KSHE KLASSICS SHOW, July 26th, 2020

[As you may or may not know, i live in Canada, and for some reason KSHE doesn't stream their audio to here; i have to connect via a VPN, to spoof a non-Canadian address. This week, according to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ i was listening from Norfolk, Virginia, where the governor is threatening to roll back to Stage Two after a disturbing rise in cases.]

Quotation Of The Week ~ Thomas Jefferson: The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

I learned something this morning. According to the ad from the Sana Lake Recovery Center of Dittmer, Missouri (https://sanalake.com/ ), the leading cause of death in people under sixty is overdose. I wondered if that statement might be a bit self-serving as they're a for-profit medical facility and thought it would more likely be heart disease, but i did a very quick search and discovered that we're both wrong. It's actually malignant neoplasm. It's always disconcerting to me to hear hospitals and similar services advertising on the radio, and now we know that they're just like every other advertiser: they lie. Oh, er, i should say, exaggerate to their own ends. Tra La.

My personal ethical / medical qualms aside, what a very nice show today! There were some surprises (Leo Sayer, David Lee Roth and Melanie, none of whom is exactly a regular visitor to these shores) but none was an unwelcome surprise. In fact, there was nothing unwelcome at all this morning – nothing annoying whatsoever. I'm giving it a grade of “A.” As our neighbour to the south descends into chaos and anarchy and their miserable excuse for a president tramples all over the First Amendment, it's nice to find that the Klassics Show remains a beacon of stability.

There were as usual several songs i can truly say that i love, plus quite a few relatively obscure songs by performers i like – and those are always nice to hear. The longest track of the morning was the ten-minute “Child In Time,” which was probably the number i disliked the most – Ian Gillan's vocal being a just a little OTT for me – but when the worst track of the day is by Deep Purple, you know you're on a winner.

I picked up a couple of bits of musical trivia today, too. “South City Midnight Lady” is about a woman from San Francisco, not Chicago (or St Louis) as i had always supposed. In the “i should pay more attention to liner notes” department, i have had Crosby, Stills & Nash's debut album since its release in 1969 and i didn't know until today that Jerry Garcia played pedal steel guitar on “Teach Your Children.” Wow. Or, maybe, duh to me.

Anyway, here's the Norfolk skyline, and the playlist:

Blue Őyster Cult – I Love The Night

Todd Rundgren – Real Man

Roger Daltrey – Free Me

Trapeze – Black Clouds

The Grateful Dead – Not Fade Away / Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad

The Doobie Brothers – South City Midnight Lady

Traffic – Glad

Wings – Venus And Mars / Rock Show

Leo Sayer – Long Tall Glasses

Dave Mason – Every Woman

Foreigner – Women

Triumvirat – Dimplicity / Last Dance

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Teach Your Children

Styx – This Old Man

Rush – A Passage To Bangkok

The Steve Miller Band – I Want To Make The World Turn Around

David Lee Roth – Just Like Paradise

Dwight Twilley – I'm On Fire

The Moody Blues – Gypsy / Eternity Road

Survivor – Is This Love

Head East – I Surrender

Uriah Heep – July Morning

Heart – Dog And Butterfly

The Beatles – Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite

Bob Dylan – Just Like A Woman

Peter Frampton – I'm In You

Stingray – Lovesaver

The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving

Taxxi – Walking Wounded

Jefferson Airplane – Lather

Dicky Betts – Long Time Gone

Santana – You Know That I Love You

Deep Purple – Child In Time 10 minutes

Melanie – Lay Down (Candle In The Rain)

Charlie – Fantasy Girls

Shooting Star – Hang On For Your Life

Let's see – one 3-CD set (Big Country), one two-disc set (Robert Johnson), and lots of Joan Osborne appeared on the corporate optical drive this week. (I love Joan Osborne!) Here's the list, and it's not overly lengthy:

Big Country – Wonderland: The Essential Big Country

Joan Osborne – Songs Of Bob Dylan

The Beatles – Rubber Soul

Various Artists – Hard Cash

Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream

The Kinks – Preservation Act 1

Alan Stivell – The Best Of Alan Stivell

Rosanne Cash – The Wheel

k.d. lang – Ingénue

Rob Hyman et al. -- Largo

Joan Osborne – Righteous Love

City Boy – Anthology

The Musicians Of The Nile – Luxor To Isna

Robert Johnson – The Complete Recordings

Marillion – With Friends From The Orchestra

Roxy Music – For Your Pleasure

Eagles – Desperado

Caro Emerald – The Shocking Miss Emerald

Dan Fogelberg – Souvenirs

Joan Osborne – How Sweet It Is

Rush – Power Windows

Camper Van Beethoven – Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

Genesis – Foxtrot

Manfred Mann's Earthband – Chance

Joan Osborne – Little Wild One

Jeff Beck – Live At B.B. King Blues Club

Rory Gallagher – Top Priority

Survivor – Vital Signs

Steeleye Span – Live At Last!

