The Bad Piano Player

Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player does his third grab bag episode, finding six songs that defy category and are pleasing to the ear and heart, Tune in and be pleased, my darlings. 

Send us Fan Mail For episode 164, the Bad Piano Player celebrates songs with the word "Baby" in the title, or as we quaintly call it..."Baby Songs". Grab your pacifiers, kids, and settle in! Ah one, ah two, ah one, two, three...

Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player brings back his favorite theme from last season, with a second go-round of Most Obscure Songs. A little Bowie, perhaps? Some Edward Bear? A dollop of J. Tull, my darlings? Tune in and be dazzled by the unknown.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player brings together a superb singer and a master lyricist. The singer is Peggy Lee, and so is the lyricist. And baby, is she gonna give you some fever. In the morning and all through the night. Tune in for the cure.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player features old friend composers and lyricists for songs that Dick Powell, boy singer, sang in the movies early in his career. Later he was the first man ever to play Philip Marlowe onscreen, but in the 30's he was sweet-faced heart-throb tenor Dick, who charmed the ladies with music. We hope you'll tune in and be charmed as well.  

Send us Fan Mail The Bad Piano player celebrates Tax Day with the third of the "Songwriters You've Never Heard Of" episode, featuring composer/lyricist Billy Hill, who wrote more western-style songs than Gene Autry and you won't believe what his most famous song was. Tune in to hear it done by a bad piano player!

Send us Fan Mail April Fools Fortnight Tuesday begins with our second "Songwriters You've Never Heard Of" episodes with the tuneful Joe Burke. A Tin Pan Alley veteran, Philadelphia born Joe had a bevy of Billboard hits in the 1930s. And an inaugural class inductee to the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. Tune in to enjoy the bevy!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player begins a series of three "Songwriters You've Never Heard Of" episodes and we begin with Fats Domino's favorite lyricist, the great Al Lewis. Why was he Fats Domino's fave lyricist? Tune and find out!

Send us Fan Mail This fortnight, we finally honor the most excellent Oscar Hammerstein the second with his own episode. Six songs will be learned. Three Kerns, and three Rodgers. It's going to be semi-epic, kids. Tune in to be enthralled by the master lyricist. (And semi-enthralled by the bad piano player, right, Elroy? Right??)

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player goes for a second Ray Noble episode, with the emphasis on Ray's longtime vocalist, the great Al Bowlly. We'll be learning six songs Al recorded, five written by Ray. And the sometimes okay singer will be channeling his best voice to even approach the perfection of Al Bowlly's voice. Tune in to see how we do!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player takes two Bing Crosby movies from the mid 1930s, and pulls three Gordon & Revel songs from each one. Hence: Two Movies - Six Songs. We throw in some synopses and a plot or two, some scenery ideas. You know, maybe some throw pillows. Elroy thinks the Nepotism Studio  would look better in purple. Tune in for the songs, stay for the stories.

Send us Fan Mail We begin season six of the Bad Piano Player Podcast with a look at Oscar nominated songs from the 1940s -- that did NOT win. Some lost to better songs. Others lost to, well....crap. But we picked some corkers for you, our loyal listeners. Tune in and enjoy. 

Send us Fan Mail It's the Season finale, friends! Season five has come and gone and we celebrate with a great songwriting team and their hits. Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert wrote some classics for you to rediscover today! Thanks for all your support and we'll see you January 21st (That's a Tuesday) for Season Six!

Send us Fan Mail The penultimate episode of season five finds the bad piano player doing a second grab bag episode featuring two Oscar Levant compositions, a Johnny Burke we missed for his episode, a Hy Zaret restaurant classic, and many more. Okay two more. Tune in to find out and be the music, kids

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player features composer Ray Henderson, charter member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, writer of Animal Crackers In My Soup, Bye Bye, Blackbird, Don't Bring Lulu, The Birth of The Blues, The Best Things In Life Are Free, The Thrill Is Gone, and you're not going to believe this, but we're not doing ANY of those! Tune in to hear the six...

Send us Fan Mail This week, in response to many emails and texts, the Bad Piano Player decided we couldn't wait until Robbie Burns day or St. Patrick's day to do another Celtic songs episode. The demand was too great! So we learn six songs from the cradle of golf and whiskey. Aged in the wood, and sung with our special mediocre care. And of course I'm kidding. We didn't get any...

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player introduces a lyricist-slash-songwriter we've featured before, but never in his own episode. The wonderful Johnny Burke, he of "Pennies From Heaven" and "Moonlight Becomes You" fame gives us six of his best! Tune in and smell the music. 

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player takes his second crack at the Glasgow-born, Newcastle-raised Mark Knopfler, with seven songs (Seven? YES! SEVEN) from his solo career. Including YOUR favorite! (I hope). Tune in to listen to a guitar virtuoso interpreted by a bad piano player. It's gonna be scary, kids!

Send us Fan Mail The Bad Piano player first featured lyricist Mitchell Parish in his own episode four years ago. Episode five, season one. We thought it high time this prolific poet had a second six songs featured. We wish we could promise no Arms-Charms rhymes, but we can't. Them's the breaks. Tune in and hang with the cool kids, kids!

Send us Fan Mail This week, we feature composer Lew Pollack, born in New York City in 1895. Have you heard of him? No? Well you've heard his music, I feel reasonably sure. The bad piano player would bet this episode on it. Tune in for the classics and the obscures.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player features the most most obscure song he could find for six of his favorite modern singers and songwriters. We call the episode Their Most Obscure. Amazing how that works out. Tune in and maybe we’ll do your fave obscure song!

Send us Fan Mail This week's episode features lyricist Edgar Leslie, 1885-1976, whose canon includes many famous songs we're not going to do! In accordance with the Bad Piano Player manifesto, we bring you six Edgar Leslie lyrics you probably don't know, but trust me, they rock! Or perhaps I should say, they bounce. Tune in for the words, stay for the music. Set a spell, take your s...

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player takes a look at the short-lived Song Hits magazine of the mid 1930s. They included music and we're doing three each from three issues in 1935. Songs written by some people we know and some we don't. Tune and sit back. It's going to be old-school musical! 

Send us Fan Mail This week, our post Canada Day episode features the Australian born, Judy Garland discovery, singer-songwriter Peter Allen. Composer, lyricist, singer, one-man show dynamo. Gone too soon. Six of our picks of his best. Enjoy, kids, in the full flower of summer. 

Send us Fan Mail This Fortnight Tuesday, the Bad Piano Player, who has featured Harry Warren, Tom Waits, Irving Berlin, Sam Coslow and Frank Loesser three times, gives a third episode honor to James V Monaco. And as always, we hope you enjoy this well deserved inclusion. Tune in and be dazzled again by his great music.