Celebrate Creativity

Send us Fan Mail Our story begins not with sequins but with a housing project. Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard both grew up in Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass projects, one of the first federally funded housing developments for Black families. Diana Ross, who grew up nearby, joined that same orbit. Detroit in the 1950s and early 60s was a complex place: Automobile money and factory work. Northern pro...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we turn to a musician whose care there were moves separations long stretches were Jimmy simply simply had to figure things out on his own no one was buying but whose shadow is so long that every electric guitarist since has had to walk through it. Jimi Hendrix. He didn’t just play louder. He didn’t just play faster. He changed what the electric guitar meant. He changed the...

Send us Fan Mail Today we turn to a voice that has become a kind of measuring stick. A singer you can’t ignore, can’t casually imitate, and certainly can’t replace. Aretha Louise Franklin. You can line up all the adjectives: legendary, iconic, incomparable. But with Aretha, those words almost sound lazy. The real story is more interesting. It’s the story of how a shy, brilliant preacher’s daughter...

Send us Fan Mail If you grew up in a certain era, his name isn’t just a performer on a poster. It’s a weather system. A shift in air pressure. A bulletin from the fault line where art, politics, faith, doubt, youth, age, and trouble all collided. And at the end of this episode, I’m going to tell you about one night—one Bob Dylan concert—that coincided with the most frightening turn my own life had...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s pairing may look odd until you start really listening: The Beach Boys and The Grateful Dead. Two California bands. Two American institutions. Two completely different ideas of what a band is for. One built pop cathedrals in the studio and spent decades trying to bring that sound to the stage. The other built a moving city on the road and treated the studio almost like a po...

Send us Fan Mail Today I want to put two names in the same frame—Joan Baez and Taylor Swift—not because they sound alike or have the same values but because they tell us how the culture around music, fandom, and accessibility to their shows have changed in less than one lifetime. Same art form. Very different worlds. This episode is about those two worlds. No boxing match. No “who’s better.” Just...

Send us Fan Mail In a recent episode, we spent time with a man who changed popular culture and then became a warning about what fame, isolation, and addiction can do to a single human body—Elvis Presley. Brilliant, iconic, but ultimately tragic. Today… similar voltage. Very different story. This is about a band that came out of the same storm system of sex, drugs, and rock and roll… but somehow di...

Send us Fan Mail I’d like to begin, not in Liverpool or Hamburg or Abbey Road, but in an American living room—mine, and millions of others—on a Sunday night in 1964. It’s February 9th. The television is a piece of furniture. The picture is black and white. Ed Sullivan is the gatekeeper of what “really matters.” We’ve heard rumors about four long-haired boys from England. Maybe we’ve seen a little...

Send us Fan Mail Today we’re stepping into complicated territory. Not a personal hero of mine. Not a composer whose scores I pore over, or a bandleader whose arrangements I quote with delight or a singer I enjoy listening to. We’ve just spent time with artists like Frank Sinatra, who turned phrasing into a method, and Chuck Berry, who wired rock’s circuitry with wit and precision. Both, in their o...

Send us Fan Mail Before we talk about charts and riffs and influence, I want to begin with a memory. Years ago, I saw Chuck Berry live at the Paramount Theatre in Manhattan.  I later learned that a few years after that, the Paramount Theater was completely shut down.  Anyway, that night Chuck Berry was on a bill with The Animals and The Dixie Cups—a lineup that already told you how fast the musica...

Send us Fan Mail Birthdays - as well as the  500th episode of a podcast - are times that generally you might want to slow down and look at the past, the present, and the future. Using that logic, I'd like to touch on the past of this podcast by calling on none other then the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe. Ghost sound Well hello, Mr. Poe Greetings Mr. Bartley.  Congratulations on your 500th episode...

