Jerry Garcia & David Grisman "Friend Of The Devil"

I played this on the air once, and said that it was "from 1997."

I had a Deadhead call and yell at me.

"Jerry DIED in 1995!  It can't be from 1997."

So, to clarify, for this impassioned gentleman . . . the album "Live On Letterman" was released in 1997.  The performance on that disc is from a television appearance in 1993, while Mr. Garcia (I didn't know him well enough to call him by his first name) was decidedly alive.

For someone who knows waaay more about The Dead than I do, and can talk about it properly, check out a new episode of Shakedown Stream.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Bob Marley "3 Little Birds"

There are a number of artists that we go really deep on.

In regular rotation on MVY, you can find upwards of 20 songs by The Allman Brothers, The Band, Talking Heads and U2.  And more than 30 by The Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones and a handful of others.

Because we cover these artists really well, it's not uncommon to take some of the most famous songs by these artists, like "Casey Jones" or "Ramblin' Man" and put them in a very, very low rotation.

On the surface, that might be counter-intuitive.  The most popular songs should be played the most, right?

But these are also the songs that you are likely to hear elsewhere.  Classic Rock stations have been grinding these tunes for years, so just occasional play on MVY goes a long way because you are likely to hear these songs elsewhere.

It's pretty rare that something about the MVY library surprises me.

I've been Program Director/Music Director since 2005.  And I've been doing work with our song library database for over a decade.

But last week, something really surprised me.

I was out somewhere and I heard "3 Little Birds" by Bob Marley.  And I thought, "Gee, I haven't heard this on MVY in a while.  Did I take it out of rotation and 'Rest' it?"

I'll do that sometimes.  "Rest" a song, by pulling it from rotation for a few months, or a year.  The idea is that when it returns to rotation, the listener may not have realized it was gone over the course of the year, but hears it and says, "Oh, I haven't heard this in a while."

So was "3 Little Birds" resting?

I went to the database.  No "3 Little Birds."

The database was created in 1999.  So any song that has ever been in regular rotation at any point since then, is in the database.  Songs that maybe we have the CD for, and might play but request but are otherwise not in regular rotation are not there.

"3 Little Birds" not being there means we haven't played it as a regular part of rotation for at least 15 years.

I realized there might be some other Marley songs missing from rotation.  So I went to iTunes to see his most popular songs.

I was shocked to see that there is a whole list of Marley tunes, not in regular rotation on MVY:

"One Love"
"Could You Be Loved"
"Buffalo Soldier"
"Redemption Song"
"Rock My Boat"

These are all songs that you can hear any day of the week on your local classic rock station, or at a party, or out in public somewhere.

So it's not that I hadn't heard any of these songs since 1999.  I was hearing them.  And I was hearing them enough that I hadn't even noticed that MVY wasn't one of the sources.

I don't know if our listeners have noticed.  But I will remedy this by getting all these songs into rotation.  Albeit a low, low rotation.

If I can go 15 years without noticing they are missing, they probably only need an occasional spotlight.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Indigo Girls "Uncle John's Band"

One of the weird phenomenons of being married is that while you do so much together, there are other things you simply can't do, because your partner is the one who does it.

For instance, 99% of the time I drive if my wife and I go somewhere. It's not that she can't drive or really despises driving. It's just something I do, and she doesn't.

How many times have we gone to visit her friend Nikki, who lives near Worcester? Half a dozen times in the last two years?

One day last year, she had a day off while I was working, so she decided to pack up the kids and go for a visit. I got a call from the road:

"How do you get Nikki's?"

She'd been down the path many, many times, but because she was in the passenger seat, the turns and landmarks had never really stuck with her, and she had no idea how to get to what should have been a familiar destination.

I was thinking about this when I played The Indigo Girls version of the Grateful Dead song "Uncle John's Band."

Sometime in the late 1990s, my friends and I drove down from where we lived in Virginia, to a club in Asheville, North Carolina, to celebrate Daemon Records 10th Anniversary. Daemon is the record label started by Amy Ray, one-half of The Indigo Girls.

