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Playlist: Music & Music Docs

Compiled By: Roland Foster

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Music and music related episodes.

Episode #171 - Sun Records R&B Story Pt. 1

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:01

This week's "Juke In The Back" spotlights the most influential and important record label of all-time, Sun Records. In part 1 of this 2 part series, you'll hear nearly all of Sun's legendary rhythm & blues releases during 1952 and '53 as Matt The Cat gives you the story behind the story on Sun's R&B sides.

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Sam Phillips of Sun Records Sun Records R&B Story Pt. 1

This week, the "Juke In The Back" salutes the most influential and important record label of all-time, Sun Records. Sam Phillips started the legendary label in Memphis, TN in March, 1952 after successfully recording the debut sides from B.B. King, Ike Turner, Phineas Newborn and Howlin' Wolf and selling the masters to RPM Records in LA and Chess Records in Chicago. This is part one of a two part feature, leading up to Phillips' groundbreaking, pop culture shifting discovery of Elvis Presley in July, 1954. Matt The Cat examines nearly every rhythm & blues side that Sun Released during 1952 and '53 on this in-depth look into one of America's most treasured music catalogs. That little yellow label from Memphis is in the spotlight all week on the "Juke In The Back," America's showcase for 1940s and '50s Rhythm & Blues.

Episode #172 - Sun Records R&B Story Pt. 2

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:00

On Part 2 of the "Juke In The Back"'s tribute to Sun Records' early R&B releases, Matt The Cat features Elvis' first, historic professional recording as well as other great records from Little Milton, James Cotton and many more.

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Sam Phillips & Elvis Presley at Sun Records Sun Records R&B Story Pt. 2

On Part 2 of "Juke In The Back"'s 2 part series on Sun Records' early R&B releases, Matt The Cat spotlights 1954 and '55. This was the most important year and a half in Sun's history. In July, 1954, a young former truck driver named Elvis Presley entered 706 Union Avenue in Memphis and laid down the a song that would lead to the rock n' roll explosion of the mid-1950s. Sun founder, the late Sam Phillips recalls that historic recording as Matt The Cat spins classic Sun R&B from the likes of Billy "The Kid" Emerson, Little Milton, James Cotton and Roscoe Gordon. This is the thrilling conclusion to the "Juke In The Back" tribute to the most important and influential label in the history of rock n' roll.

Episode #381 - Sam Cooke

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:01

Few African Americans accomplished so much (songwriter, revered singer, entrepreneur) during the 1950s as the legendary Sam Cooke. This week, Matt The Cat, along with author Peter Guralnick look at the life and early music of Sam Cooke, from his gospel roots to his R&B/pop breakthrough.

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Sam CookeSam Cooke

The "Juke In The Back" features a full hour of Sam Cooke, one of the distinctive and expressive voices ever pressed in wax. Cooke's early period singing gospel with the renowned Soul Stirrers is often cited, but hardly ever featured. Matt The Cat focuses on Sam Cooke's early days from 1951 to 1957, begriming with his recordings with the Soul Stirrers up through his R&B and pop breakthrough of 1957. Matt is joined by author Peter Guralnick, who wrote the definitive biography on Cooke called "Dream Boogie: The Triumph Of Sam Cooke," filling in the background on one of the 20th Century's most revered singers. Cooke was also a noted songwriter, producer and entrepreneur, starting his own SAR Records in the late 1950s. Few African-American artists went further during the 1950s while jamming the juke boxes with tremendous gospel, R&B and pop hits. Hear the man who invented soul, this week on the "Juke In The Back."

Episode #380 - Elvis' R&B Influences

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:01

Elvis Presley's early music was a blend of Hillbilly, Country, Gospel and R&B. This week's "Juke In The Back" explored the enormous debt Elvis owed to his Rhythm & Blues idols and in turn, the debt the music owes to Elvis.

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Early ElvisElvis' Rhythm & Blues Influences

40 years ago this week, we lost the "King Of Rock n' Roll. Much has been written about Elvis’ enormous impact and popularity over the years, but it’s almost impossible to overstate the cultural shift that took place as he rose to fame in 1956. Elvis was a musical sponge. He absorbed all the music that moved him and those around him, from Country and Hillbilly to Gospel, Pop, R&B and Blues. This week’s “Juke In The Back” focuses solely on the rhythm & blues that motivated Elvis’ early career. During the end of his first session with Sam Phillips, Elvis cut into an inspired rendition of a semi-forgotten Arthur Crudup gem and rock n’ roll was literally born. From the New Orleans R&B of Smiley Lewis, to the jump blues of Wynonie Harris, Elvis dug it all and made each song uniquely his own. He wasn’t copying his R&B idols, he was merely using their material as a springboard for his own blend of the White and the Black. Sam Phillips was right when he said that it would take a White cat with an African-American feel to propel this exciting R&B music into the mainstream and lucky for us, he found that in Elvis Presley. Matt The Cat presents many surprises in this week’s “Juke In The Back,” dedicated to Elvis’ strongest musical influence: Rhythm & Blues.

Episode #324 - Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:00

Willie Mae Thornton was a trailblazer, who in making her own rules paved the way for other groundbreaking female artists like Janis Joplin and Madonna. Known as "Big Mama," Thornton scored her only hit record in early 1953 when "Hound Dog" topped the national Rhythm & Blues Charts, but her career spanned from 1950 to well into the 1970s. This week, Matt The Cat dusts off Big Mama Thornton's best sides from Peacock Records and even digs up her first recordings for the E&W label under the group name, The Harlem Stars (1950).

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Big Mama ThorntonWillie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton

Willie Mae Thornton was a trailblazer, who in making her own rules paved the way for other groundbreaking female artists like Janis Joplin and Madonna. Known as "Big Mama," Thornton scored her only hit record in early 1953 when "Hound Dog" topped the national Rhythm & Blues Charts, but her career spanned from 1950 to well into the 1970s. Elvis not only recorded "Hound Dog," which was written by the young, white songwriting duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, but he also took much of his swagger from Thornton, who was known to be blatantly tough and sexual on stage. Besides "Hound Dog," her other signature song, "They Call Me Big Mama," ranks among her best material, along with "Rock A Bye Baby," "Mischievous Boogie" and "My Man Called Me." Big Mama is also uncredited on a duet with friend Johnny Ace called "Yes, Baby" from 1953. She wrote many of her own songs, but like many artists of her day, did not own the publishing rights, so when Joplin recorded her "Ball and Chain," Big Mama Thornton didn't get any royalties from it. This week, Matt The Cat dusts off Big Mama Thornton's best sides from Peacock Records and even digs up her first recordings for the E&W label under the group name, The Harlem Stars (1950). 

The R&B Chronicles - Aretha Franklin

From WHRV | Part of the The R&B Chronicles series | 59:47

Exploration of R&B Music

Aretha_franklin_small Perhaps more than any other genre of popular American music culture, soul music is the result of the combination and merging of previous styles and sub-styles in the 50's and 60's. At it's inception soul music combined the African American concepts of gospel and blues sensibilities in creating a passionate, soulful and musical presentation of the African American spirit. Rhythm and Blues is itself a combination of blues and jazz and developed in the 40's as small groups of predominately African American musicians built upon the blues tradition which morphed itself into soul music coming into the 50's. "The R&B Chronicles" is a weekly musical biography that will focus on classic R&B and soul music and feature many of the great artists and groups.... such as Otis Redding, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Earth, Wind and Fire and many more. "The R&B Chronicles" airs Friday evenings at 7pm on 89.5 WHRV-FM. Hosted and produced by Jae Sinnett.

The Byrds (part 2): Farther Along

From Joyride Media | Part of the The Byrds: There is a Season / Farther Along series | 59:05

The Second of two one-hour documentaries on The Byrds, covering 1968 to 1972: the groundbreaking country-rock years.

Unissued_small The second of two one-hour documentaries on The Byrds, the continuously groundbreaking band who bridged the gaps between The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Beach Boys, the Los Angeles psychedelic underground and classic country. Each hour is hosted by singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, and covers a distinct period of their prolific history that can either be aired as one two-part series, or as your choice of two insightful one-hour programs. FARTHER ALONG picks up the story in 1968 and details how the Byrds' legendary Act I was followed by one of rock history's most fascinating second acts. Despite their lower record sales, the Byrds' later incarnations alternately defined and re-defined "country-rock," thanks to the influential contributions by folks like Gram Parsons and guitarist Clarence White. As with the first segment, FARTHER ALONG feature the wide range of music that made The Byrds of the 60s most influential bands, along with comments by its two longest-lasting members: Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Writers David Fricke, Anthony DeCurtis, Lenny Kaye and Byrds historian Sid Griffin are also interviewed. Instead of being directed by the singular vision of one leader, The Byrds were consistently led by everybody's contributions - from their original five members to the musicians involved with their later years. "They all brought something new and something defining," says journalist David Fricke, "and it all became part of the Byrds sound. They didn?t change the Byrds to the degree that it changed the sound. What they did became the Byrds." Broadcast Window: Begins late September 2006, available for all USA radio broadcasters at no cost. 9/30 update: In addition to the 0:59 version posted on the audio page, there is also a 0:54 "news-hole" show in two parts - a 1:00 billboard and the 53:00 program.

The Byrds (part 1): There is a Season

From Joyride Media | Part of the The Byrds: There is a Season / Farther Along series | 59:05

The first of two one-hour documentaries on The Byrds, covering 1964 to 1967: the hitmaking years of the band's original five members.

Tambourine_small The first of two one-hour documentaries on The Byrds, the continuously groundbreaking band who bridged the gaps between The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Beach Boys, the Los Angeles psychedelic underground and classic country. Their memorable music set the stage for everyone from the Eagles to Tom Petty to R.E.M. Each hour is hosted by singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, and covers a distinct period of their prolific history that can either be aired as one two-part series, or as your choice of two insightful one-hour programs.

THERE IS A SEASON covers 1964-1967, the all-too-brief hitmaking years of the Byrds' original five members - Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke. They were an electrified folk band who topped the charts with some of the decades' most innovative singles and albums. By 1967, their musical harmony was engulfed by the off-stage disharmony that pushed them to reach those heights. Instead of being directed by the singular vision of one leader, The Byrds were consistently led by everybody's contributions - from their original five members to the musicians involved with their later years.

Despite the inner turmoil that resulted in a revolving cast of characters, the Byrds always used those changes as opportunities to further their musical evolution. "They all brought something new and something defining," says journalist David Fricke, "and it all became part of the Byrds sound. They didn't change the Byrds to the degree that it changed the sound. What they did became the Byrds."

Both segments feature the wide range of music that made The Byrds of the 60s most influential bands, along with comments by its two longest-lasting members: Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Writers David Fricke, Anthony DeCurtis, Lenny Kaye and Byrds historian Sid Griffin are also interviewed.

Border Radio: The Big Jukebox in the Sky

From Texas Folklife | 58:56

An hour-long music special on the story of Border Radio. Toe tapping music from hillbilly, western swing, Mexican conjunto and contemporary, rhythm and blues, and good ole rock and roll.

