Philadelphia, Detroit, and Liverpool - Dancin' in the Streets

Rock 'n Roll was doomed to fail. It presented to the young people of American and the rest of the world an attitude of rebellion, sexuality, rejection of traditional values, fashion, and language. Coupled with the undeniable fact that it mingled the races in ways unseen before, it seemed to the "powers that be" a very dangerous element that needed to be stamped out. By 1958, it was pretty much over. That is to say, "pure" Rock 'n Roll was driven off the airwaves. In its stead was a more controllable form of "young people's" music - kind of like Rock 'n Roll like a Joe Louis is kind of like a chocolate eclair . . . it was close but all the power was taken out. With a very few exceptions, the radio was jammed packed with pabulum  made palpable.

But all was not lost. There was still vibrant music on the airwaves. In fact, Rock 'n Roll became the standard music - not the hard, wild, and rebellious Rock 'n Roll of Elvis and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, but most definitely a different mode than the "safe" music it replaced. Out of the urban centers came groups and singers who pushed this "teen" music. Among the leading pioneers were Lieber and Stoller, two songwriters that produced many of the hits of the day.

Like Tin Pan Alley of the turn of the century, New York became the epicenter of this music. The Brill Building in NYC cranked out song after song after song. It was like a music factory, with songwriters working in small cubicles, knocking off songs and giving them to producers who turned them over to singers, almost like an assembly line.

One of the most innovated and creative of these producers was Phil Spector, a young man who created his own unique sound he dubbed the "wall of sound." His tunes were epic, huge productions, sometimes with upwards of twenty musicians in the same room, all miked and then mixed down to mono.

 At the same time, in Detroit, in a little studio called Hitsville, U.S.A., young Berry Gordy was developing a pop music empire. What makes Motown so powerful - aside form the clean productions, infectious sounds based on the call and response of Gospel music, the slick choreographed presentations, and the immense talent of his roster of singers and groups - was the fact that it truly was music listened by both races with equal fervour. On the Motown label were the words "The Music of Young America" and that it was. in an odd sort of way, Berry Gordy is as important in the civil rights movement as many of its leaders black music was scary anymore.

On the West Coast of America, young surfers and other teenagers were looking for a sound that reflect their lives. Out of Hawthorne, California came three brothers, a cousin, and a friend, all inspired by the the sweet harmonies of groups like the Four Freshman and the Crew Cuts but fueled by the beats and drive of Chuck Berry, came the Beach Boys.

However exciting this music was, across the ocean, a new explosion was erupting, one that would shake the world. fueled by the events of the day - the JFK assassination in particular - the Beatles were storming England and about to conquer America and the world. 

The Beatles unleashed a floodgate of other bands - both from England and America - and pop music is still very much influenced by this wave.

Here are a few artists/bands in performance from the period . . .

Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!!

 Last week we saw the groundwork being laid down - electric blues and R & B coming out of the industrial cities like Chicago and Detroit, a new, more urban style of Country music labelled, for good or bad, "honky-tonk" and a sped-up version of hillbilly music coming from the mountain ridges of Appalachia called "bluegrass." However, these were musics on the margin. In the mainstream, pop music was mild and inoffensive, bland and saccharine, with artists like Patti Page and Frankie Laine topping the charts. In cities like San Francisco and New York, there was a movement of discontent with the "safeness" of post-WW II American. The Beat movement, led by writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs was changing literature. Painters like Jackson Pollack and William de Kooning were changing painting and other visual arts, film, sculpture, etc., were also reacting to the blandness of post-war American culture. It was only a matter of time before a pop music reaction to the white bread culture would emerge. There was a force loose in American and its vehicle was radio . . .

At the forefront of this new sound was Chess Records in Chicago. Because they had a large stable of Blues artists already - Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and others - it was easy to make the shift to this new hybrid - this Rock 'n Roll music.

But Chess Records wasn't the only label to realize the enormity of this new music and the market it fed. Small independent labels sprung up all over the country. Some came and went - on the record stores shelves one day and then gone the next. The same was true for its artists. Many artists started on small labels and then moved to a bigger label. Elvis is an example of that - going from Sun Records in Memphis to the national RCA Victor. Another fairly large label that supplied much of the hunger for rock 'n roll was Atlantic Records.

