rostasi

Thank you...and David, you're on pain medication so you're feelin pretty good this holiday season, eh? Rod --- Now playing: Cheekyboy - Biggie's Last Christmas

I used to not pay much attention to the holidays - just kept off the streets, but then in '87 my sweetheart showed me the real reason for the holidays: the LIGHTS!!! Our house is the designated place each year for the family. We have lots of fun. It's the stuff in the Christmas crackers and the many stockings full of junk from the "one dollar" stores that are the ROTF laugh riot around here. Better than the presents most of the time! It's the cleaning up the next day that becomes a bit much. I've found confetti, small flying discs and balls that were shot out of toy guns, and other surprises when the couch gets moved away from the wall months later! Also, I love getting out the recorded music - the sillier the better - but not too early. Just mix it up and have a good time! Happy holidays to all!!!

Good to hear about this. Got all of these already (including the BBC date which is just under 40 minutes), But it's nice that they will probably have better sound. I still like 7 - actually, a bit more than Bundles, but yes, there's not much challenge there - some nice delicate pieces without being "new agey". Thanks for this update!

Ok, you had me confused there - but not for the first time I added Hamer's name to the list. thanks, Rod

Thanks Frank. When I make up the December list, I'll make sure and add her.

Dance!

chew dat gum boy!

Brownie, I don't have a date of death for Ian Hammer. Also, didn't Aaron Bell die 3 years ago or am I thinking of another one (again)? Rod

October: • Tamara Dobson (star of blaxploitation movie Cleopatra Jones) • Claude Luter • Edgar Summerlin (Tenor saxophonist who "brought jazz to the church") • Freddy Fender • Tommy Johnson (tuba player session musician - most notable was his playing in John Williams' Jaws score, in which he played a high-register tuba solo as the melodic theme for the shark) • Christopher Glenn (American CBS News radio and television news anchor) • Anna Russell • Jane Wyatt • Sandy West (drummer and vocalist with The Runaways) • Arthur Hill • Lebo Mathosa (South African singer) • Emmanuel Soudieux (French double bass player who performed and recorded with Django and many visiting Americans in France - among them Kenny Clarke & Art Simmons) • Tillman Franks (bassist, songwriter - co-wrote the hit single Sink the Bismark with Johnny Horton) • Rogério Duprat (Brazilian composer/musician - began his studies with Stockhausen & Boulez - later, he wrote many arrangements for tropicália albums by artists such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, Gal Costa and Os Mutantes - he later became known as the "George Martin of Tropicalia" and the "Brian Wilson of Brazil". • Joe Niekro • Marijohn Wilkin (country music songwriter - wrote songs for Wanda Jackson, Lefty Frizzell, Eddie Cochran, et al) • Brian Brolly (co-manager of McCartney's Wings, co-founder of Jazz FM and Classic FM) • Trevor Berbick (last boxer to face Muhammad Ali) • Red Auerbach • Ian Rilen (bass player for Rose Tattoo) November: • William Styron • Adrienne Shelly (actress: Trust, The Unbelievable Truth) • Buddy Killen (record producer and founder of Dial Records) • Marie Rudisill (known as The Fruitcake Lady on The Tonight Show - aunt to Truman Capote) • Malachi Ritscher (musician, recording engineer, and anti-war protester - fixture on the Chicago jazz and experimental music scene) • Paul Mauriat (French orchestra leader - best known for his recording of the André Popp tune, L'Amour est bleu ("Love is Blue")) • Sonny Cohn • Ed Bradley • Jack Palance • Gerald Levert • Joseph Ungaro (American journalism editor and executive whose question led to Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" response) • Milton Friedman • Ruth Brown • Dirk Dirksen (punk rock promoter at San Francisco's nightclub Mabuhay Gardens) • Chris Hayward (creator of Dudley Do-Right and co-creator of The Munsters) • Robert Altman • Robert Lockwood Jr. • John Allan Cameron (pioneer of Celtic music in Canada) • Anita O'Day • Betty Comden (lyricist known for writing musicals with Adolph Green including Singin' in the Rain) • Robert McFerrin (first African-American to sing at the New York Metropolitan Opera and father of Bobby McFerrin) • Walter Booker • David Hermance (Toyota engineer responsible for the Prius) • Tony Silvester (soul singer with The Main Ingredient) • Dave Cockrum (comic book artist: X-men, Legion of Super-Heroes) • Don Butterfield • Allen Carr (well-known anti-smoking campaigner and author) • Perry Henzell (film director: The Harder They Come)