Borderradioimage_small Border Radio: The Great Big Jukebox in the Sky: (Stereo) An hour-long music special on the story of Border Radio. Lots of good toe tapping music from hillbilly, western swing, Mexican conjunto and contemporary, rhythm and blues, and good ole rock and roll. Between the 1930s through the 1960s, mega-watt "border blaster" stations set up just across the Mexican border to evade U.S. broadcast regulations, and beamed programming across the United States and as far away as Europe. For the first time, American listeners heard ?race music,? rhythm and blues, and a diverse span of music from ?hillbilly? to gospel that carried the voices and sounds of Mexico and the Southwest to a vast audience. The first in a series of taped-for-radio specials, Border Radio: The Big Juke Box in the Sky features Texas musicians, including Rick Trevi?o from Grammy-winning Los Super Seven; Austin?s own blues diva, Miss Lavelle White; rock and roller Joe King Carrasco; traditional conjunto from South Texas; and contemporary Tex-Mex rocker, Patricia Vonne. Border Radio?s most famous dee-jay, Wolfman Jack, makes a fictional dramatic appearance. Other special guests on Border Radio include Dallas ?Nevada Slim? Turner, one of border radio?s original cowboy singers and pitchmen, and a surprise appearance by Kinky Friedman, humorist and wildcard gubernatorial candidate for Texas in 2006. Border Radio: the Great Big Jukebox in the Sky is produced for radio by Ginger Miles, and executive-produced by Texas Folklife, made possible in part by a grant from National Endowment for the Arts.

A Vietnam Soundscape

From WHRV | 59:00

Vietnam was the first war fought to a soundtrack, with over 4000 war-related songs written and recorded between 1965-73. The lyrics were patriotic, controversial and often protest centered and were the essential to America. Join WHRV host Jae Sinnett as he takes you on a journey, celebrating the best music of the Vietnam era and focusing on the stories and artists behind the music.

16014181738_1fb6301b2a_b_small During World War I, soldiers carried song books in their kit bags. In World War II, some soldiers had access to radios and could hear Glenn Miller and the Army-Air Force Band perform. Others were lucky enough to catch Bob Hope headline a USO show. During the Korean War the military set up its own radio network, Armed Forces Radio (Korea). Vietnam had all these outlets and more. Its GIs brought their own radios and instruments from home. They bought records and swapped tapes of their favorite music. They listened to official outlets as was as pirate stations and Radio Hanoi – which would play American popular music as an enticement to get soldiers to tune in. Whether they preferred Country, Soul or Rock & Roll, music was their soundtrack to the war. Vietnam was the first war fought to a soundtrack, with over 4000 war-related songs written and recorded between 1965-73. The lyrics were patriotic, controversial and often protest centered and were the essential to America.  Join WHRV host Jae Sinnett as he takes you on a journey, celebrating the best music of the Vietnam era and focusing on the stories and artists behind the music.  

Greil Marcus on Van Morrison

From KUOW | 18:02

Ross Reynolds interviews cultural critic Greil Marcus on the music of Van Morrison. Marcus's book is titled "When That Rough God Goes Riding".

Greil_marcus_when_that_rough_god_small

Culture critic Greil Marcus (‘Lipstick Traces’ ‘Weird Old America’) calls Van Morrison a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of modern music. Yet he dismisses seventeen years of Morrison's work as utterly forgettable. We’ll listen to stellar performances collected by the author as Marcus explains Van Morrison’s cranky genius. 

Biography of Leonard Cohen 1HR

From Steve Damien | 59:27

A one hour look at this Canadian singer songwriter, featuring various songs from his career.

Retro_title_for_ilike_small A Canadian songwriter, novelist, and poet who's still giving Dylan a run for his money, Leonard Cohen has become one of the most influential writers and singers of the last 5 decades. Cohen's songs and poetry have influenced countless other songwriters, and more than a thousand renditions of his work have been recorded. In this retrospective we will look at music from 8 of his albums, showing how his music mixes emotion and faith to bring an added complexity that most folk-era musicians never achieve.

Leonard Cohen: Evolution From Poet to Songwriter and Singer

From David Tarnow | 57:30

Leonard Cohen: How a shy, sensitive poet from Canada became a major recording artist. This one-hour radio show documents Leonard Cohen's very first recording session and how it came about.

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The story of how Leonard Cohen was first put on record by legendary Columbia Records producer John Hammond. It features original interviews with Hammond and Cohen, who both spoke to documentary maker David Tarnow about Cohen's journey from poet to songwriter and singer. Cohen describes his early years, what was behind the composing of some of his most memorable first songs and the people who made it possible for him to gain access to the Columbia recording studio and succeed there.

 

The Gram Parsons Story

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:01

Biographical portrayal of the legendary Gram Parsons

Rs_logo_small Cecil Ingram Connor III, also know as Gram Parsons. Who is this guy, and why do we care about his death? Well, he created country rock. Credited for shoving Rock and Country together, Gram Parsons is even credited with influencing The Rolling Stones. Heard of Honky Tonk Woman? Gram Parsons wrote it. This and much more in this fun musical journey through Gram Parsons' brilliant career. Just wait to hear how he died!

Happiest Song in the World

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

Empirical evidence shows that these songs are the happiest song in the world.

Rs_logo_small Empirical evidence shows that these songs are the happiest song in the world.

George Martin

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

What do you know about the 5th Beatle? The fifth Beatle was George Martin, the producer for the band. We are gonna tell you about his life, his background, and someone of the people he worked with.

Playing
George Martin
From
KSLU

Rs_logo_small What do you know about the 5th Beatle? The fifth Beatle was George Martin, the producer for the band. We are gonna tell you about his life, his background, and someone of the people he worked with. 

Allen Toussaint

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

On this episode of Rock School, we will be celebrating the life of Allen Toussaint who recently passed away on November 10, 2015. We will play music by the great jazz musician and share personal stories about him.

Playing
Allen Toussaint
From
KSLU

Rs_logo_small On this episode of Rock School, we will be celebrating the life of Allen Toussaint who recently passed away on November 10, 2015. We will play music by the great jazz musician and share personal stories about him. 

Tribute to BB King

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

This week we pay tribute to the legend who recently passed away.

Playing
Tribute to BB King
From
KSLU

Rs_logo_small This week we pay tribute to the legend who recently passed away.  

Literary References in Rock

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

This is the 8th anniversary episode of Rock School. Dr. Joe Burns talks about literary references from bands like the Police, ColdPlay, the FatBoy Slim, etc.

Rs_logo_small This is the 8th anniversary episode of Rock School.  Dr. Joe Burns talks about literary references from bands like the Police, ColdPlay, the FatBoy Slim, etc.

British Invasion - Part One

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

From the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show through Herman's Hermits chart toppers, this week we explore the beginning of the British Invasion of American music.

Rs_logo_small From the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show through Herman's Hermits chart toppers, this week we explore the beginning of the British Invasion of American music.

British Invasion - Part Two

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

From the start of split opinions to The Monkees, this week we explore the pinnacle of the British Invasion of American music.

Rs_logo_small From the start of split opinions to The Monkees, this week we explore the pinnacle of the British Invasion of American music.

Back Up Singers

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

Did you know Sheryl Crow, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey all got their starts from singing backup? In fact, a lot more artists than you think began as backup singers. This week on Rock School, Dr. Joe Burns and Beth West discuss your favorite artists who started as backup singers.

Playing
Back Up Singers
From
KSLU

Rs_logo_small Did you know Sheryl Crow, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey all got their starts from singing backup? In fact, a lot more artists than you think began as backup singers. This week on Rock School, Dr. Joe Burns and Beth West discuss your favorite artists who started as backup singers.

Rock and Roll Myths

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:00

This week we cover some of the best known myths in rock and roll history and try to set the record straight. It's the truth behind the death of Sid Vicious, the lyrics to "Puff The Magic Dragon", Mick Jagger and David Bowie's sleepover, George Jones' lawnmower liquor runs and many more!

Playing
Rock and Roll Myths
From
KSLU

Rs_logo_small This week we cover some of the best known myths in rock and roll history and try to set the record straight.  It's the truth behind the death of Sid Vicious, the lyrics to "Puff The Magic Dragon", Mick Jagger and David Bowie's sleepover, George Jones' lawnmower liquor runs and many more!

Lecture Series: Protest Songs

From KSLU | Part of the Rock School series | 59:01

It is the first episode within a four episode series.

Rs_logo_small These episodes originated within a lecture but went on to be incorporated within Rock School. They decided to make a small four episode series out of it. Within, you will learn information and back story on some of the most influential and popular protest songs in music history.

Everything Was Right: The Beatles' Revolver

From Paul Ingles | 01:58:00

Either a two-hour program (with optional 5:00 newscast length content in each hour that can be dropped), or a one-hour program (with additional newcast friendly 54:00 cut) in which musicians, writers, and Beatle fans explore what made Revolver one of the top rock albums of all time.

Showlogo1athumb_small NOW AVAILABLE TO ALL OF PUBLIC RADIO. "AWESOME! BEST PIECE OF RADIO I HAVE HEARD in ages. A must listen for any Beatles fan." PRX REVIEW by Jonathan Fahey When rock music critics and fans are asked to rank the top rock albums of all time, The Beatles' 1966 release Revolver either heads the list or falls into the top tier. To mark the 40th anniversary year of the album's release, award-winning producer and host Paul Ingles presents Everything Was Right: The Beatles' "Revolver" Ingles explores the landmark album's story and influence in depth, talking with historians, musicians, music critics, and fans and spotlighting each Revolver track (along with the 1966 single "Paperback Writer and Rain") The Beatles experimented with new sounds and subject matter on Revolver, pioneering psychedelic rock on some tracks and exhibiting extraordinary song-craft on others. Listeners learn about the sources for the tunes, the studio experiments The Beatles used to get their ground-breaking sounds, and the lasting impact of the collection on the pop/rock music scene. Among the guest commentators is Mark Lewisohn, author of The Beatles Recording Sessions. The only journalist to have listened to every second of the Beatles' studio recordings, Lewisohn is a major authority on the band's history. Everything Was Right also features music writers Jim Derogatis, Steve Turner, Jeff Sobul, and Stuart Maddow. Musicians Shawn Colvin, Mark Erelli, John Leventhal, Deborah Holland, Richard Goldman, David Gans, Kristy Kruger, and Jon Spurney join other Beatle fans to talk about their favorite tracks on what is arguably the greatest album by the greatest band of all time. "...it does do a solid job of dissecting the psychology, backstory and musicianship of each song note for delicious note. This is the kind of program that makes musical pedants like myself pant with delight...this documentary does offer solid journalism, excellent production values and a style that leaves most of the talking to the interviewees. Highly recommended." PRX REVIEW by Jonathan Groubert    "...relentless, meticulous work on the part of the producer and host, with a rich overflow of excellent interviews. Finally, once each song has been perfectly framed, they actually let you hear it in its entirety, or nearly. And it's like you're hearing it for the first time." PRX REVIEW by Marjorie Van Halteren

The Last Year In The Life of The Beatles - 1969/1970

From Paul Ingles | 01:58:01

A two-hour special that chronologically follows The Beatles through 1969 and 1970 as they record their final tracks, struggle with their company, squabble with each other, pursue other interests, and ultimately split apart.

