Martin Bandyke Under Covers for October 2019: Martin interviews C.M. Kushins, author of Nothing's Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon.

As is the case with so many musicians, the life of Warren Zevon was blessed with talent and opportunity yet also beset by tragedy and setbacks. Raised mostly by his mother with an occasional cameo from his gangster father, Warren had an affinity and talent for music at an early age. Taking to the piano and guitar almost instantly, he began imitating and soon creating songs at every opportunity. After an impromptu performance in the right place at the right time, a record deal landed on the lap of a teenager who was eager to set out on his own and make a name for himself.

From Broadway with Love

Musicians San, Emily and Brian presented a program of songs from classic Broadway musicals such as Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, The Fantasticks, Follies, Bridges of Madison County and more.

San is one half of the duo, Gemini, his daughter Emily graduated with a minor in musical theatre from EMU and Brian Brill is an Emmy Award winning composer and pianist from Chelsea.

"Locomotive/Brilliant Corn" | Miles Okazaki

Miles Okazaki is the first artist to record all of Thelonious Monk's music on a solo instrument. In this concert he will be presenting selections from his 2018 album "WORK," a five-hour performance of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, praised by critic Nate Chinen as “an act of immersive scholarship and exhaustive scope. . . a singular achievement,” and selected by the New York Times as one of the best albums of 2018, a “monumental statement of devotion.”

Becoming American | "Muslim Cool: Race Religion and Hip Hop in the United States" with Dr. Su'ad Abdul Khabeer

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer is a scholar-artist-activist who uses anthropology and performance to explore the intersections of race and popular culture.  

Su'ad is currently an associate professor of American Culture and Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology from Princeton University and is a graduate from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and completed the Islamic Studies diploma program of the Institute at Abu Nour University (Damascus).

Martin Bandyke Under Covers for March 2019: Martin Bandyke interviews Thomas Brothers, author of Help: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration.

The Beatles and Duke Ellington’s Orchestra stand as the two greatest examples of collaboration in music history. Ellington’s forte was not melody―his key partners were not lyricists but his fellow musicians. His strength was in arranging, in elevating the role of a featured soloist, in selecting titles: in packaging compositions.

Martin Bandyke Under Covers for February 2019: Martin Bandyke interviews Chris Stamey, author of A Spy in the House of Loud: New York Songs and Stories.

Popular music was in a creative upheaval in the late 1970s. As the singer-songwriter and producer Chris Stamey remembers, “The old guard had become bloated, cartoonish, and widely co-opted by a search for maximum corporate profits, and we wanted none of it.” In A Spy in the House of Loud, he takes us back to the auteur explosion happening in New York clubs such as the Bowery’s CBGB as Television, Talking Heads, R.E.M., and other innovative bands were rewriting the rules.

Martin Bandyke Under Covers for November 2018: Martin Bandyke interviews Jorma Kaukonen, author of Been So Long: My Life and Music.

 

From the man who made a name for himself as a founding member and lead guitarist of Jefferson Airplane comes a memoir that offers a rare glimpse into the heart and soul of a musical genius―and a vivid journey through the psychedelic era in America.

Martin Bandyke Under Covers for October 2018: Martin Bandyke interviews Wayne Kramer, author of The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities.

The Hard Stuff is the first memoir by Wayne Kramer, legendary guitarist and cofounder of quintessential Detroit proto-punk legends the MC5.

In January 1969, before the world heard a note of their music, the MC5 was on the cover of Rolling Stone. The missing link between free jazz and punk rock, they were raw, primal, and, when things were clicking, absolutely unstoppable.