Episode 009: Nashville Trip, Leonard Nimoy Music, and "The Rockford Files"

In this week's episode, Frank lists, and to some extent discusses, activities from  his recent trip to Nashville.   While there was plenty to see, hear, and learn there, the main highlight mentioned is his indirect discovery of Leonard Nimoy's music career in the late 1960s where he covered several country songs.  Nimoy also worked in other musical forms during that time.

The Priscilla Barnes (PB) review this week is from the classic 1970s detective show The Rockford Files starring the legendary James Garner.  A beloved series and a very enjoyable episode, Frank gave PB and the episode high grades. 

The theme song is called Retro Funk by SoulProdMusic and can be found at pixabay.com.

Leonard Nimoy's music can be found on YouTube or wherever finer vintage records are sold.

The Rockford Files can be seen on DVD or Blue Ray, Freevee (via Amazon), The Roku Channel, GETTV, or wherever finer TV shows are shown/streamed.

--The best way to contact is:
Twitter: @frankwebertx
Web:  frankwebertx.com
Email:  frankoweber@hotmail.com

Transcript

Frank: 0:01

All right on this episode. Of the party. I'll tell you a little bit about my recent Nashville trip that I really enjoyed really had a good time with. And as a result of one of my museum visits, I. Discovered some. Other music from the actor, Leonard, Naima, Y. That I found really entertaining and interesting. And then finally we get into Priscilla Barnes appearance on detective show, the Rockford files starring James Garner. And it will get into all of that right after this. hello and welcome again to the party Frank Weber's party. I'm your host, Frank Weber. So glad that you could join me again today and thank you for your listenership. I looked at a little bit of metrics the other day, those that I have access to, and the downloads are really going up. some of which came out of Europe, three times here in the last week. As I record this. really thankful for that. And thank you for your fanship and, sounds like you're really enjoying the podcast and glad that you're here once again. And, I just wanted to start today by telling you about, my recent trip last week. I went to Nashville. my wife had a little meeting or convention over there downtown, and I tagged along and, went to see a lot of things over there. kind of a sensory overload, if you think about it. I had never spent a lot of time there in the past, but I've always been a big country music fan, and so it was like heaven in that regard. And, the weather was pretty hot and fairly humid. It got hotter, later in the week. spent a lot of time walking there around downtown, all the concrete and everything. my feet felt like they had concrete attached to them, each and every day walking around there. I also spent a little time up at Opryland as I'll get into. and it was great sensory overload, as I said, not just for music and information. There was, a lot of eye candy walking around out there as well. And we used to call that t and a, which for the younger kids, that means tits and ass. that's part of what I saw there. But, I like to say if you've got it flaunt, it. So just wanted to get that out of the way and. I could probably list a little bit of everything that I did there. I toured the Ryman and went to a fine art museum one time. And, also went to Cooters in Nashville, which is a Dukes of Hazard, museum, free museum for Dukes of Hazard, memorabilia, and also of course, a store. It's run by Ben Jones, who played Coda on the show, and he has several locations and one of them is up there by Opryland and. I really, enjoyed looking at all that stuff. I had some of that stuff as a kid and I may still have some of that around here somewhere. I know I do, enjoyed the show and saw several of the cars there, including general E I probably should tell you too, next to the Cooters, museum was a Willie Nelson museum. I just went through the gift shop a little bit there. I didn't really tour the museum, kind of thought it was odd that he had a museum in Nashville.'cause I had always thought Willie had kind of a different relationship with Nashville, wanted to he did have a role in that, Dukes of Hazard theatrical movie as Uncle Jesse and. I think that was like 2005 I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame so much to see, so much to do there. I think I was there for like four hours and, the thing that really struck me the most is I turned my head at one point in the tour, kind of self-guided tour, and there was the TransAm from. But what turned out to be the second smokey in the Bandit movie, Burt Reynolds had the first one or one, like the first one, and then auctioned it off for a huge amount of money before he passed away. But this was from the Smokey in the Bandit two, which was not as well liked a movie. It was kind of uneven. They didn't really accomplish their mission that, they were set out to, to do there. I perused over that, seeing other cars, other famous cars, like from Dukes of Hazard I looked over his car there. it looked remarkably like the one Rocky bought in Rocky two. It was very close together in terms of