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Weekly treat

Weekly Treat

February 1, 2010

Stormy weather Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky … has been the lament for far too many weeks, and not only here in Rome. So here for your delectation is Ivie Anderson fronting the Duke Ellington Orchestra in a 1933? recording of Stormy Weather. There’s also a video on YouTube of [...]

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Weekly Treat

January 25, 2010

Corn Grinding, Haiti Hard to know where to break into this story. I had it all lined up for last week, and then came the earthquake in Haiti and “sensitivity” got the better of me, so I pulled it. Then I read up more about Harold Courlander, the man who recorded it. He seems to [...]

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Weekly Treat

January 11, 2010

The Weight I had thought, when I started this series, that there would be at least one song in each of the Sounds to Grow On episodes that would be worth singling out; that hasn’t been the case. I’m not saying that there won’t be more Folkways tracks in future, only that nothing in the [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 21, 2009

Saint James Progress One song, 20 versions, and there are probably lots more. The Unfortunate Rake (programme 3) is to date the most informative programme I’ve heard in the CKUA Radio series Sounds to Grow On. Sure, I knew The Saint James Infirmary and Streets of Laredo, but I’d never thought of the connections between [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 14, 2009

The Blues Program 14 of CKUA’s radio series Sounds to Grow On was built around a radio programme broadcast on WFMT Chicago in 1957. The astonishing Studs Terkel broadcast on WFMT from 1952 to 1997, and Folkways Records turned one of the programmes he made into the album Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 7, 2009

Two Good Men Sacco and Vanzetti are two names that any vaguely left-leaning person will recognize. Come to that, maybe right-leaning ones will too. Their story is simple; known anarchists, they were framed for a murder that “they almost surely didn’t commit,” according to Entertainment Weekly, which skirts the issue nicely. After seven years on [...]

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Weekly Treat

November 30, 2009

Plains of old Nebrasky-o Program 8 Broadsides in the Sounds to Grow On series contained some wonderful songs, and some terrible ones (Song for Patty, anyone?). Some early Bob Dylan, some early Bob Dylan wannabees, some glorious others. But how could I resist a song that starts In school I learned of men who died [...]

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Weekly Treat

November 23, 2009

Stormy Monday “Everything is word of mouth,” said the Famous Writer, as I asked him for a recommendation. Which is a good reason to start something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Michael Asch has been presenting a series on CKUA Radio, in Canada (and everywhere else) built around the recordings his [...]

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