Tag: Cajun/Zydeco

Monday’s Back With a New Talking Heads Spotlight, Then Live Mudcrutch and The Magnolia Sisters, September 9, 2024

Good morning, music lovers and welcome to the work week once again. Today we’ve got a brand new Spotlight featuring Talking Heads for starters. It doesn’t end there!

Here’s Monday’s musical lineup:

10:00 a.m. In The Spotlight: Talking Heads NEW!

Yes, it’s one of our few trips into the 1980’s, even though I found the whole ‘big suit’ thing mildly disturbing at some level. Despite that suit, Stop Making Sense was one of the finest concert films ever made. Little Creatures was one of the finest albums ever made. The sixties and seventies we love; the eighties not so much but these folks definitely made the cut. We’ve got a brand new Spotlight feature for them today.

4:00 p.m. Mudcrutch: The 2016 Tour Best Live Performances

This is a great compilation of songs from Mudcrutch’s 2016 tour and includes the most incredible live performance of Hungry No More (my favorite Mudcrutch song) which was recorded at Boston’s House of Blues. I have two huge regrets in my musical life. Missing this concert was one of them. (The other was missing The Heartbreakers 2017 tour, which would be their last before Tom Petty passed.)

8:00 p.m. The Magnolia Sisters Live at The Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival, Rancho Santa Suzanna Community Park, Simi Valley, CA, May 23, 2015

It doesn’t surprise me that you probably don’t know this band. They do not play in the top ten, or even in the standard popular music arena. They are the only all-woman authentic Cajun Band led by legendary Ann Savoy, and they are amazing. We are definitely fans of Cajun/Zydeco music here in The Mermaid Lounge and these ladies deliver.

This is a pretty eclectic lineup today and it plays uninterrupted by commercial advertising. Expand your musical horizons. It won’t cost you a thing. The button is below.

New Talking Heads!

We’re Over the Hump and Heading for the Weekend With Our AOW, Some Wide Open Stream and the Final Summer Of Love Playlist on Thursday, March 16, 2023

Good morning, music lovers! We are over the midweek hump and heading for nirvana as we give you plenty of wide Open Stream sandwiched between some excellent programming.

Here’s your musical lineup:

9:00 a.m. Album of The Week: Hot Chili Mama by BeauSoleil

We’re on the downslide with this great Cajun and Zydeco album by BeauSoleil, often called the greatest Cajun band in the world. Our final airing will be sometime on Saturday, so don’t miss your opportunity!

10:00 a.m. Open Stream with The Music Mermaid

Right after the airing of our AOW, we begin several hours of wide Open Stream courtesy of our Music Mermaid. Who knows what she’ll get you into, but she’s got 30,000 music files to choose from, so there will be no repeats.

7:00 p.m. Summer of Love, Volume Three: Various Artists

Tonight we give you the final installment of our Summer of Love Series. For the record, the SOL was not 1969. I believe that myth exists because of Woodstock. The actual Summer of Love was in 1967, but no matter because you will hear The Mamas & The Papas, The Rascals, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Jackie Wilson, Donovan, The Turtles, Vanilla Fudge, The Association, The Doors, The Youngbloods, Lulu, Buffalo Springfield and more!

Speaking of love. What’s not to love here? We are on 24/7 and we’re totally free. We’re also free of commercial advertising. Get on board.

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The Work Week Begins With The Mamas & The Papas, BeauSoleil Live in Louisiana, and Emmylou Harris Live in London, Monday, February 27, 2023

Good morning, musicologists! We’re on our last Monday of the month of February and we’ve got some great music lined up, including brand new ‘live’ Emmylou Harris!

Here’s your Monday, Monday lineup:

11:00 a.m. In the Spotlight: the Music of The Mamas & The Papas

Whenever I talk about the Laurel Canyon set, this is one of the first bands that comes to mind. When I was a mere kid, I wore out every vinyl album of theirs that I owned. Today we put them In the Spotlight where they belong.

3:00 p.m. BeauSoleil Live in Louisiana!

I know many will be saying “who the hell is BeauSoleil?” Well, allow me to enlighten you. Led by fiddler Michael Doucet, BeauSoleil has been making great Cajun music for more than 30 years and has been called the world’s greatest Cajun band. The sounds of Louisiana are among my favorites. This selection of live songs was culled from their 2006 post-Katrina tour that included several benefit performances.

7:00 p.m. Emmylou Harris with The Daniel Lanois Band Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, UK, November 23, 1995 NEW!