Several of the artists on her label played that day, and of course, Amy did a short solo set. Vocal Indigo Girls fans were shouting out requests between songs, and Amy finally relented to a pair of persistent squawkers.

"What do you want me to play?" she asked. They requested a tune that The Indigo Girls had covered on a Grateful Dead tribute album called "Deadicated."

She hemmed and hawed, seemed to think about rejecting the request, and then just decided to go for it.

She got partway through the song, and you could see she was in trouble. And then she abruptly stopped.

She apologized. "Emily sings that part. I don't think I know the words . . ."

They'd no doubt performed "Uncle John's Band" many times before, but because she'd never sang certain parts of the song, she'd never retained them. And without those parts, the song fell apart.

You go through life in perfect harmony, but sometimes you don't really know just how much you need your partner until you're singing solo.

Grateful Dead “Uncle John’s Band”

I was not a Deadhead growing up. I had the vaguest knowledge of “Casey Jones” and “Touch Of Grey” and a few other radio regulars. But the whole Dead culture was something I was not tuned in to. Or perhaps, in my suburban existence, was shelter from.

College.

I had a girlfriend, and while she wasn’t a Deadhead, many of her friends were, and they were my introduction to the music and the culture and the attitude.

One hot Fourth Of July weekend, we were all invited out to a western Massachusetts backyard barbecue, by one of the gang, who promised that the food would be great, there was a pool, and a bunch of her friends had a great Dead cover band that would play in her backyard, into the night.

I remember sitting in a kiddie pool, drinking a beer, excited as I watched the dudes set up.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked.

“It’s gonna be great!” said my hostess.

The band broke for lunch. Yes, the hamburgers were delicious.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked.

“Oh, they’ll start soon!”

The band tuned up.

And tuned up.

And tuned up.

I played frisbee, barefoot on the grass.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked out loud, but to no one in particular.

With dusk gathering, after much tuning up, the band took a stab at “Uncle John’s Band,” which was cool, because it was my girlfriend’s favorite.

After the one song “sound check,” they took a break to fill their beers.

The lonely amps sat in the corner of the yard, unattended, as the band filled and refilled their cups. I asked my hostess, “Are they going to play anymore?

She said, “You worry too much.”

And that was my introduction to Dead culture and attitude. There are those in life that soak up the sun, and the kiddie pool, and the beer, and the hamburgers, and their bare feet on the grass, and their college girlfriend, and their tribe that has migrated from a classroom to a backyard in Western Mass . . . and there are those in life that wait for the band to start.


If you’re a Deadhead, or a Friend of a Deadhead, this week on mvyradio, we’re offering a “Friend of the Devil, Friend of mvyradio” t-shirt for a donation. You can support the station, and show your pride in the tribe. And for more Dead, check out Shakedown Stream.

Levon Helm "Tennessee Jed"

It's one of those unfortunate realities of the music business that sometimes it doesn't matter how good your record is, if you are not able to go out and promote it, people may not hear it.

Fats Domino was one of the most successful recording artists of his era, but doesn't enjoy the fame, renown or status as folks like Little Richard or Chuck Berry, in large part, because he really didn't like to leave New Orleans to tour. He even turned down offers to play at the Clinton White House, because, you know, he'd been there once in the 70s.

Levon Helm had to stop touring several years ago, to fight a battle with cancer. And miracle of miracles, not only did he recover, he was able to retain his voice AND he went on to record a new solo record, and then win a Grammy. And even though he was carrying an AARP card, he was a Road Dog again, out there playing shows on a regular basis.

The follow-up record, "Electric Dirt," seemed poised to push the Legend further, when he got sick again. Thankfully, it's not cancer. But the lesion on his vocal cord will prevent him from singing for the rest of 2009. He's still touring, playing the drums and letting others sing, but without his voice he's not able to promote the record the way I'm sure he, and his record label would like him to.

Which is too bad, because it's a great sounding disc, which includes a rousing cover of the Grateful Dead song "Tennessee Jed."

So don't forget about Levon, and look for him in 2010!



See Levon on Letterman, here

Buy the album, here