Book Excerpt Raised on Radio by Paul Rees (Excerpt) Excerpted from RAISED ON RADIO: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola—the AOR Glory Years 1976–1986 by Paul Rees, published on February 24, 2026. Copyright © 2026 by Paul Rees. Used by arrangement with Da Capo Publishing, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing and a division of Hachette Book Group. All
Music AGAIN I saw this posted today on Facebook. And thought it would make a good song, considering the moment. Wake up, take a shower See a person get murdered Scroll past some bullshit Posted by your mother Pick up the laundry Drop off the kids Figure out where to grab lunch
Christmas All I Want For Christmas With everything going on in the world, it’s easy to forget the true meaning of this Christmas season. So this year, I wanted to write something to help remind myself what really matters. Hang the stockings Trim the tree I can't wait to see you I’ve
Music Uncovered Music Uncovered: Pink World By 1983 the notion of a “concept/rock opera” album was pretty well played out. It had been done, for better, or, more often worse, by artists across the Rock genre. Usually some variation of a dystopian fantasy/sci-fi trope, mostly as a vanity project based on the artist’s
Music Walter Becker Walter Carl Becker | Feb. 20, 1950 – Sept. 3, 2017 Eight years gone, and I still don’t have the words. I was, am, and forever will be indebted to the music and the man. I’ve told parts of this story before. Someday, I hope to tell it in full.
Books Three Views from a Brummie Warhead Of all the industrial dystopias in the world, the post-war Birmingham, England that spawned Black Sabbath was one of the bleakest...
Music Take Two, They're Small Yesterday I posted one of my tongue-in-cheek “WonTone Records” write-ups about Losing Her By Fractions (One Fifth at a Time). My dad commented that it reminded him of a song my grandfather, Lee Jackson Cooper, wrote with Dalton Roberts. So of course I went digging—and in mere minutes stumbled
Music Losing Her By Fractions - Del Ray Hillian Del Ray Hillian was born and raised on Sand Mountain, Alabama, a hard plateau where the air is thick with both history and humidity. His reputation as a songwriter was always for lyrics that cut straight to the bone. A former gospel tenor who fell in with the barroom circuit
Music Albums I Like — Sophisticated Giant by Dexter Gordon Dexter Gordon had been gone for a long time—14 years in Europe, mostly in Copenhagen and Paris. So when he finally came back to the States in the mid-1970s, it wasn’t just a return—it was a homecoming. Live sets of his triumphant return to the Village Vanguard
Music Prologue / The Sperm Hits Egg Ike Turner wasn’t sure about the crazy white man on the other side of the glass. He sat on his piano stool, a lit Chesterfield loose between his long fingers, and studied the crazy white man, Sam Phillips, as he flailed around the control room, spooling tape from reel
Music See ‘Em While You Can I was around twelve when Elvis passed. While young, I had several older cousins who were huge fans of the guy and remember the profound shock many experienced. I’d seen more than a few of his movies and heard the hits so often the shock was real for me,
Music Mama, I’m Coming Home Mama, I’m Coming Home Years ago, a thirteen-year old kid with a serious jones for The Beatles, Buck Owens and 60s jangle bands was hanging out with a slightly older friend. “You should listen to this. It’s cool.” As is the case with most kids going through those