time, but the reason that the second smokey and the band at Pontiac Trans Am is there is because there were so many country music stars in that show who are now in the the Country Music Hall of Fame. You had Jerry Reed, Statler Brothers, Brenda Lee, Mel Tillis. Don Williams also, every single one of'em is in the country Music Hall of Fame. It was almost like, the Cannonball Run for country music singers in that movie. And so it's appropriately placed and has been there for some time in the Hall of Fame. And, some of those stars, I think I know Mel Tillis and of course Burt Reynolds, Dom Deiz and they went on to being Cannonball run right after that. I know Paul Williams, who plays Little Enus Burdett, he was not, really a country singer. He basically wrote some rock songs and wrote the lyrics to the love boat theme. So we didn't really include him in that. then Tuesday night I went to the Grand Ole Opry. Up there at Opryland. And that was quite a treat I had never been before. The lineup was astounding. I had been under the impression that the Tuesday night shows or any shows on a night other than Saturday were not quite as good as far as the lineup goes, but they had a very impressive lineup there. Vince Gill was the main star, and, Susie Bogus was also there. Both of them I remember from. teenage years in the nineties, big stars back then and also had bluegrass play a Rhonda Vincent, and I may forget a couple of them here, and then some of the newer acts, you had Jamie Johnson and Ashley McBride. I was really, very pleased with their singing. I had been down on some of the newer acts and country music where things didn't seem to be quite the same, for some reason. But once they started singing, they hooked me on as a fan. they are quite good and I would certainly recommend them. Jamie Johnson looks like he's trying to maybe become William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge boys with his hair, but his hair isn't that long, or his beard isn't that long yet. And I would say Jamie's voice is a little deeper than William Lee Golden. William Lee Golden's. Not a bass like Richard Sturman on Elvira, but would probably know him best from the song Ozark Mountain Jubilee, if you wanna listen to a song where he's the primary singer. But, those two artists were really good. And there's some other stories from Opry Night that I have, really enjoyed that. one day I went to the Johnny Cash Museum down there on Broadway where all the bars and the shops and things are people playing live music, drinking beer and eating food Of course, a lot of great artifacts and history in that museum. if you didn't know, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley were on the same record label for a while, at Sun Records, and they knew each other and, seemed to have similar interests in music. And, they wound up. kind of beating their own path a little bit. they crossed over into really kind of everything, but, Elvis became the king of rock and roll, and Johnny Cash essentially became the king of country music. they're in all sorts of Hall of Fames, country Hall of Fame, rock and Roll, hall of Fame, you name it. so tons of history there when I walked through. Johnny's museum, they had one display was about all the artists from various genres and backgrounds who had covered Johnny's songs. And one of'em that I took a particular interest in was Leonard Nemoy, who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Now I had known, Leonard Nemo to have played the song Bilbo Baggins. Which, if you check it out on YouTube is a, a song about the, the Hobbit from j r r Tolkien. I think written in 1937. And it's a bizarre song and a bizarre video, but it's a time capsule and I was entertained by it, but that was the only thing that I had known up to that point. And right there at the museum, they had, a little listening station and, Leonard Nemoy had covered. I walked the line and it sounded okay. I mean, it wasn't exactly like Johnny's version, but it was, quite good. he had several albums from about 1967 to 1970, roughly the time during Star Trek was on the original series. And he covered several country songs, not just I Walked The Line, but also Johnny Cash's and June Carter Cass's song. if I were a carpenter, he also. Cover Gentle On My Mind, which I associate with Glen Campbell, who also had a museum down there on Broadway, but I didn't go and visit it. And he also did. Ruby, don't Take Your Love To Town by Kenny Rogers. all those artists that I mentioned, including Leonard Neem, Moyer no longer with us, but I just took an amusement to this. some of his albums, are called. The two sides of Leonard Nemoy, or the best of Leonard Nemoy. Some of'em he's singing as himself, as Leonard Nemoy. like I said, they're okay. they weren't really spectacular, my brother. And I think that his career as a musician or singer, may have been cut short in part because of the smoking. but he still lived all the way into his eighties, he died in 2015. Some of the other albums though, and songs he did as Mr. Spock, and they're obviously a little quirky. Maybe a little strange or weird in that regard. one of'em was called Spaced