Old-school news, just in time
by Kevin Burton In the old days we turned on our radios for music, for news, for sports and weather forecasts, and we got all those things. But what we really loved, and what kept us coming back for more, was the way those things were delivered, something that was woven throughout the …
Continue reading “Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star”
by Kevin Burton In J.G. Ballard’s short story “The Sound-Sweep,” the main character is a non-verbal boy who has the job of vacuuming up all the stray sounds in a world without music. He befriends an opera singer living in an abandoned recording studio. The opera singer is destitute, having been displaced from …
by Kevin Burton The Royals lost their season-opening baseball game to Minnesota 2-0 Thursday. The prediction I saw last week said the team would lose 103 games this year. So why am I newly pumped about the team? The team has promoted Jake Eisenberg, who had been doing play-by-play for its Omaha …
by Kevin Burton Elton John turns 76 today. So when I was nine years old listening to Crocodile Rock, he was all of 26. He wasn’t called Sir Elton back then, not hardly. He was a sight to behold. His wild costumes and antics on stage. His huge international hit songs, these …
by Kevin Burton Mid-March, this time of year. In the old days, when it wasn’t quite time for baseball, it was time for baseball cards. Growing up at the school for the blind in Ohio in the 70s, with the gloom and chill of February fading, with temperatures perhaps in the high 40s …
by Kevin Burton National DJ Day on Jan. 20 sent me rocking down memory lane, recalling a time when deft tuning of a transistor radio could take you to another world. The heyday of radio, as we talk about it now in the past tense, was a whole other American era, an entirely …
Continue reading “Raised On Radio: Petty’s “Last DJ” Banned”
by Kevin Burton Today, some updates, passing asides and leftovers from previous posts. When I cook these up together, I call them quibbles and bits. Come and get it!: From my two posts about favorite duets: I can not overstate how much I love much of the work of Paul McCartney. …
Continue reading “Quibbles And Bits: Chiefs An Evil Empire?”
by Kevin Burton My favorite Bruce Springsteen song was born of irritation and is marinated in frustration. I seem to have slipped into it comfortably, as one might slip into a t-shirt and jeans. Here is how the song came to be, according to SongFacts: “Springsteen wrote it after his manager, …
Continue reading “Looking For A Spark In A Springsteen Song”
by Kevin Burton You know Burt Bacharach, even when it’s not Burt Bacharach. Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to his publicist, Tina Brausam. The Kansas City-born composer had an unmistakable sound, especially in his work with longtime writing partner, lyricist Hal David. The New …
by Kevin Burton Yesterday I plucked ten of my favorites from a Billboard list of the 40 biggest duets ever. Today I’ll list ten of my favorites that didn’t make their last. Pulling from that list was easy. Now I’m picking from every other duet ever released. Chances are quite high that I …
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