 As Robbie Robertson on The Band says in the first clip of this week's blog - one day there was no rock 'n roll and then the next, the floodgates were wide open and everything changed. Not only was the music different, but society changed as well. The most powerful thing was the integration of the races. White kids were listening to black music and black kids were dancing to white music. All through the course we have seen how these two streams have been separate - running parallel courses but distant from one another, only occasionally drawing from each other. That all changes during this period. Of course, every action has a reaction and there was a lot of discontent about rock 'n roll. Here is a clip from the History of Rock 'n Roll series that looks briefly at that backlash but also presents one of the great artists of the era - Chuck Berry - the first poet of Rock 'n Roll.

Even though the colour lines seemed to be breaking down, there was still no artist that bridged the gap completely. Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records - primarily a blues label - has be accredited with saying "Show me a white man that can sing like a black man and I'll make a million dollars." Shortly afterwards, a young truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi shows up to record a song for his mother's birthday. That truck driver's name was Elvis Presley.

It is hard to believe the impact Elvis had on Rock 'n Roll. It was a Teutonic shift of the first order. He electrified and divided audiences. Established mainstreams artists like Frank Sinatra made fun of him. Moms and dads hated his long sideburns and sexy attitude and movements. Kids, of course, ate it up like a breakfast food. 

After Elvis, there was a wealth of artists coming out of the woodwork. Two that were more based in country music than the blues were Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. Here is a clip from The History of Rock 'n Roll that ends with some of the backlash against this new revolutionary music and the apparent threat it posed to the bland conformity of the 1950s.

 Pure Rock 'n Roll was a small bubble in some respects. Although the music influenced everything afterwards, there was a concerted effort to make sure it didn't spread. Community groups, church groups, city fathers, and ultimately the government stepped in to squelch  it. 

 But, of course, as Plato said - "when the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake" and, in spite of the horribly bland "safe" music that followed in the wake of this crackdown, there were artists, producers, songwriters still producing great music. We'll look at them next week and watch as four young guys from England of all places set the world on fire again . . .

CHOO CHOO CH' BOOGIE

This week we look at the fall of Swing, but the rise of something else, something that will send ripples through the pop musical landscape of America and give birth to a form that shakes the world not only in music, but in art, literature, fashion, culture, politics, the whole gamut of experience - Rock 'n Roll. But before we get there, we have to examine its germination.

Once World War Two was over, life sort of settled down. Men came home from the traumas of the war and wanted to just settle down - to create a family, find a job and a home, and live a life as pleasant as possible. However, things had changed. Music had become a driving force in people's lives and there was still a demand for a music that spoke to the yearnings of the post-WWII generation. Swing, for a number of reasons, some of them economic, fell by the wayside. Here is a clip from the Ken Burns' series, Jazz:

Out of the collapse of the Big Band Era came a floodgates of popular male singers led by Frank Sinatra and others. One of the most interesting was Johnny Ray - the Princes of Wails - a fragile, vulnerable singer who was, ironically, partially deaf. Here is a clip from YouTube of him and the Mills Brothers' recording of his biggest hit record - Cry:

As we saw earlier, what was once called "hillbilly" music garnered great popularity - changing its name to Country music - mostly through the radio. The radio allowed even the poorest farmer or worker access to music free of charge. The same was true of "race" music - now called the Blues - all across the South. Here is a clip from American Roots Music:

 There was a huge migration during the war from the South. Men and their families moved to cities like Detroit and St. Louis and Chicago to get well-paying jobs working for the war effort - munition plants, car plants, etc. Most decided to stay once the war was over. Because they had more money in their pockets than if they had stayed in the South, they spent much more on entertainment, going out to clubs and dance halls at night and on the weekends, trying to escape the drudgery of their factory and other menial jobs. Of course, when they migrated, they brought their music with them. One city that had developed a large black population was Chicago and a new sound emerged in the clubs on the South side. Here is a clip from American Roots Music:

Chess Records became the home of this new blues style and its roster of artists would have a huge impact on the music to follow. here is a clip about the Chess Brothers from the The History of Rock 'n Roll series:

The centrepiece of the impressive Chess roster was, of course, the great Muddy Waters. He is him and his amazing band in performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960:

the centerpiece, the supreme artist of the large Chess Record staple was, of course, Muddy Waters. Here is a