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Although their fans didn't know it, the music The Beatles were making in 1969 turned out to be the last recordings they would ever make as a four-some.  When John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr gathered in the studio the day after New Year's that year, the last chapter of their remarkable journey began with the sometimes contentious Get Back / Let It Be sessions.  The band's business affairs began to unravel soon after and several members' minds started drifting toward getting off The Beatles' merry-go-round.  Still they managed to pull off one final masterpiece, Abbey Road, before being photographed together for the last time in August and formally closing the book on the Beatles early in 1970.
 
Award-winning producer Paul Ingles continues his documentation of The Beatles' story with The Last Year in the Life of The Beatles, a two-hour special that chronologically follows the band through 1969 as they record their final tracks, struggle with their company, squabble with each other, pursue other interests, and ultimately split apart.  Listeners will hear behind the scenes studio chatter, rehearsal takes of songs, and finished classics, mixed with informed commentary from a host of music writers, musicians and fans.  Clips from news events and other classic music from the tumultuous year that ended the 1960's will also be blended in.
 
Commentators include writers Steve Turner, Anthony DeCurtis, Mikal Gilmore, Richie Unterberger, Greg Kot, and Ann Powers, and musicians Shawn Colvin, Richard Goldman, Jon Spurney, and David Gans.

(Song List Will Be Posted Shortly)
 
Ingles has produced programs spotlighting many Beatles albums as well as documentaries on Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Shawn Colvin and Bob Dylan.  More information about his work is at www.paulingles.com.

A Spin Down Abbey Road (59:00 / 54:00)

From Paul Ingles | 58:59

Music writers, musicians and Beatles fans weigh in on The Beatles' Abbey Road, the album that turned out to have the last songs the band ever recorded together. It was released in September of 1969.

Beatles_abbey-road_small Award-Winning producer Paul Ingles adds another installment to his series of programs spotlighting The Beatles album releases with A Spin Down Abbey Road.  A panel of music writers, musicians and Beatles fans offer historical background on the tracks and their own personal feelings about this landmark album.  Their comments are woven through the music of Abbey Road.

Featured guests are music writers Anthony DeCurtis, Steve Turner, Ann Powers, Richie Unterberger, Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot.  Musician guests include Shawn Colvin, Glen Phillips, Richard Goldman, David Gans, Phil & Tim Hanseroth and Jon Spurney.


The Beatles Finale: Let It Be (59:00 / 54:00)

From Paul Ingles | 58:59

Music writers, musicians and fans offer a track-by-track assessment of the 12th and last official Beatles album, LET IT BE, released in May of 1970.

Let_it_be_small The word had been out for about a month that the legendary Beatles were splitting up, when fans were able to buy what would be their 12th and last official release.  The cover featured an individual photo of each Beatle, bordered by black under just three words, Let It Be.  While few would consider it one of the Beatles' best, there are still some undeniable classics, good rockers and some clues to the dissolution of the most famous band in music history.

In this program, producer Paul Ingles presents the 5th in his series of programs deconstructing great Beatles albums.  His panel of musicians, music writers and Beatle fans includes: Anthony DeCurtis- writer for Rolling Stone Magazine, Los Angeles Times Critic Ann Powers, Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, Beatle book authors Steve Turner and Richie Unterberger, and musicians David Gans, Jon Spurney, Richard Goldman and (in the 59:00 version only) Shawn Colvin.

Dan Ingram-All Mixed Up

From Peter Bochan | Part of the All Mixed Up series | 59:34

A Tribute to Dan Ingram who guided us through the sixties over Top 40 Music Radio Giant "77 WABC"-with airchecks, music and cultural atifacts including The Great Northeast Blackout of November 1965.

Dan_ingram_sm_small Celebrating radio pioneer and All American Top 40 DJ Dan Ingram with music from The Beatles, Snail Mail, The Bacon Brothers, Alice Cooper, Tom Petty, The Box Tops, Billy J. Kramer, Johnny Swim & Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, Fred Rogers, Morrissey, PIXX, Childish Gambino, Margo Price, Camille Yarborough and Daniel Johnston

Some RESPECT for Aretha

From Paul Ingles | 59:00

Aretha Franklin's over 6 decade career is recalled by music documentarian Paul Ingles and a panel of music writers and commentators.

Aretha-franklin_small Aretha Franklin's over 6 decade career is recalled by music documentarian Paul Ingles and a panel of music writers and commentators in the wake of Aretha's August 2018 passing at the age of 76.

Featured in the program are 20 of Aretha's legendary performances and commentary from Ann Powers of NPR Music, Writer and educator Rob Bowman, writer Ashley Kahn, writer and musician John Kruth, and public radio host Gwen Thompkins.

RESPECT: The Aretha Franklin Story

From Garrett Stack | Part of the American Jukebox® series | 01:58:00

The Queen of Soul earned that title with nearly 60 years of performing under her belt. This is a career-spanning tribute.

Aretha_show_aj_270_small American Jukebox® 270 RESPECT: The Aretha Franklin Story

In 1960, when Aretha Franklin was 18, she was signed to Columbia Records. But, there was little soul. For six long years in those studios, under boss of A&R Mitch Miller, they tried one formula after another. Nothing clicked with the public. Nine albums, 22 singles later, with scant sales, the two parted company in 1967. On to Atlantic Records.

Head of Atlantic, Ahmet Ertegun, knew Aretha had talent but was reluctant to sign her because of the dismal record sales at Columbia for over six years. Jerry Wexler convinced Ertegun to let him take Aretha down south to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where Fame Studios had a killer rhythm section. Ertugun flew off to Europe to work on some other deals and Wexler and Franklin flew off to Alabama. 

Sure enough, Wexler's hunch paid off. Aretha blossomed in that environment and they cut two sides including I Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Love You). Atlantic released it and BOOM! It soared up the charts into the Top-10. (Of the 22 singles Columbia previously released, only one even reached the Top-50.) The Muscle Shoals crew was flown to New York to cut an album. They did - in one week. On that first album was Respect, an Otis Redding song aretha liked. No fancy Columbia orchestrations. No holding back Aretha. R-E-S-P-E-C-T burst into the consciousness of America, went to #1, and "Lady Soul" was soon to become "Queen."

On this edition of American Jukebox we take a career-spanning look at Aretha: Columbia, Atlantic, Arista, and live perfromances. 

Hail the Queen.

The Sound of Resistance: Protest or Pose

From WFHB | Part of the Interchange series | 55:38

We’ll look at three songs: “Strange Fruit” sung by Billie Holiday (and recently sampled by Kanye West); “We Almost Lost Detroit” by Gill Scott Heron; and “Warzone” by T.I. As our title suggests, we’ll discuss how we come to designate some songs as legitimate forms of protest, and how some songs might be better described as commercially opportunistic. So, songs as instruments of protest–or products of protest–or if they’re sometimes just products.

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“Protest or Pose” begins a series of programs under the heading The Sound of Resistance. Joining me in the studio is Rasul Mowatt, associate professor in The School of Public Health and the American Studies Department at Indiana University.

We’ll look at three songs: “Strange Fruit” sung by Billie Holiday (and recently sampled by Kanye West); “We Almost Lost Detroit” by Gill Scott Heron; and “Warzone” by T.I.

As our title suggests, we’ll discuss how we come to designate some songs as legitimate forms of protest, and how some songs might be better described as commercially opportunistic. So, songs as instruments of protest–or products of protest–or if they’re sometimes just products.

SEGMENT ONE: “Strange Fruit”
“Strange Fruit” is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans.

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

SEGMENT TWO: “We Almost Lost Detroit”
The song “We Almost Lost Detroit”, written by Gil Scott Heron and on the 1977 album Bridges, recounts the story of the nuclear meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station near Monroe, MI, in 1966. It was performed at the No Nukes concert in September 1979 at Madison Square Garden.

SEGMENT THREE: “Warzone” (2016)
T.I. has said the video is in response to the “All Lives Matter” slogan: “We wanted to give ‘the other side’ — and when I say the ‘other side’ I don’t mean police, I don’t mean white people, I mean people who think we’re just overreacting, the ‘All Lives Matter’ people — we wanted to give them the least amount of ammunition to oppose our message. (Rapper T.I. Presents Counterpoint to ‘All Lives Matter’ Crowd

dj-rasulGUEST
Rasul Mowatt is Associate Professor of American Studies and Associate Chair and Associate Professor in Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies with the School of Public Health at Indiana University.

RELATED
DJ Rasul talks lynching in popular music
DJ RasulDJ Rasul

MUSIC
“Rumble” by Link Wray
“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday
“Blood On the Leaves” Kanye West
“Strange Fruit” by Rokia Traoré
“We Almost Lost Detroit” by Gil Scott Heron
“We Almost Lost Detroit” by Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
“Warzone” by T. I.
“We Almost Lost Detroit” by Ron Holloway (featuring Gil Scott Heron)

NEXT TIME
american-slave-coastThe Capitalized Womb…We’re joined by Constance and Ned Sublette, authors of The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. This is the brutal story of how the slavery industry made the reproductive labor of the people it referred to as “breeding women” essential to the young country’s expansion. The book’s narrative is driven by the power struggle between the elites of Virginia, the slave-raising “mother of slavery,” and South Carolina, the massive importer of Africans—a conflict that was central to American politics from the making of the Constitution through the debacle of the Confederacy.

CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Assistant Producer: Rob Schoon
Board Engineer: Jennifer Brooks
Executive Producer: Joe Crawford

593: Sound Opinions: Conversation With Mavis Staples, 4/7/2017

From Sound Opinions | Part of the Sound Opinions Episodes series | 59:00

As a member of her family group The Staple Singers and as a solo artist, Mavis Staples has used her huge voice to power the Civil Rights Movement and inspire generations. The gospel and soul legend joins hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot for an intimate discussion of her life and career.

Mavis_web_small As a member of her family group The Staple Singers and as a solo artist, Mavis Staples has used her huge voice to power the Civil Rights Movement and inspire generations. The gospel and soul legend joins hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot for an intimate discussion of her life and career.

A Beautiful Symphony of Brotherhood: A Musical Journey in the Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

From WQXR | 58:00

In this hour-long special from WQXR and WNYC, host Terrance McKnight interweaves musical examples with Dr. King's own speeches and sermons to illustrate the powerful place that music held in his work--and examines how the musical community responded to and participated in Dr. King's cause.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up listening to and singing church songs, and saw gospel and folk music as natural tools to further the civil rights movement.

In this hour-long special from WQXR and WNYC, host Terrance McKnight interweaves musical examples with Dr. King's own speeches and sermons to illustrate the powerful place that music held in his work--and examines how the musical community responded to and participated in Dr. King's cause.

Terrance McKnight is WQXR's Evening Host. He came to WQXR from WNYC, which he joined in 2008. He brings to his position wide and varied musical experience that includes performance, teaching and radio broadcast. An accomplished pianist, McKnight was also a member of the Morehouse College faculty, where he taught music appreciation and applied piano.