Kate Bush – Never For Ever

The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot

The Johnstons – The Johnstons

Peter Green w. Nigel Watson & The Splinter Group – The Robert Johnson Songbook

Loggins & Messina – Sittin' In Again

Roy Wood -- Mustard

KSHE KLASSICS SHOW, July 19th, 2020

[As you may or may not know, i live in Canada, and for some reason KSHE doesn't stream their audio to here; i have to connect via a VPN, to spoof a non-Canadian address. This week, according to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ i was listening from New York City, where the big Black Lives Matter sign in front of Trump Tower – which the mayor helped to paint – coninues to piss off the Donald, he he.]

Quotation Of The Week ~ Winston Churchill: Americans always do the right thing – after they've tried everything else.

I learned today that our host, John Ulett, doesn't know how to pronounce the word “segue.” I've heard him mis-pronounce it before, but it wasn't until this morning that i went to dictionary dot com and confirmed that it is a two-syllable word. There is no shame, of course, in not knowing how pronounce something one has only ever read and never heard spoken. (I, personally, didn't know how to pronounce “tao” until i was corrected a few years ago. What hurt about that was that my informant was someone i can't stand....)

Enough sociolinguistics, though: on to the music. And it was going pretty well, too, until about three-quarters in and then, bam, a double-whammy of dreadful, Pavlov's Dog and REO Speedwagon. Double McYuck burgers. How did these guys ever make a living? It's also baffling how Uman can insist that Kenny Loggins' “Celebrate Me Home” is not a Christmas song. I like it and i'm perfectly happy to listen to it at any time of the year, but it seems pretty Yuletidal to me (quantum mechanics baffle me too, so maybe it's just me).

Just a few notes gleaned from our host's comments this morning and from my own feelings. Uman agrees with me that Steely Dan's “Aja” is just about a perfect album – along with “Sgt. Pepper” and “The Yes Album,” although nothing from the latter was played this morning. I had no idea that The Cars, at the start of their career, were so poorly-received that they were often booed off stage. They became such a great band. And there was an extrordinary amount of Canajun music this morning – especially if you include Heart, who were from Seattle but living in Vancouver when they got their big break, and Neil Young, who was born in Ontario but has spent most of his life in California. And The Band, of course, most of whose members were Canucks.

My personal favourite tracks today: The Doobie Brothers, ELO, The Cars, J. Geils and Poco. Pavlov's Dog and REO notwithstanding, i'm grading this morning's edition (drum roll, please) an “A.”

Here's the view from Rump, er, Trump Tower, and the playlist:

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Fair Game

Little Feat – Fat Man In The Bathtub

Elton John – Grey Seal

Steely Dan – Josie

The Electric Light Orchestra – So Fine / Livin' Thing

The Cars – Tonight She Comes

UFO – Only You Can Rock Me

Heart – Dreamboat Annie

April Wine – Roller

The Beatles – She's Leaving Home

Neil Young – Sugar Mountain

The Doobie Brothers – Natural Thing

The Little River Band – Take Me Home

Rush – Test For Echo

Triumph – I Can Survive

Michael Quatro – Rachmaninoff's Prelude

Prism – Julie

Stephen Stills – Love The One You're With

Giant – See You In My Dreams

Kansas – Two Cents' Worth

The J. Geils Band – Give It To Me

Lake – Between The Lines

Ian Matthews – Lonely Hunter

The Marshall Tucker Band – Windy City Blues

Supertramp – Fool's Overture

Pavlov's Dog – Late November

REO Speedwagon – That Ain't Love

Kenny Loggins – Celebrate Me Home

The Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue

Poco – Good Feelin' To Know

Jackson Browne – In The Shape Of A Heart

Journey – Topaz

The Band – Ophelia

The Scorpions – Is There Anybody There

Michael Stanley – Rosewood Bitters

Queen – Stone Cold Crazy

The Charlie Daniels Band – Midnight Wind

Kayak – Keep The Change

As we have moved into Stage 3 of the re-opening here in this country's Tornado Alley, this week's personal playlist isn't as lengthy as those of the past five months, as i've been at work more and there has been the resultant reduction in music-listening time. I still managed one 4-CD box set, though: the Ashley Hutchings, which was a totally unnecessary acquisition: i have all of its great schtuff on other albums. Oh, well, more dollars than sense, that's me.

