Today’s Artist
Curtis Mayfield 1942 – 1999
People get ready, there's a train a-coming.
Mayfield wrote about Black pride before anybody called it a movement. He fell through a stage light in 1990 and was paralyzed from the neck down. He kept recording. He sang lying on his back. The music never stopped. More →
Back of the Catalog Selection
30 sec
Who Did It Better
Purple Rain
I never meant to cause you any sorrow
1984 Prince
2014 Aretha Franklin
Prince wrote a eulogy of piano and guitar rain. Aretha Franklin sang the same purple rain but turned mourning into a coronation. The voice had more royal command, making the rain fall like a crown weight, bending notes and holding them longer with more meaning.
Today’s Record
Love Line
Love line, give me a sign
A drum machine and a harmonica. Stevie Wonder, alone at Electric Lady Studios, building 30 sec from spare parts and making it sound like a party that had started before you got there. The song is about a woman so funky she makes reggae feel like boogie-woogie. Wonder played everything. Number three on the Hot 100. He didn't need a band. He never had.
Today’s Theme
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You’re Kidding, Right
J.B. Lenoir wrote protest blues about racism, police brutality, and Vietnam -- songs so sharp they got him blacklisted from radio and physically attacked. Lenoir used the blues not just to complain, but to fight back with every verse.
While most bluesmen sang about women and whiskey, Lenoir was calling out the system by name.
Soul in the Movies
Muscle Shoals 2013
Muscle Shoals is a documentary about FAME Studios in Alabama, where Aretha Franklin found her voice, Wilson Pickett found his grit, and the Swampers -- the house rhythm section -- laid down tracks that defined Southern soul. The building is unmarked. The sound is unmistakable. The film interviews everyone who mattered and lets the music do the testifying. Mustang Sally was cut there in minutes. 