Today’s guest post comes from tim roger millers birthday is today. he’s not around to enjoy it anymore but he left something behind for us to enjoy in his absence. roger miller was a blip on the screen in the 60’s when his hits , dang me, do wacka doo, king of the road and you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd were topping the charts. i enjoyed them and thought they were good songs. i gave them more […]
Categories: Guest Blogs • Tags: Music, TV
One year ago today we observed Dave Brubeck’s 91st birthday. Brubeck died yesterday and has been the subject of many remembrances and tributes. We’re sorry to see him go but there’s no question he used his time well and made a lasting impression. It will never be possible to measure the effect of his work on subsequent generations, but there’s a sense of it in these two videos posted on You Tube by his son, Chris. The first is a […]
Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Music
Today is the birthday of Jazz piano legend Art Tatum. Tatum is one of those artists known mostly for the way he was admired by his fellow musicians. He didn’t achieve great popular success, but other players stood in awe of his talents and his influence is undeniable. Need some evidence and a few accolades? Here’s a clip from Ken Burns’ series, Jazz. And here’s another sample of Tatum at work. I can’t tell you anything about the structure of […]
Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Music
Today is musician Laurie Lewis’s birthday. She’s 62, born in 1950. Laurie Lewis plays bluegrass and a jazzier fiddle music called “newgrass”. She’s from California and discovered the work of Bill Monroe through a community of musicians in the San Francisco Bay area – not the standard path but certainly effective. She’s not an imitator, but finds inspiration in the tradition. Lewis told an interviewer earlier this year, “How am I ever going to be able to imitate a man […]
Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Music
Today is Buddy Holly‘s birthday. He landed on the planet as Charles Hardin Holly in Lubbock, Texas on this date in 1936. He had a strange, short life that has been much chronicled since. I’m amazed at how listenable his music is even today. You have to admire anyone who could create such a lasting body of work in a few short years. The video in today’s post presents a weird scene, very early in Holly’s brief live TV career. […]
Today is singer/songwriter Nanci Griffith‘s birthday. She’s 59. A commercial broadcaster once told me that he appreciated a public radio show I worked on because we played Nanci’s music. I guess she wasn’t commercial enough to be featured on his station very often, but we had the freedom to embrace good music that was not going to make a lot of money. At least one Nanci Griffith song did become a top 5 country hit – as done by Kathy […]
Here is a tricky social situation, just right for navigation by sensitive baboons. The note comes from Jane Beauchamp – a former Morning Show listener, sometime Trial Baboon reader and permanently proud mother who is about to have an FTD moment. FTD in this case means “Forced To Dance.” My son is 24 years old and marrying his high school sweetheart in an outdoor garden ceremony July 21 at a local country club to which her parents belong. He’s my […]
I love science and am constantly amazed at the things researchers are able to discover through careful, methodical experimentation. These human “lab rats” are the smartest people around, and they provide the best hope for our future together! But I’m worried that we may be missing something fundamental in the latest results that suggest actual rats whose spinal cords have been severed (by scientists) can learn to walk again through the combined application of chemicals, electricity, physical therapy, technology and […]
The great Doc Watson has passed away at the age of 89. He played the guitar and sang, but mostly he took possession of songs and fixed them with a translation that others could only admire and hope to imitate. Doc Watson became blind around the time he was one year old, the result of an eye infection. But Doc Watson did not allow blindness to restrict him. I gathered some notes about Doc Watson for Trial Balloon in May […]
Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Music
Today is Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath‘s birthday. She was born in Edinburgh on April 28th in 1937. She is (has?) an M.B.E. (Member of the British Empire), which is an exalted title that carries some weight but mostly what it tells us is that everyone agrees she’s the best there is at what she does. The Edinburgh Evening News put it this way: “To call Jean Redpath a Scottish folk singer is a bit like calling Michelangelo an Italian […]
