The Characters Behind 12 Famous Songs

by Dictionary Scoop    There’s a mixture of fiction and real life behind the people made famous by the hit songs on our list today.  From classic rock ballads to catchy pop tunes, here are 12 famous songs that feature people’s names—and the stories behind them. 1-Johnny B. Goode – Chuck Berry    We’ll start …

A Female Version Of The Beatles? Who Knew?

by Kevin Burton    I have read maybe two dozen books about the Beatles on talking book. But I didn’t know this.    In books by and about other contemporary artists, the Beatles emerge, as a yardstick, a cultural happening, a turning point. But not so much as a syllable about this.    Until very …

“Memphis” And The Poetry Of Chuck Berry

by Kevin Burton    You knew any rock and roll road trip would have to stop by Memphis, right?  Well, we are using a Chuck Berry vehicle to get there.    We’re going Coast to Coast this summer, talking rock and roll history by means of songs with a state or city in the title. …

Raised On Radio: Petty’s “Last DJ” Banned

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 …

Raised On Radio: Gaga For That Sound

by Kevin Burton    Can’t remember how we got on the topic, but a co-worker was telling me last week how radio was the life blood of his youth.    Radio was the conveyor belt on which everybody travelled in my day, as in his (he is roughly ten years older than I am, if …

“Rescue Me” Imitated The Detroit Sound

by Kevin Burton    From the heart of the Motown era came a million-selling hit that typified the Detroit sound.     But the song has been doubly mistaken through the years, shortchanging the artist whose vocal command made it a classic.    That song was “Rescue Me,” and it was a bit of a rescue …

Tooling Around, Feeling Virtuous

by Kevin Burton    Looks as if I’ve had the definition of “tooling around” wrong all these years.    Tool around is a verb, says vocabulary.com, meaning to “ride in a car with no particular goal and just for the pleasure of it.”    On yourdictionary.com the definition is “to drive or jaunt about, going from place …