Soul Food: The Ghost Light Season

The end of the world and the morning after, talking about dreams, schemes and themes here on Ghostlight Radio. Pickles the dog, the good and the bad, and crab apples falling from the sky, complete with zombies, poet priests, and more stuff taped to the bathroom wall. 

The words - and tunes - of the prophets, taped up on the walls of my bathroom. Paul Simon, Lou Reed, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Brian Eno, Gillette Elvgren Jr, Nelson Mandela (I think), James the brother of Jesus (they say), Hunter S. Thompson (purportedly), and more! Playing favourites while we play hookey on April Fools Day.  

Kicking back on the porch tonight with musical guests Taj Mahal and Keb Mo, Daniel Amos and Paul Desmond and plenty more, and even a poet or two. Ghost Light Radio: it's pirate radio, it's a letter to a friend, and it's about time.

Happy New Year! The good ship Ghostlight is back, freeform radio that bids goodbye to the first quarter of the twenty-first century. A few farewells, a bit of poetry and a load of tunes to welcome a new year and launch a new season of soul-feedin' sounds.

We're back! The Good Ship Ghostlight is on the air, with musical guests including Zoe Thiessen, Silas Short, Bruce Cockburn, Carolyn Arends, Slim Smith & The Uniques, and a swell new story by Mike Mason about his close encounter of the fifth kind with John Lennon!

EMERGENCY BULLETIN. Good ship Ghostlight taking on water, may be lost at sea. Mayday! Mayday! All ships at sea - ASSISTANCE REQUESTED!

Today on Ghost Light Radio we'll spring into April with a tasting menu of seasonal Soul Food tunes you've never heard before. Best consumed fresh (like, before Wednesday?), we've got ultra-rare music from the likes of Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles (AKA The Quarrymen), and even an off-the-beaten-track track or two from Old Blue Eyes himself. PLUS a heapin' helpin' of obligator...

Here we are, aboard the Good Ship Ghost Light, lost at sea, our mind tossing like the ocean, setting sail for someplace a little less storm-toss'd. Even though it's Saturday, I'm makin' tonight Sunday, searchin' for a relax, pullin' from the jazz stacks...

We're clearing out the Soul Food closet, hauling out all the neglected-but-not-forgotten treasures that didn't quite fit in episodes past. Discoveries old and new: music very old and brand spankin' new, poems about love from many sides - up and down, win and lose, break-ups past and pending - and stories about songs I've been waiting too long to tell. There might even be stuff I found in a book or...

A January 6th special broadcast, thinking about kings and princes and rock and roll and even one last helping of festive leftovers - it's the twelfth day of Christmas, after all! Featuring the maiden voyage, the very first spin, of my brand new 1955 disc from Sun Records...

This week on Ghost Light Radio, bits and pieces from forty years worth of Christmas shows at Pacific Theatre. First Christmas: An Entertainment, Cotton Patch Gospel, Dreams Of Kings And Carpenters, and of course Christmas Presence itself. From Lawrence Ferlinghetti to Bone Man Slim, seasonal selections with a theatrical flavour.

Sixty years of Canadian music - and radio! - in an hour and a quarter. We'll take a road trip with the son of a Saskatchewan premier, travel from the Cowichan Valley to Vancouver to Winnipeg to Toronto in search of CanCon, check up on some illustrious expats, and tune in the voices and sounds of a couple generations of north-of-the-49th radio. And you out east, don't worry, we'll pick up the cross...

We're playing exactly what we feel tonight on Ghost Light pirate radio, from Robert Zimmerman to Doris Mary Anne Keppelhoff, Domenico Modugno to Gary Keillor. The mailbag is full to bursting - Iwan from Cardiff, Tim from Saskatoon, Jack from Des Moines and Norm from Etobicoke - as we ruminate on happenings great and terrible, from Bakersfield to the moon.