Pete Seeger: A Life, part 1

From WAMC Northeast Public Radio | Part of the Pete Seeger: A Life series | 58:47

Celebrate and remember legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger in this first hour Seeger talks about his early life, influences & teachers.

800px-pete_seeger2_-_6-16-07_photo_by_anthony_pepitone_small Celebrate and remember legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger in this first hour Seeger talks about his early life, influences & teachers.

Pete Seeger: A Life, part 2

From WAMC Northeast Public Radio | Part of the Pete Seeger: A Life series | 58:18

In the is second hour of Pete Seeger: A Life, Seeger discusses the media, and his music career with the Almanac Singers & the Weavers.

800px-pete_seeger2_-_6-16-07_photo_by_anthony_pepitone_small In the is second hour of Pete Seeger: A Life, Seeger discusses the media, and his music career with the Almanac Singers & the Weavers.

The Afterlife of Otis Redding

From Open Source | Part of the Open Source with Christopher Lydon series | 58:59

Otis Redding’s five magnificent years in showbiz transformed the sound of soul music.

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Otis Redding’s five magnificent years in showbiz transformed the sound of soul music. His grainy, growling, and “squawking” voice kept the music rooted in the older traditions of the black church and black life in America. Yet his secularized sound—tempered with the sweetness of Sam Cooke, the flamboyant flair of Little Richard, and the showmanship of James Brown—also ushered in a new era of African American pop in the ’60s.

With a little help from his virtuosic, multiracial band, Redding’s appeal also managed to cross over to white audiences on stage. His show-stealing set at the Monterey Pop Festival led Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to claim, after Redding’s performance, that he had “seen God on stage.” Chris’s brother Michael Lydon, a music journalist at the time, was also there covering the event. He described Otis’s appearance as “ecstasy, madness, loss, total screaming, fantastic.”

 

Six months later, that Monterey god died in a plane crash. “The crown prince of soul,” the Rolling Stone headline declared, “is dead.”

50 years after this tragic loss, we’re looking back at the living legacy of Otis Redding’s soul.

Jonathan Gould, author of the new biography, Otis Redding: An Unfinished Lifegives us the origin story—tracing Redding’s career from his humble gospel roots in Macon, Georgia to his magisterial turn onstage in Monterey, California. Redding’s death, for Gould, also punctuates the end of one era of soul music.

James Brown (left) backstage with Otis Redding (right)

Larry Watson, who sings and teaches the soul tradition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, hears a slightly different story. For him, Redding represents an ideal model of an unassimilated African voice. As he wrote to us in an email earlier this week:

Otis Redding is a special breed and one of our foremost classical voices. He represents royalty in African-centered, unapologetic musical Blackness without ever uttering one political slogan. His very presence and sound represent our collective ancestral memory. It is the rumblings of God’s unhappiness with the way we continue to treat one another. His sound is Blind Tom, Harriet Tubman, and Nat Turner. He is also the sound of that vulnerable Black Mother and the Motherless Child. His sound captures what Dubois and Malcolm and King eloquently wrote about. He was one of our main vessels allowing us to mourn and rejoice that we would see another day of life.
For Larry, you can hear everything you need to know about Otis’s technique in the difference between Sam Cooke’s original version of “A Change is Gonna Come” and Redding’s raw re-interpretation.

Janice Pendarvis, one of the legendary back-up singers featured in the documentary, Twenty Feet from Stardom, takes great delight in performing Redding’s music. She once sang “Dock of the Bay” in a rehearsal for the reggae legend Max Romeo. Still today, she hears Otis’s posthumous hit as a “perfect record,” but in order to really understand the nuances in Redding’s performance style, she says, listen to  “Try a Little Tenderness.”

 

Emily Lordi is a literary scholar of the soul tradition at UMass Amherst. She wrote a book on Redding’s iconic female contemporaries—from Mahalia to Aretha—and another on one of Otis’s successors, Donny Hathaway. As a scrupulous close reader of this generation of soul singers, she shows us how those little “Tenderness” tricks were later transformed–and in some sense distorted–by Kanye West and Jay-Z:

 

Ed Pavlic is a poet with a keen ear for the long history of black music in America—much of which he distilled in a book we love, Who Can Afford to Improvise? on the musical inheritance behind James Baldwin’s prose. He take us through the evolution of the Otis style and spirit that came roaring out of the church and is still moving in the world—particularly through younger singers like SZA and Ravyn Lenae. The key for Ed Pavlic is not the sound of any performer, but the sound of a community. 

As an added bonus, Pavlic also put together a special “continuous soul” playlist for us. The set of songs traces Pavlic’s history of an evolving tradition. Listen to it here:

 

Johnny Cash: At Folsom Prison

From Joyride Media | 59:00

One-hour radio special takes you inside Folsom Prison for Johnny Cash's historic 1968 concert

Folsomcover_small IN 1968, JOHNNY CASH ENTERED CALIFORNIA’S NOTORIOUS FOLSOM PRISON TO PLAY A CONCERT. IT WASN’T HIS FIRST SHOW THERE, OR HIS LAST.  BUT THIS TIME, HE CAPTURED ON TAPE THE RAW ENERGY OF THE PRISONERS AND CAMRADERIE HE FELT WITH THEM. CASH KNEW THAT THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE LIVING IN PRISONS LIKE FOLSOM THAT NEEDED TO BE TREATED LIKE HUMAN BEINGS.  IN TIME, HE BECAME A POWERFUL VOICE FOR PRISON REFORM.

WE’LL HEAR HIGHLIGHTS FROM CASH’S FOLSOM CONCERT AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE TO SEE IT – FOLSOM PRISON GUARDS AND INMATES, JOURNALISTS WHO COVERED THE EVENT, CASH BIOGRAPHER MICHAEL STREISGUTH AND SPECIAL GUEST, MERLE HAGGARD.

Check out all of Joyride Media's Johnny Cash specials hosted by Rodney Crowell.

Van Morrison’s Cosmic Accident

From Open Source | Part of the Open Source with Christopher Lydon series | 59:07

The Story of Astral Weeks

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In the annals of rock music albums, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is one of a kind. In an earthy medium, it’s a masterpiece of abstraction.  Indecipherable. Irresistible. Influential. Accidental, it seemed, from the first licks in a Boston studio, in the crisis year of 1968.  It comes back 50 years later from an imagination beyond time or place: murky fables of love confronting death, lyrics unlinked from the riotous news of its day. Built on misty memories of Belfast, Van Morrison’s home town in Northern Ireland, Astral Weekwas one 23-year-old castaway’s field day with jazz men, a brave stab at a soulful pop hit. It rings today with the authority of high art and the passions that make music.

The making of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album is the story of a mystical document from the realm of the miraculous. Van Morrison was a young Irishman on the loose and impatient in Boston and Cambridge 50 years ago. He had the full catalog of Irish tenors and black American blues singers in his head, John McCormack to Lead Belly. Then suddenly in March, 1968, he was live in a studio, not with a band really but with jazz players who barely knew one another, or their leader. Morrison had no tunes or harmonies written down, no instructions for his players. But then “a cloud came along,” said the recording engineer, “and we all hopped on… and we landed when it was done.” This is a cult classic of art being born, or made, when nobody knew quite what was happening. The story is wonderfully retold in book form, with a Boston accent, by the writer Ryan Walsh

Ryan Walsh—author of the new book, Astral  Weeks: A Secret History of 1968got hooked on Van Morrison’s poetry, then his chords, then the puzzle of why he couldn’t stop listening. This winter, he took us on a tour of Morrison’s Boston. We began at Ace Recording Studios, just off Boston Common on Boylston Place, were the birthpangs of Van Morrison’s Astral Weekswere first heard in demo form. 

John Payne was one of the sidemen on Astral Weeks—the flute player who’d just dropped out of Harvard in 1968. He brought his flute and soprano sax over and shared his memories of playing with Van. In the decades since, he’s been a band leader and sideman for many headlining acts, including Bonnie Raitt and Phoebe Snow. Today, he’s a music teacher in Boston—you can find his own John Payne Music Center in Brookline Village, where he teaches the rising generation of horn players.

The late Lester Bangs was a champion of underdogs in the music market. He established himself as the soul of rock criticism with a essay on Van Morrison that sounds a bit like Harold Bloom on Shakespeare. The actor Erik Jensen, who plays Lester Bangs in a one-man show off Broadway, gave us the force of Bangs’s appreciation.

The Irish poet Paul Muldoon is also a lifelong fan of Astral Weeks. He grew up in the decade after Van Morrison, on the streets of Belfast that turn up in the lyrics of Morrison’s “Madame George”.


The Afterlife of Otis Redding

From Open Source | Part of the Open Source with Christopher Lydon series | 58:59

Otis Redding’s five magnificent years in showbiz transformed the sound of soul music. His grainy, growling, and “squawking” voice kept the music rooted in the older traditions of the black church and black life in America. Yet his secularized sound—tempered with the sweetness of Sam Cooke, the flamboyant flair of Little Richard, and the showmanship of James Brown—also ushered in a new era of African American pop in the ’60s.

With a little help from his virtuosic, multiracial band, Redding’s appeal also managed to cross over to white audiences on stage. His show-stealing set at the Monterey Pop Festival led Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to claim, after Redding’s performance, that he had “seen God on stage.” Chris’s brother Michael Lydon, a music journalist at the time, was also there covering the event. He described Otis’s appearance as “ecstasy, madness, loss, total screaming, fantastic.”

Screen_shot_2018-08-04_at_10

Otis Redding’s five magnificent years in showbiz transformed the sound of soul music. His grainy, growling, and “squawking” voice kept the music rooted in the older traditions of the black church and black life in America. Yet his secularized sound—tempered with the sweetness of Sam Cooke, the flamboyant flair of Little Richard, and the showmanship of James Brown—also ushered in a new era of African American pop in the ’60s.

With a little help from his virtuosic, multiracial band, Redding’s appeal also managed to cross over to white audiences on stage. His show-stealing set at the Monterey Pop Festival led Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to claim, after Redding’s performance, that he had “seen God on stage.” Chris’s brother Michael Lydon, a music journalist at the time, was also there covering the event. He described Otis’s appearance as “ecstasy, madness, loss, total screaming, fantastic.”

Six months later, that Monterey god died in a plane crash. “The crown prince of soul,” the Rolling Stone headline declared, “is dead.”

50 years after this tragic loss, we’re looking back at the living legacy of Otis Redding’s soul.

Jonathan Gould, author of the new biography, Otis Redding: An Unfinished Lifegives us the origin story—tracing Redding’s career from his humble gospel roots in Macon, Georgia to his magisterial turn onstage in Monterey, California. Redding’s death, for Gould, also punctuates the end of one era of soul music.

