tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315419972026-04-28T03:37:55.302-05:00A look at music and life by the New Orleans based award-winning author and radio programmer, Tom Morgan.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-68742503750007469042011-02-04T10:50:00.001-06:002011-02-04T11:16:29.324-06:00

  Arhoolie records, one of the great American labels, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend. The record company  is the brainchild of Chris Strachwitz, a German immigrant who has left an indelible mark on the nation's sound-scape. The catalog of Arhoolie reads like a who's who in Cajun, Zydeco, Tex-Mex/Tejano, Bluegrass, Gospel, Blues, Country and Jazz music, making it one

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-72694456604202626012011-01-03T12:47:00.000-06:002011-01-03T12:47:45.329-06:00

Happy New Year to all of my readers. 2010 was a year that I am very glad to put in the past. I don't think I have had a year like the last one in many many years and without going into details, I hope it is many years before another stinker of a year like 2010 occurs again. It is not that last year did not hold much promise as I had a new book out with great reviews and had some good things

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-17680940610900794372010-12-01T13:07:00.000-06:002010-12-01T13:07:04.871-06:00

I have spent almost thirty years behind the mic doing community radio. In most community stations you are picked to do your shows by your knowledge of music and thus are never told what to play on your show. My approach to this kind of freedom was to challenge myself to come up with different ways to explore and present the music on my shows. Theme shows have been one way of achieving this end.

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-87402161260593619502010-11-10T15:14:00.000-06:002010-11-10T15:14:31.234-06:00

Down here in SE Louisiana we have an extra season that many parts of the country don't get. It's closer to a second summer than anything else as the day temps can sometimes make it into the low eighties and the nighttime temperatures hit the high forties. It kind of reminds me of summers in NE Pennsylvania where, in August, you pulled out the long sleeve shirts and put a blanket back on the bed

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-10684399064201213822010-10-28T14:46:00.000-05:002010-10-28T14:46:50.806-05:00

For almost twenty years I did a radio show for WTJU in Charlottesville, Virginia, called the Bartender's Bop. When I started doing radio for WTJU in 1981, I was employed as a bartender, thus the name of the show. The show covered the roots of rock and roll, early gospel, RnB, blues and soul music. For the past week or so I have begun transferring cassettes of old shows onto my computer as mp3s

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-28158899679434661282010-10-20T12:35:00.000-05:002010-10-20T12:35:07.775-05:00

The Farmer's Market scene has grown here in New Orleans much like it has across the US. I don't have the time nor the gasoline to catch every market in the area but wanted to share with you the three markets I enjoy the best.  Even though it is completely on the opposite side of town from where I live, Tuesday's Farmer's Market uptown is probably my favorite and is worth going to for a

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-70064159479552853772010-10-16T09:41:00.000-05:002010-10-16T09:41:59.824-05:00

For many years a jazz historian was only as good as his music and reference library. This meant that historians with access to large music libraries definitely had an advantage. I began to grow my jazz reference library from the time I started to listen to jazz. One reason was that books about the musicians always had partial discographies in the back of them and I could always plan on

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-24142432713029390592010-10-06T11:47:00.000-05:002010-10-06T11:47:54.670-05:00

As we enter the peak time when the nation's attention turns to baseball, I thought it might be fun to bring music and baseball together. Popular music and baseball grew up together;  almost every year when the winner was declared a new song about the team was soon to follow. The first piece of baseball music was "The Baseball Polka" written in 1858. The most popular was "Take me Out to the

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-15777497341367217722010-09-30T09:43:00.000-05:002010-09-30T09:43:09.037-05:00

I have always had a fascination with jazz. I've spent over thirty years researching it and an equal amount of time hosting jazz radio shows and writing about it. Jazz music has gone from the streets of New Orleans to everywhere in the world. In the thirties jazz was king, it was the most popular music in America. Jazz has come a long way into the 21st century but what do we really know about

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-33087995604169777812010-09-20T09:36:00.000-05:002010-09-20T09:36:06.223-05:00

A honky-tonk can be many things, spelled many ways and shortened into one word. When you are referring to a bar with live music in the Southern and Southwestern United States it is also called a honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk. The earliest use of the word (spelled "honkatonk") was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun and widely reprinted in other newspapers. It was said that the

