Hooray. It’s nice and cool in the studio, so we are live this week.

Once a quarter all the DJs at WNCU have to keep detailed music logs for Sound Exchange, which is the entity that collects/distributes song revenues for music streamed on the Internet. This is for a two week period, and this and next weekend are the dates that I need to do this.

So I am doing two playlists, one for the station and one for you. So the updates here on the site may be delayed some.

An interesting song, Do I Love You, by Frank Wilson was recorded by Motown, but was never a hit  in the US. But in England, it is a “Northern Soul Classic”. Northern Soul in the UK (Like Beach Music in the US) is a regional phenomenon centered around dance clubs where DJs play high energy soul records from the US, often very rare and obscure material  by US standards. There is also a growing group of UK artist that record in that style, much as there are Beach Music bands here in the Carolinas.

Sam Cooke was one of the most astute of the fifities and sixties artists from a business sense. He started his own music publishing company as well as Sar Records, and it was on Sar that he recorded Johnny Taylor singing the Sam Cooke song “I’ll always be in love with you” That same song was recorded by the Hollywood Flames (Atco) and Jackie Wilson (Brunswick), but none of the versions charted. So we started out the 1pm hour with Sam’s “Another Saturday Night” and Johnny Taylor with “I’ll always be in love with you”. Johnny’s first chart record came on Sar in late 1963.

Last Sunday the air conditioning failed in the radio station, it now appears to have failed in the whole of the building the radio station is located in. With temperatures in the control room in the 90’s (not good for equipment either…) I have decamped for cooler climes after having set things up to run the show in my absence. So obviously I am not taking requests this week.

I will put up the tunes on the “current playlist” page….Jim Davis

Springfest ended yesterday and while I do not have a final number as to how much money was raised by/more 8tfb, we do appear to have made the goal the station management set.

I do think our percentage of audience participation is low. If you listen regularly to 8tfb, I do wish you would consider supporting the program and the station with a small donation, say $10. Just drop a check in the mail. Got to www.wncu.org for the address…

The upside of the fundraiser is that I buy CDs for premiums, and that music is available to play on the air. So if there is something you requested (Portrait of my love by Dee Clark comes to mind from one listener) drop me a line or give me a call (919-560-9628) and maybe now we have it to paly for you.

You never know who’s going to call on the phone…apparently Cal Cunningham, candidate for the democratic senatorial nomiation is in Durham on Fayetteville street, and and one of his folks asked if he could stop by and say hi to my listeners….(not likely that could happen, not because I dislike him, but because of station policy and FCC rules). Think he listens to 8tfb and likes the music?  ..how likely is that? That also…you never know.

Our countdown for April 1960 will be on the current playlist page, it’s quite a mix, 1960 was a transition year in many ways as the record industry essentially chewed up rock and roll and spit it out again as a pretty bland shadow of itself with Ricky’s and Randy’s and Fabians. The R&B chart was influenced toward some pretty bland offerings as well, as can be seen from the list. How much of this can be laid at the feet of payola is hard to tell, but 1906 was the year the payola scandal hit big time, with many FCC regulations coming down on radio stations. Makes fascinating reading in Billboard, which is now pretty much “all there” on Google. Worth a read…

On our countdown we find James Brown and “I’ll go crazy”. I often hear Paul Shaeffer vamping theopening of this on the Letterman show, it’s obviously a favorite.

Jim Davis