That March evening in 1956, Ed Sullivan slammed his fist on the mahogany desk at CBS Studios in New York City. I will not book that man on my show ever. His voice was ice cold final. The 54 yearear-old host of America’s most popular television show was talking about a 21-year-old singer from Mississippi…
As the war in the Pacific develops, the United States takes the fight to Japan itself – by crippling its economy, destroying its industry, and crushing civilian morale. To do this, American submarines and heavy bombers wage campaigns beneath the sea and above the clouds. And even 80 years later, there’s a …
Bobby Harrison was halfway through his demonstration on proper acoustic guitar setup when a voice from the back of the room interrupted him with quiet confidence. Excuse me, sir, but I think your saddle height might be causing intonation problems on the upper frets. What happened in the next 20 minutes would become the most…
Germany in the spring of 1945. American troops were gradually conquering the Third Reich. US Army cameramen were at the forefront of the fighting as the GIS advanced further into the country despite the fierce resistance of the Germans. Thousands of German soldiers were still dying for Hitler’s vision of world domination. After 12 years…
Intro He was an iconic singer and film actor. He was charismatic and talented, and literally shocked the world of music with a new sound. Thousands of American teenagers dreamed about his hairstyle. And other thousands envied his popularity among girls. Today we will talk about the “king of rock and…
It’s 7 am in the morning on June 4th, 1942. In the midst of the Pacific Ocean, Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi paces the bridge of the immense Japanese aircraft carrier, the Hiryū. Today he bears the great honor of commanding two aircraft carriers, the Hiryū and the Sōryū. Alongside two other carriers, the Akagi and Kaga,…
You hear his name and something settles in almost without you noticing it. Elvis. For most people, that’s enough to trigger a familiar image. A performance, a movement, maybe a clip they’ve seen more times than they can count. [music] It comes quickly, like something already prepared in the mind, ready to be replayed. But…
1965, a racist TV host publicly humiliated Bumpy Johnson on live television, calling him a savage in front of 3 million viewers. But Bumpy didn’t explode with rage. Instead, he smiled. And within 30 minutes, that host lost everything. his career, his family, his entire life. How did one calm man destroy another without throwing…
Nina Simone told Jimmyi Hendris to play piano as a joke. What he played left her in tears and changed everything. It was October 1967 and a small gathering was happening in a Greenwich Village apartment. The kind of gathering that only happened in New York in the late60s. Jazz musicians, rock guitarists, poets, and…
London 1969. A 72-year-old man named Albert Smokeoky Davis sat in the corner of the Blue Note Club playing guitar to a crowd that wasn’t listening. He had been a blues guitarist for 50 years, but time had forgotten him. Then he started playing a Jimmy Hendris song, not copying it, but playing it the…
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