I’m currently writing a film set in early 1970s Los Angeles, and was curious about the process songs would go from from 24-track studio recordings to being played on the radio. How did music go from the artist to the label to the radio stations?

... what stories, albums and events would you add?

‘Waiting on a Friend’ took nearly a decade to find its final form. Discover how an unfinished 1972 track became one of the Stones’ most unexpected songs.

The amount of absolute classics that totally flopped is flippin’ crazy!

This song features Puckett's signature thumb-picking guitar style and vocal delivery in a traditional blues structure. The lyrics use the 1920s slang phrase "long tongue" - gossip.

I’ve been looking at the lives of major artists from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and I’ve noticed what seems to be a recurring pattern.
Artists such as Etta James, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, Prince, Amy Winehouse and others had documented struggles with substance abuse, addiction, mental-health issues, trauma or serious personal problems.
Obviously, not every artist from those decades followed this path. Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner and many others had long and successful careers without the same kind of public addiction story.
But why does this pattern seem so noticeable among famous musicians from the 1960s through the 1990s?
Was it the culture of the music industry at the time? The pressure of fame and touring? Trauma and difficult childhoods? The widespread availability and social acceptance of drugs and alcohol? Or was mental health simply less understood and treated during those decades?

Who coined the term “Slow Jam”?

Like a lot of people, I always associated the phrase with Midnight Star. Their song “Slow Jam” came out in 1983 and helped make the term part of the R&B vocabulary.

But the phrase is much older than that.

The earliest documented use we’ve been able to locate dates back to July 1, 1961, in The Chicago Defender — more than 22 years before Midnight Star’s record.

The Defender, one of the most important Black newspapers in American history, used the term in a music column covering records from artists including Ike & Tina Turner and Mary Wells, with legendary Chicago radio personality Herb Kent also mentioned.

We had some help from the Chicago Public Library digging through the historical material and piecing everything together.

So, based on the earliest documented evidence we’ve found:

Who coined the term Slow Jam? It was The Chicago Defender newspaper.

Or, put another way: The Chicago Defender created the term Slow Jam, as far as the currently documented historical record shows.

I find that fascinating because today “slow jam” feels like one of those phrases that has simply always existed. It became shorthand for an entire style of romantic R&B — but there’s an actual paper trail taking us back to Chicago in 1961.

I wrote up the whole story here, including more about what we found:

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS

For anyone wondering about my connection to all this: I’m R Dub!, creator and host of Slow Jams with R Dub! / Sunday Night Slow Jams. I started the radio show as a teenager in 1994, basically as a weekly show dedicated entirely to R&B love songs, dedications and — naturally — Slow Jams.

If you've never heard it, the format is a little different from a normal music show: listeners call or write in from around the world with dedications and stories, and those are mixed in with classic and contemporary R&B Slow Jams. Today the show is syndicated on hundreds of radio stations, so depending on where you live, there may be a local station carrying it. You can find your nearest affiliate — or listen online — through SlowJams.com.

Would love to hear from the music historians here: has anyone found an example of the phrase “slow jam” in print or on a recording earlier than July 1, 1961?

I'm a big jazz fan, and have been in a huge crooner/crooner-ish phase. Lots of Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the likes. So many of these songs consist of flings in Tahiti or quick jets off to Mandalay. Even songs about living in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. It seems like these guys were sooooo well travelled if they sing about true things. I'm curious if this was feasible? Was travel cheaper at the time? were these guys flaunting wealth in a way that rappers do today when they talk about cars and houses? Or... are they just singing made up stories and made up songs?

I don't know if this is the exact right reddit, but I guess I would just like a clearer picture of the status of travel, vacation, exploration, and the cost of it all at the time. If you have any clarifying quesytions please let me know.

My friends, as promised, I want to open my studio doors and take you back to the very beginning of my musical journey. Let’s talk about how CELESTE was born in September 1972, just a few months after the dissolution of my proto-prog band, Il Sistema.

To understand the atmosphere, we have to look at how Il Sistema dissolved. By 1971, due to artistic disagreements, our guitarist Enzo Merogno left us to join what would become Museo Rosenbach. He was replaced by Guido Damiani. At that time, I was deeply immersed in my studies of composition, piano, flute, oboe, and synthesizer. While I stayed with the band, I handed over the drum stool to a new member, Guido Sottile, so I could focus on composition.

My lifelong friend Leonardo Lagorio was handling the alto and tenor saxophones, flute, and electric piano—back then, he played a Farfisa Professional Piano, and later added one of the very first Wurlitzer electric pianos. Shortly after, Leo would also briefly join Museo Rosenbach to record their iconic album. Our lineup was completed by Floriano Roggero on the Hammond L 122 organ with an original Leslie and a Thomas Rapier 1155 organ (the exact model used by Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine), and Luciano Cavanna on bass, flugelhorn, and lead vocals, who later chose a completely different life path.

Once the experience with Museo Rosenbach ended, Leonardo Lagorio and I met again. We decided to create a brand-new project capable of diving deeper into the spaces that Il Sistema had only touched upon. We wanted to explore the classical, acoustic side of progressive rock, heavily inspired by the late 19th-century Russian classical tradition—especially the works of Mussorgsky, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Through endless phone calls, Leonardo and I designed the theory of our new sound. We systematically assigned roles to create a lineup that would no longer depend on the pure, aggressive sounds of traditional rock. We were looking for pure, pastoral poetry.

Next week, I will tell you how we recruited Mariano Schiavolini and how we completely removed the traditional rock drums to let the acoustic guitar arpeggios breathe.

