The Only Opening Act Ever to be Featured On a Full Tour with Paul McCartney & Wings
It all started when Earl Okin wrote an open letter to the SongTalk mailing list. It was titled, “Tribute to Linda McCartney”. It was a heartfelt tribute to Linda, who had recently died of cancer.
Later, when I put out a request for essay’s for my new website, Earl must have seen it, because he submitted the letter to and gave me permission to reprint it in the Tales of the Road Warriors section of my fledgling website, Lil Hank’s Guide for Songwriters, which was one of a handful of early online resources for songwriters and musicians in the mid 1990’s.
So, in January of 2019, when I first started creating the Tales of the Road Warriors podcast, which gets its name from that section of Li’l Hank’s Guide, I went in the WABAC machine to reread some of the essays – and came across Earl’s Tribute to Linda. This got me to thinking… hmmm, why don’t see if he’s still around and invite him to be a guest on my podcast. So, I searched Google and Facebook for Earl Okin and found out that not only is he still around, he’s just turned 72, fit as a fiddle, still doing concerts AND, he even has his own podcast called Earl Okin’s Amazing Gramophone Show (http://earlokin.blogspot.com/)
On each episode, he introduces six selections culled from various operas digitized from his collection of rare cylinders and acetate recordings. The shows end with an Earl Okin original.
Below are some links to some of the websites, audio and video mentioned in this episode.
Earl’s Podcast (The Earl Okin Amazing Gramophone Show)
A Tribute To Linda McCartney by Earl Okin
Music In This Episode
Intro (most epsiodes): Playa del Spain by Joe Walla
Joe Walla music availble on Broadjam
Outro: LA To London Music and Lyrics by Earl Okin
