Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic
“Strawberry Fields Forever” would take the music world by storm in February 1967, in no small part, due to the opening flute sounds produced by a tape-driven sampling keyboard known as a Mellotron [link to “Top 10 Mellotron Songs” from Ultimate Classic Rock]. Two years earlier, however, Graham Bond had
Tennessean synthesist, Gil Trythall, creates his own one-man electronic bluegrass band when he and his Moog synthesizer pay a visit to the Grand Ole Opry to shake up the Nashville musical establishment on “Nashville Moog” from 1973: “Nashville Moog” Gil Trythall (1973) “Nashville Moog” – from Trythall’s second album, Nashville Gold:
YouTube contributor, RoswellReptilian, tells us that Tim Dawe‘s “Little Boy Blue” was “used as bumper music for WMMS‘s ‘Cleveland Buzzard Morning Zoo’ in the 1970-80s.” Can you name the electronic musical instrument that you hear at the opening of the song, as well as during each repeated instrumental passage leading
From Sound on Sound‘s wonderfully detailed history of the Clavioline (the otherworldly keyboard sound that steals the show on Beatle B-side, “Baby You’re a Rich Man“) we learn that “electrical instruments first appeared at the close of the 19th century.” However, it was only with the introduction of the Clavioline
My first encounter with a kalimba, the African instrument (also known as a “thumb piano” or mbira) was when I read the album credits for Space Oddity in my youth and learned that David Bowie played a kalimba on the title track, Bowie’s first American breakout hit (a.k.a., “Major Tom“).
Someone posted a short list of “clavinet-fueled songs” that, of course, included “Up on Cripple Creek” by The Band. One commenter quibbled that the song should have been #1 on the list, “not only because it is better but because it was first” – but was it? The Clavinet is
Around the 7:55 mark in this heartfelt video tribute to ‘Q drummer, Tom Ardolino (who left us in 2012), there is powerful testimony from one of rock & pop’s most storied session drummers, Earl Palmer, who remarks on Ardolino’s prodigious wallop [“playing that backbeat!”] and inimitable playing style [“twirling that
Hard to believe this piece of music was made in 1959 – sounds quite contemporary to me: “Cindy Electronium“ Raymond Scott (1959) YouTube comments are almost universal in declaring Raymond Scott to be ahead of his time, with many remarking upon this recording’s resemblance to “chiptune” or “8 bit” (i.e.,
I am very appreciative that Scholastic Video, in partnership with Weston Woods, has done such a consistently great job adapting children’s literature for the small screen and in a way that appeals to people of all ages. One such adaptation is the story of a fish named Swimmy, who shows
The rap on The Monkees I remember growing up was that “they didn’t play their own instruments.” While it is often true that seasoned session players provided much of the musical backing behind the Monkees’ vocal tracks, it is inaccurate and unfair to say that the Monkees didn’t bring their
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