James Brown (left) backstage with Otis Redding (right)

Larry Watson, who sings and teaches the soul tradition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, hears a slightly different story. For him, Redding represents an ideal model of an unassimilated African voice. As he wrote to us in an email earlier this week:

Otis Redding is a special breed and one of our foremost classical voices. He represents royalty in African-centered, unapologetic musical Blackness without ever uttering one political slogan. His very presence and sound represent our collective ancestral memory. It is the rumblings of God’s unhappiness with the way we continue to treat one another. His sound is Blind Tom, Harriet Tubman, and Nat Turner. He is also the sound of that vulnerable Black Mother and the Motherless Child. His sound captures what Dubois and Malcolm and King eloquently wrote about. He was one of our main vessels allowing us to mourn and rejoice that we would see another day of life.
For Larry, you can hear everything you need to know about Otis’s technique in the difference between Sam Cooke’s original version of “A Change is Gonna Come” and Redding’s raw re-interpretation.

Janice Pendarvis, one of the legendary back-up singers featured in the documentary, Twenty Feet from Stardom, takes great delight in performing Redding’s music. She once sang “Dock of the Bay” in a rehearsal for the reggae legend Max Romeo. Still today, she hears Otis’s posthumous hit as a “perfect record,” but in order to really understand the nuances in Redding’s performance style, she says, listen to  “Try a Little Tenderness.”

Emily Lordi is a literary scholar of the soul tradition at UMass Amherst. She wrote a book on Redding’s iconic female contemporaries—from Mahalia to Aretha—and another on one of Otis’s successors, Donny Hathaway. As a scrupulous close reader of this generation of soul singers, she shows us how those little “Tenderness” tricks were later transformed–and in some sense distorted–by Kanye West and Jay-Z:

Ed Pavlic is a poet with a keen ear for the long history of black music in America—much of which he distilled in a book we love, Who Can Afford to Improvise? on the musical inheritance behind James Baldwin’s prose. He take us through the evolution of the Otis style and spirit that came roaring out of the church and is still moving in the world—particularly through younger singers like SZA and Ravyn Lenae. The key for Ed Pavlic is not the sound of any performer, but the sound of a community. 

As an added bonus, Pavlic also put together a special “continuous soul” playlist for us. The set of songs traces Pavlic’s history of an evolving tradition. Listen to it here:

 

Thelonious Monk at 100

From Open Source | Part of the Open Source with Christopher Lydon series | 58:59

At Thelonious Monk’s hundredth birthday, it’s our ears that have changed, not his sound.

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At Thelonious Monk’s hundredth birthday, it’s our ears that have changed, not his sound.  Instead of odd angles and eccentricity we hear orchids in music, various and beautiful.  The truth of the man’s life is clearer, too: drawn back from the ragged edge to the creative center of classically American music.  

The quirky story of Thelonious Sphere Monk made a new sort of sense in Robin Kelley’ grand biography in 2009.  Monk was one of the be-bop revolutionaries, it’s always said, uptown in Manhattan in 1941, but Robin Kelley revealed him as a child of Fats Waller stride piano and all the music of 1930s Harlem and well beyond it.

 

He mumbled at the piano and danced around it. He showed up late sometimes, sometimes disappeared, and did time for small drug offenses. But inside Robin Kelley’s biography is an unshakably original, purposeful musician, ever a generous genius, an attentive father, son, and husband, in triumph and in trouble. 

What Monk did was take the oldest, rooted tradition of the piano, in Harlem, New York, all over the country. And then he combined it with a future we have yet to achieve. It’s collapsing space and time. And his whole approach to the piano is one that brings past and present and future together in one. And he had never ever left his roots as a stride pianist — all the way to the very last tune he ever played.

Monk wrote close to a hundred songs still being interpreted and reinvented. He was musician beyond category, or genre, or period, in Kelly’s persuasive account. It’s fun to see Monk now an African-American Emersonian. His line, for instance, that “the piano ain’t got no wrong notes,” resonates with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s war on conformity and consistency. “To believe your own sound,” paraphrasing Emerson’s line in Self Reliance, “that is genius.”  

Robin D. G. Kelley in conversation with Chris Lydon, December 18, 2009

Episode #292 - Sister Rosetta Tharpe

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:00

The "Juke In The Back" is proud to salute Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the most important and influential musical figures of the 20th Century. Matt The Cat presents Rosetta Tharpe's charting singles as well as her most influential Gospel sides, which become some of the bricks in the foundation of both R&B and Rock n' Roll. We'll hear her recordings with Lucky Millinder, Sammy Price, Marie Knight, The Dependable Boys and the Rosette Singers as well as a few of her V-Discs. Can I get an AMEN!

Jukelogolargeapple2_small Sister Rosetta TharpeSister Rosetta Tharpe

The "Juke In The Back" is proud to salute Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the most important and influential musical figures of the 20th Century. Tharpe, who was born Rosetta Nubin, was popular immediately after her first Decca Recordings in 1938. She gained even more exposure while singing in-front of Lucky Millinder's big band during World War II. In 1944, she crossed musical barriers when her "Strange Things Happening Every Day" single crossed over to #2 on the national R&B lists, marking the first time a Gospel record had charted so high on a secular chart. Looking back, it's not that surprising when you consider that Rhythm & Blues Music is basically secular content, sung in a Gospel style with rhythm accompaniment. Not only did Sister Rosetta have an inspired, near-acrobatic vibrato voice, but she was also a virtuoso of the guitar. The novelty of a spiritual woman singing and playing the guitar soon gave way to her immense talents at doing both. This week, Matt The Cat presents Rosetta Tharpe's charting singles as well as her most influential Gospel sides, which become some of the bricks in the foundation of both R&B and Rock n' Roll. We'll hear her recordings with Lucky Millinder, Sammy Price, Marie Knight, The Dependable Boys and the Rosette Singers as well as a few of her V-Discs. Hallelujah, this is going to be an inspired show. Can I get an AMEN! 

Episode #459 - 1949: Jukebox Rhythm Review, Pt. 1

From Matt "The Cat" Baldassarri | Part of the Juke In The Back With Matt The Cat series | 59:01

Once again, it's time to put the ol' Rockola Jukebox in the spotlight as we blast back 70 years on our annual Jukebox Rhythm Review. Matt The Cat loads up the Juke with the biggest jukebox hits of 1949. This week, in part one, we'll focus on the most requested records from the first half of 1949, so fill your pockets with nickels and get ready to jive n' wail to the biggest R&B tunes from the first half of 1949 on this week's "Juke In The Back" with Matt The Cat.

Jukelogolargeapple2_small 1949: Jukebox Rhythm Review1949: Jukebox Rhythm Review, Pt. 1

Once again, it's time to put the ol' Rockola Jukebox in the spotlight as we blast back 70 years on our annual Jukebox Rhythm Review. Matt The Cat loads up the Juke with the biggest jukebox hits of 1949. This week, in part one, we'll focus on the most requested records from the first half of 1949 and next week, we'll cover the second half of the year. 1949 was a big year for artists' debut records to go to #1, as exemplified in this week's program by John Lee Hooker and Big Jay McNeely. Amos Milburn scores the first #1 of the year, while Paul Williams and Charles Brown score 2 of the biggest sellers. Sister Rosetta Tharpe hears music in the air, while Julia Lee gets a little bit naughty and Dinah Washington compliments her man with "You Satisfy," a song she recorded in 1947, but not issued by Mercury until the spring of 1949. So fill your pockets with nickels and get ready to jive n' wail to the biggest R&B tunes from the first half of 1949 on this week's "Juke In The Back" with Matt The Cat. 

What is Soul? (A Definition of a Music)

From Howard Burchette | Part of the Soul Roots series | 59:59

SOUL is a feeling. SOUL is from the root. SOUL is Free. SOUL is Ray Charles. SOUL is James Brown. SOUL is Aretha Franklin. SOUL is Nina Simone. SOUL is Tina Turner. SOUL is Motown. SOUL is Stax. This is SOUL!

Ross__diana_supremes_small

What is Soul? This is Soul!

This program highlights some of the greatest recordings that make up what we call SOUL Music. This is a show that everyone will enjoy, which includes music from Motown, Stax and classic Atlantic Records recordings. Some of the artists featured are Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett, The Supremes and much more.

What is Soul ? This is Soul!

Music of the Brass Angel: John Coltrane

From Howard Burchette | Part of the Jazz Time series | 50:03

This musical introduction to the music of JOHN COLTRANE contains six songs and is one hour in length. It is divided into three segments which allow room for station IDs, public service announcements and other breaks.

John_coltrane_1_small

John William Coltrane only lived 41 years. He was born in Hamlet, North Carolina and served in the U. S. Navy Band in Hawaii during World War II. After the war he played saxophone with Eddie "Clean Head " Vinson Band , Dizzy Gillespie band , and Jimmy Heath . By 1958 he was a member of the Mile s Davis Quintet and in 1960 formed his own quartet which included pianist McCoy Tyner , drummer Elvin Jones , and bassist Jimmy Garrison . Eventually adding players like Eric Dolphy , and Pharaoh Sanders . John Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in Jazz history / was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in Jazz and later was at the forefront of free Jazz.

Odetta: The Queen of American Folk Music

From Dred-Scott Keyes | 55:21

This 55 min piece features excerpts from a Feb.24th tribute to folk singer Odetta at the Riverside Church in NYC. Performing artists include Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, David Amran, Josh White Jr., poet Sonia Sanchez, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Harry Belafonte and was hosted by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Tom Chapin.

Odetta5_prxcopy_small "Odetta:Queen of American Folk Music" is a  55 min piece features excerpts from a Feb.24th tribute to folk singer Odetta at the Riverside Church in NYC. Performing artists include Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, David Amran, Josh White Jr., poet Sonia Sanchez, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Harry Belafonte and was hosted by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Tom Chapin.

The King of the Blues: The Music of B.B. King

From Howard Burchette | Part of the D Natural BLUES series | 57:58

The great B.B. King passed away on May 14, 2015. He was one of the greatest Blues entertainers of all time. B.B. King’s recording career began in 1949 and he performed live dates up to the time of his death. This one hour special musical tribute to the “King of the Blues” contains some of his greatest hits from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

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The program “The King of the Blues: The Music of B.B. King” contains some of the greatest live recording of all time. BB King - Live at The Regal and B.B. King - Live In Cook County Jail are two classic albums by B.B. King and they are complimented by a track from the CD Live / Fillmore East - New York, NY June 19, 1971 . His 1969 signature piece The Thrill Is Gone is included which earned him a Grammy award in 1970. This is pure fun, listen to “The King of the Blues: The Music of B.B. King”.          

 

Two Hands, A Guitar & Genius = Wes Montgomery

From Howard Burchette | Part of the Jazz Time series | 52:35

TWO HANDS, A GUITAR & GENIUS = WES MONTGOMERY is a one hour program that looks at the musical life of Jazz guitarist WES MONTGOMERY. The ten recordings highlight Montgomery as a sideman, a leader of a small combo and his music accompanied by an orchestra.

Wes_montgomery_2_small

Wes Montgomery came out of a musical family and played with his brothers Monk and Buddy as the Montgomery Brothers . His solo career was short due to his untimely death; however history remembers him as one of the most influential guitarists of all time. This program is a brief look and an introduction to the genius of the Jazz Guitar Wes Montgomery.

Two Hands, A Guitar & Genius = Wes Montgomery is a one hour program divided into three sets leaving room for PSAs, the news, announcements, station IDs etc.



