Category: Music

V-J Day

This year there’s a second V-J Day in August, because today the Beatles expert and author Bruce Spizer has released a digital edition of his groundbreaking book, long out of print, The Beatles Records on Vee-Jay.

BeatlesOnVJ

The e-book is a PDF with almost 500 pages, and there are so many pictures that I can’t believe the file is only 60 MB. This is not a book for the casual Beatles fan. For serious fans it’s been unavailable for years, and a reprinting wasn’t possible because the original plates were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I couldn’t even look at Denro’s copy, because his was lost in the flood at his house! Used copies have been going for hundreds of bucks, but now, for only $50, here’s an updated version, and it’s a must-have for frustrated fans like myself.

Ray shines a light on Light My Fire

This week Fresh Air re-ran a fascinating 1998 segment with Ray Manzarek talking about the Doors and the creation and development of Light My Fire.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/05/RayManzarek.mp3|titles=Ray Manzarek on ‘Fresh Air’]

In 1967, when I was eleven years old, Light My Fire was a huge hit on 77 WABC radio, the leading AM station in New York. One day, while at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk, Connecticut with my family, I happened to hear the complete song for the first time. Before that moment the concept of an “album version” of a song hadn’t existed. Unknown to me at the time, at the start of 1967 an FCC ruling had taken effect, forcing radio stations with simulcasted AM and FM signals to offer unique programming on their FM stations, and so “underground” FM radio was born.

That first time I heard the complete version of Light My Fire I declared to my brother Jeff, “this is the greatest song of all time,” and my opinion hasn’t changed since then. To this day if I come across Light My Fire on the car radio I let it play through.

1973 seen in a daughter’s eyes

Jenn Grant

Jenn Grant is a singer from Canada. I’m coming up on the 40th anniversary of my high school graduation, and Grant’s late mother was apparently my age, as seen in this video for Jenn’s evocative song The Fighter.

My mother was the Queen of Azaleas in 1973. My brother and I found this amazing super 8 footage of her in an unopened box less than a year ago, only a few days after she passed away.

With the help of my director Jason Levangie and creative assistant Sarah Roy, it was added together with super 8 footage filmed close to my home in Nova Scotia. A very small crew of two very dedicated people made it possible to help show a glimpse of her beauty to the world, to a song that she said was her favorite on this album. I have never had a music video embody something I care about so deeply, and it is just one of the gifts that she has given me. To share her light with the world just as she encourages me to show mine.