by Kevin Burton Texas has its outsized pretentions, but California for most of a century was considered the American promised land. This was reflected throughout popular culture, including in music. So there is no shortage of songs we could use to represent the Golden State in our summer rock and roll road trip …
Category Archives: 1960s
Motown’s Move To LA Stifled The Magic
by Kevin Burton There is more than a little irony in the 1971 Jackson 5 song “Going Back To Indiana.” That makes for an easy choice to make Indiana a destination for our summer rock and roll road trip, Coast to Coast. For Coast to Coast we are talking rock and roll history, …
Georgia (And Ray Charles) On My Mind
by Kevin Burton Whether in jazz, blues, pop or country, the late great Ray Charles was not just comfortable but masterful. Somebody asks you, “quick who was Ray Charles?” You’re probably going to say he was a soul singer. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong but he didn’t see himself that way. He …
A Funny Thing About Technology
by Kevin Burton Technology is a problem solver. Technology is a problem. Am I right or wrong? “Tech-savvy” is a hyphenated adjective that shouldn’t be used to modify certain nouns, such as, for example, “Kevin Burton” Like it or not we all live in a sea of technology. It’s sink or …
Smoke On The Water: The Lake Erie Fire
by Kevin Burton Lake Erie catching on fire was one of the storylines of my Ohio upbringing. I laughed about it in passing, but never sought any of the details. Turns out those details were more than a little fuzzy. The fire was actually on the Cuyahoga River, which leads into Lake Erie. …
A New Beatles Song? We’ll Take It!
by Kevin Burton From a beloved uncle or a dear friend who has passed away, you find a previously unknown letter. How precious is that? It’s a piece of that person that you never had, at a time when you thought there would be no more glimpses into their being. Would you not …
The DJs Made Old-Time Radio Come Alive
by Kevin Burton Music fans who go back as far as the 80s and especially before, badly miss the old days of radio. You had music historians, actual musicians and others who loved music, choosing what records hit the airwaves. It was a wacky, fun time for listeners across musical genres. It was …
What’s Stranger Than Fiction, AND Truth?
by Kevin Burton All the cool band names are taken. Trust me. Record label names too. When last we gathered, I spun a fictional account based ever so loosely goosely on a true story. It was about a band called the Palindromes that made it big in Bermuda. The true part of …
“Backward And Forward” And My Memories
by Kevin Burton I guess there’s a reason why melody and memory aren’t far apart in the dictionary. They go together like peas and porridge. And, for those who think there is something pejorative in the term “one-hit wonder,” well what about all those no-hit nobodies? We’re all doing our best then, …
Spoonful’s John Sebastian Turns 79
by Kevin Burton Happy 79th birthday to the personable multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter John Sebastian. Both his music and his personality seem accessible, based on how he comes off in interviews on You Tube. I mean, here’s a rock and roller who plays the auto harp of all things. He said he learned the instrument …
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