Out, which apparently was a collaboration with William Shatner. I haven't figured out exactly where Shatner is on the album there or if he was just playing the instruments. I couldn't help, but think that if they were this musically inclined, why they didn't play it more for the crew on the enterprise, I mean, they could have had. These great dances and shindigs and. entertained. The mall all the time. And. Sta, playing these crazy three level chess games or. Spock's little Harper liar thing that he played. And then one of the other big ones was Mr. Spock's music from Outer Space. And, some of them are really worth a listen to. sp thoughts, highly illogical is quite comical. And then there's this kind of a somber one called a visit to a sad planet, which, just outta curiosity, I just recommend, you could check that out if you wanted to. sometimes he's just playing instrumentals. Like I said, sometimes he's playing sixties, late sixties pop music. sometimes he's playing country music, sometimes he's giving opinions and philosophies and I just thought it was funny and quirky and, would be enjoyable for A lot of folks, whether you're a fan of Star Trek or not, it's just got a little unique quality to that, but that's where I was last week in Nashville. I enjoyed getting away again for a little while. And, so we're, right now, only about a week out now on the podcast, which I think is probably a little bit better, when I do my little, commentaries like this, after we take a break here, we're gonna get into, another Priscilla work, from the Rockford files and Beloved 1970s Detective Show starring James Garner. And we'll do that right after this. Okay, so we're back. I just wanted to add that, at the Opry Show, Vince Gill is also in the Country Music Hall of Fame, just for completeness there. Anyway, today's show, we're gonna review Priscilla's appearance on the Rockford files, which they describe it as a detective drama starring James Garner. I consider it to be largely lighthearted, although there were a couple of exceptions in the series. Fortunately, however, this one is on the lighter side. It ran from September 13th, 1974 to January 10th, 1980. That's a total of six seasons. They went on to make eight TV movies in the nineties. Don't remember if I watched any of those or not, the story goes, one of the producers was wanting to make a sort of modern day. Detective version of the series Maverick, which James Garner had been in in the late fifties and early sixties. That show was a Western. his name of course in this show is Jim Rockford, and his backstory was that he was an inmate at the San Quentin Prison in California for five years. wrongfully convicted and then given a full pardon. then became a private detective, living and working out of an old mobile home in a parking lot on the beach by Malibu. I don't really know how well that would've worked back then, or now. It might've worked a little bit better now, hearing what? I'm here outta California. Generally Rockford, he doesn't really like to get into physical altercations. he has a col gun that he keeps on a cookie jar, but he really doesn't use it and he doesn't really like to get into active police cases. he's more into cold cases, missing person cases, and, dealing with a variety of scams. And he really prefers to talk his way out of trouble. A lot. He was very good at that. there was a lot of trademarks to the show that we'll go through here and there, but we'll go through the the cast first. obviously the main star was James Garner, very prolific actor. like I said, was in the Maverick TV series, which there were other incarnations of. later on, TV, movies and then a new series after Rockford files. And then of course there was the movie with, Mel Gibson, which James Garner played Maverick's dad in that one. I think that was in the mid nineties. And then of course, he was also in a lot of movies too. The Great Escape with a lot of, other well-known actors. Steve McQueen, was in there. James Garner always had a really popular and easygoing demeanor. He was, very well liked because of that, I do remember as a movie, in the early days of cable, since I always have these stories about early days of cable, he was also in a movie called Tank around 83 or 84. That starred a bunch of people in it. I can't remember the entire cast, but I know General Lee Harrison from Three's company was also in that, not saying that was the best movie ever, it obviously had something to do with a tank, probably a Sherman tank. anyway, so the other stars there Noah Barry Jr. Plays his dad, Rocky, who's a retired truck driver. I know he was in a lot of stuff over the years. Probably too much to list. I do remember him as one of the towns folk in the, best little whorehouse in Texas. If you get a chance to ever watch that with Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, there was Joe Santos, who played Sergeant Becker for the L A P D. That helps Jim on a lot of cases, He's basically in every episode. he has, had two different supervisors as well, neither one of which really liked Rockford at all. the one in this episode is Chapman, another big actor here who Did a lot of