bed now empty. I thought of someone lying awake, waiting for the headlights of a vehicle to pull up in the driveway. Maybe the driver is a long-haul trucker who has been on the road. Or maybe that person lying awake can’t sleep because the person coming home is a serial-abuser or someone with substance-use disorder. 

Our home, as a building, is far from perfect. This was my mother-in-law’s home. She had it built on the far east side of Akron. The realtor at the time told her, “You’ll have the best view of Akron”. And then three months later they built a 9-story apartment complex, a square, un-attractive behemoth that blocked that million-dollar view. 

The bedrooms are small. The floors need refurnished. It’s lodged in a working-class neighborhood where the crime-rate isn’t exceptional. And while moving into it 13 years ago from St. Louis, I kept muttering to myself that this house wouldn’t exactly qualify as my ‘dream-house’. 

“If we make it or we don’t we won’t be alone 
When I see your light shine I know I’m home.” 
“We’re Going Home” – Vance Joy 

But lying there in the warmth of that back bedroom, I suddenly became appreciative for the things that we did have. We don’t have granite countertops. But we have a corner-lot, a much-desired attribute for new homebuyers. We don’t have a ‘media center’. But we have a dry basement, one that can easily house my photography gear, my video set-up, and my audio recording-studio. And we don’t have the square-footage and the amenities that dominate every episode of HGTV. But we’re on a hill, therefore we stress a bit less about heavy rainfall. 

We also have a mortgage that is less than some pay for monthly for that new truck. 

Solid, old-school construction. Good bones. And on that frigid Tuesday night, with temperatures in the single-digits and descending? Warmth. The gratitude surrounded me and covered me like Grandma’s comforter. 

By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor

The Sex Pistols were a shooting star -- a momentary flash of lightning -- however you wish to analogize them. They appeared, exploded, imploded, and were gone. Obviously, the aftershocks have been felt ever since to varying degrees. Despite any cliché’s the band were wrapped in (assembled by management, media exploitation and somewhat manufactured angst) the world had never seen anything quite like them before and only copy cats since.

Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and John Lydon aka Rotten were cobbled together by manager/huckster Malcolm McLaren who initially saw this ragged lot as competition for the Bay City Rollers, at the time, the hottest teen sensation on the charts, so much so that he tried to mold them, in part, after the Scottish heart throbs..

“We chatted, and he asked me all sorts of questions about the Rollers, the image, the tartan, the fans, how we did our hair," recalled Rollers guitarist Stuart Wood in an interview with Rock & Roll Globe. "Eric (Faulkner, other Rollers guitarist) and myself had the spiky hair. We didn’t think it was such a big deal: Bowie had the spiky hair, it was just something you did back then. Eric would cut my hair and his own hair himself; we never had a professional do it. And it certainly looked like we cut it ourselves. Malcolm seemed interested in that.” 

From such simple origins to worldwide outrage over the Sex Pistols, especially in their native England, the band was doomed from the start. Ah yes, but what a lovely noise they made in that brief period of time. A handful of classic singles and one triumphant LP, and they were gone. Follwing the ill-fated American tour in 1978, Rotten quit/was forced out of, the band. There was talk, however brief, of Johnny joining Devo (also signed to Warner Brothers and also in their own highly original mode of rebellion. As interesting as that could have been, one meeting proved that to be a non-starter.

Left to his own devices, Rotten, now Lydon, decided to form a new band. That band would take the energy of the Pistols, mixed in with a more cerebral  stance, still defiant but less cliché perhaps, and change up the musical template to include all sorts of sounds from atmospheric guitar textures to ghosts of dub and reggae all set atop driving, circular rhythms. Public Image Ltd. was born.

When asked in a 1979 interview how he saw music changing in the 80s, Lydon replied, "Hopefully getting better, in that many attitudes will be accepted, not just one way. Punk became like facist. The pathetic conclusion of that movement was one load of a--holes were replaced by another load. Nothing was achieved"

Lydon recruited guitarist, and original Clash member Keith Levene, Jah Wobble on thundering bass, and Jim Walker on drums. Interesting side note, one of Levene's previous jobs was as a roadie for the band Yes. It was this line-up that would record their startling and dynamic debut sing in July of 1978. 'Public Image' b/w 'Cowboy Song' was released by Virgin Records in October of that year to unanimous glowing reviews. The band had succeeded on the goal of marrying the spirit and emphatic drive of the original punk sound with something truly other, and in the end, somewhat helping to invent 'post-punk' music. 

