The Rick Wakeman story is a total yawner. Yeah, he’s your typical rockstar. Six kids. Happy marriage. Healthy lifestyle. So, nothing to see here, folks. Keep it moving. Have you even ever heard of Rick Wakeman? Wouldn’t surprise me if … Read the rest
Category Archives: music history
Sounds like the start of very interesting story. Welcome to my nightmare. If you’ve live enough decades, you might remember guys like Doctor Demento or Svengoolie. And they were entertaining. But not nearly as interesting as a boy named Sue. … Read the rest
Ritchie Grasso. Now, there’s a name you don’t hear every day. Well, unless you’re related to Ritchie or you went to school with him. Or you wrote songs with him. I didn’t. And my guess is, you didn’t either. But … Read the rest
Right now he knows if I (and many others like me) am a liar or not. And he found out you can take it to the limit and barely be started. Yeah, he fully knows the take it to the … Read the rest
“It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn’t speed up or slow down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one … Read the rest
It was fifteen years ago, next month, that some friends of mine attempted to put together and display the largest protest sign ever. The event took place in Golden, Colorado (near Denver) to send a message to the Democratic National … Read the rest
Imagination can be an awesome and powerful force. But it can be used for good OR evil. So, it can also be a hypocritical and destructive force. You can imagine yourself flying, on your own power, over the clouds and … Read the rest
What do these words have in common: abstruse, Delphic, incomprehensible, indecipherable, inexplicable, oracular, paradoxical, recondite, and unfathomable. According to the dictionary, they’re all synonyms of enigmatic. Sounds like I’m about to give a language lesson. But I’m not. This is … Read the rest
Tucson, Arizona. Central New Mexico. Music. Moonlight. Dan Fogelberg. Storytelling. All parts of “the road” from a long time ago. And, early this morning, I thought about an incredible, singular experience I had during a full moon drive. Strangely enough, … Read the rest
Here’s one way to turn somebody else’s heartbreak and misery into a tidy profit. Many years ago a man found himself too lonely to go on. In fact, he wrote a suicide note saying “I walk a lonely street”. Then, … Read the rest
They happen to the rich and poor, the beautiful and ugly. And to the short and tall, the fat and thin. Even the old AND young. I’m talking about issues of the day. Trouble is, most of America prefers to … Read the rest
When I was a kid, I lived part-time in Texas and part-time in Kansas. And my time in Texas was city life while my time in Kansas was in a rural town of about 1500 people. But because America’s states … Read the rest
I worked in a disco. Yep. It’s true. I was a bartender. And I also worked as what they called a “floorwalker.” That was one of the guys who (you guess it) walked around the floor to make sure they … Read the rest
Here’s a little music tidbit I didn’t know. The first musical performance on Saturday Night Live was Billy Preston singin’ his hit song, Nothin From Nothin. And that didn’t just pop up, randomly in my poetmagination brain. Because I wanted … Read the rest
Jim Stafford co-wrote and recorded a really stupid song called “Spiders and Snakes” way back in the 20th century. I don’t like the song. But I agree with his lyrics. “I don’t like spiders and snakes.” Yeah, that’s a big … Read the rest
Huey shared the news back in the 80’s. Jennifer Rush wrote about it back in 1984. And Céline Dion repeated Jennifer’s message in 1994. That message was about the power of love. And people evidently were open to the idea. … Read the rest
I remember sitting in my mom’s living room, with headphones on, listening to Jim Croce’s album, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.” The title song, about a bar fight, was a hit. But another hit on the album was, “Time … Read the rest
This week, back in 1979, I lived and worked in Houston, Texas. My brother and I had established ourselves as one of the more popular music duos. And we had fans we could depend on to come see us as … Read the rest
I can make the connections from some quirky directions sometimes. They’re not always important. And often they’re probably only interesting to me. This might be one of those times. But a couple of unrelated articles connected in the eccentric region … Read the rest
A long, catchy melody line is a thing of beauty. And, for the most part, it’s a thing of the past. Pop music, in almost every genre, tends to seek out a vowel and repeat it over and over these … Read the rest