Old-school news, just in time
by Nick Krewen Special to the Toronto Star Sixty-three years on, Otis Williams is still at the helm of one of the greatest Motown acts of all-time, the Temptations. Not only does the tenor and baritone vocalist continue to tour with the group into its seventh decade as its only original member, but …
Continue reading “Last Of The Original Temptations Looks Back”
by Kevin Burton America, do we hate the Chiefs yet? On second thought, let me extend the question to the rest of the world, since the NFL plays games in London, Mexico City and Frankfurt, Germany. World, have we had enough? It seems as usual I am behind the times, late to …
Continue reading “Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, Jumping The Shark”
by Kevin Burton You can take the boy from Carolina but you will never extract Carolina from James Taylor. That’s how it works. Our inner compass points toward home. When we can’t be there physically, our minds take us there. Sometimes it’s better that way. Just as Penny Lane is in the …
by Kevin Burton On the Billy Joel portion of our rock and roll road trip you could have reasonably expected “New York State of Mind” or even “Allentown.” Instead we swing west to look at “Stop In Nevada.” This song fits very well into our road-trip theme. Today’s tale includes one of …
Continue reading “Coast To Coast: Billy Joel’s “Stop In Nevada””
by Kevin Burton Trying to wrestle down he lighter-than-air 70s anthem “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John is like trying to tell a stranger ‘bout rock and roll. You kind of can’t. You can parse the words if you like, look into its origins, the elements that went into it. But in the end …
Continue reading “Tell A Stranger About Philadelphia Freedom”
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 …
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, …
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 …
by Kevin Burton Not sure what I expected in advance from the Harry S. Truman Museum in Independence, Missouri, but I ended up in tears. Truman was the Vice President thrust into the presidency just 82 days into his term, following the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945. By then the tide …
by Kevin Burton Eureka I say, eureka! I have my beep baseball problems figured out. In athletics they say, father time is undefeated, and that’s true. But all I need is a great idea, and an SOS, from ABBA. This is truly exciting! You’ve probably heard about ABBA Voyage, a virtual …
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