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Phil Keaggy – A Lifetime of Making Joyful Noise...
“Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!” Psalm 33:2, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language Guitarists who have developed distinctly separate and unique voices on both the acoustic and electric guitar...
Every Picture Tells A Story, Or, How I Recreate...
Today’s renaissance of vinyl as a chosen physical music format represents an opportunity for baby boomers to recapture their collective youth. In the 1970s, record stores were the place to hang out...
Self-Help Before YouTube: More Records to Impro...
Have you ever wondered how we learned to do things (repair/install/build/develop skills, etc.) before smartphones and YouTube came along? Well, back in ancient times, before “there’s an app for that,”...
Lyle Mays – Composer, Arranger, Producer and Ke...
Part One (Issue 144) covered Lyle Mays’ recordings as a leader and as part of the Pat Metheny Group. The series concludes here. In the last installment, we looked at Lyle...
The Future of Jazz Clubs: a Crossroads and a Co...
For some time, many music industry critics and pundits have postulated that jazz is dead. Even the great Wynton Marsalis wrote a song called “The Death of Jazz.” Some of...
Lyle Mays – Composer, Arranger, Producer and Ke...
It’s been a year and a half since we lost the brilliant composer, arranger and keyboardist Lyle Mays. While he had avoided the limelight during the last phase of his...
Some Notable Analog Recordings, Part Three
As I mentioned in my previous article (Issue 142), I recently installed a new cartridge. Even though it is the exact same model as the cartridge I had used for...
The Audio Butterfly Effect
The best-fitting suit is a well-tailored one. You likely would never expect to try on a garment in a store and have it fit perfectly, if taken randomly from just...
Classic Rock Reissues: Real Value or Sonic Head...
In the consumer packaged goods biz, it’s common practice for manufacturers to reposition brands as “new and improved.” We’ve seen brands like Tide, Jell-O and Bounty do this time and...
10 Great Music Documentaries
A lot of people turned to binge watching during the pandemic lockdowns. Although I wasn’t binging, I did take the opportunity to check out a number of documentaries about bands,...
AES Show Spring 2021, Part Four: Gaming Sound, ...
As a result of COVID-19, the Audio Engineering Society’s AES Show Spring 2021, appropriately named “Global Resonance,” was conducted online from Europe. This afforded me the rare opportunity to view...
Facing the Music
Oliver: Wanna shot of single malt, Terry? Terry: Still got some of that Bunnahabhain? O: Here. I wonder why some of our friends don’t show up to our music gatherings anymore; I know...
Born-Again Brahms
The intrepid Hungarian pianist András Schiff has pressed against received wisdom since indulging in Bach early on and rarely programming any Chopin (a cornerstone of any pianist’s repertoire). You can...
A Charmed Life
One of the attendees I met at The Home Entertainment (T.H.E.) Show in Long Beach last month was a guy named Carter. Every time I noticed him in the listening...
What Was the B.F.D. About R.E.M.?
My neighbor is a generation younger than me. I’ll call him Trent. Like everyone else in my neighborhood, Trent and his wife are spending part of the pandemic cleaning out...
Self-Help Before YouTube
Have you ever wondered how we learned to do things (repair/install/build/develop skills, etc.) before smartphones and YouTube came along? Well, back in ancient times, before “there’s an app for that,”...
Chris Whitley: A Nonconformist
The definition of a nonconformist is “a person whose behavior or views do not conform to prevailing ideas or practices.” Yup, that defines the late blues-rock-folk artist Chris Whitley quite...
The Jazz Side of Henry Mancini, Part Three
In our last installment (Issue 136; Part One appeared in Issue 135), we left you at the Banzai Pipeline, surfing your way to one of Henry Mancini’s greatest big band tunes....
The Jazz Side of Henry Mancini, Part Two
We left off our last survey of the jazz side of Henry Mancini (Issue 135) in New York City, fresh off the Breakfast at Tiffany’s soundtrack. That album was recorded...
Taking Control: A Personal Journey
In issue 140, I told the story of Carter, a Texan who seems to have beat cancer by means of changing his environment. The reason it had such an impact on me is...
I Hear Music…
This is an attempt to describe how I experience one of life’s greatest sensory pleasures – music. I don’t listen to songs. By that, I mean I don’t really give...
Sustaining Creativity
Many years ago, I owned and ran a UK guitar shop, which my family and I had purchased as a going concern. It was a very successful and happy business...
London “Decca” Cartridges: Unique Design, Timel...
Decca cartridges are unique transducers with quite a bit of interesting history behind them, starring with the Decca company itself. From their 1929 beginnings as a British record company and...