Bands like Magazine, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Wire, Joy Division and many more would all fall into that circle in some way or another as they all too from those punk roots and pushed and reshaped the boundaries that followed. The gut punching bass and brittle shinning guitars set the mood while Lydon's snarl is still intact, but delivered in a more unique way, with darker tone and, perhaps, a more focused and vitriolic anger. PIL could never have existed were it not for the Pistols, however, had the Pistols stayed together, there’s no way they would have ever arrived at the sound of PIL.

"I think 'Public Image' states the case absolutely clearly," Lydon told interviewer Damien Love in a 2018 interview. "I do love a sentence that tells you exactly what it is, although I can verbalize from time to time, but on certain songs, the more direct approach is better. I had somewhat of the feeling that I’d been dumped from the Pistols, and I wanted this thing to do much, much better than I’d ever done before, and I think I did that. In a weird way I was competing with myself."

Their debut LP, 'First Issue,' blew many a mind upon its release, and has continued to do so for decades. It combination of sounds and general approach has gone on to influence everyone from U2 to Arctic Monkeys and beyond. ‘First Issue’ was released that fall with their even more groundbreaking second release, 'Metal Box,' following one year later.

By Brad Savage - Summit FM Program Director

Our program "Cruisin' The Decades - 100 Years of Music" is truly a labour of love. It forces me to do a deep dive into music history and appreciation, every week. I have discovered so much amazing music from this program. I am incredibly tickled that it came back as the "favorite program" in our recent Summit FM Member Survey. The concept is clever and it's a fun journey through recorded music history... and my crazy record collection!

The "Global Edition" of the show is now heard on 39 stations worldwide. I never would have dreamed that The Summit FM would be creating useful and "sticky" content for other radio stations worldwide. That is an honor and a privilege for all of us. Just last week, I discovered that public radio outlet KEUL Radio ("Glacier City Radio") in Girdwood, Alaska began airing the show in June. They have been downloading it from a public media content-sharing website called "Audio Port" where I post the program each week. I didn't even know it, but the show airs at 7pm local time on Fridays there, and I'm already on their website. WHOA! You can find all the stations and broadcast times on the websitewww.cruisinthedecades.com

Here are some recent songs and discoveries from my listening experience with Cruisin' The Decades.

By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor

Americana is certainly a crowded field. It has come to represent everything from Alt. Country, to folk, to blues, to throwback rock and roll and seemingly every hybrid in between. At the core, however, is the song and the emotion. Those who can deliver that one-two punch of memorable songs soaked in genuine emotion are the ones who make their mark.

Very few have made their mark in recent years the way that Brandi Carlile has. Releasing her debut album back in 2005, she has made a large impact in the years that followed. Countless Grammy nominations and wins, rave reviews and a consistently growing fan base places Carlile in an ever brightening spotlight, album by album.

In 2018 she released her sixth album, 'By the Way, I Forgive You,' which rolled its way up to No. 5 on the Billboard charts, and nabbed a Grammy Award for 'Best Americana Album.' Meanwhile the song, 'The Joke,' took home a Grammy for 'Best American Roots Song.' 

Her main band, brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth once again prove her ideal musical match and the string arrangements were done by the legendary Paul Buckmaster, perhaps best known for his work with Elton John over the years.

Songs like 'Fulton County Jane Doe,' 'The Joke,' ‘The Mother,’ and the anthemic 'Hold Out Your Hand,' came off like instant classics. NPR called the album "the sound of an artist laying it all on the line," while Pitchfork declared, "this is her moment." 

Miss Brandi continues to inspire and entertain. Always a big favorite here on The Summit, we are very happy to showcase Brandi Carlile and 'By The Way, I Forgive You' as this week's Summit Album Essential.

Catch Brandi Carlile live at Blossom Music Center, Saturday, September 16th.

By Laura Smiley - Summit FM Sales Director