Because the clubs in Chicago's south Side were so noisy, the blues artists had to plug their guitars into amplifiers and this new "electric" guitar sound made the music change in structure and, on some levels, subject matter. As we have seen over and over again, a shift in Afro-American music often accompanies a shift in other forms. Many of the workers who moved to the North to get the war efforts jobs were white and they brought their music with them. Those who stayed plugged their instruments into amplifiers and Honky-tonk was born. Here is another clip from American Roots Music:

 Some people have called Bluegrass music, hillbilly music on steroids. you decided - here is a clip from American Roots Music:

Earlier, in the 30s actually, people developed an interest in what will become know as Folk music. Although was an immensely popular musical form, its effect would be felt much later, especially in the protest music of the early 1960s. Here is a clip from American Roots Music featuring two of the most influential of these artists - The Weavers - who introduced the mainstream to the  songs of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. Imagine the songs Woody would be writing if he was alive in our times.

So, as we can clearly see, the groundwork is all in place for Rock 'n Roll. Next week, Elvis enters the building and the explosion of Rock 'n Roll is heard around the world. Here is a clip from series The History of Rock 'n Roll that sort of sums up the impact the music we looked at this week on the music we will look at next week.

"It Don't Mean AThing If It Ain't Got That Swing"

The Great Depression that swept through North America in 1929 had a huge devastating effect on the music of the late 20s and early 30s. With jobs as scarce as hens' teeth and whole families starving, the idea of purchasing records or going to a night club to hear some dance music bordered on the insane. The economy was depressed and the spirit of the people was even lower. Something was needed to stir the hearts, souls, and feet of the nation. Like a lightning bolt from Zeus in the heavens, Swing music arrives and "let the good times roll." Here is a clip from Ken Burns' "Jazz" series:

Though a number of big bands emerged in the Swing Era, none were as popular and as influential as the Benny Goodman Band. like Paul Whiteman earlier, it took a white man to bring a black musical form to the attention of the masses. the following clips illustrate the growth of the Goodman Band and the Swing music they made popular. All three clips are from the "Jazz" series:

Although Benny Goodman was called the King of Swing," many other artists - Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, the Dorsey Brothers, and many others - many people consider Duke Ellington as the true artist of the period. His music brought an elegance to the scene and his influence is still felt. Here is a clip from the "Jazz" series.

Is there possibly any thing so infectious and joyful as Swing music from the 30s and 40s? Just as the Great Depression was starting to lift and prosperity was returning, if not quickly than certainly steadily, Benny Goodman and his Orchestra was there to tell people "Blues skies, nothing but blue skies from now on." From the "Jazz" series:

Benny Goodman's band and the other big bands that sprung up to play this new hot dance music dotted the landscape with their performances. The Palomar in Los Angeles, the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club in New York City, even the Palais Royale in Toronto, were meccas for young people who wanted to dance and jive the night away, to put the troubles and strives outside the door and enter into a world of "pure pleasure." Doing the Lindy Hop and the Big Apple and the Jitterbug were ways to escape the present and pay no heed to the looming dark future. Europe was falling under the sway of Fascism and the drumbeat of war was sounding again but they couldn't match the drums of Gene Krupa!! This is from the movie "Hollywood Hotel" and features the song that sums up the whole period and sound - "Sing, Sing, Sing":

Is it any wonder that this music is still so popular today? The Big Band Sound endures because it brings in and employs many aspects of American music that went before and it mixes them all up in a bag and out pops something new and old and hot and cool and tame and wild - a true American Invention.

At the core of the Swing  Era is, of course, dancing. Pumped by the solid "four on the floor" beat and the intricate rhythms, kids dance and danced and danced. all across America dance halls and ballrooms were jammed packed with young people doing the Lindy Hop, the big Apple, jitterbugging the night away. Here is a clip from the "Jazz" series:

 If Swing can be described in two words, those words would be "pure" and "pleasure."

