Fascinatin' Rhythm Listings - 2006

January 2006:

PROGRAM: 0601

UPLINK: January 5, 2006

A COTTAGE FOR TWO – From love to “a cottage small where, popular songs suggest, the marriage is idyllic and the setting either rural or suburban.

PROGRAM: 0602

UPLINK: January 12, 2006

BEGINNING WITH BLAND – Even in the years right after Emancipation, there were important black songwriters eager to be heard. The first, but not the only, was James A. Bland.

PROGRAM: 0603

UPLINK: Janauary 19, 2006

BIOS IN SONG – Songs that include everybody from Columbus and Elizabeth I to Tarzan, Romeo, and Jack and Jill.

PROGRAM: 0604
UPLINK: January 26, 2006
JAVA JIVE – Songs for the first – and the second – cup of coffee. We sing as we sip.

February 2006

PROGRAM: 0605

UPLINK: February 2, 2006

POLLYANNA SONGS – Songs of unlimited, unbreakable optimism, named after the fictional young woman who embodied the quality.

PROGRAM: 0606

UPLINK: February 9, 2006

LOVE SONGS FOR PERILOUS TIMES – For Valentine’s Day, these are unlikely love songs with a patriotic twist.

PROGRAM: 0607

UPLINK: February 16, 2006

A DAY FOR PRESIDENTS – From “The President Jefferson March to Little Orphan Annie’s getting FDR to sing “Tomorrow, we’ll sing along with and about the presidents, Harry on piano and Bill on sax.

PROGRAM: 0608

UPLINK: February 23, 2006

THOSE CAKE-WALKING BABIES FROM HOME – Just as they influenced our music, black people have also shown us new ways to dance.

March 2006

PROGRAM: 0609

UPLINK: March 2, 2006

WORKING GIRLS – On the path from suffrage to breaking the glass ceiling, women have set their struggles to song.

PROGRAM: 0610

UPLINK: March 9, 2006

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THAT’S LOVE – Once you figure it out, you have to tell somebody. In fact, you feel as if you have to tell everybody.

PROGRAM: 0611

UPLINK: March 16, 2003

IRISH GIRLS – From “Sweet Rosie O’Grady to “Peg o’ My Heart, their lilting names fill our songs, and so do their sweet, feisty personalities.

PROGRAM: 0612

UPLINK: March 23, 2006

PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ – Style and Social Class in Songs; fashion and songs together showed as we saw ourselves.

PROGRAM: 0613

UPLINK: March 30, 2006

OFF RHYTHMS – Some songs sound like no other. The trick lies in the way they use rhythm.

April 2006

PROGRAM 0614
UPLINK April 6, 2006
I’M LIKE A NEW BROOM – Cleaning Up and getting out to celebrate the coming of spring.

PROGRAM 0615
UPLINK April 13, 2006
IT’S BETTER WITH A BAND -- Singing about Dixieland bands and swing bands and oom-pah bands that march on the Fourth of July.

PROGRAM 0616
UPLINK April 20, 2006
SINGING THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE – Literature, dance, and classical music flowering in Harlem, but also the songs of young men named Ellington, Waller, Razaf, and Johnson.

PROGRAM 0617
UPLINK April 27, 2006
SWEET NUDITY -- Dresses and undies and then what comes next. Flirtatious songs for naughty thoughts.

May 2006

PROGRAM 0618
UPLINK May 4, 2006
SIINATRA STARTS – With Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, young Frank Sinatra became America’s heartthrob.

PROGRAM 0619
UPLINK May 11, 2006
MOTHER ON THE BRAIN – Taking its title from a song by William Finn, this Mother’s Day show is affectionate but irreverent.

PROGRAM 0620
UPLINK May 18, 2006
TWO SETS OF SISTERS – In the 30s, they were named Boswell, and a decade later they answered to Andrews: what they accomplished and why we liked them so much.

PROGRAM 0621
UPLINK May 25, 2006
GRAND OLD FLAG – For Memorial Day, a show that takes its lead from one of George M. Cohan’s last songs from 1942, “For the Flag, for the Home, for the Family.

June 2006

PROGRAM 0622
UPLINK June 1, 2006
VINCENT YOUMANS: A NEW VIEW – Usually seen as a typical 1920s songwriter, Vincent Youmans actually helped to push the musical in new directions.

PROGRAM 0623
UPLINK June 8, 2006
KEEPING MY EYES ON YOU – Because I trust you and can’t take my eyes off you; because I don’t trust you and won’t take my eyes off you.

PROGRAM 0624
UPLINK June 15, 2006
TAKE A LITTLE TIP FROM FATHER – For Father’s Day, songs about Dad, but with a sense of humor.

PROGRAM 0625
UPLINK June 22, 2006
LOVE CAN BE HABIT-FORMING – It can even be stimulating, addictive, and intoxicating.

