Comments by Paul Ingles

Comment for "The White Album Listening Party: Revisiting The Beatles' Top-Seller (3-Hour / Newscast-Length Version)"

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Long Long Long, etc...

I'm pretty certain that both Bungalow Bill and Long, Long, Long are in the long long long version of this program. The three hour non-newscast version.

http://www.prx.org/pieces/29916-the-white-album-listening-party-revisiting-the-be

Comment for "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!"

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Nice Piece

Thanks for taking the time to focus our attention on this sweet piece of pop culture. My mother and I, who have been watching that program most every year for the last 40 years, are sitting on the family couch now, remembering our own affection for the Charlie Brown special that started them all. It will always be the best. It always had the most heart in it of all of them. And those tender little voices... so heart rending.

Good job on getting enthusiastic and articulate commentators to underline what made this program special. Happy holidays to you.

Paul Ingles (with Audrey Ingles)
www.paulingles.com

Comment for "Lowen & Navarro recruit guitarist David Glaser"

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Great Story About Great Musicians

Lowen and Navarro have been an under-appreciated duo for a long time. Lowen's illness forcing the recruitment of their friend is bittersweet. Sessa does a nice job presenting the respect and emotion in the 4 minutes. I'll presume that was the time limit. If there were more time, I'd have loved to hear Lowen + Navarro music come up once or twice, especially when Glaser talks about Lowen's guitar skill ("Maybe Tomorrow It Will Rain" comes to mind). And if Lowen had been available to be interviewed, it'd have been great to hear his buoyant spirit - which I happened to know, from interviewing them myself- is never in short supply. Still a nice piece... well done.

Comment for "A Musician's Life: Marc Cohn"

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Review of A Musician's Life: Marc Cohn

This series really seems to have a way of getting the artists to open up in a comfortable and revealing way. Must be Tracey Tannenbaum's interviewing skill. Her questions are the ones I'd think of to ask, and some I wished I'd thought of to ask.

Marc Cohn's story is an intriguing one, and his answer to a question about how he feels about his biggest hit is great.

Enjoy this one and others in the series.

Comment for "A Musician's Life: Mary Gauthier"

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Review of A Musician's Life: Mary Gauthier

I've had the pleasure of having Mary Gauthier play a fund-raiser of mine. She donated her time and performace, so I think highly of her and feel familiar with her story. Tracey Tannenbaum and the Musician's Life crew really captured Gauthier's essence in this 5 minute package. The key elements of her own personal story and how it connects with her music are delivered concisely (got to in 5 minutes!). One great question from Tracey to Mary. Paraphrasing - with your success and sobriety do you lose touch with the down-and-out characters your songs describe? Mary has a great answer offered to her by other greats who have managed to do the same: It's O.K. to be happy and somehow you don't lose touch.

Music stations would do well to consider running these segments to lead off special spotlight sets with these artists. It would give listeners a fabulous context from which to enjoy the music even more. Bravo!

Comment for "The Cost of War, in Sound"

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Review of The Cost of War, in Sound

Kudos for an inventive approach from Blunt Youth Radio to, in 2:40, issue a wake-up call to listeners that The Cost of War is severe.

By equating a sum of US Military deaths with an explosion and reffing that explosion in rapid sequence, then doing the same with an automatic weapon to represent the total Iraqi deaths and a cash register to signify the money the US has spent on the war, the producer makes his point.

I wanted to like this more but I'll tell you my quibbles with it. By changing the units devoted to each sound, it doesn't really represent the oversized price that the Iraqis have paid. I'm sure the production debate was over how much a listener could stand to hear but I think if you are going to make a point about one cost being dramatically higher than another, it should be represented sonically too.

The somewhat non-challant use of violent destructive sounds to make the point made me squirm a bit. Probably the intention. I think this was a good idea that could have benefitted from a little bit more brainstorming. But keep pushing that envelope Blunt! Appreciate it!

Comment for "The Big Payback-A Tribute to James Brown"

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Review of The Big Payback-A Tribute to James Brown

Peter's artful mix includes the voice that my special (In Search of James Brown) couldn't capture, that of James Brown himself. In intimate phone conversations featuring James, historical perspective from Dave Marsh and clips from James Brown TV appearances, listeners get an added flavor of the man behind the myth. When I was working in radio in Charlotte, NC, in the early 1980's, the overnight DJ used to tell me that James Brown would call him and talk at length from his home in South Carolina. I'm imagining that what we hear in Peter's special is what that might have sounded like. If you're looking for an effective hour-long tribute, try running this with the half-hour version of In Search of James Brown. In any case, try to get this on - and if you're just a fan visiting PRX, be sure to give it a listen. Nice work Peter.

Comment for "Chuck Berry and Rock & Roll"

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Review of Chuck Berry: 50 Years of Rock & Roll

A completely solid overview of Berry's career. If you already know his story, nothing surprising emerges but this is a well-produced recap. You're left yearning to hear a little bit more from Berry - who's heard in 3 quick clips but he is elusive and not too revealing as an interview subject. This would make a nice drop-in in a local tribute to Berry's beginnings - "Maybelline," his first pop hit, entered the charts August 20, 1955.

Comment for "A Tribute to Spalding Gray"

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Review of A Tribute to Spalding Gray

This review is colored by the fact that I am a Spalding Gray fan. That said, I found this to be an effecting, enlightening, entertaining half-hour that gave me insight into Gray's fragile state of mind in the last couple years of his life. To hear his final monologue recorded in Seattle - a work in progress about his debilitating accident in Ireland - was a treat. Even though he was clearly on a slippery slope toward his demise, he was able, again, to blend warm humor and human feeling into the detail of his personal challenge. Certainly in retrospect, the interviews Kalish captured with Gray in his last year give us a broad hint that he was not long for this world. One of the other guests interviewed said it right - there WAS something about Spalding that connected with people that made him unique. I highly recommend this piece.

Comment for "Emmylou Harris: In her own words" (deleted)

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Review of Emmylou Harris: In her own words (deleted)

Nicely produced snapshot of a few thoughts and tunes from Emmy Lou. I agree that pieces in this series would be great for stations in towns where she's playing but even beyond that if I were a PD at a station where her music is played, I'd be letting my announcers know a piece like this is available and consider using it to drop between two of her tracks to make for a little featurette. It'll make for a standout moment in a music show. The drawback of unhosted pieces is the occasional leap of understanding expected by the listener as the artist hops from point to point but it's not a huge distraction on this one. She's sounds great - engaged and interested in the interview segments. It's the kind of piece I love to produce myself and hear on the radio. BTW, can anyone contribute to this series?