Producer Joe Boyd presents And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain @ The Rivoli, April 13

Music producer & author Joe Boyd is launching the paperback edition of And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain at The Rivoli. 

Here's the scoop... 

Legendary music producer, writer and record label boss Joe Boyd is something of a Leonard Zelig of 20th century popular music. He was the production manager for the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric, managed European tours of Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Reverend Gary Davis and Coleman Hawkins,  ran the UK office of Elektra Records and started London's pioneering psychedelic club UFO, produced the first Pink Floyd single and discovered Nick Drake while also working with Cream, Soft Machine, The Move, Arthur Brown and John Martyn. He also signed the nascent Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band and put together the soundtracks for A Clockwork Orange and Deliverance which turned the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" into a surprise chart-topping hit 1973 and earned a Grammy for Eric Weissburg & Steve Mandell. All of that – in addition to working with Toots and the Maytals, Kate & Anna McGarrigle and R.E.M. while running Hannibal Records – he still found time to travel to travel across the planet while digging deep into the music and cultures that created it. 

Watching how the global audience for the music of Africa, India and Latin America grew and expanded, Boyd was taking notes when what came known as "world music" in the 80s became ubiquitous popular music with recordings like Paul Simon's multi-million selling Graceland album from 1986. And Boyd must've seen it coming. In fact, back in 1969 – before Fela Kuti and Tony Allen hit on Afrobeat – he'd recorded his own "township bop" experiments to update kwela music for an audience outside of South Africa with Dudu Pukwana, Chris MacGregor,  Mongezi Feza, Louis Moholo, Richard Thompson and members of Osibisa but he was unfortunately a little bit too ahead of the curve for it to be profitable (check out Dudu Pukwana & The Spears). Hey, timing is everything which Boyd knows as well as anyone having had to wait for a 1999 Volkswagen commercial for the rest of the world to recognize the magic in Nick Drake's music he'd spotted more than 30 years prior.  

Boyd's latest work, And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain (out in paperback April 1 via Ze Books) – which he half-jokingly calls "a history book disguised as a music book" – is the story of how this globalization of music happened told by someone with the uncanny ability to be in the right spot at the exactly the right time, the breadth of knowledge and historical perspective to connect the dots along with the knack for spinning a yarn to make for an engrossing read and a captivating talk. 

He'll present his findings in Toronto at The Rivoli on Sunday, April 13 from 2pm to 3:30pm (doors at 1 pm). General admission tickets are $18.50 (plus $1.50 service charge) available right here. Check out a few of Joe Boyd's recent interviews (including a discussion of global music for the Rock's Back Pages Podcast right here) followed by a list of upcoming dates on his reading tour below. 

That time "Spider" John Koerner took a rock 'n' roll detour

Minneapolis folk blues picker Spider John Koerner cut one rockin' single with Blues Project members issued by Elektra UK in '66.

Despite the initial opposition Bob Dylan faced from his folkie fans for exploring that heathen rock 'n' roll, the record buying public at large were much more welcoming of his decision to expand his horizons. The exponential increase in sales Dylan enjoyed didn't escape Elektra Records boss Jac Holzman who had a guitar-picking folk blues enthusiast of his own on the roster named Spider John Koerner which he thought might benefit from a similar bit of rock 'n' roll retooling. 

Dylan and Koerner actually had some history together back in Minnesota although you won't see any of it recreated in the recent Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown." The gregarious Koerner is credited as being the first musician Dylan met on the Minneapolis coffeehouse scene who took the aspiring young musician under his wing, schooling Bobby Zimmerman on the pre-war blues that helped shape Dylan's musical vision. Koerner also introduced Dylan to his Dinkytown pals, 12-string ace Dave "Snaker" Ray and harp blower Tony "Little Sun" Glover who would share local bills. Later, they would band together as Koerner, Ray and Glover and release a number of records both solo and as a group starting with Blues, Rags and Hollers in 1963. 