PROGRAM 0626
UPLINK June 29, 2006
CELEBRATING THE FOURTH – Parades, picnics, ballgames, and more. All the things we do to celebrate the Fourth.

July 2006

PROGRAM: 0627
UPLINK: July 6, 2006
STORMY WEATHER – After the airy ebullience of the 1920s, the ballads of the Great Depression feel especially dark, smoky, and brooding. They fit their time.

PROGRAM: 0628
UPLINK: July 13, 2006
THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY SINGERS – One of America’s first professional singing groups wrote many its own songs and toured the country, singing about the great issues of the day.

PROGRAM: 0629
UPLINK: July 20, 2006
STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY – The hot music and the hotter dancing that gave uninhibited expression to jazz. They called it stomping.

PROGRAM: 0630
UPLINK: July 27, 2006
LULLABY AND GOOD NIGHT – When it’s time to snuggle down for the night, what’s better than a lullaby. Some for children, some for adults.

August 2006

PROGRAM: 0631
UPLINK: August 3, 2006
CROONING – A singing style that started with early radio and changed the way Americans sang and listened.

PROGRAM: 0632
UPLINK: August 10, 2006
ON THE ROAD AGAIN – Songs for the old American hitting of hitting the road, and the resulting tradition between home and away, responsibility and freedom.

PROGRAM: 0633
UPLINK: August 17, 2006
THE WAR ENDS – As World War II ended, America’s songs changed. The troops were returning, trading fighting for working, longing for safety, uniforms for civvies. And it’s all in our songs.

PROGRAM: 0634
UPLINK: August 24, 2006
YOUNG NO LONGER – Love isn’t always young or happening for the first time. How does it sound when those more knowing want to sing about it, too.

PROGRAM: 0635
UPLINK: August 31, 2006
ONE BIG UNION FOR TWO – Work songs for labor and love by Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and the Almanac Singers.

September 2006

PROGRAM: 0636
UPLINK: September 7, 2006
ANDY RAZAF: WHAT HARLEM MEANS TO ME – America’s greatest black lyricist wrote about the place and people he knew best.

PROGRAM: 0637
UPLINK: September 14, 2006
DANCING WITH THE CASTLES – When Irene Castle bobbed her hair, millions of women followed her lead. She and her husband, Vernon, taught America to dance in a new way for a new century.

PROGRAM: 0638
UPLINK: September 21, 2006
COUNTRY – In a nation that became urban and then suburban, the small town remained the mythic symbol of American virtues and values.

PROGRAM: 0639
UPLINK: September 28, 2006
LOVE FOR SALE – In hard times, love becomes hard work and the songs about it vary from the suggestive to the blunt.

October 2006

PROGRAM 0640
UPLINK October 5
YOU CAN’T STOP ME FROM LOVING YOU – Have you ever noticed how love songs can be submissive and defiant at the same time. It’s that mix of sentiment and wit we prize.

PROGRAM 0641
UPLINK October 12
AMONG MY SOUVENIRS – Songs about mementoes: objects that conjure up precious memories of other times.

PROGRAM 0642
UPLINK October 19
A CLOSER WALK – A lot of treacly religious imagery in songs, but also a rich tradition from spirituals, hymns, and gospel to infuse popular music with fire.

PROGRAM 0643
UPLINK October 26
KEEP YOUR UNDERWEAR ON – Songs about underwear, pajamas, and the onset of nudity. An hour of precaution and of throwing caution to the wind.

November 2006

PROGRAM 0644
UPLINK November 2
BLUES SONGS – There are traditional blues and urban blues, and then Tin Pan Alley borrows from both to give us “Blues Songs.”

PROGRAM 0645
UPLINK November 9
THAT FACE – Songs about beauty, expressiveness, and character, and how all three are what love looks like.

PROGRAM 0646
UPLINK November 16
SIMPLE PLEASURES -- A blaze in the fireplace, a blooming garden, a simple melody, the simple pleasures that are supposed to be the most pleasing.

PROGRAM 0647
UPLINK November 23
THE SINCEREST FORM – You start with a song that’s so popular it becomes the source for borrowing, imitation, and downright theft.

PROGRAM 0648
UPLINK November 30
MARITAL BUMPS AND BRUISES – Comic songs about being married that admit of true love but also come pretty close to the truth.

December 2006

PROGRAM 0649
UPLINK December 7
TROTTING THE FOX – The Fox Trot is the most durable dance of the 20th century. It appears on Broadway before WW1 and we’re still doing it.

PROGRAM 0650
UPLINK December 14
OPPOSITES – One popular song takes a point of view and another takes it opposite outlook, and both may even be written by the same person.

PROGRAM 0651
UPLINK December 21
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS – The songs are as much about home as they are about the season. The linkage is essential, of the essence.

PROGRAM 0652
UPLINK December 28
LOOKING OVER A FOUR-LEAF CLOVER -- An awful lot of popular songs offer up a healthy helping of balderdash about destiny and fate. The more sensible among them settle for luck.