Go back

The Electric Flag: A Long Time Comin' with guest Richard Foos, founder of Rhino Records

39m 25s

The Electric Flag: A Long Time Comin' with guest Richard Foos, founder of Rhino Records

Richard Fuz, co-founder of Rhino Records and Shout Factory, shares the story of The Electric Flag’s 1967 album, a pioneering fusion of Chicago blues, San Francisco psychedelia, and roots music that was dismissed at the time but is now celebrated as a groundbreaking work. He reveals how the album’s eclectic sound—blending influences from Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, and Paul Butterfield—created a rare moment of musical unity, with deep historical threads linking it to artists like Bob Dylan and Curtis Mayfield. Despite being non-commercial and critically panned, the album’s raw energy and originality have earned it a cult status. Fuz credits the music industry’s neglect of back catalogs to a flawed record business model that prioritized hits over legacy. His work at Rhino pioneered the modern reissue movement, emphasizing authenticity and completeness, while Shout Factory extended this mission to restore original music in documentaries. He also shares that despite efforts, rights were never secured for major performances like the US Festival, where bands such as Bowie and the Kinks played. Reflecting on his current work, Fuz now focuses on non-profits promoting music education and empathy through creativity, and is developing a podcast on protest music’s evolution from 1920s union songs to modern rap. He ultimately believes music has a spiritual and healing power, capable of uniting people and transforming society—offering a hopeful vision for how music can shape a better world.