Ooops! Yup, you're right. Got them mixed in my mind. Probably cause it was after midnight...Thanks for the correction. Rod

August: • Rufus Harley • Kim McLagan (British model of the 1960s, wife of Ian McLagan of The Faces and former wife of Keith Moon) • Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf • Arthur Lee • John Locke (keyboardist with Spirit) • Ed Thrasher (album cover designer - Hendrix, Sinatra, Beach Boys, et al) • Moacir Santos • Duke Jordan • Anga Diaz (Cuban conga player - Afro Cuban All Stars, The Buena Vista Social Club, et al) • Barbara George (R&B singer) • Mike Douglas (American talk show host) • Johnny Duncan ("She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime") • Walter "Li'l Wally" Jagiello (popular polka musician and songwriter) • Joseph Hill (lead singer for reggae band Culture) • Buck Page (country musician and founder of the original Riders of the Purple Sage) • Ustad Bismillah Khan (Indian shehnai musician) • Bruce Gary (drummer with The Knack) • David Schnaufer (Appalachian dulcimer player) • Maynard Ferguson • James Tenney • Jesse Pintado (guitarist with Terrorizer and Napalm Death) • Pip Pyle • Jumpin' Gene Simmons (rockabilly musician) • Burt Goldblatt (jazz album cover designer) • Glenn Ford September: • Dewey Redman • Moses Khumalo (South African jazz saxophonist) • Steve Irwin • Frank Middlemass (English character actor As Time Goes By) • Bennie Smith (blues guitarist) • Pat Corley (actor: Phil the barkeep on Murphy Brown) • Al Casey (session guitarist) • Peter Tevis (musician who specialized in the Spaghetti Western sound. Ennio Morricone produced one of his songs) • Ann Richards • Nancy Arlen (drummer, "Mars") • Joe Glazer (folk musician - often referred to as the "labor's troubador") • Danny Flores (saxophonist and vocalist on the Champs' 1958 hit "Tequila") • Boz Burrell (bassist and vocalist: Bad Company/King Crimson) • Tommy Olivencia (salsa singer and bandleader) • Aladár Pege (Hungarian jazz musician, dubbed "the Paganini of double bass") • Sir Malcolm Arnold • Ian Hamer • Henry Townsend • Byron Nelson • Josh Graves (bluegrass dobro player)

sorry to hear this...it's sad to lose one of our own...

