Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Dana Spiardi 
Guitarists love the ladies, especially those with long necks, shapely bodies, and melodic voices. First, there’s the case of blues legend B.B. King and his girl Lucille. One night in 1949 he was playing at a club in Twist, Arkansas. Two men fighting over a woman kicked over a barrel half filled with kerosene, setting … Read more
John Lennon was one spinal cracker, alright. Who else would LSD guru Timothy Leary ask to write a campaign song for his ill-fated gubernatorial run against Ronald Reagan in 1969? Lennon set out to write a song based on Leary’s campaign slogan, Come Together, Join the Party. His original lyric began, “Come together right now, … Read more
Here’s what you probably don’t know about Thin Lizzy, a band most Americans consider a 2-hit wonder: they were the first Irish or English group to feature a bi-racial artist as frontman; and they employed both Catholic and Protestant musicians from both sides of the Irish border during the height of the ethnic/nationalist conflicts of … Read more
Sam Cooke, one of the greatest soul singers in history, was shot to death on this date in 1964 – at the very height of his career. Circumstances surrounding Cooke’s murder have always been sketchy. Bertha Franklin, who managed the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, told police that Cooke entered her motel office in a rage, … Read more
When I was 16, the woman whose bedroom was above mine in our apartment building was forced to move because I wouldn’t stop playing Led Zeppelin’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” at warp sound. I mean, I feel bad about it now, but at the time I felt such a sense of…victory! Behold, the power of … Read more