We're back! Had ourselves some shore leave - almost three years worth, that oughta do - and it seems like high time to unfurl the sails, unpack the microphone, and start spinning some tunes once again. New releases and really old favourites, requests and discoveries, flotsam and jetsam, just right for this present moment. Or any moment, come to think of it...

Just before disappearing into the rehearsal hall to work on Pacific Theatre's "How The World Began," Ron looks back on some more of his favourite shows, and their music: Mercy Wild, Jesus My Boy, You Still Can't, Godspell, The Disappearing, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Doubt, The Rainmaker.  Just keeping that Ghost Light burning...

January 27, 2021 was host Ron Reed's last day on the job as Head Chef at the Pacific Theatre Diner, and tonight he and Jack Nicholson mark the one year anniversary of that occasion by looking back at some of Ron's favourite shows, and the music that enhanced their distinctive Soul Food flavour.  The Casino, The Foreigner, Tent Meeting, A Bright Particular Star, and more - tasty tunes from skits th...

The first annual presentation of our Ronnie Awards, in the spirit of the erstwhile, affable co-host of Radiolab, Robert Krulwich. Oysters and pearls, Christmas oranges, the ultimate Specialty record, free men and gentle men and jazz royalty in Moscow and Paris and much closer to home - dilettantes, aficionados, raconteurs and flaneurs all.  And there's reason to believe maybe this year will be bet...

Stormy seas, bright fields. Ports of call: Liverpool, Wales, Boston, Nanaimo, Detroit, and more. Music and words to knit up the raveled sleave of care... 

The pirate radio crew is back from shore leave, and tonight we're playing favourites! Sent in by our loyal listeners, our faithful followers, and our sleepy supporters. Gilette, David, Rachel, Norm, Donnie, Nelson, Marianne, Spencer and the two Karens. Including an interview with our audio technician, Mr. Hugo Taney, who's got some high tech advice for Kenton "Sleepy" Klassen...

Broadcast like no one's listening!  A tribute to radio DJs everywhere, from the Good Ship Ghost Light - Lester the Nightfly, The Count, Deke Duncan, Gary Keillor, Symphony Sid, and that Top Ten Thousand guy, whatever his name was. 

Thanksgiving weekend! At least here in Canada. So of course we'll visit an elevator in Utah, a place that sells used office furniture in Los Angeles, out on San Fernando Road, an unemployment office in France, the Hitsville recording studio in Detroit, a sheep farm in Kentucky, even (if only for a moment) a children's home in Liverpool...  Folks are thankful all over the place!  Pull up a chair an...

Tonight we bid adieu to September, and welcome October - with a return to the theatre! And all kinds of other great things. Will Eno's WAKEY WAKEY at Pacific Theatre, baseball in New York and Toronto and on the schoolyards of Vancouver, surprise election results in Richmond (don't worry, we won't talk politics), a rain dog afternoon at my local strip mall, and of course, great music of all kinds....

Summer's over, and Soul Food heads back to school with one last look over its late-night shoulder - at summer movies and end-of-summer songs, at childhood and childhood's end, with even a couple poets (Diane Tucker and Brad Aaron Modlin) along for the ride. "They say that all good things must come to an end..."

It's late at night in the late summer, and we're keeping it alive here for you on the friendly Ghost Light airwaves - summer jobs, summer loves, and a visit to the state fair. We've got another selection from my dad's record collection, poetry by Barbara Crooker, a middle-of-the-night encounter with a much more mysterious DJ, August faves from the May family, and our tribute to a famed jazz drumme...

Late night memories of summer jobs in the Okanagan and fated encounters on "the ragged green edge of the world" - Susan Alexander thinks back to Osoyoos and I return to Tofino. We also remember summer music festivals with Sweet Honey In The Rock and The Original Sloth band, explore Nelson Boschman's Top Tunes 'o Summer, and soak in the sounds of Corinne Bailey Rae, Kacey Musgraves, Creedence Clear...