The Jake Feinberg Show

Canadian singer songwriter talks about going to the states with John Lee Hooker and joining Blood Sweat & Tears

Gifted singer songwriter talks about being an independent musician with a bent towards social justice

My dad was an ambassador to Victoria, South Africa. When I was 15 years old we were at the bottom of Africa, there were a few mines there. Enough that they had mine workers and the mine workers always danced when they were off. The miners were from all over Africa so there were all different types of music. I started to go out to these mines to watch the people dance and to hear the music. I had n...

Legendary studio guitarist talks about his experiences playing on the chitlin circuit and working his way into the west coast studio scene with Barry White

Singer songwriter talks about playing Grateful Dead music growing up in Long Island, busking on the streets and becoming a TRI All-Star.

Cosmic musician talks about defying the laws of gravity and entering the intergalactic

Sly and the Family Stone , Humanity , Victor Pantoja , Jerry Garcia , Tim Bogert , Bobby Cochran , Don't Let Go , Joe Zawinul The Jake Feinberg Show

To believe that you were part of real movement towards social progress is validation to some. For those who were actively involved in cultivating the spirits of the change is magical. When the involvement is through rhythm then the spirit transcends. My guest today came from one of the greatest regional hotbeds of local music - the San Francisco Bay Area. He was the drummer for Sly Stone and the F...

Don’t Give Me No Sugar Cubes ​When I started touring, Bill Cosby took over my room above the Gaslight. ​I was at The Village Gate opening up for Coleman Hawkins doing standup. Bob Dylan said, “You gotta come to the Gaslight.” He kicked Cosby out of the room to give it back to me. ​Cosby thought anytime I would offer him a drink it was filled with LSD. He was certain that everything that I touched...

Beat Generation Jazz Poetry ​It was John Mitchell, the owner of Gaslight Cafe, wanting to make more money. I read my poetry at the Gaslight and became the poetry director along with John Brent. ​I suggested to John Mitchell, “Hey, why don’t we try a little folk music, between poetry.” He said, “Mr. Romney, I’ve made all my money with poetry!” ​I answered, “C’mon. John, let’s just try it.” ​It was...

The “Jerry Area” ​We introduced Hippies to granola at Woodstock. They had never seen it before, and we brought it to them in little Dixie cups. It was unheard of. Some people had heard of Muesli, but barely. We made the granola in our free kitchen ​Tom Donahue, the father of FM radio, was putting together this sequel to Woodstock, Medicine Ball Caravan. Warner Brothers was desperate to do a sequel...

Gravity Will Get You Smiling ​A clown is a poet and also an orangutan. I first started being a clown back in the ancient times, forty-odd years ago when we came to Berkeley. ​Some doctors at The Oakland Children’s Hospital knocked on my door and wanted me to go and cheer up kids. I wasn’t sure, but someone handed me a red rubber nose and I was invisible. I’ve never taken it off. ​I’m the guy that...

Never Eat When You’re Angry ​When we met at Stanford, right from the get-go, Kesey and I were making tapes together. We’d sit there in the dark, get high, and rap with microphones into a reel-to-reel tape recorder, doing these off-the-wall, off-the-cuff stories, plots, and situations. We were both good at making stuff up on the spot. Kesey was an absolute genius at it; I would fill in a lot. Actua...

​Early Acid Heads ​When Kesey went to jail in 1967, it was right at the beginning of the year. 67 was the Summer of Love. We were all still in the Bay Area, but things were changing by then. The word was out, the publicity was in, about San Francisco. It was attracting more and more people. The flower children were followed quickly by the sharks. ​It was not the kind of place we wanted to be aroun...

His Shoes and a Note ​Fourteen of us got busted at Ken Kesey’s house for pot. We went to court, and our lawyer made a deal where we all got off except Ken. The reason was that Neal Cassady had already been busted twice for felonies. In California if he went down for another felony, he’d be in jail for another ten or fifteen years. So they made the deal that Ken would take the rap and the rest of u...

The Wave Just Happened ​In 1966 acid had really come on in San Francisco. It was different from anywhere else, as we found out. San Francisco people weren’t tied into the big LA money, record business, movie business. People were doing on their own all kinds of things we were doing during the Acid Tests in terms of dance and filmmaking and music and art. ​We’d rent these halls and bring people tog...

Entertainers need to be aware of what's happening all around them. The great entertainers are aware of all the best that's  around them. The best education, the best food and of coarse the best music. The kind of music that comes from your soul- or maybe even deeper. Jimmy Smith laying on his B-3 or Willie Bobo playing congas in in Spanish Harlem. Monk Montgomery extending a hand while Big Bl...

Inner Drumming and Swing. Here's the all the mavericks out there! JF

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1921, Candido "officially" moved to New York in 1952 and is the first musician to bring the bongo into a North America musical setting. Today he continues to dazzle audiences all over the world and will be inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in Tulsa, Oklahoma next week.

On a breezy monsoon driven afternoon in the Old Pueblo I spend some time talking to "Black." I have been courting him in recent months because of his candor and ability to tell the stories of African Americans who kept rhythm alive stateside. Brew a few pots for this one. Cheif Bey , Danny Ray , Georgia , Dizzy Gillespie , Coons , Jass , David Axelrod , Message To Our Ancestors , Paul Butterfield...

Charlie Parker , Joe Sample , Tom Scott , Court and Spark , The Baked Potato , Frank Rosolino , Small Town in Iowa , South Side of Chicago , Stan Kenton , The Jake Feinberg Show

he was a great person and a great drummer James Gadson

Gratitude is attitude from this modern day bandleader. Trying to create within the confines of no road map and societal dysfunction. The truth reveals itself.....

Very often the sweetest moments in music history occur through a confluence of self expression. You have to have something to say. And it has to be a message that is sustained and built through other human beings. The late sixties and early seventies was one of those sweet moments in music history. You had a generation of African Americans coning of age on the left coast who were raised in househo...

wow!!! what a treat that was! i have known Toshiko since she was at Schillinger House in Boston in the mid-’50s but i still learned a lot from this interview! it was fabulous! thank you so much, Jake! Valerie Bishop