Joan Osborne – Relish

Renaissance – Novella

Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig

Court Yard Hounds – Court Yard Hounds

Ashley Hutchings – Burning Bright: The Life And Times Of Ashley Hutchings

Peter Gabriel – Rated PG

Free – Heartbreaker

The Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East

Argent – In Deep

Cat Stevens – Buddha And The Chocolate Box

Television – Marquee Moon

The Mothers Of Invention – Uncle Meat

Trigger Hippy – Trigger Hippy

Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts -- Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts

David Lindley – El Rayo-X

Great Big Sea – Play

Nik Kershaw – To Be Frank

10,000 Maniacs – In My Tribe

Florence + The Machine – Unplugged

Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers

Wings – Band On The Run

James Taylor – Greatest Hits

Jerry Douglas – Traveler

Elbow – Little Fictions

Fairport Convention – Angel Delight

Dick Gaughan – Gaughan

Peter Hammill – Sonix

Talking Heads – Fear Of Music

Brian Eno & David Byrne – My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Jefferson Airplane – Bless Its Pointed Little Head

Blodwyn Pig – Getting To This

KSHE KLASSICS SHOW, July 12th, 2020

[As you may or may not know, i live in Canada, and for some reason KSHE doesn't stream their audio to here; i have to connect via a VPN, to spoof a non-Canadian address. This week, according to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ i was listening from Clifton, New Jersey, a place i've rarely visited. It's the birthplace of Vera Farmiga, you know. (New Jersey this week was one of only three American states to report a decline in new cases of coronavirus. My VPN was looking after me!)]

Quotation Of The Week ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Silence is very important. The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves.

What to say about this one? I admit i came very close to grading it a mere “B+”. For one thing, Uman played the abrasive David Surkamp, Pavlov's Dog's singer, whose voice is fingernails on a blackboard to me. Secondly, there seemed to be more commercials than usual this week – including one really annoying one from Seliga Heating & Cooling on Gravois Road (call 314-481-7333 if you're interested – and if you live in St Louis).

But what the hey, i'm going with an “A.” First, there were a couple of delightful surprises: i don't think i'd ever heard Bob Marley on KSHE before, and there was also one of my favourite Mama's Pride songs. Plus there was so much else to love: CSNY, Yes, LRB. The Who, The Beatles.... But i think my fave today was Steely Dan – every time i listen to them i find further levels of meaning.

Just some random schtuff: 1. I must have heard “Time Loves A Hero” many times, here, there and everywhere, without knowing it was Little Feat. Duh! 2. Am i the only person in all of the Western World who doesn't own a copy of “Frampton Comes Alive!”? Not that there's anything wrong with it, it just didn't impress me much. 3. St Louis has always loved Canadian rock bands but there were more than usual this morning, four of them. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, someone Tweeted to Uman that he should put on a special all-Canadian edition of the Klassics Show. Impractical, i think. I personally, wouldn't care to listen to Loverboy twice an hour and as far as i can recall KSHE only ever plays one song by Max Webster.

Here's a pic of the gorgeous Vera Farmiga, followed by the playlist:

Little Feat – Time Loves A Hero

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Carry On

Bob Seger – Heavy Music

Elton John – Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy

John Mellencamp – A Little Night Dancin'

Gypsy – As Far As You Can See (As Much As You Can Feel)

Santana – All I Ever Wanted

Peter Frampton – Baby, I Love Your Way

Michael Stanley Band – He Can't Love You

Strawbs – Autumn

The Little River Band – Help Is On Its Way

April Wine – Shot Down

The Cars – Hello Again

Yes – Don't Kill The Whale

UFO – Too Hot To Handle

Phil Collins – Only You Know And I Know

The Who – Overture / It's A Boy)

Journey – Still They Ride

Steely Dan – The Royal Scam

Lou Reed – Sweet Jane (live)

