Two of my favorite Argentine artists have always been Astor Piazzolla and Mercedes Sosa. They represent very different musical styles, nuevo tango and nueva cancion, the first a fusing of classic…
While living in Paris in the mid 1970s, I went one day to Crédit Lyonnais to cash a traveller’s check (I only had a few left at that point). A…
Ruben Hurricane Carter—What Ever Became of the Man in the Dylan Song? The other night I was watching the boxing program on ESPN Classic. It was an early 1960s fight…
Mongo Santamaria was a great Cuban conga player (“conguero”) who most people don’t know about. Even though for tropical Latin music lovers, percussionists and drummers, he is a veritable god. …
When I first interviewed Gil Scott-Heron on Morning Becomes Eclectic, it was December 9, 1980. Gil was in town to open at the Forum for Stevie Wonder. John Lennon had…
Years ago while hosting Morning Becomes Eclectic, I was featuring some heavy-duty flamenco, the kind with intense singing and lots of hurt. It’s called “cante jondo” or “deep song”. Not…
In a recent issue of The New Yorker, there is a profile of singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron. His star burned brightly for many albums, first in the 1970s for Flying Dutchman Records,…
George Shearing recently passed away at the age of 91. I have listened to his music off and on over the years, but it was only after his death that…
Nina Simone (b. Eunice Kathleen Waymon; 1933) is beloved and remembered by millions across the world for her brilliant singing, incisive lyrics, and her fearlessness. But what isn’t always known…
The 1950s were a time of both very tame and very dangerous-sounding music. The tame were names like Pat Boone, Patti Page, Perry Como, and 101 Strings. The dangerous were…