The Real Fleetwood Mac

Snap Judgment

Snap Judgment and PRX

Snap, Glynn, Storytelling, Wnyc, Society & Culture/personal Journals, Performing Arts, Washington, Society & Culture/documentary, Arts/performing Arts, Music, Arts

4.8 • 11.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elmer Gantry gets an offer to join a notoriously unstable rock n’ roll band on a tour of the US. What could possibly go wrong? And the infamous Pine Tar Game of baseball superstar George Brett... told by the bat boy.

STORIES

The Real Fleetwood Mac

Elmer Gantry gets an offer to join a notoriously unstable rock n’ roll band on a tour of the US. What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks, Elmer, for sharing your story with us!

Kirby Gregory still performs with the band Curved Air.

Read an extensive history of Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera from the magazine Ugly Things.

Listen to a 10-song Spotify playlist that we put together of Elmer’s songs and other tunes from the story.

Special thanks to Mike Stax, Anja Stax, and David Prest.

Original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff, produced by John Fecile

The Bat Boy And The Pine Tar Bat

Every baseball fan has heard of the superstar hitter George Brett and his infamous Pine Tar Game…but have you heard of the bat boy’s version?

For more info, check out Daniel Barbarisi’s story in the Wall Street Journal.

Sound design by Renzo Gorrio, produced by Davey Kim

Season 14 - Episode 46

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Snap, Judgment, Studios, Snaps, I have a confession to make, the truth is, the truth
0:20.9	is that every single aspect of my professional life, actually, every single aspect of my life,
0:31.4	in general, has been predicated on the idea of fake it till you make it. Someone asked me,
0:38.8	hey, can you act, write, dance, draft, direct, run, draw, and post swim? I've almost always said,
0:47.2	yeah, yeah, I can do that. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it absolutely did not work.
1:01.3	Those times are called hard lessons, but generally, I'll tell the kids, go ahead, give
1:08.0	whatever it is it goes. What's the worst that can happen? Well, it turns out that there are in fact
1:16.1	certain things that you might not want to fake. Today's show, The Real Fleetwood Mad.
1:24.5	We're going to soft rock out this piece. My name is Bill Washington. I'm going to want to turn
1:29.2	off the volume a little bit, because you're listening to Snap, Judgment.
1:49.4	A story comes from a golden age of classic rock, tour buses, standing in concert hall,
1:56.2	mullet, shimming under the bright, sweaty spotlight, all the rock stars stuff.
2:02.7	And as such, there might be some language and references to drug use, bad rock stars, bad.
2:10.9	Couser, John Faseel grabs the mic and goes through search of The Real Fleetwood Mad.
2:17.2	Snap Judgment.
2:18.2	I'm all good. I'm gunned up and ready to fire. Here we go. Three, two, one.
2:33.3	Rich Angler is a concert promoter and Pittsburgh. Been doing this for 54 years over
2:39.4	6,000 concerts. And in 1974, he gets a call from an agent in New York, telling him that the band
2:46.6	Fleetwood Mac is looking for a venue in Pittsburgh to host the first show of their US tour.
2:59.1	Fleetwood Mac. Before Stevie Nicks joined the band, they were blusier, harder rocking,
3:07.5	more psychedelic. Even in the early 70s, they were incredibly popular. Maybe not as big as they
3:14.6	eventually became, but they had hits like black magic woman. I say, this will be big news. I'll
	...

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