Triumph – I Live For The Weekend

Pavlov's Dog – Julia

Loverboy – Queen Of The Broken Hearts

The Beatles – Fixing A Hole

Heart – White Lightning And Wine

Sammy Hagar – Crack In The World

Dave Mason – Feelin' Alright

The Marshall Tucker Band – I'll Be Loving You

The Babys – Midnight Rendezvous

Pete Townshend – Give Blood

Robin Trower – Little Bit Of Sympathy

Dire Straits – So Far Away

Bob Marley – Waiting In Vain

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – The Wind Cries Mary

Eric Clapton – See What Love Can Do

Mama's Pride – Can I Call You A Cab

Loggins & Messina – Lately My Love

The Guess Who – Albert Flasher

Bad Company – Holy Water

Here's my personal playlist for the week. Only a couple of 2-CD sets this week so the list is a bit longer than it has been recently:

Lyle Lovett – Pontiac

The Doobie Brothers – The Captain And Me

Amazing Blondel – Blondel

Richard Thompson – Bloody Noses

Various Artists – Vision: The Music Of Hildegard Von Bingen

Yo-Yo Ma – J.S. Bach: The Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites

City Boy – Anthology

Rory Gallagher – Irishman In New York

Nik Kershaw – The Best Of Nik Kershaw

Strawbs – A Choice Collection Of Strawbs

Paul Simon – The Essential Paul Simon

Various Artists – Two Rooms: Celebrating The Songs Of Elton John & Bernie Taupin

Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Allan Holdsworth – Metal Fatigue

James Taylor – Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon

Marc Jordan – Mannequin

Various Artists – Songs Of Our Native Daughters

The Nice – The Best Of The Nice

Marillion – Sounds That Can't Be Made

Mike Oldfield – QE2

Sheryl Crow – Threads

Max Webster – Max Webster

Joan Osborne – Early Recordings

Jethro Tull – This Was

Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis

Camper Van Beethoven – Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

Paul Young – Wherever I Lay My Hat: The Best Of Paul Young

Eagles – Their Greatest Hits

Ray Davies – Americana

Eliza Carthy – Restitute

Renaissance – Song For All Seasons

Runrig – The Cutter And The Clan

Judy Collins -- Wildflowers

Florence + The Machine – High As Hope

Sharon Shannon – Sacred Earth

Alison Krauss – Essential Alison Krauss

Paula Cole – Harbinger

Argent – All Together Now

Players -- Players

KSHE KLASSICS SHOW, July 5th, 2020

[As you may or may not know, i live in Canada, and for some reason KSHE doesn't stream their audio to here; i have to connect via a VPN, to spoof a non-Canadian address. This week, according to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ i was listening from Chicago again.]

Quotation Of The Week ~ Kurt Vonnegut: If i should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he ever needed for the existence of God, was music.

I had a bit of a connectivity problem this morning, not too serious but i missed a lot of the Steely Dan song and the first bit of Brave Belt. It was too bad, because i love both of those. (I also missed some of the Ted Nugent song, but that's okay: what i heard was awful, and some of the Derek & The Dominos track and that was all right, too, their album was mostly a cocaine-fueled shambles....) I don't know if it's related, but i was using a different browser this week. My default browser is Pale Moon, but a few weeks ago, during a Windows Update, those nice people at Microsoft dumped their new, improved Edge browser onto my system. I wasn't really interested – i try to avoid using anything Microsofty (which is a little like trying to avoid Google) – but i decided to see what it could do and, hey, i like it! Pages seem to load more quickly and it's far more customisable than Pale Moon – as the latter is a relatively minor player in the browser wars, few developers bother to write extensions for it.

No matter how often i listen to KSHE, i simply cannot get used to hearing ads for gun shops and hospitals. Why on earth would hospitals being advertising now, for goodness' sake? They're overflowing down there! (In Canada, by contrast, they are rapidly emptying out....)

But enough of that, on to the music, and it was another excellent three hours of classic rock (four hours if you include the ads ha ha): definitely a grade of “A.”

A few words about some of the songs. For no known reason, i had “Mandolin Wind” running through my head all last week, and lo and behold, it shows up this week. (I always have music running through my head. Today it was Nik Kershaw's “The Riddle,” which, as far as i know, has never been played on KSHE.) Apparently, the country group Dixie Chicks took their name from the Little Feat song – i quite like Dixie Chicks, actually. Apparently they've changed their name to The Chicks – as any mention of Dixie is on shaky ground in Amerika these days, as they so gleefully try to eliminate their history....