Of course, it is futile to try and present even the tip of this huge musical iceberg. Swing is far too big and influenced too much of the music we listen to today. Through the "four on the floor" rhythms to the youth marketing to the driving irrepressible beats to the wild abandonment, Swing had it all. But mostly, and at the core of it, is the joy and almost giddy nature of it. I defy any one to be in a bad mood and not spring out of it by watching or listening to the Andrews Sisters. Here is a clip from the Abbot and Costello film "Buck Privates":

 

Black 'n White Blues

This week we look at the beginnings of much of the music we listen to today: blues and early country, both  musical genres that grew out of the hardships of the rural poor. In a sense, they are both about the blues. Although they appear somewhat distant from each other, their emotions have much in common. In spite of much of country music being gospel based, it can also be said that the blues has many of its roots in the music of the church. It comes from field hollers and work songs, from African melodies, from the pain and humiliation of slavery, infused with the yearning for redemption and salvation. Music becomes deliverance.

Let's start with a short clip from "The Great American Songbook" that shows how much Blues owes to Jazz and visa versa:

 But much can be made of the idea that the rise of "race" records and "hillbilly" music was the new technology that developed at the beginning of the 20th century - particularly the gramophone and the radio. Now, for the first time, people didn't have to leave their homes to hear music. They could have it right in their living rooms. This was indeed a radical change in how music was consumed and led to a new industry - the record business. Here is a short clip from "American Roots Music":

 Bessie Smith, known as the "empress of the Blues," was one of many strong and powerful woman blues singers. Here is a clip from Ken Burns' amazing series "Jazz" that looks at Bessie Smith and the beginnings of "race records":

Another important artist in the classic blues tradition is Ethel Waters. Here is a clip from Ken Burns' "Jazz" series:

This clip comes from the two-part series "American Roots Music" and covers the same ground as the clip above. It is interesting to note that the term "race records" was meant to classify more than stigmatize and the word "race," at that time, was a word of pride among African Americans. To be a "man of race" was to denote a man proud of his African heritage. Even though it looks racist to us through our somewhat "enlightened" eyes, at the time, it was a matter of black pride and power. I find it fascinating how we often distort things when we view them through the prism of our concerns and not in their original historical context. Maybe Bakhtin is right when he says context gives meaning.

Here are two of the great artists of country blues - Bukka White and Son House. Their performances were recorded in the early 1960s and are included on a great series called "American Folk Blues Festival 1962 - 1966." if you find copies of this three DVD set, do yourself a huge favour and scoop them up. 

At the same time as the blues - delta blues, country blues, and classic blues -  is developing in the rural areas of America, another seminal music is blossoming. with its roots deep in the English and Celtic folk ballad tradition. Country music gives voice to the trials and tribulations of the rural poor. Though many of the songs had been passed down from generation to generation, it was until A. P. "Doc" Carter decided to collect and perform them with his wife and sister-in-law that the music was taken seriously. Shortly afterward, Ralph Peer - a Missouri born talent scout for Okeh Records -  set up the now famous recording session in Bristol, Tennessee in 1923 and recorded the Cater Family and Jimmie Rodgers. This clip is also from "American Roots Music."

 Soon the radio starts to broadcast shows that featured this music and the working class and rural farm workers became a solid and steadfast audience, both as purchasers of the records and listeners of the radio broadcasts. The biggest and most important show was the Grand Ol' Opry, broadcast every Saturday night on WSM out of Nashville, Tennessee. It still exists and the broadcast is still very much at the heart of contemporary country music. You can't call yourself a country music star until you played the Opry. Here is yet another clip from "American Roots Music" dealing with the importance of radio in the promotion of country music.

Finally, here is a "lost" clip edited out of the first Star Wars trilogy. Why? I have no idea - it certainly would have added a deeper and more resounding insight into the nature of Darth Vader and his relationship with Luke Skywalker. I think it illustrates the far-reaching range of the blues . . .

"Catching as the Small-Pox"

This week we look at the beginnings of Jazz music, the dance craze and the mania it spawned across the country, and Tin Pan Alley, the birthplace and wellspring of what we now call "standards," the songs that have become a part of the tribal memory of most of us. I would venture a guess that you have heard at least one of the thousands of songs produced by the songwriters who wrote, plugged, and published their songs. Last week's post introduced the area in New York City that became known as Tin Pan Alley and a few of the songwriters who slaved there. This week's post will show the work of three of the most successful, if not artistically than certainly commercially, composers of their day : Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and the ground-breaking Broadway musical "Show Boat" by Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.

