Gianluca Tramontana
SWG Peter Blackstock on Old #1 S1 E4
Sitting with Gianluca Peter Blackstock who has just published a book on late Texan songwriting legend (and former Sitting With Gianluca guest) Guy Clark’s ground-breaking debut LP Old #1. Clark was at the center of a 70’s Nashville songwriting scene that included Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle & Texan Jerry Jeff Walker that ushered in…
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SWG Banning Eyre & African Guitar S1 E3
Sitting with Gianluca is writer, historian and musician Banning Eyre. Banning & Sean Barlow co-runafropop.org, the go-to music resource for any global non-western music. He’s also written books on African guitar styles and will take us on a journey through the African “guitar regions” and demonstrate the different styles from different regions on his guitar….
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SWG Ray Bonneville S1 E2
Sitting with me is veteran traveling musician, Ray Bonneville. Ray has spent the last few decades in a van performing anywhere and everywhere. He’s also been nominated for several awards and has won a few as well. I don’t use the term “journeyman” lightly, Ray has had a long journey – from Juvenile delinquent, marine…
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Blues Skies for B.B. King
It’s good to be the King — B.B. King, to be specific. In the last month, the legendary bluesman saw his collaboration with Eric Clapton, Riding with the King, debut at No. 3 on the nation’s album chart and his classy B.B. King Blues Club & Grill open in the tourist hotbed of New York’s Times Square. Of course, as…
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AC/DC Rock London
Veteran rockers AC/DC played a high-octane performance in front of 5,000 ticket-holders in London to celebrate the opening of the Hammersmith Apollo, formerly known as the Hammersmith Odeon. The band had not played the venue in twenty-one years, and, in recognition, tickets were sold at 1982 prices: ten pounds ($16.00). The tickets were sold, however, using modern…
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MC5 Come Together in London
“We are not the MC5,” announced founding MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer during a Thursday press conference at London’s 100 Club. “This is not an MC5 show. This is not an MC5 reunion. It’s a celebration of the music of the MC5.” At the club that night, the band’s surviving members — Kramer, bassist Michael Davis and drummer…
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After Twenty-Year Layoff, Meters Don’t Miss a Beat
When, on the verge of a huge commercial breakthrough, a group fizzles out amid such business and financial chaos, allegations, accusations and still unresolved wrangling over publishing as the Meters did, it would normally take an act of Congress to get all the original members on stage performing together. But it being all too obvious…
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Another Side of Woody Guthrie: Recently Discovered Collection Captures the Sounds of ‘Woody At Home’
Woody Guthrie was named after progressive president Woodrow Wilson, who advanced policies on government regulation and social welfare. He was also born on Bastille Day, a turning point of the French Revolution that ended the monarchy. These were two auspicious signs for a folksinger who made a life of fighting for justice and speaking truth…
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This Is the Room Your Favorite Song Came From
LISTEN HERE This summer, Nashville was buzzing with the news that one of the most prolific music studios in a city full of them, RCA Studio A, had been sold to a developer who intended to tear it down and build condominiums. Studio A isn’t the only landmark in town — RCA Studio B, where Elvis recorded,…
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Honeyboy Edwards
LISTEN HERE Before he was a famous blues guitarist known as “Honeyboy,” David Edwards was a different kind of legend — a boxcar hobo. Gianluca Tramontana visited him on the South Side of Chicago.
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