The Bad Piano Player

Send us Fan Mail This week, The Bad Piano Player returns to his roots in early 20th century American popular song by featuring the Italian born composer James Monaco, who spent four decades writing excellent melodies for bad piano players and not bad singers. Tune in and feel the joy he brings.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player travels across the pond to rediscover a British composer relatively unknown in North America. Noel Gay (1898-1954), wrote songs, film scores, and operettas plus his publishing company is still influential today. Tune in and find out why.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player will be reflecting on the amazing career of Perry Como, the singing barber, featuring songs he sang on radio and TV but never recorded. We will do our best not to sing as well as Perry Como, in order not to embarrass him. Tune in!

Send us Fan Mail This week, The Bad Piano Player revisits two of his favorite composers, Mabel Wayne and Doris Fisher, with songs you may know, songs you may not know, and songs you’ll say “Wow! SHE wrote that?” Tune and find out!

Send us Fan Mail The Bad Piano Player chimes in on fortnight Tuesday with a selection of Jerome Kern classics. The remarkable Mr. Kern has vexed us in the past but we decided it was time to feature his sublime melodies for a whole episode. All yours for the downloading. Do not delay!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player features songs done by Sister Acts in Vaudeville. There will be no Chekhov quotes or Pointers, or even Dionne quintuplets. But please tune in anyway. As Alice Walker wrote, "Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister?"

Send us Fan Mail Today the Bad Piano Player answers the age-old question nobody ever asks: What were Musicals like 100 years ago, anyway? We feature musicals from the 1920s in a display of hubris that has you all thinking, "No, NO, Nanette!" Tune in, turn on, learn some old songs.

Send us Fan Mail The Bad Piano Player today features a singer with a 3-and- a-half-octave range, and a songwriter whose two biggest hits were written by other people. And they're the same guy. Say hello to Harry Nilsson! Called the doctor, woke him up! Tune in.

Send us Fan Mail For the first Episode of Season Four, the Bad Piano Player returns to a composer from the first season. Born Chester Babcock, but we know him as Jimmy Van Heusen. Today we're looking at the 1940's when he and Johnny Burke were Bing Crosby's personal songwriters. Enjoy, kids! Mellow greetings. Yukie Dukie.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player drops his second ever Christmas episode. A little history, some favorite carols and one Christmas classic song with a lyric by an old BPP fave, Mitchell Parish. Peace on earth, goodwill to all people. See you in 2023!

Send us Fan Mail For the Bad Piano Player’s Season finale, we’re featuring two songs each by three of our favorite lyricists and/or composers. There’s Frankie and Johnny and Harry and Teddy and just tune in kids! The fun will be contagious.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player travels to six of his favorite cities and sings a song about each of them in our long awaited second place names episode. Tune in and thanks for waiting!

Send us Fan Mail This week, The Bad Piano player features a long forgotten singer. The flapper who became a cartoon. The Britney Spears of the 1920s. Miss Helen Kane. Boop boop-a-doop, people!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player explores the first of the 1970's new wave in Britain. No, not Elvis Costello. The first was Graham Parker. We journey through the career of the boy from Hackney who grew up to write songs and sing them. That's the Rumour, anyway. Come join us.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player returns to Canada for a regional songfest for Nova Scotia, long a hotbed of musical styles and topics. We also introduce our new statistician, Elroy! Tune in for no great mischief.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player takes three songwriters featured singly before, and combines them, featuring the six year period they were a team and wrote some of the biggest and longest lasting hits of the late 1920s. Be listening up, kids!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player learns six Ray Noble Songs. And they’re not famous ones, either. We had already done all his famous ones. A fixture on the New York Hotel Ballroom music scene for 30 years and one hell of a songwriter. Tune in!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player tries out songs about Humorous Ladies. Or perhaps we should say, Humorous songs about Ladies. Their names are in the titles and if you don't find them funny, well...that's on you. Tune in!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player plays six love songs from six different decades, in order. Why would he do that, you ask? Well clearly, he's running out of ideas. Tune in for this and other contrivances!

Send us Fan Mail This week the Bad Piano Player returns to an earlier time, an earlier podcast, and another crack at forgotten musical genius Isham Jones. We’re calling this one, “Isham Jones 2”. Catchy, eh?

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player goes all modern again and does the bad boy songwriter of L.A. rock, the Letterman favorite, the Ronstadt reliable, the excitable boy, Warren Zevon. Keyboardist, master of the snark-witty lyric, and all-around rascal and rake. Tune it up!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player returns to his roots, and for those of you old enough to remember the radio dance bands of the 1940's, you're both in luck, as we feature the theme songs of six radio shows from the World War two era. Please tune your podcast dial to us, and enjoy this blast from the way, way back.

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player plays a little "Three-Chord Monte" as we assay the late singer songwriter and former Illinois Mailman, John Prine. Sad songs, great lyrics, C's, F's, and a lotta G7ths. Tune in, darlings!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player digs deep into the music cabinet for six forgotten love songs. One or two you may know, but there are SO many. Tune in!

Send us Fan Mail This week, the Bad Piano Player knocks one off his bucket list, featuring actor, singer, poet, playwright, novelist, songwriter, and all around clever Dick, Sir Noel Coward. Do be good enough to tune in, won’t you?