WRTC FM

The annual WRTC fundraising marathon concluded Nov. 11.

On behalf of the staff and management, we thank all of our generous listeners who pledged to support the station.

As the non-commercial radio station of Trinity College, we offer a diverse schedule of 60-plus programs on a weekly basis. Aside from two part-time employees, we’re an all-volunteer organization.

Much of our financial assistance comes from our loyal listeners and we rely on your backing to keep us on the air doing what we do best.

Those who pledged will receive a pledge/payment form in the mail. Just follow the simple instructions and return it to: WRTC Marathon, 300 Summit St., Hartford, CT 06106.

You can also still donate securely online, just click…

“Thank You” premiums will be mailed out in the near future.

For more information, or to make a pledge by phone, contact the station at 860-297-2450.

Thank you again for supporting WRTC!

There are very few drummers who even come close to racking up the number of sessions that the legendary Bernard “Pretty” Purdie has done and the Nov. 5 edition of Greasy Tracks at least scratched the surface of the drummer’s fascinating career.

Check out the archive by clicking here, while a playlist is here. 

Purdie appears at Telefunken Soundstage in South Windsor on Nov. 13 where he will perform as well as conduct a clinic and interview session with Rick Beato. He caps a two-day musical fundraiser to benefit Asperger/Autism Network.

Dating to the late 1950s, Purdie — once known as “the house drummer of Atlantic Records” — played nearly 30,000 sessions, has appeared on more than 4,000 albums and recorded with 2,500-plus different artists, including a deep catalog of solo releases.

Artists he has appeared with, running the gamut from jazz to rock, include Miles Davis, James Brown, Steely Dan, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, BB King, Joe Cocker, Bob Marley, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Mongo Santamaria, Peter Frampton, Hall & Oats, Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff to name only a few.

Employing an innovative use of triplets against a half-time backbeat, Purdie developed an immensely distinct and impactful technique known universally as “the Purdie Shuffle”.

On Oct. 19, WRTC hosted the New Haven-based experimental improvisatory duo, Tongue Depressor, to play in the unique and resonant Crypt Chapel downstairs in the Trinity College Chapel.

You can enjoy the concert yourself with this video. They played the small pipe organ there as well as double bass and bag pipes. Entirely acoustic, their music resonated and reverberated in the enclosed stone space in a wonderful and satisfying way.

The Oct. 15 edition Greasy Tracks featured music from Zero as well as interviews with founding members Greg Anton and Steve Kimock.

Check out the archive by clicking here, while a playlist is here. 

Zero is at Infinity Music Hall in Hartford on Nov. 3, marking the band’s first appearance in the city since 1995 when they played multiple dates at The Blue Star Café.

While the band is finally able to do an east coast run of shows following the shelving of dates due to the pandemic, it’s been a busy year for drummer Anton and guitarist Kimock.

In addition to west coast Zero gigs, Anton released his debut solo album, Starfire, a one-off live recoding he did at TELEFUNKEN Soundstage in South Windsor. He is also working on his second book following the publishing of Face The Music. Kimock has been on the road with Steve Kimock & Friends and will do a handful of dates with Oteil & Friends this month. In January, Kimock is touring with Jazz Is Dead.

And then there was the May release of Naught Again, a live offering featuring tracks recorded during a three-night run at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in 1992. Anton and Kimock discussed the album on the May 21 edition of Greasy Tracks.

Hartford native Anton and Kimock trace their collaboration roots to early 1980 and The Heart of Gold Band, a short-lived line-up featuring ex-Grateful Dead members husband/wife Keith and Donna Godchaux along with bassist John Kahn.

The passing of Keith Godchaux, only days after the band’s debut appearance, hastened the breakup of the group, but Anton and Kimock continued working together in the studio and by 1984, with a somewhat loose aggregation of players, made their first appearance as Zero.

The early edition of the band featured guitarist John Cipollina who remained with Zero until his death in 1989. Core members over the years included bassist Bobby Vega, saxophonist Martin Fierro, keyboardists Banana, John Farey and Chip Roland amongst others.

They released their debut studio album, Here Goes Nothing in 1987, followed by Nothing Goes Here (1989).

