Labor Day means songs of work — getting a job, finding a job, losing a job, and gathering a union, from artists ranging from the Miracles, to Talking Heads, to Pete Seeger and Billy Bragg. But another harbinger for summer’s end — the county fair — is celebrated from artists including Bruce Springsteen, Phil Alvin
Music abounded at the Democratic National Convention last week, in the scattershot riff-a-thon by DJ Cassidy and in live performances by Jason Isbell, Stevie Wonder and a Prince cover band fronted by Sheila E and John Legend. Plus the usual walk-on songs of uplift that were well-known (Neil Young, Springsteen) and lesser known (New Radicals,
It’s a little maudlin to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley every year, instead of just on his January birthday. But that’s when the recently completed Elvis Week in Memphis is always scheduled. And it’s never a bad idea to play a lot of The King twice a year. So there was
We welcome Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee with nine songs offering the worst puns about his last name, another handful employing his go-to GOP descriptor, weird; as well as a couple of titles he’s already referenced in speeches, some representative Minnesota music he’s praised, one of the songs Bon Iver
The biggest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, after six months of secret planning involving seven countries, resulted in last week’s release of 26 people, so we played almost as many songs about freedom and being released. Capital Radio began with birthday salutes for Adam Yauch — MCA of The Beastie Boys
Cutting into the annual 24 Hours of Christmas programming for my own holiday edition of Capital Radio, I tried to concentrate on somber, more solemn numbers appropriate for the day rather than dazzle dazzle of jingle bells. Themes of “Christmas Day is Here” were much favored over “Christmas time is coming.” Nice to have Coltrane
The last show before Christmas warrants the annual avalanche of holiday songs, starting with the Bosstones, Aimee Mann and Nick Lowe, shifting to ’60s oddities from Bobby Goldsboro and Brian Hyland, and enduring rokcers from the Kinks and the Ramones. There was so much Yuletide, there wasn’t time for the usual birthday salutes, except for
Things don’t always go right when you pre-record a show. Sometimes, last week’s show repeats by mistake, which it did today. And as happy as I was with that show, I’m sadder that the today’s Shane MacGowan-dominated show didn’t go live. But here it is, a few hours later, in archived form. Besides our full-bodied
Taping my show last week means the Shane MacGowan tribute will have to wait a week. Instead, today’s Capital Radio had a couple songs about December, and 25 musical numbers in a sort of opposite of a countdown. There were a lot of birthdays to count up as well — including Southside Johnny, turning 75
The end of November brings the darkest days of the year, with sunset hereabouts approaching 4:45 p.m. Our show nearly stretched to that mark, starting with 13 tracks about the 11th month, from Tom Waits to The Avett Brothers. That gave way to songs about darkness — and there were a lot from Simon &