This first clip comes from the documentary "The Great American Songbook" and deals with possibly the most diverse, prolific, and popular writers of the 20th century - Irving Berlin. His songs covered so many styles and eras that there was a rumour floating around for years that he kept a black man chained to his piano in the basement because people couldn't believe he could write so well in so many idioms. His work ranges from "Alexander's Ragtime Band, one of the most successful songs of  the Ragtime era, to "White Christmas," a Yuletide standard still recorded today. He is a fascinating character and you can find many versions of his songs all over the Internet. Do some searching and I am sure you will be surprised at how many of them you already know.

 Also from "The Great American Songbook" comes this clip looking at George Gershwin, who moved the tawdry and sentimental songs of Tin Pan Alley into the realm of Art. Not only were his commercial songs beautiful, smart, and touching, but his later orchestral work - especially "Rhapsody in Blue" and "American in Paris" - are considered some of the finest music ever composed in America.

 One of the most important musical events during this period is the emergence of Jazz music, a form many people consider as the only purely American musical form. Though it draws on a number of influences and sources, it remains music rooted in America. Starting in the whorehouses and bars of New Orleans, it becomes, during this period, a national craze, as the textbook says, "catching as the small pox." Here is a clip from Ken Burn's wonderfully amazing documentary series, "Jazz", on its early beginnings.

 Also from the "Jazz" series, is this clip about the early creators of Jazz music . . .

 

 Of course, as we will see throughout the course, when a "new" musical form emerges, it is always met with  opposition. Jazz music and the dance crazes it spawned raised a flood of condemnation. From church leaders to political officials, this "Negro devil's music" had people up in arms, citing it as the destruction of the young and clearly a pathway to hell. Here is another clip from the "Jazz" series:

 One of forgotten artists of this period is James Reese Europe. The social dance craze that swept the country - the Turkey Trot, the Tango, The Foxtrot - were mostly the influence of Vernon and Irene Castle, a husband-wife dance team. However, it was Europe as their music director and the orchestra he formed that were the real engine behind their popularity. Europe's story is an inspiration and I have always been confused as to why no one has ever made a movie of his life, especially about the band he put together that went to the First World War and brought honour and glory to both his race and to America. Here is a clip from the "Jazz" series:

 

    

Let's have a look at the man who "made a lady out of Jazz." Paul Whiteman, more than any other artist, brought the basically marginalized music called Jazz into the mainstream. He smoothed the rough edges and made the infectious rhythms more palatable to the American audience. Some say he made jazz commercial and took all the soul out of it. This is something we will see over and over again throughout the course - white artists taking black music and make it more accessible to a wider audience. Is it a good thing? Yes and no, i suppose. You decide - does he deserve to be known as the King of Jazz? Once again, here is a clip from the "Jazz" series:

    

Finally, here is a short clip that looks at "Show Boat," a Broadway musical that broke many of the boundaries over what was acceptable subject matter for Broadway shows.

 

BABY STEPS

Last week we looked at the cauldron that American Pop Music springs from: the sounds and songs, the folk tales and melodies, the emotions and the longings brought to the North American shores by wave after wave of immigrants. Many of these people came searching for a new life, broader horizons and vistas, more promising futures. Others, of course, had no choice in the matter. Over two millions Africans were brought across the ocean to work the fields and farms as slaves, bought and paid for. This friction and resentment will run as a steady chasm through American life culturally, politically, socially, spiritually from its earliest days to the present. Race is the elephant in the living room in America and has been both a source of shame and a source of pride. What is heartening for us, however, is the music that grows out of this experience.

This week, we look at the "baby steps" of the music we hear today. We get introduced to Stephan Foster, America's first real songwriter. His songs are still performed today and some, for example "Hard Times Come Around No More", have as much power as they did when they were first performed. His work is a part of our collective memory and I will venture a guess that each and everyone of us has heard a Stephan Foster song somewhere in our past. Unfortunately, most of his songs were written for minstrel shows, a misunderstood, though rightfully shameful, form of entertainment that sprung up mostly after the Civil War. Minstrel shows were a great deal more complicated than they would appear on the surface and you owe it to yourself to do a little research on them. The Internet is full of resources you can garner information from.