This tour was in support of Emmylou’s amazing Wrecking Ball album, a collaboration with Daniel Lanois. At the age of 48, Emmylou felt the need to redefine herself to some degree, moving away from her traditional acoustic sound and taking a harder edge. The album won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording.

We start off Monday with a bang, folks. I know many of you are back at work, but if you work in an office, that’s perfect. Shut your door, pull up a tab and click the button below. I promise there is no subscription required, no forms to fill out and no credit card necessary.

Monday, Monday

It’s One of Those Saturdays With Our AOW, The ‘A Little Bit O’ Soul’ EP, Some ‘Live’ Magnolia Sisters, and LIVE DEAD! September 10, 2022

Good Morning! There is no shortage of great music lined up today, including a visit from the Magnolia Sisters, an all-female Cajun band featuring Ann Savoy.

The Magnolia Sisters pay us a visit today here in The Mermaid Lounge!

Here’s your musical lineup:

9:00 a.m. Album of The Week: First Take by Roberta Flack FINAL AIRING!

We start a bit early today with the final airing of our Album of The Week, First Take by Roberta Flack. This album is viewed as one of the greatest R & B albums of all time, so get on board while you can. Tomorrow we’ll have a new selection!

11:00 a.m. A Little Bit O’ Soul: Various Artists

One of our favorite EP’s here in The Lounge. This is an all-encompassing tribute to soul and R & B that includes more than just Motown. You’ll hear Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Ronettes, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Jimmy Ruffin, The Drifters, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, Carla Thomas, James Brown, The Shirelles, Etta James, Curtis Mayfield, Sam & Dave, The Staple Singers, Nina Simone, LaVern Baker, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Sam Cooke, Edwin Starr, Fontella Bass, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Irma Thomas and more!

7:00 p.m. The Magnolia Sisters Live at The Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival, Simi Valley, CA, May 23, 2015

This is one sweet band, led by Ann Savoy who teamed up with Linda Ronstadt as the ZoZo Sisters for the great album, Adieu False Heart. The Savoys have a long history of traditional Cajun music and it shows. This is a totally captivating musical genre, and these women have it down cold. We are currently on the hunt for more of their stuff and will be adding it to our rotation very soon.

10:00 p.m. LIVE DEAD! The Grateful Dead Live at The Zoo Amphitheater, Oklahoma City, OK, September 2, 1985

We have another repeat performance here, but we haven’t aired this one since 2020, so it’ll be like brand new. Would it matter? If you’re a true Deadhead, you’re open to listening over and over and over and over…

Well, Weekenders, here we are again kicking off a two-day reprieve from the teeming masses of consuming humanity (all except for me; I’ve got one more day to go). What better way to go? Today, it’ll be musical mutiny in the workplace after the boss leaves. We’ll be flipping on #BecomeUngovernable Radio. After all, the only things I need are a computer, a free tab and a mouse. We’re on.

Saturday in The Lounge!

Monday, Monday Brings The Lovin’ Spoonful, BeauSoleil Live in Louisiana, and Songs About The Color Blue, On April 11, 2022

Good Morning and welcome to the work week once again! We can help you start off on a positive note with some great music today.

Today’s featured artists are The Lovin’ Spoonful and BeauSoleil!

Here’s your Monday line-up:

11:00 a.m. In The Spotlight: The Music of The Lovin’ Spoonful

We haven’t heard this one in a bit, and it’s more than worth pulling it out so that we can all be reminded about what a great band The Spoonful actually was. They were at the forefront of the Laurel Canyon music explosion and were a hit machine. I hear them a lot at work and every time the station plays a song, all I think is, “What a great song.” They were that kind of band.

3:00 p.m. BeauSoleil Live in Louisiana!

This is a live compilation of performances by BeauSoleil culled from their 2006 Louisiana Crossroads performances. By the way, 2006 also marked the 30th year as the band’s world ambasador of authentic Cajun music.

7:00 p.m. All About Blue: Various Artists

We close out the day’s programming with songs about the color blue in the title, lyrics, or both. You’ll hear from The Allman Brothers Band, Linda Ronstadt, Mudcrutch, Foreigner, Taj Mahal, Joni Mitchell, Jonathan Edwards, George Harrison, Electric Light Orchestra, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Badfinger, The Band, Elvis Presley and more!

