John Richards

Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to The Morning Show with John Richards! Today, we honor and celebrate the life of mother, friend, champion, advocate, and cheerleader Susie Tennant. -- Susie was born on September 11 1962, a few days before John Kennedy gave this speech about going to the moon (September 15th.)

"Go" commemorates the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, piloted by Neil Armstrong, with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the first manned landing on the moon. Armstrong landed the "Eagle" lunar module at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday, July 20 1969, with roughly 50 seconds of fuel remaining.

"Go" was the first single to be released on the Chemical Brothers' eighth studio album "Born in the Echoes." Featuring the pitched-up guest vocals from Kamaal Ibn John Fareed, AKA Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest fame. -- Want to know how Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands made this song?: www.musicradar.com

"Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya..." "Swap your dull grey thoughts for fierce demands, you can stand up too... Don't put yourself down, you'll never win, so let's all smash through..." Here's what Daniel Ash is singing: genius.com

Speaking of "Go" (twice)... --- 1982's "Vacation" carries the distinction of being released as the first known cassette single or "cassingle" as trademarked by I.R.S. Records. This band can perform...and water-ski!: www.youtube.com

On this date in 1974, David Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel' single first charted in the UK, eventually reaching No.5 the following month. -- Bowie's guitarist, Mick Ronson, quit in 1973 in order to pursue a solo career, so Bowie played guitar on this song. Bowie spoke to Performing Songwriter magazine about the legendary riff: "When I was high school, that was the riff by which all of us young guitarists would prove ourselves in the local music store. It's a real air guitar thing, isn't it?"

Idol wrote this song with his guitarist, Steve Stevens, who came up with some unique sounds on the track. He created the ray-gun effect on the solo using a Lexicon PCM 41 digital delay processor, but he later figured out a way to get a more distinctive sound using an actual ray-gun. By tweaking a toy ray-gun, he was able to hold it to his pickups and generate these strange sounds. His "ray gun guitar" became one of the most popular spots of a Billy Idol concert.

That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood I got news for you, she is! -- NPR interviewed Kathleen Hanna about "Rebel Girl" for its American Anthem series: www.npr.org

Happy Friday! If you can slip “Freedom” by Georgie in the mix, for my bestie, Autumn, and I, we would greatly appreciate it ❤️❤️❤️ Lots of love, --Nikki -- "The catchy song addressed his struggles with identity, artistic growth and stardom in a meaningful way." Read a feature about this song which became, among other things, an LGBTQ anthem: www.biography.com

This is the band's version of an old Rolling Stones tune. The band felt free to change the lyrics from the Rolling Stones' original, which was necessary because they didn't have them. Lead singer Sean Dickson sang what he could remember and made up the rest. Nevertheless, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the credited songwriters. --

They wrote it in the 60's. Here are The Stones, performing "I'm Free" live in 2006: www.youtube.com

I would love it if you could play "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles in honor of the beautiful Sunshine my aunt Susie Tennant always seemed to bring to life. She is the one that taught me to dance like no one is looking Maddy in Leavenworth, Kansas -- Maddy just wrote, "Legit, the song played, the sun just lit up at my office. Blasting the radio all day now."

"Singing, 'Don't worry about a thing 'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright!'" --- This is a message Marley received from the birds that frequented his porch stoop in Kingston, Jamaica. "That really happened," he said. "That's where I get my inspiration."

Musically, “Shining Star” shines. The groove is serious, its spidery guitars and complicated basslines weaving in and out of each other but always pushing forward. [Maurice] White and [Philip] Bailey share lead vocals — White going low, Bailey going high, the two of them coming together beautifully on the hook. There’s a quick triumphant face-melting rock guitar solo, and I imagine Prince learned a few things about how well that worked in the context of a funk song. And the horns always stab in at the exact right moments, working as sonic punctuation marks. Read the story of this "Number One": www.stereogum.com

Susie Tennant used to sing this to her daughter Ella. -- "Do you remember when....we used to sing..." Here's Van Morrison, holding his saxophone, in a live performance of "Brown Eyed Girl": www.youtube.com

A band loved by Susie Tennant-- -- "One of the few first-wave punk bands who not only survived to the end of the century but did so with their original sound and focus intact, Fastbacks were formed in Seattle, WA, by three high school friends, Kurt Bloch, Kim Warnick, and Lulu Gargiulo.": www.allmusic.com -- Go back to 1995 to see Fastbacks performing live at the Mural Amphitheater: www.youtube.com

“Buddy Holly” was the second single from the band’s 1994 debut album "Weezer," popularly known as The Blue Album. The single was released on September 7 1994, on what would have been Buddy Holly’s 58th birthday.

Dave Grohl and Kirst Novoselic recalled their 1991 release party for Nirvana’s breakout sophomore LP, ‘Nevermind’, which was held at local venue Re-bar. When the band were kicked out of their own event after starting a food fight, Tennant remained buoyant and simply shifted the party to her house. “Susie laughed it off,” they said. Tennant once recalled how Kurt Cobain tried on one of her dresses, stating: “He looked really good in it.”