acting, but also a lot of directing. And just recently passed away earlier this year with Stuart Margolin. He played Angel, who was a prison friend of Rockford's and he still does a lot of hair-brained schemes that often get Rockford into trouble, but Jim still stays his friend and he actually tried to get a little squirrely as well in this one. there was actually a lot of other people that I could list in this series, names that you would definitely recognize. But since they weren't in this episode in particular, I won't mention it, she wasn't really in this episode. although I think her voice was at the beginning, and I'll get in that into a second. I just wanted to give an honorable mention. Jim had an attorney named Beth Davenport, who was also at one time his girlfriend, or they maintained a friendship as well for all those years, and she stayed his attorney. she was played by Gretchen Corbett a lovely blonde lady. I think she spent most of her time in theater. And, one of the gimmicks on this show was, at the very opening, someone would call Jim at his office, which is also in his home. And he's got his cards laid out like he's playing poker or solitaire, which he did a lot of on the show. Maverick, by the way. And, someone's calling him and it sounds a lot like her voice. She's otherwise not in this particular episode, but she's complaining you don't pick up your phone in the middle of the night. And, you know, I have bad insomnia. And the, answering machine gimmick was one of the several trademarks of the show. It was always different and it usually had no relevance to that particular episode. All right, so there were also a couple of notable vehicles in this series. Rockford drove a Pontiac Firebird with a copper mist color on the interior and exterior. It was not technically a TransAm, but they did something for the engine to make it have more power so that he could chase people around if he needed to. they said that Most each year of the series was a new model. and it's obviously an iconic part of the show. Rocky, his dad also had a G M C Sierra Classic pickup that Rockford would borrow on occasion. and that's always useful to look at these old vehicles and see where we are. And actually there's gonna be some more here in a little bit. Rockford's fee, he's working as a private investigator. That's how he makes his living. And he lives in the old trailer on the beach and has his Pontiac Firebird. his fee was always$200 plus expenses, and that's repeated throughout the series. Today's episode specifically is called. The Mayor's Committee from Dear Lake Falls. It aired in season four on November 25th, 1977, and in it. There's these four guys from a small town in Michigan named Delic Falls. they're dressed well, They're very civically minded. They're have a lot of activities they're involved in, being on various committees like this one or donating to their favorite university or civic clubs and what have you. And they come down to Hollywood to buy a vintage fire truck. From the 1950s that's had an overhauled engine. And for some reason Jim Rockford is basically their showman and salesman for this. I don't really know how he got that job, they go through with the sale and everything is going fine. And one of these guys who's named Everett says, first of all, he asked about massage parlors. not the real reputable types. they're talking about the ones with a happy ending and stuff, you know, which Jim being a prim and proper guy, he doesn't know anything about that.'cause we were still teaching morals in these shows in the seventies. Right. But then he starts to ask, I've got this niece in town who's an aspiring actress, and how hard is it to find her and track her down because I have this profit sharing check for her. And Rockford goes ahead and checks it out. tries to find this guy's niece. he locates who she is, first before he actually goes to, to locate her. and he goes to visit these guys in their hotel one evening and he says, Is this her? And her name is Lauren Engberg. And of course this is Priscilla's character in the show. Apparently her parents are no longer around and. Her Uncle Everett or Uncle Eve, as they were calling him is her next to kin, and he says, yeah, that's her. And then he takes Rockford into the back room and gives him.$5,000 up to eventually going to give him a total of$20,000 because he says, can you knock her off and kill her? because he thinks Rockford is this cheap guy who barely makes a living and is going to love the money. And of course, Rockford in his moral state again, is gonna say, that's ridiculous. I'm not doing that. And in fact, I'm going down to the police station. I'm going to put in a report against you guys. Rockford brings, Sergeant Becker back with him and says he's filed a complaint against you and. Then Everett and these guys are starting to make up a story about getting shafted on the firetruck deal and, basically lying to the police about what Rockford actually told him and whatnot. And the next day, Rockford finds that his license for investigation has been revoked because these guys had such political cloud and connections. they're, obviously trying