KKRN FM, is a volunteer-based, listener-supported radio station fostering positive social change and healthy communities by entertaining, informing and educating through diverse music, culture, news, and public affairs programming.

Click for information on our featured guitarists Chuck Loeb, Charles Valona & Peter White

Share Tweet Email

Below is  playable copy of this show. If you notice a similarity to this show to my show on May the 2nd, you are right. An error occurred and the May 2nd show (repeated on May 6th) was never played over the radio. I definitely wanted you to hear this show and information and music starting the second hour from a remarkable local musician Charles Valona. Therefore I modified the previous show with updates to Billboard's top three songs. My apologies to those of you that listen on line from The Smooth Side Of Jazz station archives for the repeated material.

Our show's opening segment is from an album that has deep meaning with the current crisis. Originally the late Guitarist Chuck Loeb released this album around the time this country suffered through 9/11. It had deep meaning to us at that time even though Loeb released it prior to knowing such a horrific event would occur. The album is titled In A Heartbeat and the theme was how our lives can totally change instantaneously . This is something we can definitely relate to at this time.

The first hour will then have brand new Smooth Jazz, the very latest, from Brian Culbertson, Marcus Anderson, Michael J. Thomas, Special EFX, Lisa Addeo, and Skinny Hightower. As always in the middle of that hour, I will play Billboard's top three songs in Smooth Jazz for the week.

At the beginning of the second hour, I would like to play a song from one of the Redding area's very best musicians. Originally from the Los Angeles area, and then 21 years in the Bay Area, Charles Valona moved to our neck of the woods in the year 2000. He carried with him a life work and passion for music that has continued for now over 50 years. Since moving to the Redding area, Valona’s trio has extensively treated us to great music at a large number of local events and venues. The trio performs a variety of Jazz, Pop and Blues classics, and Latin music with a distinct blend of musical genres and styles. From The Charles Valona Trio’s album Cool’n It, the song to be played is Lulu’s Latin Lullaby.

Following next is our Turn Up The Quiet Time where you will hear five uninterrupted songs in a row.

Normally at this point of the show,  I play classics from Smooth Jazz. However for this week we have so many new releases coming out that I will continue to play them right up to our classic among classics segment. It is hard to believe when I started this show a couple of years ago, I could cover new releases in one-half an hour. Now this year it is beginning to take up a large portion of our two hours and it is still not enough. Smooth Jazz is certainly enjoying a resurgence.

For our classic among classics segment let’s have a look at the early career of one of Smooth Jazz’s most influential performers guitarist Peter White. He has been this program’s most played artist. Peter White is a multi-instrumentalist from England. Strangely enough his first major  job in music was as a pianist for rock and roller Al Stewart. Stewart already had a guitarist and Peter White took a job that was available. He was with Al Stewart for twenty years and they co-wrote many songs. He soon began to play guitar on occasion as well as the piano. 

Their 1976 album On The Border changed Peter White’s life forever. Stewart encouraged him to play the nylon string guitar also known as the Spanish guitar. From that moment forward this has become Peter White’s sound. I can not tell that story without playing that song On The Border with Peter White on the Spanish guitar and a vocal by Al Stewart.

Peter White’s brother Danny formed the group Matt Bianco, which included a young tantalizing polish singer known simply as Basia because no one especially me would ever attempt to pronounce her last name. Soon Danny White and Basia left the group to launch the singer's solo career. Basia's 1987 Epic debut album, Time and Tide, went platinum, bolstered by the hit singles "New Day for You" and "Time and Tide."  Danny asked Peter to tour with him and Basia in 1990. At the same time Peter White began releasing albums and beginning his own solo career. Peter White’s debut album in1990 Reveillez-vous  had this terrific song that I will play,  Romance Dance that set the tempo for all that would follow in his incomparable career.

This week’s non smooth jazz classic among classics was composed both music and lyrics by Stevie Wonder, winner of an amazing 25 Grammys and with 74 nominations. He won a Grammy in 1973 for this song for Best Pop Vocal Performance and was nominated for Record Of The Year. Played to close out this show is Stevie Wonder with You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.

Thank you for your continuing support of this program and KKRN.

Comments
You must be signed in to post comments.