12/6/08 Playlist: By The Shoreline

Busy, busy show today!

Segment #1 – By the Shoreline
Well, we are heading toward wintertime starting pretty soon and the weather's getting colder. It's been that way here in Nashville, though I know that if I were still in Minnesota winter will have already started in earnest so I won't complain that much! So I thought we'd steer our thoughts toward warm weather and think about being by the shoreline today.

I grew up in West Haven, CT on the southern CT shoreline. I lived three blocks away from the beach and a major amusement park called Savin Rock. This amusement park was around since the 1800s and lasted until the mid-60s. Drive down Beach Street which was the main drag back when I was a kid and you'd see rides like the Virginia Reel and the Flying Horses, and the big roller coaster called the Sky Blazer (in the early part of the 20th century there was a similar huge roller coaster built out onto a pier right off of the beach until a hurricane took it out). We little kids had our own set of rides to go on. The Tilt A Whirl was my favorite and so was the mini roller coaster in the White City section. At night when I was upstairs in my bedroom I could hear the stock car races running from the track by the Sky Blazer. As you could imagine, it was fun being a kid and growing up with all that close by. Savin Rock started going downhill by the time I came along but I managed to get a few good years in before redevelopment took over in 1967 and the park was torn down. But there are lots of memories and some great music as the soundtrack of our lives during that time. And when you think of the beach, who else do you think of but...the Beach Boys.

I Get Around – Beach Boys
So Much In Love – Tymes
Under the Boardwalk – Drifters
Summertime - Billy Stewart (technical glitch of the day--one of the CD players was left on continuous and those impatient Drifters again (!!) wanted to keep singing. So I started over.)
Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys

When I do look back at all of this, I remember that for me it was mostly about--food. There were a lot of great restaurants around that beach area and it was a big deal for me when I'd get to go. There were Jimmies and Phyllis' which were your stereotypical 50s drive in restaurants. The one I liked the best was Turk's. It was a white building with a big old hot dog drawn on the front of it, and my dad would always let me get my hot dog, chocolate milk and French fries. Occasionally I'd get to go to Scotty's further down the shore which had the best vanilla malts and shoestring fries...these were soft, not those over-fried things you get today. When I would get taken to the beach, always with my parents or my sister (I was never allowed to go alone), I always hinted to get some food from a place across the road from the beach that still exists today and has changed very little, Chick's Drive –In. I didn't always get my way, but when I did I had some of their great French fries. They don't make hot dogs and French fries like that anymore. But those were great times, great memories.

Pitch for Radio Free Nashville year end giving

Segment #2 – Picking Through the Record Box
You know, I was talking to some people earlier this week about this part of the show and they used to do the same thing with their boxes of records, just going through and bringing out things they'd feel like hearing. Let me go back to the Beach Boys and do a little shameless self-promotion. When I was growing up, the song I would get sung to me most often was "Windy" by the Association...but I'll take my props on this song.
Wendy- Beach Boys
100 Pounds of Clay - Gene McDaniel
Baby Love - Supremes
Black Is Black - Los Bravos

Segment #3 – Soul Stew
In my first year here there was an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum called Night Train to Nashville. They had a video screen where they showed some old black and white footage of a Nashville music TV show from back in the 60s, and when you put me in front of that sort of thing, it's hard to move and I think they almost had to throw me out of there. Along with the exhibit came the release of a two CD set covering R &B from 1945-1970, so I took a couple today from that collection.
The Chokin Kind - Joe Simon
Talking About My Baby - Impressions
Sunny – Bobby Hebb
Anna - Arthur Alexander
Everlasting Love - Robert Knight

Segment #4 Current
For our recent/current day section, I do a feature on my wendyv MySpace page where I highlight a different singer/songwriter each week. My pick for this past week is in my opinion a first class male vocalist—one of the best singers I've heard in the past seven years. Somebody needs to sign this guy. This track is A1 as well—some great players on here. - Turn the Knife - George Adams

Army of Angels - Randi Perkins-(my guest from a month or so back)

Well sometimes it does take an army of angels to turn love around, but other times it just takes one person to reach out and change things. This piece I'm going to share with you is my Wendy V's Encouraging Words column on my Embrace Encouragement website for this month and it's called What If You Just LOVED?

Closer: Soul Serenade - King Curtis (this might be a keeper...works nicely as a fadeout..especially yesterday when the automation didn't kick in on time!)

A couple of glitches on my end and the station had some technical issues going on earlier in the day--we were off the air on FM for awhile but came back on by 2 p.m. So all things considered, not bad. I was really happy with how I did the pitch.