British Columbia band 54-40’s(who took their name from this slogan) song “I Go Blind” was covered in the mid-1990s by American band Hootie and the Blowfish appeared on the original Friends Soundtrack
The band Blind Faith is considered one of the first “super-groups”, even though they only released one album in 1969.
Prior to Blind Faith, Al Kooper recorded his “Super Session” LP with Mike Bloomfield and Steven Stills, which was similar to the supergroup concept.
One of Stephen Stills’s friends in the Greenwich Village folk music scene, and later the Los Angeles music scene, was a fellow musician named Peter Tork. Stills unsuccessfully auditioned for a part in The Monkees, but his friend Tork did get a part.
An oft repeated piece of Monkees trivia is that Charles Manson auditioned for the Monkees, but it is not true; he was still in prison at the time. Paul Williams did, however.
Paul Williams wrote the songs for the movie Ishtar. He doesn’t talk about it on his resume, though they are great comic gems.
Paul Williams is the name of the character played by Doug Davidson on The Young and the Restless. Davidson’s other show-biz jobs include a stint as host of a syndicated version of The New Price is Right, which lasted for only a few months in 1994 and '95.
Electric guitar pioneer Lester Polfuss gained stardom under the name Les Paul. With wife Mary Ford, he recorded the #1 hit “Vaya Con dios.”
Jeff Lynne is perhaps the best-known member and founder of the Electric Light Orchestra, as well as a member of the Traveling Wilburys. His songs have gained a new lease on life from the success of the Broadway musical Xanadu, based on the 1980 roller-disco cult film with a soundtrack by ELO and Olivia Newton John, among others.
In 1983, Olivia Newton-John co-founded a store called Koala Blue. Originally devoted to selling imported Australian products, the business evolved into a chain of boutiques before going bankrupt and folding in 1992.
Qantas ran a series of commercials in the 1970’s featuring a koala perched in a eucalyptus, complaining about all the tourists coming to bother him, with the tag line “I hate Qantas”. The voice of the koala was Howard Morris, formerly of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows”.
Howard Morris’s best known role to most audiences was the recurring character of Ernest T. Bass, a deranged hillbilly who spoke in rhymes and loved buck dancing on many episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.
Big Mouth Billy Bass is an animatronic singing toy that has inspired several offshoots. One of the genuine items is owned by Queen Elizabeth. That is two less than the number necessary, according to Jeff Foxworthy, to qualify as a redneck.
Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, also holds the title Duke of Edinburgh. He has never been named Prince Consort, a title unique in British history to Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.
King Henry VIII is the only king of England to have three of his children on the throne in their own right*: Edward VI, Mary I (“Bloody Mary”), and Elizabeth I.
*Henry II co-ruled with his son Henry, who predeceased him, and was also the father of Richard the Lionhearted and John.
French King Philip IV le Bel (the Handsome) also had his three sons on the throne in quick succession : first Louis X (1314-1316), then Philip V (1316-1322), then finally Charles IV (1322-1328).
Because they came and went so fast, because the last Templar Grandmaster had cursed Philip le Bel as he died at the stake, and because their three deaths without heirs and the eventual ascension to the throne of Philip VI (Philip le Bel’'s nephew) kick-started the Hundred Years War, those three kings are now commonly known as “The Accursed Kings”.
At least two women have been married to two English kings*: Judith, daughter of the French king Charles the Bald, married Æthelwulf of Wessex when she was a girl and he was an old widower, and soon after his death she married his son Æthelbald (causing major scandal).
One of Judith’s descendants (by her third husband, Baldwin of Flanders) was Emma of Normandy, who married Æthelred the Redeless, an Anglo-Saxon king of England, and after his death married Cnut (or Canute or Knute), a Viking king of England. Emma’s sons included Harthacnut who succeeded his father Cnut as king, and who in turn was succeeded by his half-brother, Emma’s older son Edward (called “the Confessor” and “the White” [the latter possibly because he was an albino]).
*The kings of Wessex do not count as kings of England until Alfred [by some counts, his brothers by other counts] but they do count as English kings.
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, a British songwriting team (Flanders did lyrics; Swann, music) rented a theater over Christmas in 1956 to perform an evening of their music. The results, At the Drop of A Hat, was a smash hit and eventually ran for over 800 performances in London and over 200 in New York. One unusual aspect of the show was that both members of the cast performed sitting down – Swann at the piano and Flanders in a wheelchair since he had been paralyzed with polio.
The lyrics to Bob Dylan’s Dream (written by the same-named poet, inexplicably missing from the recent list of greatest Americans in this forum) conclude with:
Well I wish, I wish, yes I wish in vain.
That I could sit simply in that room once again.
I’d give ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat.
Yeah, I’d give it all gladly, if my life could be like that.
Bob Marley introduced his song “Waiting in Vain” on his 1977 album Exodus, which also included “Jammin’” and “One Love / People Get Ready”.