Kurt Cobain wrote this song for Nirvana; it came together in a jam session when he played it for the band. He said: "I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off The Pixies." -- Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of the group Bikini Kill, gave Cobain the idea for the title when she spray painted "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his bedroom wall after a night of drinking and spraying graffiti around the Seattle area. In his pre-Courtney Love days, Cobain went out with Bikini Kill lead singer Tobi Vail, but she dumped him. Vail wore Teen Spirit deodorant, and Hanna was implying that Cobain was marked with her scent.

As the legend goes, Kurt Cobain stopped by KCMU (what would become KEXP) after the release of Nirvana’s first 7-inch single, Love Buzz / Big Cheese. He personally handed over a copy to the station then sat in his car with his radio tuned in and waited to hear his song. When he didn’t hear it, he called in and requested the song himself. The song was originally recorded by Dutch band Shocking Blue in 1969.

One of my favorite things she ever did was when she was promoting Sebadoh's Bake Sale record for Sub Pop—she held an actual bakesale outside the station entrance with a little table, construction paper with prices, baked goodies, and lemonade while blasting the Sebadoh record on a boombox! So clever. Her level of enthusiasm was contagious. I can hear her scream my name from across the club and beeline into my arms. I'll never forget what she did for me then, and the way she made me feel about music. —Marco Collins

"She is an unsung hero,” Kim Warnick of the Fastbacks said of Susie Tennant. "She brought that love to everything and everyone. She was the glue that stuck Seattle together.” ​

Susie Tennant loved this song. Tom Petty: "“Jeff Lynne and I were sitting around with the idea of writing a song and I was playing the keyboard and I just happened to hit on that main riff, the intro of the song, and I think Jeff said something like, ‘That’s a really good riff but there’s one chord too many,’ so I think I cut it back a chord and then, really just to amuse Jeff, honestly, I just sang that first verse. Then he starts laughing. Honestly, I thought I was just amusing Jeff but then I got to the chorus of the song and he leaned over to me and said the word, ‘freefalling.’ And I went to sing that and he said, ‘No, take your voice up and see how that feels.’ So I took my voice up an octave or two, but I couldn’t get the whole word in. So I sang ‘freeee,’ then ‘free falling.’ And we both knew at that moment that I’d hit on something pretty good.": www.billboard.com --

“Dancing Queen” was written by ABBA guitarist Bjorn Ulvaeus and keyboardist Benny Andersson in the summer of 1975. They had written a good hook for a dance song, but didn’t quite know where they wanted to take it.... “We knew immediately it was going to be massive,” said ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog. In fact, the first time Ulvaeus and Andersson played “Dancing Queen” for the rest of the group, Anni-Frid Lyngstad burst into tears. “And that was before me and Agnetha had even sung on it!” she said. “I knew it was absolutely the best song ABBA had ever done.”: americansongwriter.com

Ahh....the Friday song. Enjoy these wonderful stories about Susie Tennant, the woman who helped build Seattle's music scene: www.thestranger.com

On this day in 1993, Naughty by Nature, released their third album, "19 Naughty III" featuring “Hip Hop Hooray” which contains samples of "Funky President" by James Brown, "Don't Change Your Love" by Five Stairsteps, "Make Me Say it Again, Girl" by Isley Brothers, "You Can't Turn Me Away" by Sylvia Striplin and "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.

This Peter Gabriel classic sampled the hook from 1984's "Shakuhachi" by E-mu Systems. In turn, "Sledgehammer" has been sampled almost 30 times. -- According to Time magazine, "Sledgehammer"'s music video is the all-time most played music video on MTV.: www.youtube.com

This song was sampled in "Hip Hop Hooray." -- The Five Stairsteps, known as "The First Family of Soul", were an American Chicago soul group made up of five of Betty and Clarence Burke Sr.'s six children: Alohe Jean, Clarence Jr., James, Dennis, and Kenneth "Keni", and briefly, Cubie. They are best known for the 1970 song "O-o-h Child."

Another song sampled by Naughty by Nature for "Hip Hop Hooray." -- Did you know that "Funky President" has been sampled almost 1000 times? (That's a "1," followed by three zeroes!)

Susie Tennant is my younger-by -16 months sister. We had our trials in high school, but always came together through music. Even back then she could hear a song for the 1st time and know if it was going to be a hit. She LOVED Jackson Browne. Please play "Running On Empty" for us. We both sang loudly and horribly to that song all the time. --Cathy -- Here's Jackson Browne, performing this classic at his induction into the Rock Hall of Fame: www.youtube.com

A band championed by Susie Tennant... --- Mother Love Bone was a rock band which formed in Seattle, Washington, United States in 1988. The band consisted of Andrew Wood (vocals, keyboards), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar), Jeff Ament (bass) and Greg Gilmore (drums). The band released only one full length album, “Apple” (1990). The band disbanded in 1990 after Wood died in a coma caused by a heroin overdose. Ament and Gossard later formed Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam.: thevogue.com

Happy birthday to Howard Jones, born on this date in 1955. -- "...I wanted to write a song that was really uplifting and give people a sense of hope about the future." --Howard Jones