Phone tax refund is yours to claim End of old IRS policy can add up to savings on 2006 returns 08:25 AM CST on Monday, December 11, 2006 By JENNIFER CHAMBERLAIN / The Dallas Morning News The abolition of a tax originally levied to fund the Spanish-American War in 1898 could add up to extra money on your tax return for 2006. Individuals and businesses can receive a credit for long-distance federal telephone excise taxes they've paid over the last three years -- but the credit must be claimed on their 2006 returns, which are due April 16. "What people really need to know is that it's money due them, but they're going to have to do a little work to get it back," said Dick Hansen, president of Technology Change Management, a telecommunications consulting company based in Houston. "I call it a 'claim it or lose it' deal." Also Online Get information from the IRS about the telephone excise tax refund See a draft version of IRS Form 8913 Technology Change Management's Website After a long-running legal dispute, the Treasury Department announced in May that it would no longer collect the outmoded tax, which was originally established as a luxury tax on those wealthy enough to own a telephone. The IRS agreed to offer taxpayers refunds, which are estimated to total $15 billion. Taxpayers can claim a refund for excise taxes on long-distance service billed between Feb. 28, 2003, and Aug. 1, 2006. That includes service over landline, cellphone, voice-over-Internet protocol and fax, as well as bundled services, in which local and long-distance are not differentiated. The excise tax on local phone service is not included, though there have been efforts to repeal that tax as well. So what if you don't have copies of your phone bills for the past three years? Individuals can claim a standard amount based on their exemptions. Those amounts are: *$30 for one exemption. *$40 for two. *$50 for three. *$60 for those claiming four or more exemptions. However, if you can track down those phone records, you'll probably be able to get a much bigger refund, tax experts say. "If you look at the standard amount, it's probably less than one-half of what you would actually have paid if you had the records," said Mr. Hansen, who estimates that the average person with a landline and cellphone could get back $120 to $150 by claiming the actual amount paid. Phone companies' policies vary widely as to what they charge for back copies of bills. Some examples: Texas residential customers of AT&T, formerly SBC, can get paper copies of archived bills at no cost, a spokeswoman said. Vonage customers can access their billing records online for free. Verizon Wireless offers one bill reprint per year free but charges $5 for each additional bill. You don't have to itemize deductions to claim the full amount of excise taxes paid -- this is a tax credit, not a tax deduction -- but you will have to fill out IRS Form 8913 and attach it to your return. That form hasn't been finalized yet but should be available soon at http://www.irs.gov. For businesses, the refund payoff can be even bigger, particularly for those that are telecom-intensive, says Ken Sibley, a certified public accountant and managing director of Sibley & Co. in Dallas. And since businesses are required to keep records for seven years, finding the documentation shouldn't be a problem. "It's worth the effort, especially for businesses," he said. "For the vast majority of individuals, it's probably not going to be worth their time going back and picking up every 50 cents or a dollar for a month's worth of charges." Mr. Hansen has set up a Web site, http://www.refundphonetax.com, to help get out the word about the excise tax refund. He also is working with business clients to educate their employees through posters, e-mails and W-2 envelope inserts. "Companies are getting back about $50 per employee, so if they have 10,000 people, they could actually get back half a million," he said.

Sure, no prob. There's always a few folks whose deaths may not have received much media attention. Of course, there's some personal leanings here, but I'm trying to keep it to somewhat well-known folks. Going thru these kinda slowly, but we'll make it thru December: June: • Vince Welnick ("Grateful Dead") • Hilton Ruiz • Billy Preston • György Ligeti • Duane Roland ("Molly Hatchet") • Claydes Charles Smith ("Kool and the Gang") • Moose ("Eddie" from "Frasier") • Arif Mardin • Elkan Allan (created British pop music show "Ready, Steady, Go!") • Johnny Jenkins (blues guitarist who helped launch the career of Otis Redding. Hendrix was also influenced by his guitar stylings) • George Page (creator and narrator of the PBS series Nature) • Ross Tompkins July: • Jan Murray (comedian) • Don Lusher (British jazz trombonist) • Kasey Rogers (Louise Tate on "Bewitched" - also was an accomplished motorcross racer) • Mícheál Ó Domhnaill ("Bothy Band") • Syd Barrett • Milan Williams (keyboardist with the "Commodores") • Red Buttons • Malachi Thompson • Dodo Greene • Jessie Mae Hemphill • Floyd Dixon • Murray Bookchin

April • Bernard Seigal (Buddy Blue - "Beat Farmers") • Martin Gilks (drummer w/"The Wonder Stuff") • Gene Pitney • Allan Kaprow (Fluxus artist) • June Pointer ("The Pointer Sisters") • Phil Walden (founder of Capricorn Records) • William Gottlieb • Bonnie Owens (singer/ex-wife of Merle Haggard who helped define his sound - she died 30 days after the death of her first husband, Buck Owens) • Helen Hobbs Jordan (music teacher whose students included Tony Bennett, Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, and Paul Simon) • Leighton Kerner (classical music critic for The Village Voice) May • Johnny Paris ("Johnny and the Hurricanes") • Rosita Fernandez (Tejano singer) • Naushad Ali (Bollywood composer) • Grant McLennan (lead singer for "The Go-Betweens") • John Hicks • Johnnie Wilder, Jr. (founder of the band "Heatwave" - "Boogie Nights") • Lew Anderson (bandleader, played Clarabell the Clown on "The Howdy Doody Show") • Cheikha Rimitti (famous Algerian rai singer - collaborations with Robert Fripp and Flea from the "Red Hot Chili Peppers") • Freddie Garrity ("Freddie and the Dreamers") • Billy Walker (country music singer - "The Tall Texan") • Jack Fallon (jazz double-bassist - Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Sarah Vaughan, et al.) • Hamza El Din • Clifford Antone (owner of Antone's blues club) • Desmond Dekker • Lula Mae Hardaway (Stevie Wonder's mom)

