The Ongoing History of New Music, Episode 749: Unsung Heros

History of full of stories of people who did great things but aren’t remembered for them. For example, Scott Neeson was the head of 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. But hit with a crisis of faith, he sold everything–his mansion, sports cars, the yacht, the works–and dedicated his life to helping the children of Cambodia.

Then there’s Clarence Birdeye. He came up with the idea of flash-freezing food, which changed everything about the way food is processed, transported and sold especially when it came to fruit, vegetables and seafood.

Bubble wrap? Invented by Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes.  Then there was Gunner, a stray dog who helped Australian forces during WW II. His hearing was so good, he could hear Japanese planes coming in for attack when they were still 20 minutes away and long before they showed up on radar.

All that is pretty remarkable, right? And you would think that these people (and dogs) would be better known. Yet they’ve been largely forgotten by history.

That’s our topic: Unsung heroes of music. What they did changed so much about our music yet we know almost nothing about them. Time to fix that.

Songs in this week’s program:

1. Les Paul, “Meet Mr. Calaghan”
2. Howlin’ Wolf, “How Many More Years”
3. Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats
4. Jimi Hendrix, “All Along the Watchtower”
5. Isaac Hayes, “Theme from Shaft”
6. Rolling Stones, “Satisfaction”
7. Muse, “Supermassive Black Hole”
8. U2, “Elevation”
9. Black Keys, “Lonley Boy”
10. Foo Fighters, “Everlong” (Live)
11. Coldplay, “Fix You”
12. SSQ, “Walkman On”
13. Screeching Weasel, “Compact Disc”
14. Beck, “Loser”

The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:

• 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11 with archives show Tuesday and Wednesday at midnight.
• Live 88-5/Ottawa
• 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener
• FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
• The Drive/Kingston
• 98.1 The Bridge/Lethbridge – Saturday night at 6, Sunday morning at 10am
• Rock 97.7/Grand Prairie – Sunday nights at 6.
• 92X/Calgary
• Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
• The Zone/Victoria
• The Fox/Vancouver
• Live 105/Halifax

We’re still looking for more affiliates in Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor,  Montreal, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.

If you’re in the US and you want to stream the show, I wish I could help. A performing rights organization called SESAC has made threatening noises about suing non-American radio stations who dare stream into the US without paying crazy fees. Most Canadian broadcasters had no choice but to geo-block their streams. But hey, if you know of an American station that would like to take the show, contact me and we’ll make it a priority.

Oh, and good news: The show will start running on OneFM in Singapore in May. From there. we’re hoping to go deeper into Asia and the make a run at Australia and New Zealand.

Anyone else? Love to hear from you. Just email me at [email protected].