I had not known that there was a single-stringed musical instrument called the diddley bow until I saw this clip of Justin Johnson playing a two-string version. It has a real bluesy feel.

Curiously, while there are quite a few well-known musicians who have played it, one famous blues musician who might seem a natural never seems to have done so. I am referring of course to Bo Diddley.

On the first day of each spring, I like to play some version of George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun because it perfectly captures the joy of emerging from winter, even when the winters have been so mild as the last two have been in Cleveland. Of course, the first official day of spring was this past Monday but I sneer at being bound by calendars. For me, the first day of spring has to feel warm, sunny, have no snow on the ground, and be late enough in the year so that even though it will snow again, that snow will quickly disappear within a day or so.
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One of the great rockers of all time, a pioneer in blending blues, swing, and country into what became rock and roll, died today at the age of 90.

Musicians of all genres and ages paid tribute to Berry. “Chuck Berry was rock’s greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock ‘n’ roll writer who ever lived,” said Bruce Springsteen, who played with one of Berry’s pick-up bands before achieving his own fame.

“Thou Shall Have No Other Rock Gods Before Him,” the drummer and producer Questlove wrote. “His lyrics shone above others & threw a strange light on the American dream,” said Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. “Chuck you were amazing [and] your music is engraved inside us forever.”
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Berry’s music was a hugely influential figure for generations of rock musicians who followed him, many of whom recognized him during their lifetimes. “If you had to give rock’n’roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry,” John Lennon.

But he had a very dark side to him too when it came to women.
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Here is the Australian group The Seekers recording at the famous Abbey Road studios in London their first hit single I’ll Never Find Another You. The group then had one massive hit after another during the 1960s, often beating out the likes of the Beatles and the Rolling stones, before they broke up in 1968. The group was easily recognizable because they featured the rich sound of a 12-string guitar and exquisite vocal harmonies around the gorgeous voice of Judith Durham.
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I came across this clip that I had never seen before of a quasi-live performance of the Beatles singing Hey Jude in 1968 as part of a video promotion for the song. The clip first aired on a show hosted by David Frost that begins with them goofing around and ends with the studio audience of 300 people crowding around the group to join in the famous ending. According the person who uploaded the clip, the performance was a mixture of live and lip-synching.
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I have long been fascinated by the theremin, the first truly electronic instrument, and have used it as an example in my courses on electrodynamics because it uses the idea of mutual inductance and how circuits can be tuned to resonate at given frequencies.
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Jean-Baptiste Frederic Isidore Thielemans, more widely known as ‘Toots’, died last week. The Belgian-born musician played and popularized the jazz harmonica and could well claim the title of the musician whose work people in the US recognize the most while knowing the performer the least.
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The legendary actor-singer-dancer and his a cappella group the Vantastix surprised the patrons of a Denny’s restaurant last week by giving them a surprise rendition of the song Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the film of that name that he starred in.
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There has been a great outpouring of grief over the death of Prince who, by all accounts, was a highly gifted and innovative musician. I have not written about his life and death because, although of course I had heard of him, I was not at all familiar with his music, a telling sign of how ignorant I am of so much of popular culture. The Prince phenomenon occurred during a time when I was not paying much attention to the world of popular music.
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