In 1992, the band, which had primarily played instrumentals since forming, started working with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Vocalist Judge Murphy soon joined and Zero became a regular go-to for Hunter’s material.

Joined by a handful of special guests, Zero performed at the Great American Music Hall Oct. 14-16, 1992. A portion of those shows was released in 1994 on Chance In A Million. With keyboardist Pete Sears part of Zero during this period, the band also had Nicky Hopkins and Vince Welnick alternating on piano during the run.

In addition to Anton and Kimock, the latest edition of Zero includes Pete Sears (bass), Hadi Al-Sadoon (trumpet) and Spencer Burrows (keyboards), but the Infinity appearance will also include Robert Somerville (saxophone).

The band St. Lucia was featured on the Oct. 10 edition of the Devo Rock Show, including an interview with lead singer and songwriter Jean-Philip Grobler.

Click here to listen to an archive.

St. Lucia just released their fourth album, Utopia (Netwerk Records). The band features Grobler’s wife, Patti Beranek, on vocals and keyboards, Ross Clark (bass), Nick Paul (keyboards) and Dustin Kaufman (drums). They have a distinctly 80s sound with lots of rocking guitars and synthesizers.

Grobler was born and raised in South Africa and currently resides in Germany, but spends a lot of time in the United States focusing on his own music and production work with other artists including, Foster The People, Passion Pit and Wykclef Jean.

His current album is an upbeat take on the sound of the 80s with impeccable production and stunning vocals. Devo caught up with the band at the opening night of their tour, Oct. 7, at The Paradise in Boston. In the interview, Grobler describes his journey through the pandemic and how his new album came to be.

Interviews with noted author Marc Myers and Grammy-winning trumpeter Arturo Sandoval were featured on the Oct. 6 edition of Fifty Shades of Jazz with Lou Pomales.

Check out the archive by clicking here .

Sandoval appearrs at Eastern Connecticut State University on Oct. 15 for a pair of concerts with David Foster & The Shaboo All-Stars supporting.

Myers, who posts daily at  JazzWax, is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal where he writes about music and the arts. His books include: Anatomy of 55 More Songs (Grove Press), Rock Concert (Grove Press), Anatomy of a Song (Grove Press) and Why Jazz Happened (University of California Press). Based in New York City, Myers is a three-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association’s award for Jazz Blog of the Year.

A protégé of Dizzy Gillespie, Sandoval recently released Rhythm & Soul (MetaJAX Entertainment). He has won 10 Grammy Awards, six Billboard Music Awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Sept. 24 edition of Greasy Tracks featured a tribute to legendary jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis who passed away at the age of 87 on Sept 12 as well as an interview and profile of the versatile guitarist Scott Metzger.

A native of Chicago, Lewis’ career spanned seven-plus decades, yielded more than 80 releases as well as three Grammy Awards. Despite his love of blues and jazz, Lewis was, thanks to his parents, exposed to classical and gospel at an early age.

Check out the archive by clicking here, while a playlist is here. 

He’s credited with being a catalyst of bringing jazz to an audience that traditionally listened to pop music, opening what would become a massive market, especially years later with smooth jazz, boosted again, this time by Lewis’ release of the blockbuster Sun Goddess in 1974.

In The Crowd, released in 1965, was the first of Lewis’ five Gold records. The single of the same name from the album went to No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 5 on the Hot 100 chart that year. A year later, it won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by an Individual or Group.

One of the keys to Lewis’ early success was what would become a decade-long collaboration with bassist Eldee Young and drummer Isaac “Red” Holt blended who helped give the music a harder edge with a funky, “roll-your-sleeves-up” feel, despite still being acoustic.

The Brooklyn-based Metzger, best known as a member of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (JRAD), released his debut, solo album, Too Close To Reason (Royal Potato Family), earlier this year.

Between road dates with JRAD, Metzger’s focus as turned to WOLF!, a “Telecaster rock trio” he’s been part of with bassist John Shaw and drummer Taylor Floreth for the past six years. Their second album, Adult Entertainment, (Royal Potato Family) will be released Oct. 28. WOLF! plays The Sultan Room in Brooklyn on Oct. 7; Stage One in Fairfield on Oct. 7; and Soundcheck Studios in Pembroke, Mass., on Oct. 8.