Send us Fan Mail Leonard Bernstein played piano from age 10, and attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University.  So he studied music theory before studying conducting and orchestration. In 1943, he was appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Then on November 14, 1943 he was summoned unexpectedly to substitute for the regular conductor Bruno Walter. His confidence and skil...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we’re going to begin in Hoboken, New Jersey, walk through the apprenticeship years, and then trace how partnerships, heartbreak, movies, and business instincts turned a talented singer into a blueprint many still follow. Frank Sinatra was born December 12, 1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Dolly and Marty Sinatra, Sicilian immigrants. The home soundtrack mixed Italian song w...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is the first in a look at several dozen musicians who lived after 1900, roughly in chronological order.  And let me emphasize this is a extremely subjective look - it seems like every time I would look at my list, I f would find a new musician that just had to be on there - so I'm not presenting this in any way as an ideal selection of the most popular or...

Send us Fan Mail Merci, Monsieur Bartley. I was born in 1875 in the little town of Ciboure, in the Basque country of southwestern France. My father was an inventive man, an engineer with a passion for mechanics. My mother was of Basque and Spanish descent, and it was from her that I inherited my love of Spanish rhythms and colors. Those two influences—precision and passion—shaped me from the begin...

Send us Fan Mail Maestro, thank you for joining me. Before we dive into your music, I’d really like to hear about your beginnings. Could you tell us about your background? Of course. I was born in 1862, just outside Paris. My father was a baker—always kneading dough while humming—and my mother dabbled in piano. I remember sneaking into the living room to press the keys while she played. My first m...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome, Maestro Gustav Mahler. You’ve been called a composer of contradictions—cosmic in scope, but also obsessively detailed. If you could describe yourself in just a few words, how would you begin? Contradictions, yes—that is my very essence. I am a man who lived with one foot in heaven and the other in the street. My symphonies hold the singing of birds and the cries of the ma...

Send us Fan Mail Now in a nutshell, the history of Halloween and how it developed can be described in a few sentences.  You see, Halloween originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer and the harvest, and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. The Celts believed that on the night of October 31st, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead...

Send us Fan Mail I am most happy to be here today with you, Mr. Bartley. And we are glad that you're here, Maestro Greig Could you tell us about your early life. Ya, I was born in Bergen, Norway, on the 15th of June 1843. My father was a merchant and my mother was musical; she gave me my first piano lessons. From a young age, I loved the sound of Norwegian folk tunes, their rhythms, their mel...

Send us Fan Mail Maestro, could you begin by telling us a bit about your background? Ah, yes… I vas born in 1841, in a small village near Prague, in Bohemia. My father vas a butcher, my mother a simple, steadfast voman vith a love for folk songs. My family had little vealth, little expectation beyond the ordinary trades of life. Yet I felt Music as a calling — not for fame, but as a vay to capture...

Send us Fan Mail 2 Ghost sound I am most happy, to be here, and as a ghost, my heart carries the weight of a funeral march, even in moments of applause. Interesting analogy, Maestro Tchaikovsky, but could you tell us a bit about your earthly background? Ah, yes… earthly my background. I was born in 1840, in a small Russian town  nestled in the Ural Mountains. My father was an engineer in the mines...

Send us Fan Mail Today I vant to talk vith the final Composer of the three Bs - this podcast has previously Broadcast episodes regarding Bach and Beethoven - and vill certainly have more regarding those musicians - but today I vant to talk about another composer vhose last name also begins vith B, and is also considered one of the greats.  That composer is yo-HAH-nes Brahms. Unlike some composers...

Send us Fan Mail Well, a logical place to begin would be to ask the Maestro about his beginnings “Ah, señor Bartley, I am pleased to be here. You ask about my beginnings? wery well. I was born October 10, 1813, in Le Roncole, a small willage in the Duchy of Parma. My father, Carlo, ran our taern, and my mother, Luigia, kept the household in order. We were not rich, nor were we musicians by trade,...

Send us Fan Mail Musical attributions at end of transcript Here the ghost - or if you will - the spirit of Richard Wagner -  is reminiscing about his existence in 1864.  A struggling genius. A lonely king. One shared dream that changed the sound of Western music forever. In Music and Majesty, Richard Wagner and King Ludwig of Bavaria revisit the passion, faith, and madness that forged a masterpiec...

Send us Fan Mail Music attribution at bottom of transcript That was a portion of ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner - and if you're old enough, like me, you might remember hearing that from cartoons - especially porky pig dressed in a hunting outfit and singing kill the wabbit , kill the wabbit about Bugs Bunny - but I digress   This is the first episode where I would like to explore the...