to do him some harm now. but he eventually goes ahead and locates Lauren at a theater there in, Hollywood and tells her about this scheme and she, at first doesn't believe him and would really like to know where her uncle is and he wouldn't tell her because there's a lot of danger involved. but eventually Uncle Everett contacts, Lauren through the paper and tells her he's got this check for her because she used to work for him at this sham farm or something that he had in Michigan. the story is that she. Made a complaint about him and this company to the i r s because of tax fraud and tax evasion is the main issue. And I guess he feels that if he can get rid of her, that all this problem will go away with the I r s. And anyway, she meets him for dinner and then, she's walking, the uncle walks her across the street and then he turns around, leaves her in the middle of the street, and then these other two guys try to. Make an attempt on her life by running her over, and then Rockford saves the day. And so there's that back and forth that goes on, throughout the show until justice is served. one time in the show, Rockford's dad, Rocky. discusses how it's one thing for people to cheat on their taxes or not declare something or deduct something or whatever, but it's another thing to wanna to kill a relative who is actually next of kin But that's about as serious as this particular episode. God, some scenes here. The very first scene where Rockford's showing them the firetruck. I didn't really understand how Rockford got into the position to do that unless has another job on the side or was doing a favor for somebody. thought it was a little unusual. they're buying an older fire truck, even though it had a refurbished engine. they obviously were doing it to save some money. This mayor's committee was, And, you see Rockford driving them around in the fire truck. all these guys are wearing nice suits and, one of'em is actually hanging off the side, as firetruck men would tend to do on their truck. If you can visualize that, I dunno how legal that was in 1977 or in 2023 driving around a major Hollywood street like that. So that didn't make much sense to me. I should also tell you one of these guys, believe his name is Kelso. Was one of the guys who was really against this plot that Everett was leading, and he was, resistant to it. And then they have the first attempt on her life there in the street. all of a sudden he changes his mind and decides like, oh, okay, well now we have to kill her. I didn't really understand the logic that was going on in that scene, but. turns out these four guys were really squirrelier than they looked, or squirrelier than they were suspected at the beginning. So in this other scene, the one where, Priscilla first comes into the show, she's driving into the studio parking lot and Rockford's waiting there for her. she looks fantastic. She really looks fantastic throughout the show, but she's driving a 65. Ford Mustang, kind of a sky blue with a black convertible top. And I was always thinking like, wow, that's a pretty cool car for someone who's an aspiring actress and doesn't really have a lot of money to their name. But I was always wondering, in 1977, would a car from 1965 just be considered an old car? As opposed to now if you've preserved a Ford Mustang for almost 60 years and even refurbished it, I mean it could be worth a lot of money. And so we don't look at it today necessarily as we would have back then. I thought that was a pretty fun scene. Oh, by the way, in that scene too, was, an actor you. whose name you may not know but I'll tell you a little bit about him. His name is David. Rupert was in that scene. He had like two, lines in it. he worked with Priscilla around that time on a movie called The Seniors, which was filmed in the Dallas area. I need to review that at some point was a comedy, a college age comedy. Dennis Quaid was in it as well, and at some point we'll be talking about that. and then he worked with her again, he was, Janet's suitor and eventually married Janet on the last episodes of Three's company. but his main claim to fame. Is that he, hosted a show called Supermarket Sweep for a number of years that was on cable. they've tried to bring that back or something. Now the i r s scene, Rockford and Lauren go to the i r s office to fill out a complaint against Uncle Eve. And, they wind up leaving there because the i r s is gonna be slow. And apparently Lauren she made an initial complaint, but she didn't follow up with it. And so the i r s agent, they're busy following protocol. This i r s agent was played by Richard Sanders, who is better known as Les Nessman from W K R P in Cincinnati. the show would start in probably about another year after this. it's always fun to see actors who were made famous by other things. And then there's a scene where, Jim's, Firebird, loses its brakes going down. I believe it's actually Laurel Canyon Drive. They called it Malibu Canyon in the show. I believe it was Kelso had sabotaged the brake line didn't cut it, but he made it to where it was UNC clamped and came loose as he drove. And they're going down a high rate of speed, down