Thank you for walking this historical path with me!

Ciro Perrino
Official Universe & Signed Editions: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Thoughts about how Congress changed the future forever with the passage of this Act? Before it was changed vs After it’s passing? The history of not just music, but social “norms” that define our beliefs and our biases, even today. The early record companies such as Victory, Columbia, both incorporated in the 1880’s-1890’s before sound was considered a “work.” A copyright was given to written “works.” Before player pianos. Musicians we’re called “minstrels.” Music was categorized by the type of live performance. Genre was created for accounting, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. This led to the revision of copyright law. Now, if you did not happen to fit the model defined by the record company, you experienced disadvantage. Did fit the stereotype? “Sorry, not interested.” Now that is the only measure most music consumers apply. Spotify does it. Columbia (now owned by Sony) does it, still! What measure have you been taught for appreciating music, as Art, and are you aware you were taught it?

To understand the technical miracle behind our 2026 jubilee edition, "Prince of One Day", we must recall a dramatic event from the late 1970s. A catastrophic flood hit Genoa, completely submerging our recording studio. The water and mud destroyed our entire archival vault, including the original analog master tapes of "Principe di un giorno". For decades, we believed the pure, multi-track sonic essence of that 1976 session was lost forever.

When I decided to restore the album to its original concept—featuring Siobhán Owen's angelic English vocals—we had to perform true audio archaeology. We could not use the corrupted sub-masters. Instead, we hunted down a flawless, unplayed, absolute "Mint" condition original 1976 vinyl press from my private collection.

My historical sound engineer, Marco Canepa, achieved the impossible. Using advanced digital separation technology, he surgically isolated the instrumental backing tracks (the Mellotrons, flutes, and acoustic guitars) directly from the vinyl grooves, completely removing my original 1976 vocals. The clarity and warmth of that analog pressing were fully preserved, creating a pristine canvas for Siobhán's breathtaking Celtic performance. This is not a simple remix; it is a resurrection born from the only surviving artifact.

Many of you have written to me expressing deep fascination with the roots of our soundscapes. Now that the mystery of the 2026 restoration is revealed, I would love to take you even further back in time. From the next chapter, we will travel to September 1972, exploring the birth of CELESTE right after the dissolution of my proto-prog band, Il Sistema.

Stay tuned to discover how the journey truly began!

Ciro Perrino
Official Catalog & Signed Copies: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Oliver Shaw was born in Middleborough, Massachusetts in 1779. He lost sight in each eye at a young age, each from a different cause, and his parents sent him to Newport, Rhode Island so he could study music with John L. Birkenhead, the organist at Trinity Church, who was also blind. That training shaped the rest of his life.

Shaw later settled in Providence, where he became a music teacher, publisher, organist, and prolific composer. He stayed active in Rhode Island’s musical life until his death in 1848.

Here’s the part music educators will appreciate:

One of Shaw’s own students was Lowell Mason, who went on to become one of the most influential figures in 19th‑century American music education. Mason’s work shaped how generations of Americans learned music.

It’s a great example of how Newport’s musical heritage connects directly to the broader story of American music.

Newly released 1970s footage shows Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock performance from an intimate, stage-side perspective captured by a 22-year-old college student.

Ok, this might be the strangest post on this sub, but I've been developing a playlist of songs that reuse the melody of John Brown's Body. I started diving into some music history, specifically of this song, and realized there are quite a few songs that hail back to it (or more accurately, Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us, which John Brown got its melody from). So, I wanted to make a more comprehensive list. So far, I have the following songs:

1. Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us
2. John Brown's Body
3. Battle Hymn of the Republic
4. Glory (University of Georgia)
5. Solidarity Forever
6. Belfast Brigade
7. The Firth of the Forth
8. Blood Upon the Risers
9. Pikku Matin auto
10. Up Went Nelson
11. Jesus Can't Play Rugby
12. Vatican Broadside

I was hoping ya'll could help me expand this list.

To truly understand the historical and creative roots of CELESTE's 1976 debut masterpiece, "Principe di un giorno", we must explore the spiritual and geographic environment where its core inspiration was born, long before the band entered the studio in Genoa.

When I was 14 years old, I spent a summer high in the silent Alps at an ancient sanctuary managed by a Jesuit priest, Father Daniele Fontana. He was a man of extraordinary intellectual and theological culture, and he became a fundamental guide for my youth. Under his influence, I began to perceive a strong connection between internal silence, the wild poetry of alpine nature, and structural musical composition.

One afternoon, a violent, unexpected mountain storm trapped me on the trails. As the sky turned pitch black, I managed to find shelter inside a tiny, isolated stone chapel. Inside that small room, while the rain battered the rocks outside, an absolute, heavy silence filled the space. It was in that precise moment of isolation that the foundational, melodic layouts and fairy-tale atmosphere of the Prince were permanently carved into my memory. Years later, those exact feelings were translated into the flutes, acoustic textures, and Mellotron chords that international progressive rock collectors know today.

Tomorrow, I will share the dramatic historical account of the 1970s Genoa flood, which completely destroyed our original master tapes, and how a single vinyl copy allowed us to perform our modern audio archaeology. Stay tuned for Chapter 3!

Ciro Perrino
Official Catalog & Audio Archaeology: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Wanna explore music, politics, and culture? In this video, we trace the 100-year journey of Bob Marley's famous reggae song "I Shot the Sheriff." From the speeches of Marcus Garvey to the rise of Rastafari, through Eric Clapton's cover, all the way to the Black Lives Matter protests.