PEBBLES ON THE BEACH
Jim Pugh, founder of Little Village, records artists and helps connect them to the broader musical community and to their own. “It’s like pebbles on the beach. You pick up one and it’s beautiful, but when you hold four together the commonality emerges. It’s breathtaking, and the bigger picture of what America really sounds like leaps out at you.” More here from Jim on his blog, Pebbles on the Beach.
Sporting events, concerts, schools closings, businesses big and small requiring stay at home telecommuting, all are directly affecting our lives. This has had a major impact on Little Village and more specifically it’s artists. For the past week or so there’s been a steady stream of emails coming in canceling concerts and festivals. For [...]
A.P.U.M.E.C. HALL I’d shlep my stuff out of my broken down van and through the backdoor. I’d beg somebody to help me gorilla the Hammond B3 organ up the few steps to the stage. APUMEC Hall- it stood for something I never knew what- was a rickety old Mexican dance hall on East 14th (now [...]
I’d been at Kenney’s house the day before. Back then we had lived near each other out in The Richmond. He knew a secretary at Warner’s that would send him new releases every month. Like clock work. Kinda pissed me off but we would sit and listen to some stuff while we talked and drank [...]
I’d agreed to do it when he called and asked. Sure I was honored- our friend Mark Richardson was to be installed as President and Dean of The Church Divinity School of The Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley and had been asked me to play at the service. In over 40 years of playing piano professionally [...]
I had the good fortune to have played on a recording for BB King back in the early 90’s. Honor to have done it but for sure it’s a cred that lots and lots of musicians can claim. Mister King made 100’s of recordings and probably hired 1000’s of musicians. As I recall Albert Collins [...]
That’s how many of them there were standing with him outside Mother’s Cafeteria. We shook hands but one of his buddies had to remind me that we’d met before. More than once. I hate when that happens. Anyway, Tulane coeds. More than 10 but not 20. And all of them were drunk. More than a [...]
Mariachi Mestizo From Delano, Ca. If you live in California you drive a lot. I drive a lot. On a noticeably warm Sunday afternoon this past fall I pointed the car inland towards Visalia, driving up 101 past Templeton, over the hill at Paso Robles and then right at Fresno down to Visalia. Woodlake actually. You probably haven’t [...]
The Hammond B3 has been the organ of choice since Jimmy Smith popularized it as a jazz instrument in the 1950’s. There were some before him but really it’s mass secular popularity started around then. Before that time it had been a mainstay of the church, mostly Baptist churches. Combined with the Leslie tremolo cabinets [...]