Transcription

6477 Words, 33888 Characters

English
Hello and welcome to Music Rewind, a podcast where we look to tell the stories behind our favorite albums. I'm your host Steve Eppley and in each episode we invite a guest on to tell us about their favorite music album, how they discovered it and what makes it special to them. Joining me tonight is the godfather of reissue culture himself, co-founder of Rhino Records and Shout Factory, Richard Fuz, a lifelong record obsessive, Richard spent decades doing with the entire entertainment industry told him was a fool's errand, digging through the archives, rescuing forgotten music, and betting that the world wasn't done with the past. And tonight he's brought one of the greatest records you've probably never heard to the table. Welcome Richard and thank you for being on the show. No, my pleasure and what a great intro, thank you. One of the easier ones to write, you've had a fantastic career and I can't wait to talk about it. But first, let's jump right into this, what album did you bring to the table and what makes it special to you? What was so amazing about it is it synthesized every great form of music that I know knew into something new and different and better. I don't think it's ever been, I think it was in accident, I think it's ever been duplicated. They only had one legitimate album and they broke up. They did reform for one album about six, seven years later that was not very good. So it's just this magic moment that I think anybody who listens to it will agree. How did you discover this album? In those days 1967, there wasn't like there were all that many albums coming out. If something good came out somehow through the grapevine, it wasn't like hundreds of great albums. So I remember going to college in '67 and I had already had the album and all the people who I liked, their music case had the album. We just, you know, from different parts of the country and whatever, it just, I don't know, it's somehow. I can only imagine with all the music that was dropping at the time and then about to hit the world. Because right now you've done something that I don't think any guest has done before. I've spent many years now with my head deep into the music history rabbit hole and somehow out of nowhere, you introduced me to a new top five album. Okay. This was a complete first listen for me. I had no idea it existed and I generally enjoyed it from start to finish. It was fantastic. Oh, great. I'm so glad. You know, because so many people I meet from that era agree with me that it was an incredible album. The next generation, I've never turned anybody on to it. So it's great to know that. Yeah. I went in blind. I had no idea what I was about to hear and it was just all over the place and I loved it because it was like the meters meets buddy guy meets the holding company meets blood sweat and tears. I'm like, this is yeah, you're right. It's fantastic. You're right. It has some blood sweat and tears and two it before blood sweat. I think the first blood sweat and tears album came out right about the same time and that's another top 10 album for me. They didn't have it. There were no hits on that record. And Al Cooper, the founder left and David Clayton Thomas came in and they had gigantic hits. But I don't think it even compared to that that first album, which I put in the top 10, but not as good as let your flag on. And you must have heard you like a flag had Mike Bloomfield, right? There was a guitarist and you know, buddy Miles who had some hits on his own and own buddy Miles was part of a bandage of series with, he would join Hendrix and yeah. And that was the other side of the album that made it gave me a lot of enjoyment was pulling on the threads. Because once I listened to it, you know, I had to look at the history of it, the creation and you start pulling on those threads and you know, right off the bat, you know, you got say Mike Bloomfield and you knew he came from Paul Butterfield. But then you find out that he was actually he played with Bob Dylan with Al Cooper. Right. And yeah, I never even thought about that's where the two bands sort of originated. And then they come back together and supress the two rivers. Yeah, that's true. Right. So it was like all these fantastic threads and then you had Mama cast on one blind and then you had say buddy Miles goes on to do like you mentioned with the band of gypsies. Right. And then the other guy was part of big brother in the holding company that came out of nowhere. The Nick Gravenites or I'm not sure how you pronounce his name. Nick Gravenites. Yeah. And he wrote the song board in Chicago that was Paul Butterfield's signature song. The classic rock is a small town to me. There's just everybody seems to have played with everybody else and there's so much influence in behind the scenes, I love pulling on those threads and this particular band fascinating in that not just where they came from, but they all went on to do amazing things and play with amazing people from like Curtis Mayfield to Bob Dylan again and does another thing. So it's quite amazing. Right. Still don't know how this went under my radar. Oh, it's just one out. It was not a hit. It got panned. I couldn't believe loved the album so much, you know, I picked a Brawling Stone or Kramer. I was reading all those music and periodicals and they were slam the album, Derivative. Derivative, I don't forget what they said about it. I never saw a good review of it. And unfortunately, a lot of those bands, if you didn't get super star in them, they break apart and certainly drugs had a lot to do with it. Yeah. We definitely tell there's some influence behind the scenes on some of these songs. You'd like to find, even though the core members were from Chicago, by the time they did the album, they were living in San Francisco. We did a doc about it about these guys called Born in Chicago and there's interviews in there with Jerk Garcia, Bob Weir, some of the airplay saying that these guys, when they came to San Francisco, they taught them how to be a band. That we were just like Ragtag, Garage Band and they taught us about how you put together a set. Performing, we have a video of Mike Lungfield showing Jerk Garcia various licks and that's awesome. Yeah. They somehow went from Chicago and then they played, they backed up, dealing with a new part, moved to San Francisco and that's where the flag formed. But they were deep into the maybe good and bad influence by the best and worst parts of Haydashbury at the time and lots of issues and Mike Bluefield unfortunately, such a great stars, that young. Yeah, early 80s, I believe. You mentioned San Francisco and this definitely has a lot of San Francisco feel to it, but it's also a fantastic representation of kind of American music at the time. Exactly. It doesn't just stay there. It's like they took Chicago, Austin