February: • Romano Mussolini (Italian jazz musician and son of Benito) • Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) • Ustad Qawwal Bahauddin (amazing Qawwali singer) • Akira Ifukube (film composer "Godzilla") • Jack Montrose • Elton Dean • Jay Dee (hip-hop producer) • Jockey Shabalala ("Ladysmith Black Mambazo") • Lenny Dee • Putte Wickman (Swedish jazz orch leader) • Lynden David Hall (British soul singer) • Bill Cowsill (lead singer of "The Cowsills") • Ray Barretto • Larry Neill (big band singer: Paul Whiteman) • Anthony Burger (gospel pianist) • Don Knotts (hey, why not...) • Darren McGavin • Thomas Koppel ("Savage Rose") • Tsakani Mhinga (South African R&B singer) • Milton Katims (conductor: Seattle Symphony) March: • Johnny Jackson ("Jackson 5") • Willie Kent (blues bassist) • Charlie Hodge (guitarist/backup singer for Elvis) • Ivor Cutler • King Floyd • Ali Farka Touré • Jesse "Guitar" Taylor • Gordon Parks • Raphe Malik • Anna Moffo • Narvin Kimball (banjo player - founding member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band) • Lumumba Carson (Professor X: "X-Clan") • Pío Leyva (Buena Vista Social Club) • Buck Owens • Nikki Sudden • Stanislaw Lem • Don Alias • Jackie McLean

Numero Group stuff gets lots of rodcast play!

These were just in January of this year: • Alex St. Clair (guitarist with Beefheart - "Owed t' Alex") • Lou Rawls • Markus Löffel (Mark Spoon of Jam & Spoon) • Bob Weinstock (Prestige) • Wilson Pickett • Rick van der Linden (keyboardist with Ekseption) • Sherman Ferguson • Janette Carter (Carter Family) • Gene McFadden (McFadden & Whitehead) • Nam-June Paik • Coretta Scott King (not really a recording artist, but it's nice to remember her).

Hope you have miles and miles of smiles on your b-day!

Jeremy Taylor did the Joburg Talkin' Blues with Ag Pleez Daddy on a 7". There's an EP too that adds a couple of extras.

I don't think it comes up that often. MG might have a different perspective. I didn't begin listening until The Promise of a Future (Masekela) and/or probably Miram Makeba was played at home too.

Yup! It's kinda from the "addendum" to the originally conceived list - too much of a good thing... You can decide for yourself (as "best of's" go, you understand): the extras The first 100 (or so)

Yeah, it's one of those "100 Records That Set the World On Fire" "Various Artists Ice Cream And Suckers (Mercury 1963) At the same time that more respectable South African musicians like Dollar Brand, Miriam Makeba, and The Blue Notes were thinking about making tracks to Europe, the rural township musicians on Ice Cream And Suckers watched their music leap the ocean to become one of the first exports to America. . . if they were informed at all. Using Western instruments - harmonicas, chunky saxophone, lots of guitar - the patterns of the highlife dancehall were underlined in funky bass and drawn above with cascading harmonies. In this collection of singles, each group has a strong presence that comes from the hybrid of soul and mbube. The place where cultures collide can form greatness, like the birth of rocksteady in Jamaica, but a clash is not easy when you're trapped in it. When "Mr Bull" (Freddie Gumbi) yelled "You bloody bastard, get out of my yard!" over the goofy sound effects of a distressed steer, you wonder what he really meant. An almost painfully happy record, Ice Cream And Suckers yields a fascinating and suspiciously sunny picture in a brutal period of history."