Every once in a while (and I’m sure it happens to you too) I find a song remembered from my younger days going obsessively around my head, impossible to shake. Today it has been a recording from my one of […]
You might be forgiven for thinking that the photo on the left dates from around 1968 or 1969. From the Isle of Wight Festival, for example, or from Woodstock or Glastonbury. In fact it’s a still from a 1922 film […]
I really couldn’t say what brought the song to mind, but it’s been buzzing through my head much of this afternoon so I figured I had to share it with you. This 1929 song, with music by Nacio Herb Brown […]
A song from the pens of the brilliant and prolific songwriting team of R.P. Weston (lyrics) and Bert Lee (music) (who else could ever rhyme “Persia” with “curse ya”?), A Proper Cup of Coffee was, to my knowledge, first performed […]
Maria and I were randomly talking this evening about ideas for future performances. And thus it was that I ended up revealing one of my closet passions when I began waxing lyrical about Vernon Dalhart, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, Merle […]
I’ve long been intrigued by earlier generations’ visions of the future. I remember I had as a child in the late 1950s and 1960s some few children’s books of transport, for example, that envisioned future machines and modes of travel […]
It’s one of those songs that we’ve all known forever. Published in 1921, the lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn, music by Richard A. Whiting, and recorded here by Gus Van and Joe Schenck, the song had first […]
Those of you who know Radio Days well will know that we’ve a bit of a ‘thing’ about George Formby. Those of you who know us really well will know we’re also huge fans of Formby’s mentor, Cliff Edwards (“Ukulele […]
Mention the song Singin’ in the Rain to most people and it will bring to mind the 1952 film of the same name directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds. A lot […]
“When I was about six years old… my father bought a Radiogram”