and New Orleans and brought them to San Francisco and threw it all into a pot. Yeah, with maybe a little bit of Memphis because you have the soul horns on it. Yes. Yes. That's what made it so incredible. It's a, it took every form of roots music, synthesize it and it's something better. And even as the first time I heard the song "Killing Floor" at which, you know, it was a standard, you know, Hall and Wolf's, Hall and Wolf's song, but so many people covered it, but if you listen to their arrangement, it's just, it's great blues, but it rocks. Like, as much as anything you'd ever hear. Yeah, I would not have known that was the Hall and Wolf's song. Yeah. I hear in this version that absolutely no way. But there's several tracks on here that, if I heard them just individually and not in the album, I would have said, "That's Otis Redding. That's Professor Longhair. That's Blood Sweat and Tears. I would not have known any of this. They sound so unique, but together." You know what? Absolutely. The love of them had been playing together forever, like Barry Goldberg and Mike Bloomfield, I think, met in high school. Oh wow. They all sort of went to the, they were, you know, from the north side of Chicago, many of them. And they traveled to the south side and they met Hall and Wolf and money waters, and it was a little love affair. They were like adopted. All these guys were very alienated from their parents and families, living in suburban Chicago, and now they're, they get, have a new family. How do you listen to the album? Like when you put it on, do you bounce around or do you go front to back, like walk me through how you listen to the album? I like the first side, a lot better the second side. So I think the last, another country is like eight minutes, and I don't like it. Oh, that was my favorite on the album. Okay That's kind of psychedelic so I don't and then Texas is on the seconds. I'm doing all this from memory and that's good, but it's just had a standard blues Every song is amazing to me on the first side So I would just listen to the whole side and then occasionally Let's flip it over that another country one it was definitely all over the place and it was it stays like eight minutes long I enjoyed it because I love a good jam band not too long ago I actually did a review of the velvet underground in Niko and it was the first time I listened to it all the way through with a critical ear and I didn't enjoy it at all It was a lot of noise to me and I was like I'm either either I'm getting old or or I just you know Didn't put myself in the mindset of that time in that place the dirty underground in New York What that one another country? That's more my jam. There's four or five times where really great bands went a little too far And we put a one song on the whole second side. So the stones did going home and Probably almost equal to a long time coming was the love album not forever changes the one before the copo Because all right. It's like a perfect. There's the six songs on side A are beyond everyone's just beyond a masterpiece to be But the B side is one and 18 minutes on Let's just try make probably just turn they just said, okay, everybody free form It's just a record. Yeah, yeah, we'll use the rest of our studio time. Just a record. Yeah, so but you're right another country's only Eight minutes. So it's a little more contained right after he had easy writer. It is like let under a minute Like that's it, but oh here was every review I read we're saying the only great song on the album is easy writer And what I think it's like 40 seconds and that should have been like three minutes or four met me I wasn't done a full song I Mean I agree with that and that it could have been a much longer song, but I I far from the best on the album. I agree Yeah, I think it's perfect as a fade out, but it's just kind of a standard blues Yeah, every single track has a bit of uniqueness with that San Francisco tinge to it But like the Texas is definitely like you mentioned straight blues. That's the one. I said it kind of feels like Austin to me. Right so good. Yeah But then wine was interesting that's an extremely unique song in itself And that's the one that to me. I would have said it was professor long hair out of New Orleans. Oh, wow It might have been richer than in New Orleans. It started out as I don't know how far he can trace it back But it was on Atlantic in the 40s lake 40s Called drinking wine Spodiodi. Can't remember the name of the thick Spiggy sick. Oh, you know, okay, you know But what thing you listen to there at um there's two songs you can just see on the internet the electric flag did it in Monterey One of them is wine and luckily in getting to be yeah, I became pretty close friends with Barry Goldberg And we did that movie together born in Chicago So I got all these back stories, but he said that you know at Monterey Mike Lumpield was on speed Oh, no, so they start wine and he's playing it like three times as fast as so the record's already passed so it's amazing to Watch it, you know, it's in color from Monterey. So it's here you shake it out and listeners should check it out I will I absolutely might be the only finished live performance was for the band I can only imagine the the backstage stories from that era. Yes Yeah, how anyone made it out Right and electric flag barely did so this album is kind of panned at the time and I assume it's got kind of a cult status these days. Is that something that that kind of like influenced you To start recording or you know archiving some of these older albums What we found out when we had our record store basically the philosophy of the record Industry was only hit cell only what's new cells and everything else is old and Had a junk after it stopped selling. It's not good to sell again. Even when I got to we were distributed by a capital records in the late 80s You know, they had a formula that if something a hit record starts only selling X copies a month It goes out of print. It's not worth keeping and you know the major labels didn't have a division that thought about Reissuing anything. So the only things that were still in print that were more than a year You're over you know Led Zeppelin Beatles. There's probably Dylan albums that were out of print at the record store. We could see what You know that there was interest in these older artists and uh, but so much it was out of print We were doing you know records for five and we were writing our own novelty records and finding out some Punk records from bands we liked but we saw like what we were loved the most was Reissuing records and what really was very frustrating for when we were buying records in the 60s. Let's say The kinks right a band like the kinks as they can the record companies would put out a greatest hits album and then Individually what happened is the band has three or four more