My Own Radio Station

On the drive down to visit Aunt Audrey and Uncle Howard in San Clemente today I did station surfing, something I don't normally do. Driving around town I just listen to NPR. In the house the radio in the kitchen, the garage, and the bedroom, are just always tuned to NPR. Great station. Love the programs. But not much current music. Periodically musicians are guests on programs. Yo Yo Ma was on the Diane Rehms show the other day. And Carole King was on her show today. So you hear conversation and music. And of course, there's the wonderful world music program of Charlie Gillett's, for 20 minutes on Saturday night. Prairie Home Companion has music. I hear lots of interesting people on there that I follow up on Youtube. I first heard "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color For Your Eyes" on PHC. Love that song and loved the video I found on Youtube.

This is all great, but NPR isn't a music station. And I didn't hear a single station of music today that I enjoyed for longer than 15 minutes. The station that claimed to play rock classics doesn't play what I call rock classics. So I started creating a line up of what I would play if I had my own station. And quite a lot of it would be from my albums from the late 60's, into the 70's.

Blind Faith, Traffic, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby,Still,Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Band, Richie Havens, Laura Nyro, Dr. John, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, Grateful Dead, Beach Boys, The Byrds, Emmylou Harris, Mamas and Papas, Simon and Garfunkle, Paul Simon, Little Feat, Blood,Sweat, and Tears (the 1st configuration, think it was Mike Bloomsfield there), cast album of Hair, Beatles (some of the less played pieces, from Revolver, the White Album, etc.), Rolling Stones (ditto Beatles comment), Doors (ditto prev. comments), Dire Straits, Talking Heads, then U2, Bruce Springsteen,.....

Intermix with all of that recordings from the folk music collection by John and Alan Lomax. Lots of Motown. And world music, and current music that is not played on commercial stations. Love the groups I go to see live, like the Blasters, and Ozomatli, and Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, and Flogging Molly. Recently I became a fan of International Farmers. Throw in some Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and some of the old blues men, and Ike and Tina Turner. "River Deep, Mountain High" gives me chills.

Maybe someone does this kind of programming already, on Sirius radio. I think that's subscriber radio. Don't know anything about it, but that it exists. I guess I should check it out before I start my own station.....