Copper
Music to my ears
The Blues: Willie (who was also blind) Johnson
Out of one the darkest periods of our history came a style of music that would have never happened without the slave trade. Let me be clear, for one man...
Nat King Cole: For Sentimental Reasons
In 1926 Nathaniel Adams Cole was 7 years old and US Route 66 was established as a part of the US Highway System. I don’t have to go into where...
The River Runs Through It: Rick Hall
Trains and rivers run through America like blood brooding through the veins of a thoroughbred. There are few things more magical to a working man than looking down that track...
The Band, Part 2: From Dylan to The Last Waltz
There were many remarkable moments in the history of The Band. The first was the incredible luck we all had that these teenagers found themselves in the same band at all. ...
What If Christmas Sucks?
Old Joke. There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t. But there is St Thomas Garnet’s theorem. He postulated there are actually 3...
Satchmo
The Roaring 20’s changed life in America in radical ways. The 18th Amendment passed on January 16, 1919, and prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors ” within the...
Dippermouth
January 1, 1901 was a Tuesday in steamy New Orleans. There were folks, mostly muttering vagrants and journalists, who would say it was Wednesday in China, but these people were...
Jethro Tull Beggar's Farm
Jethro Tull was a intriguing lawyer and agriculturist whose life straddled the turn of the 18th century. Tull passed the bar in 1693 but soon developed some lung problems that prompted...
Syd Barrett: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Yer not! Am too! But we just stopped. Yeah, that was good for you then wernit? But I didn’t have ter go then. Plus that tab is kickin in. So...
Deep Purple—In Rock
Ok. This is how shit happens. In 1967 Chris Curtis, former drummer for the Searchers, had an idea to start what would essentially be a supergroup where the members would rotate. ...
Hey! Hey! It’s the Monkees!
In 1966 I was 12 and the world was 9. I had no truck with those so-called rockers The Beatles from England with cute voices only partly because the girls my age...
We’re All Bozos On This Bus
(sound of thunder in the distance..the only sound in the jungle besides the smoking No Smoking sign outside the 7-11. The power in the store is out, and three men...
Southern Rock and The Allman Brothers: The ReRe...
In March 1971 the Allman Brothers started a three day gig at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East with Mountain opening, then the Bros., and headlined by Johnny Winter And. I did a Copper column a few months ago...
Toon Town!
I think was in my teens before I realized that the couple thousand Warner Brothers cartoons I’d seen since I could remember with a big bowl of Rice Krispies in...
Johnny B. Goode: Johnny Winter
The car went over a heave in the road and the radio came on. There was something wrong with the wiring in your dad’s ’28 Studebaker, it didn’t like East...
Bebop Deluxe
Mankind astounds with creativity, stupidity, ingenuity, and levity. The same species that invented the super-collider will drink beer with buddies in his garage and drop a frozen turkey into a...
James Cotton: Mr. Superharp!
We lost James Cotton on Thursday, March 16, 81 years old. The last breath of a monster harp player with the power of an airplane engine was taken by pneumonia....
You Got to Funkifize
I started to write a column about Tower of Power, a band that had a huge influence on all of us, and realized quickly I couldn’t start that story without some...
Steely Dan: Do It Again
No story about the Dan can be told without raising up Roger Nichols. Nichols won 4 Grammy awards for Best Sound Engineer on four Steely Dan recordings, three of which are studio albums worthy of an article on the art...
Sounds of 2016: Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!
The turning of a year is a minor celestial accident. A day of delusion. Time knows no man. And man may as well use an hourglass full of ground stone...
Blue Christmas
My dear wife Diana is one of those that starts buying Christmas presents in June. I know, I know. The worst part is there is a dynamic in a relationship...
The Sounds of Christmas: Batteries Not Included
I grew up on Ash Drive in suburban Connecticut. When you hit Thanksgiving you started thinking about Christmas. Today they’re running Christmas ads starting just after the 4th of July. In...
Roamin' in the Gloamin': John Hammond
John Hammond was born into wealth in 1910 to John Henry Hammond and Emily Vanderbilt Sloane. Yeah. Despite growing up in a five story mansion in New York, early on he...
Growin' Up Together: Stevie Wonder
I remember vividly the first time I heard ‘Sir Duke’ from Songs in the Key of Life. It was the fall of 1976 and I was driving across the bridge between...
Bluegrass In the Dark: Doc Watson
I have to tell you, blind musicians fascinate me. Not because they obviously can play without looking. I have been doing scales up and down various necks as long as...
Giraffes and Whipped Cream: Frank Zappa
Two of my kids have a cat with decidedly uncatlike characteristics. Having known a few cats in my time, the strangest thing about Jeter is the kids can take him...
Felix Pappalardi, Nantucket Sleigh Ride
A band named Mountain, that in its most potent form lasted from 1970-1972, was the absolute and undeniable Father of Heavy Metal. I usually leave some room for argument, I like to...
Swing, Swing, Swing
I was about 15 and home sick for the day. Today that kid could convince his mom he’s sick and she’ll go off to work after checking his pulse. But...
Swang!
“The Texas Playboys are on the air!” With two quick pizza-ricotta fiddle strokes to set the time the boys were off and running with The Playboy Theme. “Now listen everybody from near and...
Jerry Garcia
If you were born on August 9, 1995, you’re turning 21 today. You have earned the right to go out and get fractured with all the same friends you’ve been...
Jaco
When I started out playing bass, like all novices I was pretty lousy. Luckily, you always played in the back behind loud guitar players, best friends who talked you into...
John Hartford
One day about twenty-five years from now,When we’ve all grown old from a-wondering how,Oh we’ll all sit down at the city dump,And talk about the Goodle Days.Well you’ll pass the...