hits and then they break up Well, they never go back and put out another greatest hits album So to the extent that that album is still in print And even if it isn't There's no definitive kinks you know greatest hits album or any you can name any group the turtles whatever So even if somehow there was a greatest hits album by an artist It was never done right and it was never complete complete or done with any Thought of other than the bands hits what are the other best songs that you'll go on the record and that's how we founded Rhino or genres Same where genre is no when you guys first opened the record store Was there anything originally beyond the vision of just I want to be around records all day like I'm just gonna open up a record store like do you guys have any thoughts ahead of time or was the goal just originally the store Just a store. I you know, I'm a kid coming out of college In the 60s not knowing what I want to do and run his $50 a month and I just got to make a living doing something and You know, I thought I could pedal records and make enough money just the there was no use record store Serving UCLA in Westwood village or anywhere near it anywhere on the west side. That's surprising Yeah, yeah, so I thought wow, that's this is where I should be And I was living on the west side But what I didn't realize was no one at UCLA had a car and it was you know far enough away you couldn't walk So we never really got got any UCLA customers And even by that time it's 74 You know, the UCLA students aren't really alternative there. There's a couple record stores in the village. I could walk to them That's where they were going. They're buying BG's albums and whatever you know So when did the store become the label? There was a slow process and store up in an end of 73 Maybe 75 we put out a well the the first records pretty interesting because have you ever heard of a Streetsinger name wildman Fisherer. I have not he was a street person That in the 60s he'd hug out in the sunset strip and he go up to you and say want to hear a song for a quarter and And if she said yes, he would make up a song and say And he was discovered by Frank Zappa and Somehow even though it was all acapella Zappa decided and this might have been the first double album that you couldn't contain wildman on And the songs were like a minute. So anyway, wildman the album didn't sell Wildman a double album and all the songs for about a minute. Yeah or two. They're probably 50 songs on it Jesus because he was just making up these diddies on the spot So you know, it's just three or four years after the record came out he would come hang out on our store In most places they kick them out, we idolize them and everybody who worked in the store had bought the album This is an album that might as old seven or eight thousand copies worldwide But we had all that's was our taste that we had all bought the album The personal store were exactly like high fidelity if you saw that moving Yeah, it's a favorite of many of the music rewind Regular as we talked and we joke about that movie all the time and I swear we had somebody who's still a close friend And later went on to be General Manager Warren Bros. Records who was a spitting image of Jack Black and it's do the same things and mock people's musical taste right and heaven forbid and it was very eclectic So we all hated the grateful debt for no reason other than everybody else like them So we'd make fun of you if you were a dead head and came in the store and wanted a grateful debt We'd make fun of you for no and heaven forbid if you if you came in and wanted something like captain to Neil or how I'm ready You're I felt sorry for anybody come in and asking for that. So Anyway, Wildman Fisher would hang out of the store We decided we're gonna press a 45 to give away a theme song and press it on 45 to give it away to customers So he went into the back room. We had a cheap Panasonic cassette recorder Recorded he made up a theme song we pressed it Go to Rhino Records on Westwood Boulevard They have nice people there. They'll show you where the records are Where are the records? They're over there. They're all over the place Go to Rhino Records on Westwood Boulevard Go to Rhino Records on Westwood Boulevard You can get her malburn and jacky low backs for 40 cents Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da The manager's store my eventual partner was a rock writer and he knew John Peel, the DJ, the number one DJ and Lennon, and Senator John Peel who started playing it and it made his top 50 for the year and Virgin Records was just starting and they ordered a thousand copies so we had to go in the business We had only met to give the records away free and then from there we started doing our own novelty songs We started doing some punkless starting and I said well we like the best was re-issuing the great music of the past that was out of print most of it was out of print How did you then shift to it because you guys kind of invented the box set as it's known today in that the gathering the great reissues had you have to like jump through hoops to get the rights or to get masters or to like how did you make all that happen originally Well the record companies would have these licensing divisions so we could go to the record company you always have to give an advance usually five or ten thousand unit advance okay and you'd get a non-exclusive rights to virtually any hits on that maybe not Beatles or Dylan or the who but anybody under that so we could do compilations and if there was an artist that they didn't have in in print they would often let us give us the rights so one of the first reissues we did was James Brown greatest hits there was if you can believe that this is let's say 78 79 there wasn't one James Brown record in print except for his latest album and that wasn't selling there's new records weren't selling so there was nothing you could buy unless you could find it in a used record store and I don't think there'd ever been a James Brown greatest hits done so maybe there'd be one or two hits on each album if you could find it so we put out a James Brown greatest hits sold the best selling reissue we ever had and then about 80 283 CDs became bigger than albums and we got the rights on CDs sold hundreds of thousands of James James Brown that was getting rediscovered by punk and new wave artists so he's as a renaissance and eventually universal music saw how much it was selling and they took the rights back you know as other artists they were able to put out a great sits sold hundreds without was the village people because village people had all their hits then disco ends and everybody hates disco for a couple years all their music goes out of print but the record companies it took them many many years till they realized hey there's a business and we have this great catalog and we can do