Jazz & the Civil Rights Movement

From Howard Burchette | Part of the Jazz Time series | 49:56

"Jazz & the Civil Rights Movement" is an important one hour program that features Jazz music as the background with comments concerning the Civil Rights Movement timeline as a narration.

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Jazz & the Civil Rights Movement is a one hour program devoted to seven classic Jazz recordings which focuses on the Civil Rights Movement. The subject matter pays attention to the sit in movement, the National Guard intervention to prevent integration at Little Rock Central High School, the Freedom Riders, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama, Rosa Parks and the Selma Marches.

The music is performed by Charles Mingus, Max Roach, John Coltrane, Clark Terry, Grant Green, Blue Mitchell and Art Blakey.

This one hour program is divided into three sets with room for the News, PSA's and announcements.

(Ball & Chain)The Musical story of Big Mama Thornton

From Howard Burchette | Part of the D Natural BLUES series | 55:36

Willie Mae "BIG MAMMA" THORNTON was a Blues singer, musician and songwriter. She had a short life and is best known for the songs "Hound Dog" and "Ball 'n' Chain". The songs were hits for her, but became mega hits later for ELVIS PRESLEY and JANIS JOPLIN. This one hour program is a short look at her musical life story.

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Big Mama Thornton (not to be confused with Big Maybelle ) was a unique Blues singer, drummer and harmonica player. She was born in Alabama and left home at age 14 to work on traveling shows and eventually settled in Houston, Texas during the late 1940’s. Her first release and hit was “Hound Dog ” recorded in 1951 at Houston under the leadership of band leader Johnny Otis . Her career would not blossom again until the mid and late 1960’s. She continued to record until the late 1970’s and she died at the age of 57 in 1984.  

This program includes some of the studio records of Big Mama Thornton as well as some of her exciting live performances. Including here is segments from the historic show with the Muddy Waters Blues Band as well as her live performance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

The radio listener of Blues, Jazz, R&B or Classic Rock will enjoy this one hour program; (Ball 'n' Chain)The Musical story of Big Mama Thornton .

Nancy Wilson - This Mother's Daughter

From Howard Burchette | Part of the Jazz Time series | 57:10

Nancy Wilson - This Mother's Daughter is a special music program highlighting the greatest recordings of the great lady of Jazz and song - Nancy Wilson.

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Nancy Wilson was one of the greatest voices of our time. She was elegant and classy. She was categorized as a Jazz singer, but she could sing anything. Most music producers thought that if they worked with a Nancy Wilson, they were working with the best of the business. 
This program contains a one hour short musical history of some of her greatest recordings. We call this presentation “Nancy Wilson - This Mother's Daughter.” 

Sound Ideas #173D - Soul Jazz

From Clay Ryder | Part of the Sound Ideas (Jazz & Blues) series | 55:58

Soul Jazz rose to prominence during the 1960s and remained an influence in Jazz Fusion and other idioms to certain degree thereafter. We'll take a listen to a few classics as well as some under appreciated charts. Welcome to an hour that's gotta lotta soul

Sound_ideas_small Soul Jazz was a continuation of the musical mess that created hard bop, that is the combination of the blues, gospel, bebop, and groovin' feeling. It also marked a shift in rhythmic sensibility to incorporate the emerging bossa-nova and straight eighth note feeling that would come to dominate the 1960s. However, swing remained a powerful component in some soul jazz.

Les McCann was an early soul jazz player, as evidenced by our opening number. His along with other piano trios become very popular in the early to middle 1960s and heavily influenced the sound of popular "soul" music.

George Benson mixed straight ahead jazz and soul jazz in his early years and we hear a lesser known piece but one that captures the solid groove enabled by Lonnie Smith. Bill Childs some twenty years later recorded a soulful piece, one that illustrates a touch of fusion as well, and we end the second set with Cannonball Adderley's Quintet, a band that straddled the line between hard bop and soul jazz for many years.

Bobby Hutcherson was not a major player on the soul jazz scene until much later in the 1970s. By then his sound was a tad more fusion than soul, but serves as a great illustration of where the two idioms met. Booker T and the M. G.s were predominantly an Soul or R&B band, but their final album carried a strong Soul Jazz tinge, and we hear them swing it along a nice steady groove. Ramey Lewis's and Les McCann's were two piano trios that managed a good deal of popularly outside of jazz circles, and this shuffling groove is testimony to that.

Closing out the hour we hear from the creative soul of Eddie Harris, reeds, keys, and voice seemingly all at once. And our final number is one of the best known tracks from the idiom, recorded at a jam session at the now famous Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969.

Soul Jazz per se waned in popularity as fusion took over the more commercial aspects of jazz to be followed by a return to the classic hard bop forms some years later. Nevertheless, soul jazz was not just a cheap gimmick, but an exploration of yet another side of the blues reinterpreted in the context of the then present day. The improvisation that took place on any of these tracks is testimonial to the "pureness" of the jazz art component, the rich groove and fun times, reflect the soulfulness of life.

Pete Seeger: Plain and Complicated

From WFHB | Part of the Interchange series | 01:28:26

Pete Seeger died in 2014 at the age of 94, a cultural icon, and a so-called a “consensus hero." But the hero was also a pariah too many.

Seeger’s was a long life of constant work and activism. He is for many the quintessential “folk singer” and his left politics goes hand in hand with that reputation. And it is because of those politics that Seeger has perhaps been as widely vilified as praised.

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Today on Independence Day, your independent, community radio station in Bloomington, Indiana presents “Pete Seeger: Plain and Complicated.”

It’s hard to know where to begin but let’s start with one of the most popular songs of the mid-20th century, The Weavers rendition of “Goodnight Irene” by Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly. This is a song which seems a kind of simple artifact of pop music, but how we understand the tradition of folk songs which are nearly always “covers” or appropriations of music often borne of deep suffering is deeply complicated. That’s for you to chew though as that particular critique is beyond the scope of this program.

Pete Seeger died in 2014 at the age of 94, a cultural icon, and a so-called a “consensus hero”–but the hero was once also a pariah.

Seeger’s was a long life of constant work and activism. He is for many the quintessential “folk singer” and his left politics goes hand in hand with that reputation. And it is because of those politics that Seeger has perhaps been as widely vilified as praised. I am tempted to offer a sketch of this life at the outset, but even a sketch would take up too much of our program and our guests will cover some of this territory for us.

And those GUESTS are, in this order:

  • Ron Cohen, co-editor of The Pete Seeger Reader
  • Rob Rosenthal, co-editor, along with his son, Sam, of Pete Seeger: In His Own Words
  • Leda Schubert, author of a new children’s book about Seeger called Listen: How Pete Seeger Got America Singing
  • Robbie Lieberman, author of My Song Is My Weapon
  • Ernie Lieberman, a singer-songwriter who played now and again with Pete Seeger and produced a landmark album of songs for peace in 1954 called Goodbye, Mr. War
  • Gary Fine, author of Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America.

I enlist the first guest you’ll hear, Ron Cohen, as something like a co-host for the program. Ron stressed that Pete Seeger was a supreme organizer, from rallies, to music journals, to newsletters, to hootenannies, to anti-war protests, to festivals, to river clean-up–an inexhaustible Organizer. So let’s let Ron Cohen organize this show about Pete Seeger, the great organizer–he’ll keep us “up to date” with a kind of activity log of Pete’s life as we move through conversations with our other Pete Seeger experts. Throughout you’ll hear me reading from a four of Pete’s letters published in Ron and Sam Rosenthal’s Pete Seeger: In His Own Words–I have taken liberties with these and compressed them. I don’t feel the elisions alter the meaning of the text, but feel free to check up on me!

MUSIC
“Goodnight Irene” by The Weavers
“Which Side Are You On” by The Almanac Singers
“Talking Union” by The Almanac Singers
“Ballad of October 16” by The Almanac Singers
“Tzena, Tzena, Tzena” by The Weavers
“This Old Man” performed by Pete Seeger
“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
“My Dirty Stream” by Pete Seeger
“The People Are Scratching” performed by Pete Seeger
“Little Boxes” performed by Pete Seeger
“Mr. War” by Ernie Lieberman
“Spring Song” by Ernie Lieberman
“Waist Deep In the Big Muddy” by Pete Seeger
“We Shall Overcome” performed by Pete Seeger

CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Assistant Producer: Rob Schoon
Executive Producer: Joe Crawford

Program I: Origins

From David Dunaway | Part of the Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing? series | 52:40

Program I: Origins
How did a Harvard-educated boy become a radical, hitchhiking, banjo-playing, political activist? Program I explores Seeger’s youth and America’s folk revival of the 1930s and ‘40s.

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Program I: Rediscovering America’s Folk Music

The origins of Pete Seeger go back to his family’s 18th Century immigration from Germany to Puritan New England and continues down through his musicologist parents, Charles and Constance Seeger. Seeger’s older brothers were given violin and piano lessons, but Pete was left to the ukulele. He grew up during the Depression amidst the folk music revival of the 1930s and ‘40s—with Alan Lomax, Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie.

Seeger’s youthful hitchhiking with a banjo collected folk music. The result was 124 records and CDs, which shape our repertoire as Americans—the songs we know words to, and might sing aloud on buses.

Program Highlights:

  • Rare interviews with Pete’s father, Charles Seeger, profile the first person to teach folk music at an American college
  • Featured artists: Arlo Guthrie, Holly Near, Si Kahn
  • Great Stories: Pete Seeger sings and tells the story of writing his first song, “66 Highway Blues”

Program II: Folk Songs and Ballads

From David Dunaway | Part of the Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing? series | 52:43

This program evokes the exciting folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s and the role Seeger played in it.

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Program II: Folk Songs and Ballads – Bringing Folk Music Alive

This program evokes the exciting folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s. It starts at Seeger’s first musical group, The Almanac Singers, who sang labor, peace songs and anti-Nazi songs in 1941. The story continues as Seeger formed the Weavers, a best-selling musical group in the 1950s, before being blacklisted. Throughout controversy, Seeger promoted folk music from many American traditions, a musical Johnny Appleseed. The musical emphasis here is ethnomusicological, on old-timey banjo tunes and on pop-folk crossover songs of the Weavers (“Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,” “Goodnight Irene”).

Program Highlights:

  • Behind-the-scenes stories from Pete Seeger, Bess Lomax, and Lee Hays about The Almanac Singers and The Weavers
  • Previously secret files reveal a history of FBI and CIA surveillance of the Hootenany crowd.
  • Interviews with Don McLean, The Weavers

Program III: Topical and Protest Songs

From David Dunaway | Part of the Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing? series | 52:41

Program III looks at the tradition of singing out for social change, and how the music of the Civil Rights, anti-war, and environmental movements galvanized Seeger’s life.

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Program III: Topical and Protest Song - Keeping a tradition alive

Music has always served as a barometer of the times, even, if those ruling paid it scant attention. In the 1960s, Seeger’s life was galvanized by music of the Civil Rights, anti-war, and environmental movements. Though already the most-recorded American musician, from children’s songs to tunes on steel drums, he was blacklisted from network television. Many well-known folk musicians such as Joan Baez and the Kingston Trio were first heard and inspired to sing folk and topical songs by Pete Seeger. Eventually, he was honored by the NEA’s Medal of Arts, a Grammy, etc.

