Professor of Rock

I am heartbroken to hear the news about Bonnie Tyler’s passing. Bonnie died in a hospital in Portugal, where she was being treated for an illness, according to a statement, which was posted on her official social media channel. Bonnie was a force to be reckoned with, one of the distinct and emotional voices of the last 50 years. She will continue to blow the minds of listeners for the next 500 years with songs that are not only powerhouses of the last half century but standards of their times like Holding Out for a Hero, It’s a Heartache, and of course, the 80s classic Total Eclipse of the Heart. Today I wanted to share a show we did about 5 years ago, but we put in this one an uncut video of our story behind that perfect song. Rest In Peace, Bonnie. Thank you for the music.

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I was thinking the other day, it’s hard to believe that the year 1986 was 40 Years ago. Talk about a Phenomenal year for music. There were so many classic Hits that a lot of them missed out on hitting #1, but they deserved to be. Today we are going to fix that, as we take the time machine back and put it right, with 10 songs that are #1 in our hearts. Including the making of the Dream Academy classic Life in a Northern Town, mentored by one of rock’s greatest lyricists, and produced by a guitar legend, yet passed over by dozens of record labels who wanted NO part of it. Plus the futuristic 1986 song Silent Running that describes our day to a tee but got banned years later because it was deemed too dangerous for us to hear. What were they hiding? Plus the perfect song that was, unsurprisingly, a 1 hit wonder because no band in history could’ve followed it up. It was just too perfect. And Danger Zone that was turned down by half a dozen legends, so the producer, in a panic, called a singer in who was working in a studio close by and he laid it down and it became his biggest hit. And to think it was co-written by a guy who fixed the producer's brakes on his car. And finally the greatest song of all time, Level 42's Something About You, at least in my humble opinion.

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Today we cover a decade that produced some of the catchiest, most enduring songs ever recorded — tracks so deeply embedded in our psyches that you can hum them just by hearing their song titles… without even trying. We have a brand new show today about the most addictive songs ever. But these are the Songs we love having stuck in our head… and they have some incredible stories, including one legendary athlete who was so furious about being immortalized in Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson, one of the biggest songs of the decade, that he wanted to sue the songwriters for dragging his name through the mud. Then there’s the struggling songwriter who wrote a song in just a few minutes asjoke to himself a chuckle… in fact when he finished recording the demo he felt on the floor laughing because it was so dumb… the song, Wild Thing, was a code word for Sex and he was certain it would never get played... instead it became one of the biggest songs ever and it made him 10 grand a day for years but he blew it all gambling in vegas. Plus, we have the forgotten The Association, a band that 6 hits in 2 years and were competing with the Beatles during this peak, but they vanished forever. Decades later, three of those 6 hits were amongst the most played songs in history and still are, but nobody under 50 really knows this band’s name or knows they sang these massive hits. Let’s do it.

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Coming up, the story of the epic 70s rock track with so many dramatic subplots, it should’ve been made into a full feature bio-pic- like Bohemian Rhapsody or Walk the Line. Derek and the Dominos classic Layla The roots of Layla go back to the the writings of a romantic tragedy by a 12th century poet that was a foreshadowing to Romeo & Juliet. Hundreds of years later, an adaptation of his work found its way to an all-time legend…Eric Clapton... a man who stole his best friend George Harrison’s wife! and that’s just the start... of a song shrouded in murder, drug abuse, tragedy, and despair. The tangled web of one of the all-time greatest songs of the Rock Era is NEXT on Professor of Rock... and it’s a doozy.
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Today, we’re going back to the 70s for another helping of great TV theme songs. This time we’ve got some perfect themes that will take you back, including a gritty, action-packed cop show Starsky & Hutch, that was named as an “accessory to the crime” in a highly publicized court case… And because of public outcry, the show had to completely rework its theme song. In fact, the hit show changed its theme song every single season! Then on the other end of the spectrum, there’s a wholesome family sitcom, The Brady Bunch, with one of the most recognizable theme songs ever. But they had the cast sing it, and one of the main kids was so tone deaf they had to secretly MUTE his mic during the recording. He didn’t find out for decades. Plus, one of the actors on the show who was 15 at the time asked his 36-year-old TV mom out on a date. And she actually said yes… but you gotta hear the story. And then there’s the Saturday morning show Land of the Lost where they had to rewrite the theme song because the lead actor quit after a disagreement over a lunchbox. Let’s get started.

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