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Music is a big part of my life, and my taste runs the gamut. I listen to almost everything except the dead Austrians, Germans, Italians etc. I'm especially partial to jazz and blues. A long time ago, I was lucky enough to host a program called "Nothin' But the Blues" on WCBN-FM. Here are some of my favorite music links -- enjoy!
WEMU-FM -- the NPR station at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti (and if you know how to pronounce Ypsilanti, you might be from Michigan -- see my humor page for details). The home of lots of great jazz and blues.
The Reverend Billy C. Wirtz -- The hardest-working white man in show business. Pure laugh-out-loud insanity. Like Robin Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and Screamin' Jay Hawkins rolled into one. Don't miss him if you're within 100 miles of his next gig.
The Bob Seger File -- A great site about one of my all time favorite rockers who's finally gotten his due by being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Check out the hilarious comparison between Seger & Springsteen).
Billy Bragg -- another one of my heroes and the rarest kind of person: a socialist with a sense of humor. I first heard him 20 years back in one of his early U.S. gigs and have been listening since.
The Ark -- A very cool music venue in my college town, Ann Arbor, MI.
Seventh Son -- a fine West Michigan blues band.
Kalamazoo Valley Blues Association -- West Michigan-based blues society.
The Atlanta Blues Society -- the local blues society in the place where I live.
Bad Dog Blues -- more good blues, from the place where I was born -- Rochester, NY.
Blues Machine ltd.(Bobby's Blues Page) -- blues from a far different place - Bulgaria to be exact, with a young Bulgarian blues freak webmaster. Dig it!
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The lady on the left is my old friend and fellow blues DJ Joanna Connor photographed by another old friend (hi, Mike) at The Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival. The guys on the right you probably know. You may also know that the picture came with their "Live At Leeds" LP. You don't get pictures like that with CDs (or MP3s!). |
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The Overalls -- some very special original acoustic music from Alabama.
The Alabama Blues Project -- More good Alabama stuff. As they say on the site, the blues didn't stop at the Mississippi state line.
Barrister Records -- a fine Alabama-based record label.
kissthisguy.com -- The Archive of Misheard Lyrics -- some very funny examples of mistakenly heard lyrics, like the Rascals song "you and me and Leslie" (who's she?).
Hober -- "Thinking Radio," with folk & much more, from the Washington area.
This is Little Jimmy Reed, whose relationship to the first one (if any) is unknown, but who's still a damn fine player. Janet took this picture at City Stages in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the best music festivals and apparently one of the best-kept secrets in the South. Don't miss it next summer. Meanwhile, check out what looks like the internet's biggest listing of Blues Links -- trust me, there are waaay too many to count.
WWOZ 90.7 FM, New Orleans -- one of the best radio stations on the planet.
Radio Free New Orleans -- more good New Orleans stuff.
These
are the Balfa Brothers, one of the great Cajun bands of all time and the people who
introduced me to Cajun music way back in the 70s. Today Dewey Balfa and his brothers are
gone, but the Balfa Toujours
band
carries on the tradition.
Gary Hayman's Cajun-Zydeco Pages -- an excellent Cajun-Zydeco clearinghouse.
And of course, there'll always be Sinatra. Years ago I used to spin elevator music on the overnight shift at a radio station up in Worcester, Massachusetts -- Percy Faith, Mantovani and worse, at a time when my mind and body were screaming at me to sleep anyway. But we could throw in a few vocals and around 3:00 in the morning I'd pull out "For Only the Lonely" -- perhaps the best of all those '50s albums, the one with "Blues in the Night," "Ebb Tide," "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" and of course "One for the Road." Those songs made me feel like I wasn't alone, and before long it was daybreak, time to deliver my last newscast and go home. If you don't own this record, buy it. You won't be sorry.
WPFW 89.3 FM -- jazz, blues, soul and more, live from Washington DC.
SAVE JAZZ 90 WDCU FM Radio, Washington, D. C. -- the people who tried to keep a great jazz radio station alive in Washington, and are now working for the good of jazz in general.
Preserve Maxwell Street -- These folks are trying to preserve Chicago's historic Maxwell Street, home to a lot of great blues.
Save Maxwell Street Website -- More from Maxwell Street.
