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Few today recognize the name Euday Bowman, yet during ragtime’s heyday Bowman’s 12th Street Rag was one of the most well-known tunes around.
October 3, 2023When you think of early aviators, names like Wright, Earhart and Lindbergh probably spring to mind. But unless you’re a confessed aviaphile, names like Cole, Fitzmaurice and von Hünefeld probably do not. You’re on the Sound Beat. When the three made an emergency landing in Greeley Island, Canada in 1928, they’d completed the first transatlantic flight, from East ...
October 2, 2023Do not adjust your radio. It’s actually supposed to sound like this.
October 2, 2023For listeners of a certain age, a song about King Tutankhamen immediately brings Steve Martin to the mind’s theater. His “King Tut” mock-reprimanded the commercialization of the Treasures of Tutankhamen exhibit that toured from 1976 to ’79. But this one, “Old King Tut”, was recorded in 1923, the year AFTER the ancient Pharaoh’s tomb was ...
September 22, 2023You’re listening to Anchors Aweigh by the United States Naval Academy Band, and… You’re on the Sound Beat. Spelling seldom makes for great radio, but “Aweigh” in this case is spelled “A-W-E-I-G-H”, and it means that the anchors have been raised, and the ship is ready for action. It also makes this the perfect fight song for ...
September 20, 2023In his hit “Caldonia,” Louis Jordan wasn’t singing about his wife Fleecie Moore’s “hard head”, but, you know, he could have been.
September 15, 2023One of the most influential guitarists in jazz, and indeed all of music history.
September 15, 2023