Showing posts with label Chords & the Truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chords & the Truth. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The inauguration edition


Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor Russian jammers and hackers stays this program from the musical completion of its appointed time slot.

And the Big Show has a special inauguration edition for you this week -- a song-filled celebration of the 45th and last president of these formerly United States. It wasn't easy bringing the music to you.

Malevolent forces tried to make that not occur.

They failed.

OUR NEW administration will be commemorated during this momentous week. Good and hard.

I think you'll enjoy the spectacle.

I think others . . . not so much.

So sit back and relax with a stiff drink for the next 95 minutes, and let the 3 Chords & the Truth music mix surround you like a wall. A big, beautiful wall. The best wall . . . of sound.

Who knows who'll pay for it? Who cares? It won't be you, that's the important thing.

SEE MY beautiful sentences here? They're the best sentences, epic sentences. Believe me, they're great. Almost as great as my music this week. So listen up, and listen good . . . to the Big Show.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, June 13, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Booze, broads, stellar frauds


This week's edition of the Big Show features a stellar "live" album that wasn't. Recorded "live in concert," that is.

The first-ever pairing of jazz greats Peggy Lee and George Shearing was supposed to be a blockbuster-type thing at the 1959 National Disc Jockey Convention, held Memorial Day weekend in Miami Beach, Fla. A live album was locked into the Capitol Records release schedule, and audio engineers would be there to capture it all on tape -- in glorious stereophonic sound -- for what would become the Beauty and the Beat! LP.


And if you listen to Episode 297 of 3 Chords & the Truth, you will hear a fair chunk of that 1959 Capitol LP on the show. It is glorious. Peggy Lee is brilliant, and Shearing and The Quintet are swinging years ahead of their time, stylistically.

It's an important record . . . and it's a joyous listen.

IT'S ALSO an epic fraud.

On the other hand, that's pretty appropriate for an album purported to have been recorded at a DJ convention epically summarized by the Miami Herald as "Booze, Broads and Bribes." And America would soon learn all about "payola," thanks to a radio confab where the record labels ran amok and the broadcasters ran . . . amoker?

I mean, here you have a live, in-concert recording session at a convention full of bought-off, drunk-ass DJs (and a large contingent of "ladies of the evening" on the labels' dime) in a ballroom at the Americana with a tragically messed-up public-address system. What could go wrong?



WELL, if you listen to the Big Show, you sure as heck will find out. And you'll hear a bunch of great music, too . . . and not just from a legendary jazz pianist and an equally legendary jazz singer.

And you'll also hear about Omaha's connection to the whole mess.


3 Chords & the Truth . . .  it's not just a freeform music show. It's an expedition. An adventure. And a blast. Don't forget to check out our organ-flavored rock 'n' roll set in Aisle 1.

I guess that's about all I have to say about that. Except. . . .

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.

Saturday, June 06, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Hangin' out, playin' records


I thought that this week we could hang out and play some records.

What do you mean that's what we do every week on 3 Chords & the Truth?
 
Fair point.

Well, what say we hang out and play some more records this week on the Big Show?

ALL RIGHT, that's what we'll do, then. After all, isn't that what freeform radio was all about anyway? I'm sitting here in the studio with some records, some CDs, some . . . whatever . . .  and I'm playing 'em for you because I thought you'd like to hear this cool stuff I've come across.

That's 3 Chords & the Truth. It's as simple as that.

So, if you want to hang out and listen to some records, come right in. I got a bunch of 'em.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.