Hey, you can tune us in right now and hear great music because we run 24/7 uninterrupted. Our European musical family has been on all night long, as usual! You don’t have to wait for the programming to start. We’re totally free of charge every day, not just when we’re trying to get you to “sign up” for a subscription because we don’t require them. What more could you want?

Monday Monday

Today It’s CSNY In the Spotlight, The Magnolia Sisters ‘Live’ in Simi Valley, and ‘Paint It Black’ Later, Monday, January 31, 2022

Good Morning, Musicologists! It’s another Monday morning here in The Mermaid Lounge, and we’ve got a great line-up for you to start the week off with.

Today we’ve got some Cajun music from the Magnolia Sisters!

Here’s today’s line-up:

11:00 a.m. In the Spotlight: The Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Our number one supergroup here in these parts is for sure The Traveling Wilburys, but these guys are right behind them at number two. Crosby, Stills & Nash were the original configuration, but Neil Young added a dimension that cannot be denied, giving them the Canadian portion of this Canadian-American supergroup. They made some great music together, and we’ve got them In the Spotlight to start off the day.

3:00 p.m. The Magnolia Sisters: Live at the Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival, Rancho Santa Susanna Community Park, Simi Valley, California, May 23, 2015

We love Cajun-Zydeco here in the Lounge as you know, and we’ve got a short but sweet performance here by the only all-girl Cajun band on the planet. Ann Savoy is the impetus behind the Magnolia Sisters. For those who may not know her, she teamed up with Linda Ronstadt (as the Zozo Sisters) for the brilliant Grammy-nominated album Adieu False Heart, and their remake release of Walk Away Renee. Their music is part of our standard rotation, but we hope to bolster this genre of music in 2022, starting today. We remain on the hunt for more live music from The Magnolia Sisters.

7:00 p.m. Paint It Black: Various Artists

Nope. It’s not quite an EP, but that’s okay because we do need some short players as well. This is all about the color black in song…in the title or lyrics, or both. You’ll hear from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doobie Brothers, The Wallflowers, The Move, Steely Dan, Curtis Mayfield, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash, Amy Winehouse, The Hollies, Stephen Stills, Warren Zevon, The Band, Nina Simone, Tom Rush, k.d. lang, the Grateful Dead, Fairport Convention, Dr. John, The Kinks, Guy Clark, J.D. Souther, and more!

Look. It’s Moan-Day. We all need a bit of a lift to start the week off. We’ve got it for you here all day long. Best of all, it’s free. No subscription required. No credit card need come out of your wallet. No commercials will blight the airwaves. And best of all, we think Joe Rogan is a public menace. He doesn’t have a home here. Tune us in.

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It’s Another (Mostly) Open Stream Wednesday EXCEPT For One Great New Orleans Playlist, On February 17, 2021

Good Morning, fellow music lovers! Here we are on our usual (mostly) Open Stream Wednesday. But we do have an amazing playlist for you today called the Down in N’Awlins Playlist. It offers just a hair (like, one second) over four hours of authentic music from one of great music centers in the world (in my humble musical opinion).

We’ve got four hours of great New Orleans music for you today!

Here’s what you’ll hear!

12:00 p.m. Down in N’Awlins Playlist: Various Artists UPDATED!

We have only one playlist for you today, and it’s a pretty amazing eclectic collection of all sounds New Orleans and Louisiana, from Cajun-Zydeco to the blues. We’ve also updated it from last year’s version to keep it fresh and to reflect music we’ve hunted for over the past year. Here are some of the people you’ll hear:

  • BeauSoleil
  • Clifton Chenier
  • Allen Toussaint
  • Kermit Venable
  • Dr. John
  • The Neville Brothers (together and solo)
  • Professor Longhair
  • Tony Joe White
  • Antoine “Fats” Domino
  • Irma Thomas (The Soul Queen of New Orleans)
  • Lucinda Williams
  • Queen Ida
  • Jerry Lee Lewis
  • Chance Bushman & Friends
  • The Daywalkers
  • The Boogaloo Swamis

Some of the people on this list I discovered on my trips to New Orleans. The Neville Brothers, for example, I saw at the world-renown venue called Tipitinas on one of my earliest business trips to the city.

I discovered The Daywalkers on a vacation trip I took in 2014 at one of Bourbon Street’s most famous venue called The Cat’s Meow. I spent the day driking Tito’s vodka and just having a blast with the music. I discovered another band on that same trip at a great restaurant called Cafe Sbisa, which has sadly closed temporarily due to COVID-19. The band’s name is Chance Bushman & Friends. By the way, they also make a great Bacon Bloody Mary for the day after.