a lot of business it and like Sony didn't start a reissue division till Sony legacy 1990 if you can believe that so did you ever have any moments where do you'd like go to an artist or to their estate and you'd like offering out what we want to do a reissue of your work and they were you know surprised or grateful or even indifferent like no yeah many people said said screw off or we're only into new we don't care about our our back catalog or a few artists said if you a license it to you but I want to redo it and we would never do that you said I couldn't play back then those records are lousy I want to do the purpose new versions of it so they didn't get it that uh so we had a few of that but you know artists were usually really great pull because if they weren't having hits anymore at their record label we cared about that so we became friendly with them and they realized they had a home of people who appreciate what they did was going to reissue their music so it sounded and looked better than ever before so they were very appreciative nowadays with online streaming libraries the vinyl resurgence you know that that happens every three to five years of vinyl resurgence and but the back catalogs are largely outselling new music today you know and a lot of that can be traced back to what you guys were doing yeah how do you feel about that that feels right I've heard now that 80% of music listed too whether it's bought physically or listen online it is a catalog and when we were probably first started it might have been 10 to 20% and probably by the time we sold Rhino it might be been 50-50 it's great because obviously everybody likes the music of the era they grew up on she should have done left me alone you went from Rhino then to shout factory which you know they've doing a lot of documentaries and stuff how was that transition you know we had sold to warners in 2000 Rhino still exists and is probably better than ever I've stuck into a another vinyl podcast who said Rhino set the standard for modern reissues Rhino high five so they're still doing great stuff but you know we left and I still wanted to do what I love doing but the music business was starting to crash so we went into a film and video but we did a lot of what I'm most proud of is we did similar we rescued out of print Jones and TV shows that many were couldn't be cleared in those days it was just DVD and a lot of things couldn't come out on DVD because they were so music lading that the original producers and studios hadn't cleared for DVD which maybe wasn't even a business when the show came out and it is jarring when you watch a DVD of one of your favorite shows and just the music isn't the same as you remember yeah a lot of people did replace me oh yeah so the show is all about the music right and amazing because they use the original music and then they put it on DVD and they do fake reclaced music which pretty much ruins ruins the show so when the first show we put out was Freaks and Gakes which has some like 60 major hit songs we cleared every single one of them we did this with Jud Apto and even to the point we had one Van Halen song that we couldn't clear and Van Halen held us up for some unbelievable large amount of money you know insane and Jud Apto he does a benefit every month for some organizations that I'm doing a benefit to pay for this month to pay for the transfer and we did and we gave him and Van Halen was donating all the money to their I think of to a great charity if there's Mr. Holland's Opus so it was all good but that's how Jud would not allow and we didn't want to put it out without a hundred percent of the original music if you ever watch the TV show Supernatural it's a prime example of great music in a series you know it's almost all classic rock laden stuff but if you watch it on the streamers season one has all generic replacement music and it's bad it's such a shame because they still could have made a lot of money yeah at B they would have made more money if they were if it was royally based and that buyouts people would have streamed or bought the DVD more because it had the original music and it was so like that the music was a character in itself because it was part of the character backstories so it was very out of place with these generic tracks season two cuts in with Boston at the very beginning like oh okay now it's changed right in actual Boston oh they actually did put the boss yeah from season two through the end they fixed it okay but season one is just an outlier of yeah what they're getting started about the the short-sightedness of the record company and the publishers and on this one. Well, one question I have for you is what's one that got away from you? You were never able to actually get a reissue whether that's an album, a band, or a movie like whether that's rights or anything. We got the rights to the US festival. Oh. We still have the rights we've never been able to clear like clash, I guess it was their final and some people say best performance. When we actually licensed from the clash, a clash documentary, but they went and let us license the performance because they thought they sucked. Oh, that's a shame, that's a famous moment in time. Yeah, the US festival is fascinating because there was just unbelievable, they got the greatest bands from still playing it from the '60s, the '80s, Bowie, the Kinks, just amazing bands. And as we would go to clear it, the class short, the only one who hated their performance. And Steve Wozniak did it as this is going to be Woodstock on steroids and it's going to bring the world together, we're going to show how music and computing brings the world and everybody, the bands, somehow has hated it, they were ripping Wozniak off, there's all kinds of crazy stories and I think he got this heartened by it. So we actually bought the catalog, all the footage from Wozniak, but he had no rights. So over the years, we've cleared a few like, of a lesser group, we got wowing Jennings, Wowie Nelson, quiet riot. Is all of that available audio wise, just not video? No, not audio either, I'm sure you can find it on the internet. A lot of it was on Showtime, very early Showtime, broadcast 9 or 10 out. So I think it's all over the internet from people who like taped it from Showtime, so bad quality, most artists you can probably find even the clash and we don't take it down. So it's up there for free, a lot of it on YouTube, but that's a crazy thing. And if we tried to clear it, even if they would let us, they'd want lots of money, the publishers would want lots of money, whereas it's going to be out there anyway. Still to this day, there's numerous websites that have virtually every live recording. Ever made, whether it was somebody with a tape recorder, and still to this day, it's trying to get the record companies to advance to see the value in monetizing all these live recordings. I think there's some that are coming around to it. Pink Floyd is one that's starting to monetize their old bootlegs, that's saying a lot of that lately. Yeah. And obviously Dylan has done what, 18 volumes of the bootleg series. That's also true. We first, at Rhino, we worked a little bit with Frank Zappa, and he was the best visionary on that. And we did these box sets called bootleg, the bootleggers. So we would do exact reissues of the bootlegs. A friend of mine sent me an article the other day of a guy who was, for years, he was going to concerts with a microphone in the wheelchair. His name was Mike the Mike. And he had like 10,000 recordings, and he started selling them. He's got his pictures of them, a library of bootleg concerts. Would he press them or he'd sell the tapes or? Yeah, I think he pressed them into CDs. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. This is full on bootleg industry. It apparently is pretty good quality. Yeah. All right. How has that transitioned into your endeavors today? What's next for you? What's on your plate? I pretty much slowly and over the years have transitioned to doing non-profit work. I have done a lot with trying to get music in schools, with a board chair of an organization called Little Kids Rock, a number of years. But lately I've transitioned to a board chair of a non-profit called the Narrative Method that was founded by my wife who was a former punk rock singer and then went on to become a therapist and it's Solans, mostly on Zoom, where people share their creativity and kind of come together around their learn empathy and friendship and come together around creativity, writing. That's good. I like that. Yeah. So I work on that and a number of other non-profits. And then I'm working on a podcast called We Think Called Sound Effects and that's going to be taking important historical moments or movements in music and showing their progression and how they're affecting us today in an important way. That's right. When you look at a release, probably a few months away just starting on the first. So we're going to probably do something on protest rock starting with like union songs in the 1920s and how that morphed into topical folk songs and to protest music as a 16 years into rap and so on. As a one-off self-plug here, I'm going to recommend an episode of this show from last season called Songs of the Revolution, where we had a. Oh, I saw that. It seemed like it was of the American Revolution, right? My guest was a friend of mine, Anthony, and he brought on an album called Songs of the Revolution by Diane Torres and it's all colonial music from colonial era America where both American and British and the songs they were singing in the streets and in the taverns and in the military. So fascinating conversation in the music is really interesting. Wow. From a protest perspective, like you mentioned, you know, they protested in a quite a different way. And something like Yankee Joodle started out like it was a British song, right? You find it in the American making finance, whatever. And that was something that both sides did where they would take a melody and they would both put different lyrics on it, both taking, you know, almost like a rap battle of the day. So it's fascinating. One question before we start to wrap up, a long time coming, made the top of your list. What's on your short list? What are, you know, three to five albums that you could have talked about today? The first blood sweat in tears, childless father or a man, loved the copo. Many early odysredding albums and Bill Whither's first album. Oh, Bill Whither's. Here you go. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Anything else you want to mention regarding your, you know, future projects or what's down the road for you? One thing I've been thinking a lot about is somebody once mentioned music to me recently. Music is a religion. Is there a chance that music could heal? Kill the world, heal us, bring us all together. If a lot of smart people, I think if you just made this little tidy shift and said, for all of us who love music, here's how we think about the world and here's what we're going to do to heal the world and could that happen? That's why I dream. It's a beautiful thought and I hope it comes true. Thank you. Richard, I want to thank you for being on music rewind. This was wonderful conversation and I really do appreciate your time. Thank you. Great. I've never talked about a long time coming for probably more than five minutes. So that was great. I love rediscovering old albums. It gives people a chance to, you know, be a fan again and just talk about an album they love. That's why we're here. Right. So the last thing, yesterday I found so many people love a group that everybody's discovered and I didn't like their one concept album enough to put it on the list. But the zombies, you know, it's like a favorite of my kids and their friends and whatnot. Anyway, so I yesterday, you know, their second big hit was Teller No. I found on the internet a recording of it from 1968 by this band called Smith that had a hit with the Birkback Rack song that the Beatles cover, Baby It's You. That was a big hit. But then the follow-up was The Zombies Teller No. It's absolutely amazing, I would urge you and your listeners to listen to it. And if you tell you with his jaw Teller No, Teller No, Teller No, Teller No, Teller No. That was such a fascinating time when people were all doing each other's songs like that. Yeah. Yeah. Same when they weren't just doing covers. They were putting new arrangements in. Yeah. You really, I mean, like the, you know, Mr. Tamberine, man. Some people may know it as a Dylan song. Some people may know it as the birds. Right. You know, it's two completely different versions of my opinion, but right at the same time. Sure. Classic Rock is a small town. Yeah. I love it. Thank you for listening to this episode of Music Reward. As always, we appreciate a ready-gen review wherever you listen and go to musicrewindpodcast.com for information on the show, more extras, and future episodes. So as I always say, listen to the full hour. Until next time.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Richard Fuz introduced a rare and groundbreaking 1967 album by The Electric Flag, which blends Chicago blues, San Francisco psychedelia, and roots music into a unique, influential sound.
  2. The album was overlooked and panned at the time due to its lack of commercial hits and the era’s negative reception of experimental music, but it is now recognized as a masterpiece with deep interconnecting musical histories.
  3. Fuz’s work at Rhino Records and Shout Factory revolutionized music reissue culture by rescuing out-of-print albums and TV shows, emphasizing authenticity and original music, and advocating for the preservation and revaluation of music history.