Today, hundreds of bluegrass, blues, and folk festivals continue, bringing the folksongs Seeger taught to a younger generation. Pete Seeger’s legacy is continued by younger singers, such as Bruce Springsteen, Ani DiFranco, and the Dixie Chicks. Program Highlights:

  • Rare recordings of Seeger’s Civil Rights era songs
  • Featyred artists: Judy Collins, Oscar Brand
  • Pete talks about environmental activism and the sloop Clearwater

Piece of My Heart: The Story of Janis Joplin

From KUT | 57:31

Winner of the Grand Trophy 2011, International Radio Festivals! An intimate reconsideration of Janis' journey from a tiny Texas refinery town to the world stage.

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Though Janis became an international symbol of the San Francisco music scene of the ‘60s, her Texas roots profoundly influenced her music, her identity, and ultimately her enduring legacy.  Join Kris Kristofferson, Tracy Nelson of Mother Earth, and some of those closest to Janis during her days growing up in Texas for an exclusive one hour documentary-- “Piece of My Heart: the Story of Janis Joplin”.  Hosted by David Brown and produced by the award-winning Texas Music Matters team at KUT Austin. 

 

The Emergence of Emmylou Harris (3 Hour Version)

From Paul Ingles | 02:59:01

The musical journey of Emmylou Harris is explored in this extended play, three-hour version of a special from music documentarian Paul Ingles.

Guests include musicians Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Sara Watkins, Shawn Colvin, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Cooper and David Gans and writers and scholars Ann Powers, Anthony DeCurtis, Holly George-Warren, Mark Kemp and Beverly Keel. Also, archival interviews with Emmylou Harris. Over 50 songs featuring Emmylou are sampled.

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The musical journey of Emmylou Harris is explored in this extended play, three-hour version of a special from music documentarian Paul Ingles.   This version can be broadcast, but there will be 2-hour and 1-hour edits provided in the weeks ahead.

Guests include musicians Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Shawn Colvin, Bonnie Raitt, Sara Watkins, Peter Cooper and David Gans and writers and scholars writers and scholars Ann Powers, Anthony DeCurtis, Holly George-Warren, Mark Kemp and Beverly Keel.

Thelonious Monk

From KUT | Part of the KUTX Liner Notes series | 02:30

Thelonious Monk was an original voice in the shaping the sound of American music. Both his compositions and his inimitable piano playing continue to confound and resound decades after their inception. In this short feature, Rabbi, historian and jazz musician Neil Blumofe explores how the idiosyncratic nature, presence and genius of Thelonious Monk can influence our perspective on how to develop and maintain creativity and authenticity amidst the unique challenges of our time.

Playing
Thelonious Monk
From
KUT

Imagesmonk_small Thelonious Monk was an original voice in the shaping the sound of American music. Both his compositions and his inimitable piano playing continue to confound and resound decades after their inception. In this short feature, Rabbi, historian and jazz musician Neil Blumofe explores how the idiosyncratic nature, presence and genius of Thelonious Monk can influence our perspective on how to develop and maintain creativity and authenticity amidst the unique challenges of our time.

Soul Jazz Part 1

From WUCF | Part of the Jazz and the American Spirit series | 59:00

Jeff Rupert examines the earthy, funky, bluesy sound of Soul Jazz. To illustrate the genre, Jeff brings along Donald Byrd, Harold Mabern, Les McCann, Eddie Harris and Horace Silver.

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Soul Jazz Part 1
From
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Jazz-am-spirit-logo_small Jazz and the American Spirit examines the great stories of Jazz across America by looking at and listening to the musicians who have created it. Hosted by saxophonist and University of Central Florida Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Rupert.

1959, It Was A Very Good Year, Part 1

From WUCF | Part of the Jazz and the American Spirit series | 59:00

In 1959 the Dodgers won the World Series, Dwight Eisenhower is President, Rod Serlings Twilight Zone premiers on TV and it was a very good year for Jazz! Jeff Rupert takes a look at the incredible jazz year of 1959 in part one of “1959, It Was A Very Good Year” on Jazz and the American Spirit.

Jatas_small Jazz and the American Spirit examines the great stories of Jazz across America by looking at and listening to the musicians who have created it. Hosted by saxophonist and University of Central Florida Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Rupert.

1959, It Was A Very Good Year, Part 2

From WUCF | Part of the Jazz and the American Spirit series | 59:00

Jeff Rupert continues checking out the music that was released and recorded in 1959. Up this week is Joao Gilberto, Miles Davis, Abbey Lincoln and a host of others.

Jatas_image_small Jazz and the American Spirit examines the great stories of Jazz across America by looking at and listening to the musicians who have created it. Hosted by saxophonist and University of Central Florida Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Rupert.

Love Lost, Hard Times and the Unattainable

From WUCF | Part of the Jazz and the American Spirit series | 59:00

Next up on Jazz and the American Spirit, we examine love lost, hard times, the unattainable and the siren song in jazz. Join our host, Jeff Rupert, for Jazz and the American Spirit.

Jatas_small Jazz and the American Spirit examines the great stories of Jazz across America by looking at and listening to the musicians who have created it. Hosted by saxophonist and University of Central Florida Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Rupert.

The Sound of 13 (Series)

Produced by KVNO

Most recent piece in this series:

Sound of 13 22-13

From KVNO | Part of the The Sound of 13 series | 58:02

Playing
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EPISODE 13


Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges - “Presto” from Symphony No. 2

Versailles Chamber Orchestra, Bernard Wahl

Saint-Georges: Concerto No. 2/Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2

Arion 2009

4’19’’


Gabriela Lena Frank - “Coqueteos”

Sphinx Virtuosi, Damon Gupton

Sphinx Virtuosi Live in Concert

Self Produced, 2011

3’56’’


Valerie Coleman - Tzigane

Imani Winds

Startin’ Sumthin’

eOne 2016

10’14’’


Ludovic Lamothe - Danza No. 1 in C

Charles P. Phillips, piano

A Vision of Ludovic Lamothe 

IFA 2001

7’00’’


Samuel Coleridge Taylor - Nonet in f minor

John Fadial, violin Janet Orenstein, violin Scott Rawls, viola Brooks Whitehouse, cello Mary Ashley Barret, oboe Kelly Burke, clarinet Lynn Huntzinger Beck, horn Michael Burns, bassoon Andrew Harley, piano

Samuel Coleridge Taylor: Chamber Music

Centaur 2004

25’54’’


Sound Opinions Presents: Music of the Civil Rights Movement

From Sound Opinions | Part of the Sound Opinions Specials series | 54:00

Sound Opinions explores the music of the Civil Rights Era. From Bob Dylan to Odetta to the Staples Singers, hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot remark upon the impact music made on the fight for civil rights in the 1960s.

Mlk_small Professional music critics Jim and Greg discuss influential and game-changning music from the 1960s that provided a soundtrack to the civil rights movement. They analyze tracks by artists like Sam Cooke, The Staple Singers, Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and more. They also chat with former Chicago WVON DJ Herb Kent.

ROCK 'N' ROLL BLACK HISTORY MONTH

From paul mcguire | Part of the The Funhouse series | 59:30

Tunes and tales of African American musical greats including Otis Spann, Little Walter, Big Mama Thornton, Peter Tosh, Billy Preston, Les McCann & Eddie Harris and other trailblazers. A compelling sixty minute journey of rock, jazz, blues, reggae and more.

Funhouse_mrs_monster_small Expect the unexpected  on our descent into the rock 'n' roll maelstrom as we careen through the darkness of the midnight soul... 

A unique weekly late night hour featuring unheard music with historical  context, informative commentary, anecdotes of close encounters in the music world and other frivolous information from host Harry Parmenter, THE FUNHOUSE offers the listener refreshing respite from the onerous onslaught of daily existence. Fiercely free-form with non sequitur musical choices,  listeners will find much to choose from in this entertaining hour.    

So buy the ticket and take the ride into...THE FUNHOUSE. 

Songs for Peace - 1 or 2 Hours

From Paul Ingles | 01:58:00

As a tonic for turbulent times, music host Paul Ingles presents a show made up completely of songs celebrating the goal of peace in our world. Every song has the word Peace, Kindness, or Forgiveness in the title and the message. Artists featured in Hour 1 include Curtis Mayfield, Eliza Gilkyson, Mavis Staples, Ringo Starr, U2, Cat Stevens, Ziggy Marley and more. Artists featured in the optional Hour 2 include Keb Mo, Jesse Colin Young, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Florence and the Machine, James Taylor and more. If your station could only air these programs if they were timed for a newscast at 54:00, please license this version, then write paul@paulingles.com requesting the shortened programs. Please give 48 hours advance notice for delivery of the mp3 of the shorter version. PROMO FOR THESE HOURS COMING SOON.

Peacerock1_medium_medium_small Music host Paul Ingles presents a show made up completely of songs celebrating the goal of peace  in our world.  Every song has the word Peace, Kindness, or Forgiveness in the title and the message.  Artists featured in Hour 1 include Curtis Mayfield, Eliza Gilkyson, Mavis Staples, Ringo Starr, U2, Cat Stevens, Ziggy Marley and more.  Artists featured in the optional Hour 2 include Keb Mo, Jesse Colin Young, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Florence and the Machine, James Taylor and more.

PLAYLIST:

HOUR 1

We Got to Have Peace 4:46 Curtis Mayfield from Roots Peace Train 3:28 10,000 Maniacs from Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings of 10,000 Maniacs Peaceful Dream 3:20 Mavis Staples from If All I Was Was Black Peace In Our Hearts 3:59 Eliza Gilkyson from 2020 The Peace of Wild Things/dayblind 3:53 Crooked Still from Friends of Fall Peace Town 5:15 Jimmy LaFave from Peace Town Peace Dream 3:35 Ringo Starr from Y Not Peace Medly(excerpt)4:09 Nina Gerber from Nina Gerber & Good People(Live) One 4:36 U2 from Achtung Baby Mighty Peace 2:21 Yusuf from The Laughing Apple Prayer for Peace 3:40 North Mississippi Allstars from Prayer for Peace Peace 6:32 Dave Alvin from From An Old Guitar: Rare And Unreleased Circle of Peace (feat. Stephen Marley) 3:21 Ziggy Marley from Rebellion Rises
Peace Sign 4:24 from The Very Best of War Put a Little Love in Your Heart (Duet with Annie Lennox) 3:50 from Al Green & Annie Lennox Testify: The Best of the A&M Years

OPTIONAL HOUR 2

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding 3:44 Keb' Mo' from Peace - Back By Popular Demand Peace and Justice 4:23 The Bushbury Mountain Daredevils from Peace and Justice The Peace Song 4:40 Jesse Colin Young from The Very Best Of Jessie Colin Young Shed A Little LIght 3:52 James Taylor from New Moon Shine Peace Song 4:00 Never Shout Never from Black Cat Peace Call 3:54 Eliza Gilkyson from Land of Milk and Honey Cup Of Kindness 3:55 Emmylou Harris from Stumble Into Grace Queen of Peace 5:07 Florence + the Machine from How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (Deluxe) Peace 4:29 Depeche Mode from Sounds of the Universe Peace, Love and Happiness 3:43 G. Love & Special Sauce from Superhero Brother Love And Peace Or Else 4:51 U2 from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb Peace and Justice 3:49 P.J. Peace and Justice - Single Peace Brother Peace 2:47 Dr. John from In the Right Place Forgiveness (Rough Mix) 4:20 John Mellencamp from Freedom's Road

Jazz Singers (Series)

Produced by PRX

Most recent piece in this series:

Jazz Singers Generic 30 Second Promo

From PRX | Part of the Jazz Singers series | :30

Jazz_singers_art-04_small This is 30 second promo for "Jazz Singers," a thirteen-hour series hosted by award-winning singer Al Jarreau. "Jazz Singers" illuminates every style of jazz vocal artistry. Originally produced by The Smithsonian in 2001, this series had been re-packaged by PRX with new narration from original producer Jacquie Gales Webb for African American Music Appreciation Month in June.

