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 …

“If You Could Read My Mind” Is A Masterpiece

by Kevin Burton    The greatest songwriters will leave room in their songs so you can climb in, look around and make yourself at home.    Just be careful, there is going to be a mirror in there in the place you least expect. You’re going to see yourself.  You’re going to be confronted. If …

We Watched Our Culture On Our Radios

by Kevin Burton    The love we all had for radio and the vibrant world it brought to us, made it well worth risking the wrath of parents.    All of us have stories of hiding that transistor radio under our pillows, trying to be quiet so our parents wouldn’t know we were still awake. …

Raised On Radio: Rush Makes A Statement

by Kevin Burton    The Band Rush made a musical comment on the state of radio in 1980’s “The Spirit of Radio.”  It took me more than 40 years to get wind of it.    Though they made reference to the lyrics of two of my heroes, Simon and Garfunkel, in the song, they didn’t …

Video Killed Your Imagination, Not Radio

I think I’m done writing about MTV and Clear Channel for the moment, but I have one more thought on that Buggles tune, “Video Killed The Radio Star.”     I raised the question without answering it in my Friday story: “If you could get your favorite top 40 hits, with pictures, moving pictures, wouldn’t that …

Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star

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 …

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 …

Old Times, Springtime And Baseball Cards

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 …

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 …

Raised On Radio: National Disc Jockey Day

by Kevin Burton    The other day I was researching music and stumbled upon the Raised On Radio podcast. I thought, yeah, wish I had thought of that.    That’s me. I was raised on radio.    When I got back online to find it again, I found something entirely different called Raised On The …