Radio Fragments

The history of recorded popular music goes back a century or so...it's the deep end of the sea of music and there are some fascinating and wonderful treasures to be discovered, but often we all have a tendency to stay in our comfort zone of the decades around 'our time'.

So it was awesome that a friend suggested a show made up of just the older tunes, and I took that to be "music from before I was born". This is the music I hope I would have been listening to at the time. There's a lot of great stuff here. Beautiful instrumental & vocal jazz, old blues, bizarre early strangeness, technical innovation...the hip, the weird, the socially challenging. 35 songs from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s & 60s. Enjoy!

Thanks for the suggestion, Kat! If any one else has an idea for a themed show, send it my way, I love it!

The show is available from the streaming archive, or you can download the podcast/mp3 version by hour (below).

Hour 1 – 1-2 am (Download - 57 Mb)

Buddy Greco, "The Lady is a Tramp" (US, 1960)
Patsy Cline, "Walking After Midnight" (US, 1957)
Luis Russel & His Orchestra, "New Call of the Freaks" (US, 1929)
Yma Sumac, "Babalu" (Peru, 1952)
Foy Willing & His Riders of the Purple Sage, "Texas Blues" (US, 1944)
Bob Crosby & the Bobcats, "Way Back Home" (US, 1949)
Louis Jordan, "I Want You To Be My Baby" (US, 1953)
Ella Fitzgerald & Chik Webb and His Orchestra, "Wacky Dust" (US, 1938)
Les Paul, "Lover" (US, 1948)
Pete Drake, "I'm Just a Guitar" (US, 1964)
Hugh Le Caine, "Dripsody" (Canada, 1955)
Raymond Scott & the Gene Lowell Chorus, "By Rocket to the Moon" (US, 1950)
Leroy Anderson, "Typewriter" (US, 1953)
Miles Davis, "Blue in Green" (US, 1959)
Nina Simone, "Wild is the Wind" (US, 1966)

Hour 2 – 2-3 am (Download - 57 Mb)

Tony Sheridan & the Beat Brothers, "My Bonnie" (UK, 1961)
The Isley Brothers (w/ Jimi Hendrix), "Testify" (US, 1964)
Radio Commercial - 1958, "W.W. Johnson Auto Sales" (US, 1958)
The Sonics, "The Witch" (US, 1964)
The Continental Co-ets, "Let's Live For the Present" (US, 1966)
T-Bone Walker, "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday is Just as Bad)" (US, 1947)
Tommy Johnson, "Canned Heat Blues" (US, 1928)
Lil Johnson, "My Stove's In Good Condition" (US, 1936)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, "Down By the Riverside" (US, 1941)
Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (US, 1939)
Charlie Parker's Reboppers, "Koko" (US, 1945)
Esquivel, "Granada" (Mexico, 1958)
Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman, "Where or When" (US, 1941)
Boswell Sisters, "Rock and Roll" (US, 1934)
Billy Wayne & the Rockin' Bandits, "Hot Rod" (US, 1958)
Big Bill Broonzy, "How You Want It Done?" (US, 1932)
The Four Lads, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" (Canada, 1953)
Phillipa Fallon, "High School Drag" (US, 1958)
George Formby, "When I'm Cleaning Windows" (UK, 1937)