Blogs

Today’s Celtic Songlines brings you ‘wonderful Celtic fiddle energy’

Celtic Songlines launches its musical lineup for this week with a song from Dramagical, a brand-new release “inspired by nature and Scotland's magical otherworld” from fiddler Seán Heely (pictured).

Host Craig Reynolds follows up the song with more “wonderful Celtic fiddle energy,” and it's all ready for you now on this week’s show.

Cowboy Tracks present songs from the big deep diverse wide open

Host Nancy Flagg titles her latest program “Big Country,” to convey “the wide open spaces and the breadth and the depth and diversity of our country.”

She plays a song by that name near the end, and starts this week’s Cowboy Tracks with a tune by cowboy musician Rod Taylor (pictured), “Bonita Canyon Drive.”

Clyde recalls seeing Tony Bennett in the early '50s, on Davis Music Connections

Show hosts Ned and Clyde open this week’s Davis Music Connections with an audio clip from American Movie and memories about legendary singer Tony Bennett, who died on July 21 at 96.

Each saw Bennett perform, Ned about 30 years ago, and Clyde in the early 1950s (!) — few performers had a career as long as Bennett’s. “He hadn’t quite got popular yet," Clyde says. "We were staying at the Statler in LA, and they have a small room there, and Tony Bennett was doing about three sets a night. He had a single guitar player behind him. It was really cool.”

Ned riffs on American Movie, a movie about a guy making a movie. The late film critic Roger Ebert gave it four stars, calling it "a very funny, sometimes very sad documentary.” And then we move on to the music, starting with “Rag Doll” by the Four Seasons.

That's Life returns with a new series about one of the most important things in Davis: trees

That’s Life has returned, and host Lois Richter has chosen an apt subject for Davis and especially for this time of year: trees. This week’s program is part 1 of 2 or 3 on the topic, or, as she says, “as many as it takes.”

Her guest is Don Shor, who co-hosts the Davis Garden Show with Lois every week. He owns Redwood Barn Nursery and is a member of the board of Tree Davis.

Among other things, Lois and Don talk about some noteworthy feats of volunteerism, like Tree Davis' staff hand-watering 200 newly planted oak trees along Russell Boulevard west of Arthur (see photo)  for the trees' first three summers. Don adds, "that's 200 of 1,000 trees, roughly, that we're doing that for throughout the city."

Latest Album of the Week presents ‘root music at its finest’

Album of the Week explores a variety of music, one LP (CD, 8-track, whatever we've got) at a time. This week’s host, Frank Fox, brings you O Brother, the Story Continues, the sequel to the soundtrack for the 2002 movie O Brother Where Art Thou.

“This is roots music at its finest,” Frank says.

Frank hosts The Wild Fox Party  each week on KDRT. You might also know him from Frankie and The Fabletones … which by the way if you haven’t heard them perform Heidi Bekebrede’s “The Davis Song,” well, what are you doing for the next few minutes?

Music for a heat wave, on this week's Celtic Songlines

This week's playlist forCeltic Songlines contains a few titles chosen with our current heat wave in mind: "Glass of Water" and "Sunny Spells."

In today's program you'll also hear: Téada (in photo, and arriving soon on the West Coast), Charmas, Clannad, U.K. bands Salt House and Moore-Moss-Rutter, Irish vocalist Nuala Kennedy, Ghizela Rowe with a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry, Bob & Carol Pegg, Shide & Acorn, Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy, the band Solas, and Vincey Keehan.

Live Tracks goes all-vinyl for this week’s show

Jim is playing vinyl tonight on Live Tracks.

The experience is “complete[ly] analog if you’re listening on July 13 to the airwaves,” he says. “If you’re listening to the replays, it got digitized so that it could get replayed for you. Still pretty darn cool.

“I’ll be going to some very famous live recordings from around the country, from the 1940s, ‘50s, and possibly even the ‘60s.” Plus Beatles history, stories, a little trivia. And lots of music. Take it away, Henry Mancini.

Folk Brothers starts this week’s show with Irish singer’s cover of ‘Angel from Montgomery’

“I have a mix of things for you this morning,” says Folk Brothers host Bill Wagman at the start of his latest program. “I’m going to start off with a cover of ‘Angel from Montgomery’ sung by Jessie Buckley (pictured), an Irish singer who starred in a movie called Wild Rose. She played a young country singer in Ireland and had dreams of going to Nashville and performing on the Grand Ole Opry. … It’s a good movie.”

And a great song, starting off a great set. Let Bill take it from here.

 

For all of you milestone enthusiasts: Eight songs about 600, on A Constant Grin

Chris Mussen devoted the 600th episode of his program A Constant Grin to previously unknown musicians performing eight farther-afield songs, each with "600" in their name. Six hundred strokes, 600 miles, $600 short on rent ... you get the idea. It's a lot of fun.

"600 shows," he says. "It's pretty crazy, even for me, and I made all of them."

Chris includes his ruminations on 15 years of indie rock broadcasting free of charge.