More: The song credited to Paul McCartney was actually sung by Jimmy McCullogh, who was the guitarist in Wings for a while. It's a song about drug abuse. Ironically, he died of morphine and alcohol poisoning in 1979 – although he wasn't known as being a heavy drug user. The Lucifer's Friend piece was nice but went on for far too long. “Yours Is No Disgrace” is definitely a favourite song, as were the Mott The Hoople and The Little River Band. Damn'd good morning!

Here's a pic of the Dixie Chicks, er sorry, the Chicks. They're far more photogenic than Little Feat, and the one on the right can have me....

Here's today's playlist:

Fleetwood Mac – Bare Trees

Rod Stewart – Mandolin Wind

The Babys – Love Don't Prove I'm Right

Journey – When You're Alone (It Ain't Easy)

Little Feat – Dixie Chicken

Elton John – The Bitch Is Back

Bob Dylan – If Not For You

Robert Palmer – You're Gonna Get What's Coming

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Everybody I Love You

Firefall – Cinderella

Steely Dan – FM (No Static At All)

Brave Belt – Another Way Out

John Mellencamp – Thundering Hearts

Santana – Searchin'

Jethro Tull – Bourée

The Beatles – I Want To Tell You

Yes – Yours Is No Disgrace

Loggins & Messina – Growin'

Paul McCartney – Medicine Jar

John Stewart – Gold

The Michael Stanley Band – All I Ever Wanted

Ted Nugent – Wango Tango

Spirit – Mr Skin

Nazareth – Shanghai'd In Shanghai

Eddie Money – You've Really Got A Hold On Me

Rick Derringer – Everything

The Little River Band – Home On Monday

Pure Prairie League – Country Song

Lucifer's Friend – Sorrow

Peter Frampton – All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)

Derek & The Dominos – Any Day

The Quicksilver Messenger Service – Gypsy Lights

Chicago – Color My World

The Doobie Brothers – Evil Woman

Prism – Armaggedon

Dickie Betts – Hand Picked

Mott The Hoople – All The Young Dudes

Billy Idol – Hot In The City

Black Oak Arkansas – Hot And Nasty

The Blue Öyster Cult – Hot Rails To Hell

Kenny Loggins -- Heartlight

One of the few good things about the current lockdown is that i am home at Spriggs Towers more often, which means quite an increase in my music-listening time. I've been able to listen, for example, to multi-disc boxes, which i seldom do for lack of time. There was one 5-disc set this week – the collection by Free – which i think i'd only listened to twice since i bought it about twenty years ago! And it's pretty darned good, too (although a 4-CD set would have been more than adequate). Same with the Dixie Chicks' live double album. I love the Chicks (although what i've heard of their new reunion album it, to use a technical term, “sucks”) and it's a lovely set, but i can't remember the last time i played it. The Harry Nilsson and The Allman Brothers were both doubles, too. Here's the list:

Santana – Santana

Rush -- Exit ... Stage Left
Robin Trower – Live

Free – Songs Of Yesterday

Harry Nilsson – Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology

Kim Mitchell – Kimosabe

Mike Oldfield – Islands

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Peter Hammill – Chameleon In The Shadow Of The Night

Talk Talk – Spirit Of Eden

Dave Swarbrick & Simon Nicol – Another Fine Mess: Live In New York '84

Neil Young – Harvest

Jackson Browne – The Next Voice You Hear: The Best Of Jackson Browne

Dixie Chicks – Live: Top Of The World Tour

Marc Jordan – Mannequin

Art Garfunkel – Angel Clare

Martin Carthy – Crown Of Horn

The Allman Brothers Band – Eat A Peach (deluxe edition)

Steve Earle – El Corazón

Vince Guaraldi – The Very Best Of Vince Guaraldi

Kirsty MacColl – Galore

Tom Rush – No Regrets: The Very Best Of Tom Rush

Paul Simon – The Rhythm Of The Saints

Talking Heads – Fear Of Music

Jon & Vangelis – Short Stories

Susan Tedeschi – Live From Austin TX

Steeleye Span – Dodgy Bastards

The Tragically Hip – In Violet Light

The Albion Band – Stella Maris

Natalie Maines – Mother

The Kinks – Sleepwalker

Alison Krauss – Essential