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-26390136673894745072010-09-12T11:02:00.001-05:002010-09-12T11:03:47.252-05:00

I've met some interesting well-known people in my life. I shared drinks with noted baseball manager Leo Durocher. Durocher was a man of many quotes including "nice guys finish last" and "show me a good loser and I'll show you an idiot." Durocher was at home in a bar and that's where I met him. I also met writer Ralph Ellison, who lit up when I told him I had read "Invisible Man." I was working as

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-4008697504741633102010-09-06T17:46:00.000-05:002010-09-06T17:46:02.555-05:00

I recently spent about a week in genealogy hell or as I refer to it "I'm my own grandpa!" The song "I'm my own grandpa!"was a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, first performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947. The song tells the story of a man who, through a combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother, in essence he becomes his own grandfather. Now

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-44475757343707847282010-08-30T12:32:00.000-05:002010-08-30T12:32:39.809-05:00

According to H.L. Mencken, an astute student of American English, the term "blind pig" was first used in 1887 America and referred to lower class establishments that sold alcoholic beverages illegally. An upscale version of such an establishment was known as a speakeasy. The proprietor of such an establishment, or "Blind pigger," was in use by 1894. At such a place there would be a charge for

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-35825805160686220252010-08-21T13:53:00.000-05:002010-08-21T13:53:14.053-05:00

Felipe's Taqueria @ 301 N. Peters St., New Orleans, LA 504 - 267 - 4406. You get in line at Felipe's and tell them what you want and they make right there in front of you. I had a beef burrito for about $7 that was excellent and it is right around the corner from the Louisiana Music Factory so on Saturday afternoon you can catch a couple of free performances, then have a quick cheap meal.

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-90397138338977746672010-08-15T13:50:00.000-05:002010-08-15T13:50:55.302-05:00

Some of the time I look at the world through the images drawn on the covers of old sheet music. I started collecting sheet music about 25 years ago while sitting in an antique store waiting for my wife to finish shopping. I discovered a pile of sheets and started looking through, quickly discovering a sheet from an early African American musical called "Blackbirds of 1928." I quickly fell in

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-6355728108317703292010-08-06T12:15:00.000-05:002010-08-06T12:15:36.090-05:00

Being on vacation at the beach, in particular the Pensacola Beach area, makes me realize how much different musically this area is to New Orleans. The beach is for all ages but certainly it is dominated by families and late teens and twenty somethings. Younger folks don't listen to radio the way I did when I grew up; youngsters these days can listen to whatever they want whenever and where ever

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-92113204147844567452010-07-27T16:16:00.003-05:002010-07-27T16:19:56.858-05:00

Whenever most people discover New Orleans music, they find a level of excitement and feeling that they might never have experienced in any other kind of music. For many, a hunger grows with each visit or listening experience: music from this city is deep in feeling and will move you out of your seat and, if you live in the city, out into the street. If you don't live here, watch out. The newest

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-56986398050145762132010-07-25T17:02:00.000-05:002010-07-25T17:02:23.197-05:00

There was a wonderful celebration for the 99th birthday of trumpeter Lionel Ferbos held on the 17th of July at the Palm Court Cafe. Lionel is the oldest active jazz musician in the city and he not only still plays trumpet, he also sings a number or two at every performance. Ferbos early on played trumpet in New Orleans with bands led by Walter "Fats" Pichon, Harold Dejan and Captain John Handy.

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-21432286646231584322010-07-18T14:54:00.001-05:002010-07-19T14:53:00.287-05:00

Early Jass and Vaudeville New Orleans music created quite a stir in Chicago in 1915 and Joe Frisco was very much behind it. Comic Frisco and his dancing partner/girlfriend Loretta McDermott came to New Orleans in 1914 to perform their dancing and comedy act at a Bourbon Street honky-tonk called the Pink Poodle. After the act bombed, they were left in the city with little money. They decided to

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03673287696866054954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31541997.post-51571387394968654822010-07-14T10:44:00.005-05:002010-07-14T10:55:27.597-05:00

After three years absent from blogging, I've decided it is time to get back into the fray and start letting people know what I am thinking about, what I am listening to, and what I am working on. My goal is to put up a new blog every week and I think you will find them to be fine edutainment.My life is going through some changes these days, some are scary and some are welcome. I am hoping that

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