THE EMERGENCE OF STEVIE WONDER (3 HOUR VERSION)

From Paul Ingles | 02:56:59

The early emergence and on-going stellar career of musician STEVIE WONDER is explored and discussed in this three hour special (offered this month of June - African-American Music Appreciation Month ~ est. 1979). Music will be sampled from throughout the multiple Grammy-award winning journey of Stevie Wonder with commentary by music educators Birgitta Johnson and Alisha Lola Jones, NPR Music Critic Ann Powers, Rolling Stone Magazine's Anthony DeCurtis, music critic Holly Gleason, and music journalist Mark Kemp. Award-winning music documentarian Paul Ingles produces and hosts.

HOUR 1 includes music from the first 10 years of Stevie's remarkable career, 1962-1971.

HOUR 2 includes Wonder's music from his 1971-1974 albums WHERE I'M COMING FROM, MUSIC OF MY MIND, TALKING BOOK, INNERVISIONS, and FULFILLINESS FIRST FINALE, with more commentary from the panelists.

HOUR 3 finishes Stevie's most remarkable string of albums with SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE and includes highlights from the continuance of his career in the 1980's and onward to the 21st Century.

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The early emergence and on-going stellar career of musician STEVIE WONDER is explored and discussed in three hour special. Music will be sampled from throughout the multiple Grammy-award winning journey of Stevie Wonder with commentary by music educators Birgitta Johnson and Alisha Lola Jones, NPR Music Critic Ann Powers, Rolling Stone Magazine's Anthony DeCurtis, music critic Holly Gleason, and music journalist Mark Kemp.  Award-winning music documentarian Paul Ingles produces and hosts.  
HOUR 1 includes music from the first 10 years of Stevie's remarkable career, 1962-1971.
HOUR  2 includes Wonder's music from his 1971-1974 albums WHERE I'M COMING FROM, MUSIC OF MY MIND, TALKING BOOK, INNERVISIONS, and FULFILLINESS FIRST FINALE, and more commentary from the panelists.
HOUR 3 finishes Stevie's most remarkable string of albums with SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE and includes highlights from the continuance of his career in the 1980's and onward to the 21st Century.

HOUR ONE PLAYLIST:

ALL TITLES SUNG BY STEVIE WONDER UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

You Haven't Done Nothin' - instrumental bed under intro - From "Fulfilliness' First Finale"
I Wish (short excerpt) - From "Songs in the Key of Life"
Fingertips (Pts. 1 + 2) - (short excerpt) - From "The Definitive Collection"
For Once in My Life - (short excerpt) - From "For Once In My Life"
Signed, Sealed, & Delivered - (short excerpt) - From "Signed, Sealed, & Delivered"
Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You) - (short excerpt) - From "Music of My Mind"
Superstition - (short excerpt) - From "Talking Book"
Higher Ground - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Jesus Children of America - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Visions - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
All In Love is Fair - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Living For The City - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Boogie On Reggae Woman - (short excerpt) - From "Fulfilliness' First Finale"
Sir Duke - (short excerpt) - From "Songs in the Key of Life"
Where Is Our Love Song - (excerpt) - From "Single - Where is Our Love Song - 2020)
Ribbon In The Sky - (instrumental Bed under reset) - From "Natural Wonder (Live)"
Hallelujah (I Love Her So) - (short excerpt) - From "Tribute for Uncle Ray"
Don't You Know - (short excerpt) - From "Tribute to Uncle Ray"
Fingertips (Pts. 1 + 2) - (excerpt) - From "The Definitive Collection"
Get Happy - (short excerpt) - From "With A Song In My Heart"
Happy Feet - (short excerpt) - From "Stevie At The Beach"
Uptight - (excerpt) - From "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"
Ain't That Asking For Trouble - (excerpt) - From "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"
Blowin' In The Wind (excerpt) - From "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"
Hey Love - (short excerpt) - From "Down To Earth"  - :30 break music
Place in the Sun - (excerpt) - From "Down To Earth"
I Was Made To Love Her - (excerpt) - From "I Was Made To Love Her"
Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day - (excerpt) - From "For Once in My Life"
For Once in My Life - (excerpt) - From "For Once In My Life"
We Can Work It Out - (excerpt) - From "Signed, Sealed, & Delivered"
I Don't Know Why - (excerpt) - From "For Once in My Life"
Signed, Sealed, & Delivered - From "Live at the Talk of the Town"
Summer of Love Film Clips
Never Had A Dream Come True - (excerpt) - From "Signed, Sealed, & Delivered"

HOUR TWO PLAYLIST:

ALL TITLES SUNG BY STEVIE WONDER

Do Yourself A Favor - (excerpt) - From "Where I'm Coming From"
Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer - From "Where I'm Coming From"
If You Really Love Me - From "Where I'm Coming From"
I Love Having You Around - (excerpt) - From "Music of my Mind"
I Love Everything About You - From "Music of my Mind"
Maybe Your Baby - (excerpt) - From "Talking Book"
Superstition - From "Talking Book"
Big Brother - (short excerpt) - From "Talking Book"
I Believe (When I Fall In Love It'll Be Forever) - From "Talking Book"
You Are the Sunshine of My Life - (excerpt) - From "Talking Book"
Too High - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Golden Lady - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
He's Mistra-Know-It-All - (short excerpt) - From "Innervisions"
Living For The City - From "Innervisions"
Higher Ground - From "Innervisions"
Visions - (short excerpt music bed) - From "Innervisions"
You Haven't Done Nothin' - From "Fullfillingess First Finale"
Too Shy To Say - (short excerpt) - From "Fulfillingess First Finale"

HOUR THREE PLAYLIST: (Coming soon)

ALL TITLES SUNG BY STEVIE WONDER

The R&B Chronicles - Marvin Gaye

From WHRV | Part of the The R&B Chronicles series | 01:00:25

Historical look at R&B music.

Marvin_gay_small Perhaps more than any other genre of popular American music culture, soul music is the result of the combination and merging of previous styles and sub-styles in the 50's and 60's. At it's inception soul music combined the African American concepts of gospel and blues sensibilities in creating a passionate, soulful and musical presentation of the African American spirit. Rhythm and Blues is itself a combination of blues and jazz and developed in the 40's as small groups of predominately African American musicians built upon the blues tradition which morphed itself into soul music coming into the 50's. "The R&B Chronicles" is a weekly musical biography that will focus on classic R&B and soul music and feature many of the great artists and groups.... such as Otis Redding, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Earth, Wind and Fire and many more. "The R&B Chronicles" airs Friday evenings at 7pm on 89.5 WHRV-FM. Hosted and produced by Jae Sinnett.

"Only Love Can Conquer Hate: Commerating the 50th Anniversary of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?"

From KPVU | 56:45

"ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE" COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MARVIN GAYE'S ALBUM "WHAT'S GOING ON"

IS AN AUDIO DOCUMENTARY

THAT CELEBRATES THIS ICONIC ALBUM

HOSTED BY JAMAL AHMAD AND PRODUCED BY THE DANGERFEEL NEWBIES

"ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE" FEATURES DR. FREDARA HEADLEY, A SCOTT GALLOWAY, TONY MENVIELLE, DONNIE, ANTHONY DAVID AND AVERY SUNSHINE

THAT'S "ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE: COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MARVIN GAYE'S WHAT'S GOIN ON"

Thumbnail_marvin50_generalig_small "ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE" COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MARVIN GAYE'S ALBUM "WHAT'S GOING ON" IS AN AUDIO DOCUMENTARY THAT CELEBRATES THIS ICONIC ALBUM HOSTED BY JAMAL AHMAD AND PRODUCED BY THE DANGERFEEL NEWBIES "ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE" FEATURES DR. FREDARA HEADLEY, A SCOTT GALLOWAY, TONY MENVIELLE, DONNIE, ANTHONY DAVID AND AVERY SUNSHINE THAT'S "ONLY LOVE CAN CONQUER HATE: COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MARVIN GAYE'S WHAT'S GOIN ON"

Musicians For Peace & Social Justice: Jackson Browne/ Marvin Gaye/ Harry Chapin

From Good Radio Shows, Inc. | Part of the Peace Talks Radio: Weekly Hour Long Episodes series | 59:01

PEACE TALKS RADIO host Paul Ingles profiles 3 musicians whose music turned the attention of their fans to issues of peacemaking, social justice and ending hunger & poverty. Jackson Browne, Marvin Gaye, and Harry Chapin.

Browne-gaye-chapin_medium_small PEACE TALKS RADIO host Paul Ingles profiles 3 musicians whose music turned the attention of their fans to issues of peacemaking, social justice and ending hunger & poverty.  From his first single in 1972 ("Doctor My Eyes") to his latest 2021 album DOWNHILL FROM EVERYWHERE, musician Jackson Browne has used many of his songs to raise consciousness over the environment, the cost of war, social justice and the wealth gap around the world. Paul offers highlights from his exclusive interview with Jackson.  Paul also speaks with music writers and historians who reflect on the landmark 1971 song and album by the late Marvin Gaye called "What's Going On?" which opened the doors for many African-American artists to openly express outrage over their repressed place in society - as well as addressing concerns over the Vietnam War and the decay of the environment.  And finally we'll remember the late activist and singer/songwriter Harry Chapin who died in a car accident 40 years ago this summer.  Paul talks with Chapin's son Jason as well as documentary director Rick Korn and Bill Ayres, co-founder of WHY Hunger about Harry Chapin's devotion to eradicating hunger around the world and raising awareness about other troubling social issues in his songs.  Harry's story is told in the 2020 documentary "Harry Chapin: When In Doubt, Do Something." 

PLAYLIST:
Excerpted songs - short excerpts from...

Lives in the Balance - Jackson Browne
Doctor My Eyes - Jackson Browne
A Little Soon To Say - Jackson Browne
What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
What's Happening Brother - Marvin Gaye
Inner City Blues - Marvin Gaye
Taxi - Harry Chapin
What Made America Famous? - Harry Chapin