Doo wop documentary Street Corner Soul Episode 3 now on BBC iplayer for one week

What? No, that's just a screengrab. Find a direct iplayer link for Street Corner Soul Episode 3 here, assuming you are reading this within a week of its posting. I'm going to drop any pretence of critical assessment of this radio documentary series and simply urge you to listen to it if you want to learn, or to learn more, about doo wop. Each episode is on BBC iplayer for a week and you should be able to access it in America  as well.

American Hot Wax revisited (Alan Freed biopic)

Saw American Hot Wax today for the first time in about thirty years. Enjoyable enough, although more bitty than I remembered. There are good moments when Tim McIntyre as Alan Freed shows that the music matters to him, but as the film is given over to a concert after around the one hour point there isn't a lot of time to develop character.

Gnome Thoughts ... 34 (The first rock'n'roll record?)

This series started as an exploration of David Bowie's early influences ("Gnome" as in The Laughing Gnome) but has drifted some way from its moorings: in recent posts about rock'n'roll's impact on fifties Britain, Bowie has been mentioned only in passing.

But then again - and do correct me if I'm wrong - the country's denizens in that decade did include one David Robert Jones, born in 1947. And according to wikipedia, as with Alan Charles Klein (b.1940) and so many others, Master Jones's musical epiphany occured in the magical year of 1956, even though he was only nine at the time:

Stand By Me - Part One

I can't remember when I first heard Stand By Me. It may even have been the Lennon reworking, as my earliest definite memory is of dancing to his version during one of the regular rock'n'roll nights at Tiffany's, Glasgow, in 1975, the enduring Rollin' Joe reassuring us (or himself): "John Lennon's coming home."