The Yamaha Influence, Part Two
In Part One (Issue 134), we looked at Yamaha as being both a musical instrument maker and a manufacturer of audio components, and how each of those sides of the...
Small Town Charm, Big Town Music: My Father’s P...
Bruce Springsteen frequently sings about the grit and hardships of growing up in Freehold, NJ. His emotional writing makes it easy to visualize the life experiences he encountered in a...
All About That Bass
When I moved to Seattle in 1980 I lived in the Jensen Block on Eastlake Avenue, in a neighborhood of aging wooden houses, aging people, and industries that made things...
More of My Favorite Things
In addition to the recordings I included in the first part of “A Few of My Favorite Things” (Issue 129) there are many other recordings I enjoy having in my collection. If...
The Flow of Influences On Buying Equipment
What influences the equipment you buy? Make no mistake, none of us buy audio or musical instrument gear without being affected by past inspirations. I suppose my earliest memory of...
Groove Essentials: Four80East
This story began with hamsters and a squeak toy over 20 years ago and evolved into a unique contemporary jazz project called Four80East. In their own words: “We make groovy,...
Nils Lofgren – A Retrospective Look at a Musici...
Once upon a time, I was a young assistant manager at Globus Brothers Studios in New York City. They were the creators of the Globuscope 360, a servo motor scan...
Totally Transparent
When it comes to conversation, occasionally we may preface what we say with, “To be honest, I….” This figure of speech seems totally natural to us and endeavours to add...
A Conversation With Mark O’Brien of Rogue Audio
Rogue Audio manufactures a wide range of tube, solid-state and hybrid audio components including integrated amplifiers, preamplifiers, power amps, phono stages and headphone amps. Located in Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, the company states...
Koss: the Granddaddy of Audiophile Headphones
As listening to music on headphones and earbuds has become ubiquitous, it is interesting to note that Koss Corporation (NASDAQ: KOSS) the company that invented and commercialized consumer stereo headphones in 1958,...
Role Models
Roy Hall’s article in the last issue triggered some disquieting school memories of my own. He reminded me of the nasty habit of many public school teachers in the 1950s and 1960s to read test...
Playing the Back Holes
One of my favorite motorcycling buddies, Ralph, invited me over yesterday to listen to his stereo system. Although he’s retired, he refuses to grow up and is still obsessed with motorcycles and music, just...
A Few of My Favorite Things
I have close to 3,000 CDs and LPs – a modest amount according to some people, an extravagant amount according to others. I used to have a large number of...
Ballroom Blitz
How was your New Year’s Eve? New Year’s Eve, ring a bell? Someday this pandemic will end and we will return to celebrating the end of the old year and...
Music and the COVID-19 Era
In 1968 we learned about Revolution 9; in 2020 we met COVID-19. Both disruptive, chaotic and confusing, but only the latter delivered unprecedented health and economic duress for so many,...
January's Most Memorable Concerts
When you run through a list of the biggest rock concerts of all time, one thing you’ll notice is that most were held during the summer months. I guess this...
Interviewing Genesis in the 1970s, Part Two
Or, How I Got to Meet My Idols My first two interviews with members of Genesis, in 1974 and 1975, were initially made possible by the fact that I was the...
Shakin' It: Ray's Top 20 of 2020
2020 was a year that presented all of us with a number of challenges and curve balls, to say the least. One industry that ground to a complete halt was...
Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound?
In Issue 125, I told you about my war on LPs and my search for an alternative. After a lengthy affair with cassettes, I switched to CDs. The CD gave me everything...
Hit the Board, Jack
When I was a teenager, no one understood how I suffered. No one detected my secret genius. When I saw kids my age on TV or in the movies, they...
Christmas Songs Worth Listening To
As the calendar days inexorably approach Christmas, the usual playlist combination of the same 20 or so songs, such as Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Wham!’s...
Concert T-Shirts: History in the Making
Recently, a college buddy posted a picture of himself on social media with a Pablo Cruise T-shirt that his brother had given him for his birthday. It was so random...
Five Weeks In Mongolia, Part Two
Part One of this story ran in Issue 123. A full day on the “road” to Baldan Baravain required significant recuperation. It took us some time to regain our land legs...
Interviewing Genesis in the 1970s – Part One
How I got to meet my idols. Me: “Hi, I’m Rich Isaacs. I’m on the Atlantic Records guest list.” Winterland box office attendant: “I don’t see your name here.” It...
My War on LPs
My life took a swerve in the summer of 1974. Did I have an affair with an older woman whose husband was away in a war? Did I learn that...
Boogie Wonderland
A great man once wrote: “Once upon a time in New York City, when the city finally went to sleep, a magical place opened its doors and invited people in...