Although Koerner, Ray and Glover's releases sold well with the coffeehouse crowd and like minded musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, by 1966, the times were a changin' and the teen garage band explosion touched off by The Beatles and Rolling Stones was in full-effect. Holzman saw the writing on the wall and Koerner was dispatched to a New York recording studio with the Blues Project's guitarist Al Kooper & drummer Roy Blumenfeld along with future Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi deputized as his backing band. The rollicking results, "Won't You Give Me Some Love" and "Don't Stop" were coupled together as a single for Elektra which was released in the U.K. to coincide with Koerner's brief overseas tour. 

Unfortunately, due to the glut of similar sounding rave-ups at the time, Koerner's promising release failed to raise a ruckus with the Brits and was quickly forgotten. In fact, Elektra's man in London Joe Boyd – who typically has a remarkable facility to remember events which occurred five or six decades earlier in minute detail – had no recollection about about Koerner's lone Elektra UK single which wasn't issued in the U.S. or Canada at the time.

Writes Joe Boyd: "I remember Spider John's visit to the UK, but nothing about a single. I think there was an idea that Britain was more receptive to singles - that it would be good publicity to coincide with his UK tour. No point in releasing singles in the US of folk music unless it was far more commercial than Koerner's music." 

To be fair, when the single was in the works in 1966, Boyd had one foot out the door of the Elektra office, soon moving on to bigger and better things with the UFO Club, Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention and Nick Drake. He's a great storyteller and you should definitely read  his excellent memoir White Bicycles: Making Music In The 1960s and check out his latest book, And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain which he'll be launching in Canada at The Rivoli (334 Queen St. West) on April 13. 

Since Koerner sadly passed away in 2024 – and the bassist on the session Felix Pappalardi was shot dead by his wife, Gail Collins in 1983 – any attempt to glean more information about the recording from the original participants has been made that much more difficult. There was a chance that Blues Project drummer, Roy Blumenfeld might be able to fill in some of the details about how the recording initially came together... but maybe not.  

When I mentioned the Elektra UK single to Blumenfeld, he responded: "That was quite awhile ago. I kind of remember the session, but I don't recall where or much about the recording. Spider John must have been playing at the Gaslight Cafe or the Cafe Au Go Go. Felix was backing up different folk artists and producing Cream before he played bass with the band Mountain. That's possibly when the session was created. That's about all I remember."

For now, the story behind "Spider" John Koerner's elusive Elektra UK single will remain a mystery. Both sides of the single were compiled on the "Spider John" LP issued in a limited edtion of 500 copies by the Nero's Neptune label available via Forced Exposure right here. 

If Jac Holzman, Al Kooper or anyone else who has some pertinent information about the recording they'd care to share, feel free to drop me a line here or on Facebook. In the meantime, you can listen to the enjoyable top side "Won't You Give Me Some Love" followed by some Spider John interview clips and a few performances.    

Joe Boyd chats about his new book, Little Richard and more

Producer Joe Boyd's new book And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain traces the origins of popular music which he discusses below.

Here's the scoop...

Legendary producer and record label boss Joe Boyd has spent a lifetime travelling the globe and immersing himself in music. He has witnessed first-hand the growing popularity of music from Africa, India, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe since the 1960s and was one of the protagonists of the 'world music' movement of the 1980s. 

In this sweeping history, Boyd sets out to explore the fascinating backstories to these sounds and documents a decade of encounters with the most extraordinary musicians and producers who have altered the course of music for us all. 

And the Roots of Rhythm Remain shows how personalities, events and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio are as colourful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. 

"I doubt I'll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one." – Brian Eno

"Profound and beyond." – Robert Plant

"'One only hopes that this will be taught in schools." – Ry Cooder

Joe Boyd's "And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain" will be on shelves in Canada on October 4th. You can pre-order it via Amazon right here but try to get it from your local bookseller instead.