The Musical Journey of ‘House of the Rising Sun’
British Invaders Eric Burdon’s Animals made the song famous in 1964. A young Bob Dylan gave it a whack two...
The Record Blog
Helping Bob Dylan Create His Masterpiece
Mike Bloomfield’s and Al Kooper’s excellent adventure recording “Like A Rolling Stone” Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper met at the...
The Allman Brothers Band Gave the Blues to Southern Rock
The band played a key role in both the blues and Southern rock’s revivals in the seventies. During my freshman...
John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” a Christmas Treat
John and Yoko’s Christmas song is a stirring reminder of their unique anti-war activism. This week, we mourn the 40th...
The Down-Ballot ‘Red Wave’ Election Explained
Defund the police? Words matter. Down-ballot losses couldn’t have come at a worse time. First, the good part. We can...
Television Endeared Us to The Wizard of Oz
The movie premiered before our time, but TV created new generations of fans. The Wizard of Oz was the Super...
Power-Riffing with Rock Legend Eddie Van Halen
Savoring instances of the charmed but tragic life of rock’s last guitar God. The rock world on Oct. 6 lost...
Biden Rebuilds ‘Blue Wall,’ Wins Presidency
Democrats pull a 2016 in reverse, while Trump and Giuliani spin baseless and dangerous conspiracy theories. Joe Biden’s path to...
Trump’s ‘October Surprise’ a Reality Show of Presidential Incompetence
Nobody’s buying the Hunter Biden smear, and so this year’s ‘October Surprise’ is Trump surrendering to widespread coronavirus spikes. Prologue:...
COVID Misinformation by Fox News Making Pandemic Deadlier
The Republican death cult seems to have given up trying to slay the beast. The issue before us is no...
Women Bearing Brunt of Pandemic Recession
Even a small shift toward Democrats among working class women could spell payback in battleground states. In this pandemic election...
Four Awesome Bruce Springsteen Covers
One song was actually a collaboration. Most recipients of Bruce’s songwriting had career revivals. There is a commonality to these...
DeVos Hand in Rigging School Pandemic Relief Formula Gets Caught in Cookie Jar
The education secretary is also gifting private and Christian schools with PPP funds while public schools go begging. A federal...
After Phenomenal Success, Cat Stevens Hit the ‘Road to Find Out’
This fall marks 50 years since the groundbreaking ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ hinted at Cat Stevens’ escape from pop stardom....
Trump’s Payroll Tax Cut a Covert Attack on Social Security
The president has vowed to permanently shut off the funding spigot for Social Security and Medicare if reelected. Donald J....
Right Wing Terrorism Thrives in Trump’s America
What kind of president or human being cheers on gun-toting racist agitators? Prologue On April 19, 1995, a truck packed...
Democrats: Vote by Mail or In-Person Voting?
Trump and his crony Postmaster trying to concoct chaos and confusion over the election. It’s not about the money. According...
Trump Trying to Prevent Fair Census Count
The president wants to stop the counting a month before deadline so he can ‘gerrymander the nation.’ If the postal...
Further Evidence of a Post Office Coup d’Etat
It’s painfully obvious that Trump is trying to steal this election. Prologue I cannot imagine a more crucial time when...
A Youthful Adventure Along the Mississippi Blues Highway 61
We dropped in on Sam Chatmon, who found some fame with a family string band called the Mississippi Sheiks. We...
Unsung Passing: Peter Green, Founder of the Original Fleetwood Mac
Guitar virtuoso Green joined Eric Clapton and John Mayall as pioneers of British blues. He had the sweetest tone I...
Bully Boys Coming to a Polling Place Near You?
No more dog whistles. Trump and Republicans freely admit winning depends on suppressing the vote. Prologue It was election day...
Biden’s Commanding Lead Looks Different From Hillary’s Four Years Ago
Not willing or able to govern, Donald Trump is woefully unsuited for these times. In its Sunday newsletter, the highly...
Deja Vu All Over Again for ‘Captain Many Hands’
Oddly, multi-instrumentalist Stephen Stills’ artistry left CSN no choice but to add the ‘Y’ It was July 1968 and three...
Jimi Hendrix and his Electric Lady
The guitarist yearned for his own ‘psychedelic lair’ to cultivate a collaborative creative process. In the year 1969, guitarist extraordinaire...
Quitting World Health Organization Risks American Lives
Predictably petulant Trump tries to shift blame for his pathetic COVID response. To do this in the middle of a...
Trump Campaign Flailing Against National Unity Opposing Racism
We should enjoy this liberal moment because Trump’s worst is yet to come. It is quite obvious that our country...
