by Kevin Burton It turns out there really was a band called Sultans Of Swing that inspired the great 1978 Dire Straits hit. “Sultans Of Swing” is one of those tunes that stops you in your tracks. It just exudes cool. We tell its story, evoking a musical proverb from “Take It …
Tag Archives: music
Raised On Radio: MTV And Killer Video
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 …
Can You Imagine Elton John As A Banker?
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 …
I Try So Hard To Goof Off, But I Can’t
by Kevin Burton Today is National Goof Off Day, but I don’t feel up to it. The National Day Calendar is amusing for all of us. It will have four to six thing of the day offerings each and every day. It’s a salvation for a blogger some days when ideas for content …
Looking For A Spark In A Springsteen Song
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, …
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Don’t Miss The Moments Life Brings You
by Kevin Burton Somewhere between the art of science and the science of art, I dropped the ball and missed a moment. The girls were up from Oklahoma between Christmas and New Years Eve. The girls are our now-ten-year-old granddaughter on my wife’s side and her five-year-old step sister by living arrangement, not …
Legendary Composer Bacharach Dead At 94
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 …
Another Set Of Musical Valentines
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 …
Buddy Holly’s Visual And Musical Acuity
by Kevin Burton I have never seen a picture of Buddy Holly without his thick glasses, but I never have pondered whether he was legally blind until now. He probably was not, by the way, though he had poor vision. More about that in a bit. This comes up today on the …
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 …
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