Category: Music

All-Classical WGBH

Boston’s commercial Classical music radio station, WCRB, is struggling at its new frequency, according to a recent news account, as seen below. The moment it left its original frequency can be heard here.

Meanwhile, public station powerhouse WGBH is now offering its HD Radio all-Classical music channel on the Net. Bravo. Way to go. Encoding runs at 128 Kbps, and it sounds fine. I just added this link for it on my Windows desktop.

Reception is mixed to new WCRB signal, programming

By Clea Simon, Globe Correspondent | January 25, 2007

Is WCRB-FM fading out?

While the Dec. 1 move of the commercial classical station’s frequency, from 102.5 to 99.5, has made tuning in troublesome for some listeners, changes in the station’s programming have raised other questions. In Boston’s classical music community, the reception to both the signal and the revived station has been mixed.
Continue reading All-Classical WGBH

Randy Newman Defends Our Country


As told back in October (before I figured out how to do embedded audio and video right), I was once a huge fan of Randy Newman, back in his satirical days. Newman is in Newsweek, and I caught him today on BBC radio, talking about his new composition, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”.

Newman’s never-great singing voice seems to be failing him, so he just talks his way through this, and it isn’t one of his catchier tunes, but it’s good to have him despairing over Presidential politics enough to write about it.

Lonnie Donegan

Before I post another video with Pop songtress supreme Petula Clark, let’s back up a little to 1955-56 and put her career into perspective. Rock and Roll was on the horizon, and the Skiffle music craze was huge in England. Pet’s style obviously wasn’t going to mesh with that.

Lonnie Donegan

Skiffle was popularized by Lonnie Donegan, who had a huge influence on British kids, including John Lennon. Donegan seemed to have a wide range of musical interests and influences, including Woody Guthrie, who was later a primary inspiration for Bob Dylan. Donegan performs Guthrie’s “Grand Cooley Dam” in this video:

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/LonnieDonegan.flv 320 235]

Donegan had a gigantic hit with “Rock Island Line,” a song that he apparently first heard on an old record by Leadbelly. It was such a big hit for Donegan that it crossed over to America, and Stan Freberg did a parody of it.

The audio player has Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”, along with a follow-up hit, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight?”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/RockIslandLine.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/ChewingGum.mp3]

And here is Leadbelly doing “Rock Island Line”, along with Freberg’s parody of Donegan:

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/Leadbelly.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/StanFreberg.mp3]