‘Cash Register Justice’ and Police Brutality
You want criminal justice reform? Resist the resurgence of debtors’ prisons. As the rallies and protests across the country grow...
Following Trump’s Lead, Cops Now Brutalizing Journalists
Demonizing the press is a crucial part of an authoritarian’s playbook. They say it is common practice in authoritarian countries…think...
The Era of Big Government Is Back, Baby!
A robust role for government in the pandemic has given us a liberal moment. “The era of big government is...
Donald Trump’s Evil Plot to Destroy the Post Office
With all this talk about ‘heroes,’ it is the postal worker who stands tall. Neither snow nor rain nor heat...
Little Richard & Elvis: Sexual Heat Birthed the Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll
We mourn the passing of Little Richard, a rock ‘n’ roll pioneer who died May 9. If you love anything...
Conservative Sinclair Broadcasts Falsehoods, Risks Lives
Right wing media giant uses local news to tow the Trump line on the coronavirus. Behold the great and powerful...
Maybe Mitch McConnell Was Referring to His Moral Bankruptcy
‘Moscow Mitch’ McConnell’s mouthful about wanting states to go bankrupt sparks outrage, gets walked back big time. Senate Majority Leader...
Wisconsin Primary: A Post-Mortem
It was Bush vs. Gore all over again, as the US Supreme Court once again made a mockery of our...
Led Zeppelin Wins Copyright Appeal Over ‘Stairway to Heaven’
At stake: $79 million in royalties for iconic song. It’s over but for wild swings of interpretation. A handful...
Songs of 1970: Last Hurrahs for the Sixties’ Top-Selling Acts
The dawn of the seventies saw a Beatles farewell and Motown in disarray. It Was 50 Years Ago Today… An...
What Biden Must Do
What’s a master retail politician to do with no access to crowds and no elective office to demonstrate his leadership...
Let’s Call It the ‘Trump Coronavirus’
Trump seems okay with endangering relations with China by shifting the blame of his mishandling the Coronavirus outbreak. People really...
Philadelphia Free Library Latest to Go ‘Fine-Free’
Waiving overdue fines celebrates the notion that libraries mean more than a transaction. One of the special things about libraries...
Liberal Educator Horace Mann’s Last Triumph: Antioch College
The ‘father of the common school’ journeys to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to lead the ‘Harvard of the West.’ Prologue The...
Hedge Fund Vultures Swallowing Local News Whole
McClatchy, a major news publisher, the latest to throw in the towel. It started as a family business in 1857,...
Don’t Tell Me It’s ‘Bernie or Bust’ for the American Dream
You say you want a revolution…? Deliver us someone who can beat Donald Trump. Iowa and New Hampshire are in...
Seven Cool Things About Santana
The Woodstock guitar impresario has lived a charmed life. 1) An immigration success story Carlos Santana was born in Autlan...
Have a Hearty Laugh for the Holiday!
The Season’s Upon Us The holidays are mostly about family and there’s also the solemnity of the spiritual celebration. But...
Jim Croce: So Many Songs, So Little Time
Another tragic plane crash shortened a career that had full-blown potential. Three prominent plane crashes come to mind, involving rock...
New Stalking Horse in VA Privatization Shakedown
Bill would enable ‘third lane’ private sector care without VA oversight or scientific scrutiny. Sneak Attack You can almost imagine...
What Happened to Hitchhiking?
Hitchhiking peaked in the sixties and seventies. Then, it just vanished. If you’re an urban or suburban Philadelphian making a...
Why Are We Talking About Medicare For All?
People have short memories of the painstaking process to bring about the Affordable Care Act. For disclosure’s sake, I must...
Great Rock Albums Were Abundant in the Year 1969
50 years ago today, the greatest band ever called it quits while two huge ones launched. The Beatles’ Last Hurrah...
Two Beloved Hit Songs Were Minted When Graham Nash Swapped Rock Bands
‘Marrakesh Express’ and ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ hugged the charts in 1969. You remember the Hollies…the Merseybeat-type band...
Poetic Justice? Two Diplomatic Women Break the Stonewall
The honor of two accomplished women vs. Trump’s ‘grab ’em by the p—-.’ Two foreign service veterans were the first...
An Army Story: Cold War and a Father’s Warmth
I was a campus activist who got drafted in Nixon’s lottery. My father helped me get through it. May 4,...
What’s Up with our Trumpy Attorney General?
History will not be kind to William Barr, once thought to be principled, who seems to have ‘gone rogue,’ chasing...
