The human body is a wonderful thing, a marvel of evolution, biology, and chemistry along with a few bits, like consciousness, that we still don’t understand. And for the most part, this meatbag full of water and chemicals works pretty well.
But it’s not perfect. We will continue to age as long as we can’t figure out how to improve the reproduction of telomeres, those little strands of special proteins at the end of chromosomes. After many, many reproductions, they become ratty and degrade. That has a bad effect on our NA and leads to symptoms of aging.
We’re susceptible to infections by bacteria, invasions of viruses, and assaults by various fungi. And sometimes there are things within our own bodies that turn on us, resulting in cancer and other diseases.
This, however, is all part of life and the things we must deal with. And because musicians are made of the same stuff as us, we often hear of the health issues that befall them. In that sense, they are just like you and me.
What we’re going over the next couple of shows is to look at about two dozen musicians who have health issues, how these challenges have affected their music, and how they manage to keep on keeping on, despite the difficulties.
These are stories of bravery and inspiration here–and maybe, just maybe, these stories will help someone in the same situation. This is part one of musicians battling disease.
Songs heard on this show:
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s, and anywhere else with a transmitter.
is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker.
In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.