Summary:

Richard Fuz, co-founder of Rhino Records and Shout Factory, shares the story of The Electric Flag’s 1967 album, a pioneering fusion of Chicago blues, San Francisco psychedelia, and roots music that was dismissed at the time but is now celebrated as a groundbreaking work. He reveals how the album’s eclectic sound—blending influences from Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, and Paul Butterfield—created a rare moment of musical unity, with deep historical threads linking it to artists like Bob Dylan and Curtis Mayfield. Despite being non-commercial and critically panned, the album’s raw energy and originality have earned it a cult status.

Fuz credits the music industry’s neglect of back catalogs to a flawed record business model that prioritized hits over legacy. His work at Rhino pioneered the modern reissue movement, emphasizing authenticity and completeness, while Shout Factory extended this mission to restore original music in documentaries. He also shares that despite efforts, rights were never secured for major performances like the US Festival, where bands such as Bowie and the Kinks played.

Reflecting on his current work, Fuz now focuses on non-profits promoting music education and empathy through creativity, and is developing a podcast on protest music’s evolution from 1920s union songs to modern rap. He ultimately believes music has a spiritual and healing power, capable of uniting people and transforming society—offering a hopeful vision for how music can shape a better world.

FAQs

Richard brought the Electric Flag album to the show, which he considers a groundbreaking fusion of Chicago, San Francisco, and New Orleans music. He believes it was a one-of-a-kind creative moment that no one else has duplicated, blending blues, rock, and psychedelic elements into something unique and timeless.

Richard discovered the album in 1967 while in college, through word of mouth and the underground music scene. He recalls that the album was circulating among music-loving friends, and its presence in different parts of the country made it feel like a hidden gem that had been overlooked by mainstream audiences.

The album was critically panned at the time for being derivative and lacking commercial hits. Critics dismissed it as unpolished, and the band broke up shortly after, which contributed to its obscurity. Despite this, Richard believes it is now recognized as a masterwork.

The album synthesizes diverse musical traditions—blues, soul, jazz, and rock—into a unified, original sound. Tracks like 'Wine' and 'Killing Floor' showcase deep influences from artists like Professor Longhair and Otis Redding, while the band's connection to figures like Mike Bloomfield and Bob Dylan adds rich historical context.

Richard co-founded Rhino Records with a mission to rescue and reissue out-of-print music. He saw that major labels ignored older catalogs, often deeming them 'non-commercial' or 'junk.' His work led to groundbreaking reissues like James Brown's greatest hits, which became best-sellers and helped rediscover classic artists.

Richard now focuses on non-profit initiatives, including serving as a board chair for the Narrative Method, which promotes creativity and empathy through storytelling. He is also working on a new podcast called 'Sound Effects,' which explores how historical music movements have shaped modern society.

Chat with AI

Loading...

Pro features

Go deeper with this episode

Unlock creator-grade tools that turn any transcript into show notes and subtitle files.