Tag Archives: music

Thoughts on Patti Smith

Posted on October 4, 2015 by

Patti Smith was a little before my time. Definitely WAY outside the bounds of my Midwestern sensibilities by the time I became aware of her during my high school years. Smith was that punk performer, the one in New York who urinated onstage and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, Creativity, Music, Popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Northern Soul Project – Some Background (post #2)

Posted on August 8, 2014 by

To recap: I stumbled across the term “Northern Soul” a week ago while trying to see if the Dusty Springfield part of the Pet Shop Boys’ “What Have I Done to Deserve This,” was actually one of her old songs.  … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Learning, Life, Movies and film, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Lynyrd Skynyrd – 35 years later

Posted on October 21, 2012 by

I just realized that yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the plane crash that killed three members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, and several members of their crew. High school dances are mostly DJ-powered … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies and film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Happy birthday, Rod Temperton!

Posted on October 15, 2012 by

Today is Rod Temperton’s 65th birthday, according to Wikipedia. For reasons I’m not completely sure of, I’ve always paid attention to songwriting credits.  Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album had three really great songs written by someone named Rod Temperton: “Off … Continue reading →

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Sonia – Blues Radio DJ

Posted on October 13, 2012 by

Last week Friday I was fortunate to spend time in the radio booth with Sonia, who hosts “The Blues Drive” every Friday afternoon on 91.7 WMSE (“Frontier Radio, anti-established in 1981”), a radio station owned and operated by Milwaukee School … Continue reading →

Posted in Milwaukee, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

George Martin: the man behind the Beatles’ sound

Posted on September 11, 2012 by

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story on / interview with George Martin, the man who produced all of the Beatles’ music except the Let It Be album.  A BBC documentary titled Produced by George Martin is being released … Continue reading →

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Recording Academy pushes for digital songwriter credits

Posted on August 23, 2012 by

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about how I’d noticed that iTunes doesn’t give credit to songwriters.  It looks like I’m not the only person who wishes things were different.  According to an AP story by Mesfin Fekadu … Continue reading →

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Who writes the songs that make the whole world sing? (Barry Manilow, for one)

Posted on July 20, 2012 by

Walking on the treadmill earlier today, I kept skimming through my iPod to pick out whatever suited my workout fancy of the moment.  At one point I idly wondered whether the song I was listening to had been written by the … Continue reading →

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