There will be tickets given away to the Stage One show.

In addition to discussing life as a musician during and post-Covid, Metzger talks at length about how WOLF!’s new album came about as well as his love to playing the Telecaster, an instrument not really suited to his JRAD job, but perfect for WOLF!’s approach to making music.

A career overview of and an interview with legendary guitarist Leo Nocentelli was featured on the Sept. 17 edition of Greasy Tracks.

Check out the archive by clicking here, while a playlist is here. 

The New Orleans-based Nocentelli, best known as a founding member of The Meters, plays Infinity Hall in Hartford on Sept. 22.

Nearly a year ago, Nocentelli released  Another Side ( Light In The Attic Records), an album of solo material he recorded in 1971, but would not see the light of day for nearly half a century.

Backed by such Crescent City studio luminaries as Allen Toussaint (keyboards), George Porter, Jr. (bass) and drummers James Black and Zigaboo Modeliste, the effort is a massive departure from the style of The Meters, the iconic band Nocentelli co-founded in 1965. Nocentelli described it as “his Country & Western album.” Another Side is a current Grammy Nominee.

Nocentelli appeared on the Aug. 8, 2019 edition of Greasy Tracks which featured a tribute to the then-recently departed Art Neville.

WRTC recently interviewed Nocentelli and will present segments throughout the program, including the fascinating backstory of his solo album; great memories of working with musicians such as the aforementioned Toussaint, Dr. John and Little Feat’s Lowell George who did several sessions with The Meters when Nocentelli, Modeliste, and Porter were playing with the definitive lineup with Art Neville.

Robin Lane talked about her career and new album on the Aug. 29 edition of the Devo Rock Show.

The interview and career retrospective covered her beginnings in Los Angeles in the late 1960s through her just-released Dirt Road to Heaven (Red on Red Records).

Check out the archive by clicking here.

The daughter of musician and songwriter Ken Lane who worked with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and who wrote the song “Everybody Loves Somebody” which was recorded by Sinatra, Peggy Lee and others before becoming a No. 1 hit for Dean Martin.

She started writing and singing her songs in the late 60s and became part of the Laurel Canyon artist community where she met future Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. Whitten was friends with Neil Young who invited her to sing on his second studio album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere in 1969 with Crazy Horse making its first appearance backing Young. Lane provided harmony vocals on “Round and Round (It Won’t Be Long)”. Lane lived with Young for a short period of time.

Later that year, she met her future husband Andy Summers who later became the guitarist of The Police. He had previously done stints with Soft Machine, Dantalian’s Chariot, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band and a brief spell with a version of Eric Burdon and The Animals. Their marriage only lasted a few years and she decided to move to the east coast where the story takes a turn to Boston.

It was in Boston where she met Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe who had been in The Modern Lovers. She recruited them for her new band The Chartbusters in 1978. Influenced by the new wave of rockers from Boston and New York, The Chartbusters merged her west coast sound with a harder edge. They had a regional hit with “When Things Go Wrong” which became a Boston radio staple. They were signed to Warner Brothers records and started receiving national airplay. The video for “When Things Go Wrong” has the distinction of being the 11th video played when MTV began broadcasting on Aug. 1, 1981, and remained in heavy rotation for the rest of the year.

The Chartbusters had three releases on Warner Brothers before being dropped in 1983 after which the band broke up. Lane’s first effort as a solo artist was a four-song EP, Heart Connection, released by the short-lived Boston independent label, Recon. Records in 1984.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Lane continued to write songs and produce albums while performing with different lineups of The Chartbusters.

In 2003, Piece Of Mind (Windjam) was released by The Chartbusters.

In 2010, she founded  Songbird Sings which is dedicated to helping people work through and recover from traumatic experiences by writing and recording their songs.

Two years ago, she released Instant Album and continued to write songs which later became part of her current release — decidedly more country and Americana in style, yet still echoing her folk and rock past.

The program included a wide selection of music from Neil Young, The Chartbusters and Lane’s later releases.