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 …
Tag Archives: radio
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 …
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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 …
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Up All Night And Original Thinking
by Kevin Burton I’m sitting in the dark, on the couch my mom gave us. I hear the sound of a train in the distance. There is romance, poetry in the sound. I’m in the Man Cave and it couldn’t be mancavier. Two smallish beacons of light accompany the night without interrupting …
“Best Of My Love,” Pure Joy In 1977
by Kevin Burton Their gospel wailing and harmonies brought out the emotion from listeners in their native Chicago. People confided as much to their mentor/father Joe. That’s why when the singing Hutchinson sisters needed a new name for the group, they called themselves The Emotions. Forty-five years ago, their “Best Of My …
Did Gilbert O’Sullivan Launch Disco Era?
by Kevin Burton There have been many theories to explain the rise and fall of disco music. Here’s a new one for its rise: Disco music exploded in the mid-70s as a direct result of “Alone Again Naturally” by Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan. OK, so I can’t prove I’m right, but you …
Baseball And Radio, A Perfect Pairing
by Kevin Burton The greatest marriage of all time marks its 101st anniversary today. May death never part the two. The two I speak of, baseball and radio. Baseball on the radio has been a comfort to millions of Americans all their lives. Baseball was the national pastime, radio a sort of national …