I Want to Know

    A new 2 CD 1 DVD release from rock icons Foreigner has kept me entertained for the past few days at home, in the Civic, and my minivan. Their first all new album in a decade and a half, “Can’t Slow Down” is superb. I especially like the title cut and “Too Late” a very catchy radio ready tune I’ve been singing for days. These guys have successfully preserved that Foreigner signature sound while evolving into the present with new lead singer, Kelly Hansen. He has admirably taken over for long time front man Lou Gramm, who at one time I thought irreplaceable.

    What intrigued me into buying the new set was a curious CD of remixes of the hits we all know well. Was this just a new remastering job from previous “master” tapes? Was any new vocals or loops added? I knew that the songs already sounded great but was unprepared for what I would discover. Producer Marti Frederiksen and his recording engineer Anthony Focx have uncovered the original multi-track tapes and exactly matched the original mixes. These new mixes a far clearer than their predecessors with deeper bass and better sounding representation of Lou Gramm’s awesome vocal performances. It was as if I was hearing them for the first time (pun intended). In fact, Feels Like the First Time opens up the disk with the electric guitars cranked to 11. Wow!  I quickly pulled out an original CD. The older mixes sounded muffled by comparison, as if someone had placed a blanket over the loudspeakers. The new mixes truly sound like they were recorded yesterday. The only limit now are the constraints of the 16 bit, 44.1 kHz sampled CD format itself. I hope more hits are forthcoming as remixes. It truly gives new life to the Classic Rock genre.

    I first notice Foreigner in the early 1980’s when I borrow the foreigner 4 album from a friend. The opening bass line of Jukebox Hero hooks me and the rest is history. Forward to 1986, I Want to Know What Love Is is a huge hit on radio and Mtv. I am especially intrigued by the heavy gospel influence and wish to share the song on my radio show on Gospel 90 AM. I am not allowed to play the “secular” version, but the station is given the gospel version of the song by the New Jersey Mass Choir who backs Foreigner on the original.

  I can name numerous mainstream hits adapted for the gospel market. Accusations of hypocrisy notwithstanding I have never seen anything wrong with presenting a “secular” artists’ songs in a “religious” setting providing that the lyrics are compatible. The movie An Officer and a Gentleman produced Up Where We Belong sung by Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker made better by The PTL Singers & Orchestra (a BeBe and CeCe Winans duet) and a marvelous cover version on Christian radio arguably the biggest hit on my first radio home. The gospel version was only slightly modified by singing Lord lift us up where we belong instead of love lift us up. How is that any different than Love Lifted Me? God is love, right?

  Before I close; ever consider Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven for gospel radio airplay? That song holds up well despite being secular. Unmodified it would make a great candidate for what I call a reverse crossover. Yesterday I heard Kirk Franklin do an old Kenny Loggins number, This is It, made a great gospel song. Bravo.

  Anyway I am pondering similar ideas for my new Internet radio station that will feature a good mix of secular and sacred both old and new. It will be a whacky format for sure. It will be positive music in the purest form. The best of both worlds without rules of outdated traditions aimed at the seekers of this world not unlike myself.

Stay tuned

The Truth with My Hand Up

My hand to God this is the truth. If it had not happened in church to someone I know and trust. Yada, yada… In my last post I spoke of some gospel lyrics near and dear to my heart; this next song is especially touching to a car guy such as myself (the actual words from my cousin Ray):

Actually it’s...Jesus, he will be my snow tires, in the winter he’s my anti-freeze, when I need him, he is my oil filter, and he's my windshield when there is a breeze!!! C'mon, sing it this time if ‘ya know it!!.. (true song....written by a well-intentioned, but hardly mentally gifted girl from my childhood)

At least it rhymes. Thanks Ray! She took a metaphor and ran with it. Now on to something completely different.

I first met gospel comedian Wendy Bagwell in 1983 at a big gospel music show in Savannah, Georgia. He was over six feet tall with curly dark hair. The only man I have ever met named Wendy. Like Johnny Cash and his Boy Named Sue I believe Bagwell would have had a great story to tell with the origin of his name. This was about the time he first told his Three German Police Dogs story about the disruption that ensues when a yellow cat is introduced to three seeing eye dogs belonging to a group of famous blind singers at the Ebenezer Freewill Baptist Church all day singing and dinner on the ground homecoming. “Those blind folks didn’t know what was going on,” he said, “They just thought they done took that job too cheap.” His theory was that the blind group, unaware of the ruckus, assumed the crowd had broke out in an old fashioned shouting revival.

It turns out that Mr. Bagwell was quite the shrewd businessman as well. He owned Bagwell Sales in metro Atlanta, Georgia. My parents, who were both blind, did business with his furniture store several times over the years. My mom, who is not the least bit shy, confronted Wendy about his comments in the famous bit. “I’m blind, but I know what’s going on,” she commented to him. “I know you do,” Wendy replied with a broad smile and a wink in his voice. “This is the truth what I’m telling you with my hand up,” he would often say before one of his stories which were probably slightly exaggerated. Stretchers, if you will, were his calling card. He was a master showman of the Gospel world. Wendell “Wendy”Lee Bagwell died in 1996 and now has a stretch of US 278 in Georgia, our home state, named after him. Rest in peace.

Stay tuned.

nealrhoden@thepeanutwhistle.com

What's a peanut whistle?

I'm glad you asked. A peanut whistle is a radio station with limited power or listenership or both. It might have the best staff or talent but simply lacks enough umph to reach a broader audience. These media outlets are usually located out in the sticks. These are the places I've hung my hat as a DJ and programmer most often. I've led some very talented people. Some great and near great talents. 

These places are usually programmed for a rural audience. So, I'm not sure if they exist at all any more due to the consolidation of ownership permitted by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The FCC decided to allow ownership of several radio or TV stations in one market. Large corporations have gulped up these peanut whistles at an alarming rate. It wasn't video that killed the radio star, it was corporate greed. More to come. Stay tuned...