One band, however, I discovered right here in the Boston area; in Somerville, Massachusetts, to be exact. The Boogaloo Swamis were as good a Cajun-Zydeco band as anything you can hear in New Orleans because they genuinely loved the music. It was a craft to them. We’d spend every Friday night at a great place called Johnny D’s Uptown just partying with the Swamis. Great food. Great Drinks. (And a great Sunday Blues Brunch as well.) The family-owned venue rocked for 47 years. It finally closed for good in 2016, but it remains one of the great Boston-area music venues of all time. Great memories. I went on a hunt for Boogaloo Swamis music. I found some. I have some in vinyl form that I will send out for conversion to mp3’s over the next couple of months, but I did have some in CD form which have already been converted and added to the radio station. You’ll hear some of it today, and it has also been added to the general rotation.

Please tune us in. We’re sure you’ll love this playlist. It begins at noon.

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The Final Time for The Wilburys and Our Down In N’Awlins Playlist, Plus a New “Live Dead” Tonight, Saturday, February 29, 2020

Good Morning, Ungovernables! We say farewell to a couple of favorites here, but the New Orleans sound will become part of the rotation.

Street Musician 1 HDRI

Here’s your Saturday line-up!

11:00 a.m.     Down in N’Awlins Playlist

The final airing of this great three hours includes Dr. John, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Neville Brothers, BeauSoleil, and many other great masters of the cajun/zydeco sound.

5:00 p.m.       Album of the Week: The Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1

This is also the final airing of the debut album from the greatest supergroup of all time. Tomorrow, we will post a new choice on the blog.

10:00 p.m.     Live Dead, Europe ’72: Wembley 4-8-72

We’re working our way through the full tour of Europe ’72.  We did do Wembley last week, but that was from April 7. The beauty of The Dead is that they never played the same show twice on a tour.

Tune us in. You won’t regret it.

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The Down in N’Awlins Playlist Debuts, Irma Thomas Shines, The Wilburys Return, and Happy Birthday to George Harrison on Fat Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Good Morning, Ungovernables! Today is Fat Tuesday, and we’re celebrating with our new Down in N’Awlins Playlist!

New Orleans Music Scene

Here’s your Fat Tuesday line-up!

11:00 a.m.     In the Spotlight: Irma Thomas, The Soul Queen of New Orleans

A contemporary of Aretha Franklin who never seemed to reach that plateau for some unexplained reason. But Irma Thomas is a rare bird, and is heralded as The Soul Queen of New Orleans for a reason.

2:00 p.m.       Down in N’Awlins

The music of New Orleans is as eclectic as its people. We’ve got everything in this playlist — jazz, brass, cajun, zydeco. Some of the best musicians on the planet have been born in Louisiana, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Lucinda Williams, and Dr. John. We’ve got them in here too. Come join the fun!

6:00 p.m.      Album of the Week: The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 by The Traveling Wilburys

8:00 p.m.      In the Spotlight: The Music of George Harrison

Happy Birthday, George Harrison! Whether a Beatle, a Wilbury, or a solo artist, George is sorely missed. We celebrate his birth and his life on this earth today. 

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The New Orleans Gig Starts Today! And Our New Album of the Week is Pretty Awesome Too, on Sunday, February 23, 2020

Good Morning, Ungovernables! We’re heading for Fat Tuesday as we begin our week-long tribute to the music and legends of New Orleans! And I  might add that we have a pretty great new Album of the Week.

Blog Collage-low res

Here’s today’s planned programming:

12:00 p.m.     The Bluesiana Triangle: The Combined Talents of Dr. John, Art Blakeley, and David “Fathead” Newman

Singing and playing Da Blues down in New Orleans, Louisiana!

3:00 p.m.        BeauSoleil: Live From Louisiana!

Heralded as the best Cajun band ever, with David Doucet at the epicenter. BeauSoleil plays music rooted in the traditional folk tunes of the Cajuns and Creoles of Louisiana.

7:00 p.m.       Album of the Week: The Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1

Released in 1988, and thus began a magical journey indeed for all of us with the Wilburys: Spike (George Harrison), Clayton (Jeff Lynne), Muddy (Tom Petty), Boo (Bob Dylan) and Lefty Jr. (Roy Orbison; named posthumously). There has not been another supergroup like it. There may not ever be.

This week begins a musical experience that extends far beyond the Mardi Gras, so be sure to tune us in!

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