Probstisms

As you all know by now, music has been a major part of my life from a very early age. I started playing guitar before I was 10, picked up trumpet at 10, messed around with piano in high school, and decided to learn bass as a junior in college. Clearly, it’s something I like to do, but before actually playing music, I was listening constantly.

Growing up, it seemed like WLS was playing in the background at our house all day long. When they would play the Beatles A-Z over the course of a weekend, the radio would be on and turned up. This was back in The Big 89 and The Rock of Chicago days when WLS was the station for Rock & Roll in Chicago. I even had WLS covers for my school books!

As my music tastes changed moving into the ’90s, I began listening more and more to WXRT. The music overall was more progressive, but they played a great mix of old and new artists that I definitely was not hearing on WLS especially after WLS turned to talk and became completely uncool. I still listen to XRT today thanks to streaming.

Music was, of course, the main reason I enjoyed listening to radio, but there were also some of the best DJs on WLS and XRT over the years. My two favorites were Larry Lujack on WLS and Lin Brehmer on XRT.

These two guys were personable, funny, relatable, and most importantly, picked great music to play during their shows. You could always tell who was spinning the records when these guys were on the air. They told the best stories and made you feel like you really knew them. These guys were different. Lujack really did feel like Uncle Lar, and Brehmer really did feel like your best friend in the whole world.

Both of these radio giants are gone now. We lost Lin recently after a long battle with cancer. His voice is missed. Radio isn’t quite the same. But looking on the bright side as he always did, this one’s for you, Lin.

It’s Friday! It’s great to be alive!

One of the benefits of having children is not being completely ignorant of the newer artists featured during the Grammys each year. This year’s broadcast had many great performances, but in this post, I want to focus on Stevie Wonder.

The Grammys tends to trot out older musicians, and yes, Stevie is older, but you would never know it. The guy is 72, and his voice and piano work are still exceptional and fresh. He put on a hell of a show and showed all of us how it’s done.

This brings me to the point of this post. I’ve always said that if I went through with becoming a music teacher instead of studying finance, I would play music constantly as part of my teaching. I feel like this was a massive failure of the teachers I had through high school. We have recordings of everything. Why not use them? So, this is my way of helping share some amazing music while Stevie is still with us and performing at an insanely high level.

Between 1972 and 1976, Stevie Wonder produced a string of four straight albums that all can be considered once-in-a-career great albums: “Talking Book,” “Innervisions,” “Fulfillingness’ First Finale,” and “Songs in the Key of Life.” Seriously, how does one guy put together a streak like this?

Following are my two favorite songs from each of these albums. Take some time to listen to the incredible music, and then go back and read the lyrics in the context of the early ’70’s. Stevie wasn’t just making great grooves. He was trying to tell us something.