Category: Our Stories
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Between the Beatles and Woodstock: 10 Songs That Shaped a Generation
When the Beatles landed at JFK Airport in February 1964, they didn’t just arrive in America—they reshaped it. And when nearly half a million people gathered in a muddy New York field in August 1969 for Woodstock, it wasn’t just a concert—it was a culmination. Between these two cultural earthquakes, music did more than entertain.…
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Bing Crosby: Spokane’s Golden Voice
When you think of Spokane and music, there’s one name that resonates through the years—and across the decades: Bing Crosby. Born Harry Lillis Crosby Jr. in Tacoma in 1903, his family moved to Spokane when he was just a toddler in 1906. He would grow up here, attend Gonzaga schools, and return home time and…
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The Music of Innocence: Before the Shift
Before transistor radios.Before Ed Sullivan and The Beatles.Before I knew the charts or cared who wrote the song. Music was technicolor smiles, sweeping choreography, and elegant voices that floated across the screen. It came wrapped in story, in satin gowns and tap shoes, in black-and-white close-ups and wide-eyed wonder. This was the music of innocence.And…
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The King Family and Up with People: Songs for a Sweeter World
Before the Beatles, before transistor radios took over my world, before I learned to tune the dial and find music for myself—there were songs that found me. They came through the television, in technicolor harmony, from families and choirs who sang with bright smiles and polished shoes. Two musical acts stand out from that time:…
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Dancing with America: The Era of Dick Clark and American Bandstand
In the days before MTV and YouTube, if you wanted to see your favorite artists perform, you turned on the television—and no show loomed larger than American Bandstand. Hosted by the eternally youthful Dick Clark, American Bandstand aired nationally from 1957 to 1989, becoming one of the most influential platforms for popular music in American…
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Before the Beatles: The Sound That Set the Stage
By the time the Beatles stepped onto the Ed Sullivan stage in February 1964, the world of music had already been shifting for over a decade. The 1950s gave birth to rock and roll, a sound that blended rhythm and blues, country, gospel, and pop into something loud, thrilling, and, for the time, dangerously new.…
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Tuning In: KJRB and the Magic of AM Radio
If the transistor radio gave me ownership of music, then KJRB 790 AM gave that music a voice. In the early 1960s, tucked into a small town thirty-three miles south of Spokane, I discovered that a tiny radio in my pocket could reach across space and make the world feel bigger. The Beatles were coming,…
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The Pocket Radio: Holding Music in My Hands
Before Spotify, before boomboxes, before cassette tapes in glove compartments, there was the transistor radio. Small enough to slip into a pocket. Cheap enough that kids could buy their own. And powerful enough to change the way America listened to music—forever. The first time I held a transistor radio, it felt like holding a secret.…
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When the Beatles Came to America
Ten weeks had passed since President Kennedy’s assassination. The national mood was still heavy, still stunned. It felt like we were all waiting for something to lift the fog, though we didn’t know what it might be. And then, word began to spread—The Beatles were coming. Their music had already begun to trickle across the…
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The Day JFK Died—and the Music That Carried Me Forward
On the morning of November 22, 1963, I was in music class with my fifth-grade classmates, trying to master the flutophone. Our lesson was held in the high school building of Rosalia, Kansas—a small town where my father also happened to be a teacher. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. It was my…
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