The Cover-Up of the Biggest Disaster in Music History
A vault said to contain a half-million song masters of the Universal Music Group went up in flames 11 years...
FDR’s 1944 ‘GI Bill of Rights’ Helped Create America’s Modern Middle Class
One shining moment in history has withstood assaults on the notion that government can be a force for good. We...
Trump Continues Baseless Claims of Voter Fraud in New Hampshire
VP Pence’s defunct ‘election integrity commission’ specifically traveled to NH to sniff out voter fraud. They left with their tails...
Who Are the ‘Antifa’?
The false equivalency between an anti-fascist protest group and white supremacists is the centerpiece of Trump’s reelection campaign. We Go...
By the Time We Got to Woodstock…
The audacity of rock ‘n’ roll overcame traffic jams, rainstorms, and mass hunger. It was the best of times and...
The Sixties Blues Revival
The blues had a baby and they named it rock ‘n’ roll. There’s this thing we call the blues. In...
The Beatles’ Early Recordings: Baby Steps Along Abbey Road
Revolving drummers. A chance meeting in Hamburg. The Beatles find a home at EMI. This story begins in the unlikeliest...
Odious Warmonger John Bolton Really, Really Wants to Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran
An ‘architect’ of the disastrous Iraq war, Bolton sets his sights on inciting war with Iran. Listen up, mothers and...
Dem Courage, Republican Cruelty on Full Display in PA Senate
Unhinged GOP state Senate leader shouts down Democratic colleague pleading for cash assistance program for poor. If you’re not here...
Best Summer Rock Songs from the Sixties and Seventies
I feature five from rock’s greatest decades, plus some honorable mentions. Summer just opens the door and lets you out....
The Mueller Report Did Not Say, ‘No Collusion.’ Read It!
Or else watch famed director Rob Reiner’s cinematic summary of the report’s finding. Before we get to the Mueller Report,...
Apple Shutting Down iTunes! Well, Kind of, Maybe…
Nothing changes for Windows users. For Mac fanatics, a paywall looms. It’s official! At last week’s World-Wide Developers Conference in...
First Impeachment: Striking Similarities Between Andrew Johnson, Trump
It seems the only difference between Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump is that Trump doesn’t drink. Who could have predicted...
Rocketman Elton John’s ‘Border Song’ a Cry for Peace, Down with Bigotry
Aretha Franklin honored the John/Taupin songwriting duo by covering ‘Border Song’ two years later. Unlike many of his musical brethren...
There Would Be No ‘Elton John’ Without Lyricist Bernie Taupin
With the release of the movie ‘Rocketman,’ we honor a unique and uber-successful songwriting partnership. Due to be released tomorrow...
Impeachment? Nah. Democrats Should Keep Their Eyes on the Prize: the 2020 Election
There are other ways to hold the president accountable. And Trump will just weaponize his Senate acquittal. After the release...
Donald Trump Is a Russian Asset…
…even if he doesn’t realize it. The president remains the foremost threat to our national security. It’s right there in...
Mueller Report: The (White) House of Lies
Trump and Republican deceit are a disgrace to America. In the 2018 midterm elections–the one in which the Democrats recaptured...
Tales from the Cultural War: Sports Betting and Pot Legalization
Despite widespread pot legalization, many Americans, especially minorities, are getting busted for possession. One striking parallel between sports betting and...
Trump Attacks on Media Having Opposite Effect on Aspiring Journalists
Journalism educators like Temple’s David Mindich are inclined to emphasize truth, accuracy and non-partisanship. Another day, another Trump attack on...
John Fogerty’s Creedence Gig Was the Best of Times, Worst of Times
After leading the most popular band in America, Fogerty ended up in court accused of plagiarizing himself. Bob Dylan’s Advice...
Net Neutrality Not Dead Yet
The underlying conflict is a familiar one: the role of government to enforce fairness. “It ain’t over till it’s over.”...
Nature-Loving Main Line Artist Revels in Distinctive Patterns
Susan Curtin is disciplined in Pointillism, a difficult painting technique that distinguishes her landscapes and portrayals of animals. “The tendency...
America Unwillingly Reliving Its Racist Past
We have a president of the United States who’s a racist. Most Americans aren’t buying his lies. We’ve been through...
Payola, Radio Song Royalties, and Sinatra’s Dying Wish
While streaming compensation was recently bolstered, traditional broadcasters still don’t pay song royalties to performers. In the Beginning…Payola At the...
Philadelphia Ended Cash Bail for Minor Offenses and the Sky Didn’t Fall
New crusading DA Larry Krasner believes bail reform actually makes the city safer. And now he has proof. So you’re...
