E194: Gene Sculatti on San Francisco + the Band's Garth Hudson R.I.P.

Rock's Backpages

In this episode, we invite the excellent Gene Sculatti to talk us through his career from Crawdaddy! magazine to the Atomic Cocktail radio show he still hosts at Luxuria Music.

Commencing in San Francisco in the summer of 1960 — when Gene first heard Dion's 'Lonely Teenager' — we ask our guest about his lifelong love of surf music and the Beach Boys. From there we jump to his mid-'60s radio show "Blues and Such", then on to the first stirrings of the Haight-Ashbury scene he captured in a landmark 1966 report for Crawdaddy! ... and later in San Francisco Nights, the classic 1985 book he co-wrote with the late Davin Seay.

Gene recalls his 1973 move to Los Angeles and his subsequent years as the editorial director of Warner Brothers Records in Burbank. We hear about the company's super-hip in-house publications Circular and Waxpaper, as well as about working under the legendary Derek Taylor. We also discuss his deep love of '80s dance-pop and his 1990 sleevenotes for Madonna's Immaculate Collection.

The episode with clips from a 2012 audio with The Band's sainted keyboard genius Garth Hudson, who was lost to us on 21st January, and finally with quotes from Mark's and Jasper's favourite new additions to the RBP library.

Pieces discussed: San Francisco Bay Rock, Mojo Navigator: Memories of Mojo, "Home Runs, No Bunts" — Solar Power On The Rise, Madonna: The Immaculate Collection, Barry Goldberg Interviews, Articles and Reviews, Barry Goldberg & Bob Dylan's Secret Gem, The World According to Garth Hudson, The Band's Garth Hudson audio, The Walker Brothers, Pop Eye: The New Jazz, Burt Bacharach, Derek Taylor, Sly & Robbie Come On Like Assassins, Wu-Tang Clan: One of These Men Is God, and Thundercat.