Imagine, if just for a second, that President Obama had ordered peaceful protesters outside a historic church to be dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets just so he could get a photo op with an upside down Bible. No clergy at the church were consulted, no prayers were made and no passages of scripture…
Tag: Commodores
Commodores Bassist Ronald LaPread On Marching With Martin Luther King – My NZ Herald Article
Last week the New Zealand Herald published my article about the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Junior. Click here to link to the piece that details my 2016 visit to the site of King’s assassination, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. If you’re planning a trip to the States and Memphis is somehow missing…
Music With A Message – My Newstalk ZB Interview On Why Pop Matters
A few weeks back I was interviewed on another Newstalk ZB show, Total Recall, about pop songs that have a message and a conscience. As someone who loves popular music and the possibilities of the format (including when it’s being highly socially charged) this is one of my favourite topics. In the clip below (approximately…
Coast Soul Turns 1! Celebrating 50 Years Of The Greatest Soul & R&B
My soul and R&B iHeartRadio station and Coast FM radio show, Coast Soul, turned one last week. To celebrate, all the featured artists were the greatest of the great – think Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, the Temptations, Diana Ross, the Commodores, Aretha Franklin etc. One of the joys of creating this station is the balance between…
The Only Station Playing Both ‘Uptown Funk’ & ‘Play That Funky Music’ – Introducing ‘Soul’ On iHeartRadio
Listen to ‘Coast Soul’ by Tim Roxborogh on Coast FM every Sunday from 6pm-8pm. Until the station ‘Soul’ launched on iHeartRadio in April 2016 (created by Tim Roxborogh with David Brice), there was no format in New Zealand playing both Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk and Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music. Two of the most…
The Launch Of ‘Soul’ – My New iHeart Radio Station Playing The Best Classic Soul & R&B
It’s fair to say I’ve been planning this for a little while. The first time I landed in Los Angeles was in 2006 and I passed a billboard overlooking the freeway in my taxi that I’ve never forgotten. It was advertising a radio station that played “everything from Marvin Gaye to Alicia Keys”. “They’ve stolen…
Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White Dies – Their Epic Rivalry With The Commodores
Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire. Maurice White was the heart and soul of a band who overflowed with both. They overflowed with funk too, not to mention the touches of jazz and gospel and the grooves of Africa and Latin America that ran through their music. And all told, some of the greatest…
The Commodores 10 Funkiest Songs
The Commodores in the mid 70s. Today is the 66th birthday of one of the funkiest bass guitarists in history so it seemed like a good time wheel out this little top 10 list. Ronald LaPread was the bassist for the Commodores from 1969 until his departure for a new life in New Zealand in…
My Favourite Interviews, A Montage Including Barry Gibb, Lionel Richie, Lindsey Buckingham, Sheryl Crow, Paul Michael Glaser and More
With Barry Gibb, February 2013. Over the course of my broadcasting career I’ve been incredibly fortunate to interview so many people I admire, from music legends to sporting heroes to movie stars to Prime Ministers. People often want to know who was the funniest, friendliest, the most down-to-earth and of course, the worst. The truth…
Lionel Richie Review – ‘All The Hits, All Night Long’, Anaheim 2014 + Lionel & Nicole At The Piano
The view from the 5th row at the Honda Centre, Anaheim, June 3rd. It wasn’t just Barry Gibb I was lucky enough to see live in LA a couple of weeks ago, it was also Lionel Richie. Between the two of them, these genius pop songwriters have written 25 US#1 hits (16 for Barry, nine…
The Top 5 Underrated Lionel Richie Ballads
In my attempts to get over being unable to attend last night’s Lionel Richie concert (and mini-Commodores reunion with bassist Ronald LaPread), I thought I’d bust out another one of my “underrated” lists. A few days ago I wrote of Lionel Richie’s considerable funk credentials with a piece about the 10 best Commodores funk songs,…
Missing Kiwi On MH370 A Passionate Lionel Richie And Bee Gees Fan
The latest developments in the mystery of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 have turned attention towards the pilot and have in turn raised hopes, albeit faint, that the people onboard may still be alive. It’s really only when you find out the personal stories about people involved in tragedies that your cold fascination with a news…