this canyon and hoping to kill Lauren and Jim Rockford. and they eventually hit a fence, on someone's property. It allows them to stop. that was a very popular plot device from the seventies and eighties when people would lose their brakes, oftentimes on purpose, for some nefarious plot, because of the bad guys. That leads into a scene with I think some plot holes in this show. I write a lot of this stuff down when I'm watching this and reviewing this, and I actually learn a lot more than if I'm just straight watching it. Like I would be as a fan, just relaxing. there was a scene after this, where. Rockford has basically conjured up a plot to make the bad guys think that she's really gone. and there was something kind of uneven about it. He has his friend Angel go and visit these guys at their hotel. right before he arrives, they were talking to somebody at the studio, said she was in critical condition, and then Angel arrives as someone from the coroner's office. Needing to get signatures for the death certificate and where to send the body and everything. And he says that she has died right after they were on the phone with the studio who said that, no, she's not died. She's in critical condition. And the story somehow becomes that she lost control of her 65 Mustang, maybe a break problem or whatever, but died that way. the bad guys, picked up on that discrepancy, but they still wound up, falling into Rockford's plan to solve the whole issue. So I was really confused by that. if you check that out, you'll see what I'm saying. a lot of these shows you usually find a little bit of a pothole, but if you're just casually watching, you probably won't notice anything like I did because I take the notes. other than this, the final scene takes place where the bad guys, they finally get, arrested and everything. It takes place at a mall, LA Canta Mall. I don't know if that's still there. there happens to be a quirky seventies ish type guy who is a Christian. He's playing his guitar on the bench there at the mall and, says, hi, how are you to these guys? and, thank God for, how things are today or whatever. And so everything transpires and then he doesn't really know what's going on, but he tries to say something about, Hey, don't let these pigs, take care of you or whatever. it was a quirky scene and mildly amusing I would say. And then at the very end, after everything has been solved, Rockford and, Lauren and Rocky and angel are all there in his trailer and they're about to go out to eat and. Lauren decides to hand over her. check that she got from her uncle for$1,800, she signs it over to Rockford because she is then gonna get a reward of$75,000 from the I R s for turning in a tax evasion of$750,000 for her Uncle Everett. And of course Angel is there. He's always thinking about schemes, about how to make more money. he got paid 50 or$55 for the coroner scene, but he's there thinking about all these people who cheated on their taxes or tried to deduct something or whatever. And he's always coming up with these Harris brain schemes and, he tries to stay behind. as Rockford and the others are leaving to go eat pizza, then he goes in and tries to fumble through Rockford's books to make sure he's been good on his taxes. because maybe he'll turn'em in, So I thought that was really funny. It was a great episode. Like I said, most of the Rockford files, are great, enjoyable. Like I said, there were one or two that got really serious, but uh, this one was fantastic. I'd give, both, the show and Priscilla an A in this one, and I'm not too difficult on that, but, as far as other episodes go, Rockford, outside of his attorney Beth Davenport, maybe one or two other women, he didn't really date a lot of people. He didn't date a lot of his clients, but he did have beautiful women pretty much in every episode. I know, Lindsey Wagner was on a couple of times, and Linda Evans and a lot of other people that I'm not mentioning here. it was a fun little show. Very cool cat Rockford, solving the crime and his own way. before I wrap it up, I know we've done a lot of detective shows here so far. I've been trying to mix it up, I could do. Old detective shows or newer things. I still have to review Priscilla's appearances in Kojak and Starsky and Hutch. So those will be coming up. And I mentioned, other shows as well, like the seniors and she even had a cameo in 2015 in N C I S. Always tons of detective shows, but there's comedies and horrors and few westerns and everything. And so we have plenty of material to go on and on here. And, I hope you're enjoying the show. I hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory lane. And feel free to email me some questions. so thankful for your listenership. really appreciate the subscribing or just hitting play. it's really a joy to do this show every week, do some research and, Try to entertain and inform you, educate you a little bit about this. but anyway, thank you for being at the party once again this week. I'm look forward to seeing you again next week. And for now, this is Frank Weber signing off. The theme song is called retro funk. Bye soul prod music and can be found@pixabay.com.