The following is a short clip from a series entitled "The Great American Song Book," which tells the history of American pop music through the use of movies clips from the 30s and 40s. It is enlightening, to a degree, but it is hard to look at the footage showing minstrel shows without thinking "What the hell were they thinking???"

 

  

 Shortly after this period, in the American South, Ragtime gets invented and Ragtime will dominate popular music for decades. It was developed as a dance rhythm and spread across the country like a virus. Ironically, one of the most popular dances that emerged from this rhythm was "the Cakewalk," a dance that white Americans saw black people doing and quickly expropriated it. The irony is that blacks developed the dance as a way of making fun  of how white people danced and the millions of whites dancing "The Cakewalk" had little idea of its origins. Sweet revenge in a way, eh? Here is another short clip from "The Great American Songbook".

Ragtime, with its infectious rhythms and jaunty syncopation caught on and became, for a short period, the most listened and danced to form of music in America. everyone wanted to learn how to play the complicated style and many families bought pianos, both regular and player pianos, just so they could enjoy the music at home. Here is a YouTube cartoon that illustrates the left and right hand syncopation.

 Here is a YouTube clip i found that someone put together during the Obama race for President in 2008. At the time, America was struggling with whether it was ready or not for a black President. ironically, in some of the black communities, the question started to arise as to whether Obama was indeed "black enough." In the author of this clip's investigation what it means to be black in America, he came across the idea of minstrel shows and he has provided a wonderful little history of this fascinating but confusing part of American musical history.

 Finally (because this must be as exhausting to read as it is to write . . .lol), here is another clip from "The Great American Song Book" that deals with Tin Pan Alley - a form of music that without which, Michael Buble would be just another hapless Canadian singer performing as the opening act at Casino Rama.

LET THE DISCOVERY BEGIN . . .

Here is a clip from Ken Burn's amazingly insightful and comprehensive documentary series "Jazz:." In it, we can see the beginnings of Popular Music in America and how the diversity of influences are still heard today. Clearly, as this clip illustrates, the African-American stream in American music is strong, vibrant, and wide-reaching, turning New Orleans into the epicenter of much of the music to follow. When you watch the clip, can you hear the roots of any of the music we listen to today? Can you hear the echoes of the past in the sounds of today?

The flip side of this, of course, is the huge influence the European immigrant experience has given to the cultural and musical landscape of America. This is a clip from a wonderful four-part documentary entitled "American Roots Music." In it, we see the early roots of country music and how each group that arrived on the shores of America brought their music with them and they blend together to form something different and unique. Again, does this music sound alien and strange to you? Is it too far in the past to move or interest you today? Post your responses and let's see where the dialogue takes us.

WELCOME

Welcome

(sound of trumpet fanfare) BRAD REED ENTERS THE BLOGOSHPERE KICKING AND SCREAMING - FILM AT 11 . . .

So after years of much resistance, I have decided to finally start blogging - however - with a difference. Unlike many of the other blogs I have seen, I don't want this to be a ego-driven, navel-grazing, vehicle of narcissistic ramblings. Instead, the main purpose for this blog is to provide a space for my online students in GHUM 1040 -"Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Pop Music" -  to discuss the issues, concerns, discoveries, and insights that you and I will develop over the course of the semester. Our course moves from the early days of American Popular Music to whatever we are listening to today and my experience has shown me that students - especially online students - need a forum to discuss the material and their discovery of it. It is my hope that this blog provides that forum.

Music - especially popular music - needs to be alive to be vital. In a somewhat sterile environment like online learning, that vitality can sometimes gets lost. What I hope to achieve here is to apply "jumper cables" to our material - to use video and sound clips, interviews, articles, YouTube pages, and whatever else we find interesting and relevant to give our course depth and substance that we might lack if we limit our exploration to just the textbook and PowerPoints.

This will not be done by me alone. Effective online teaching occurs on both sides of the computer screen. You have insights and perceptions about the music and other course material that is just as valuable as mine. Let's share what we know and feel with each and let's use this space as the place to do it.

I am looking forward to this new experience and hope that you be will as excited as I am. Let's see what we can each discover in this journey through the Evolution of Pop Music. As the old Louis Jordan song goes: "Let the Good Times Roll!!!"