Robert Baird

A hit abroad but relatively unknown at home. That describes Cheap Trick who I wrote about here recently and also, believe it or not, Otis Redding. He was a big hit in the U.K. and even it seems in Paris before he hit at home with his final single, “(Sittin’ on the) “Dock of the Bay.”

Being a sixty year old rock star ain't easy, but there’s gotta be a better way for rock bands to grow old than the one Aerosmith has chosen. A symphony gig? What's next Disneyland on a co-bill with Up With People?

You know there are days and then there are DAYS. Yesterday I had one of the latter, but music in the end was what saved me.

Moving. Who Doesn’t Love It? So Stereophile has once again moved, fortunately only three floors down in the same building this time out.

The man is virtuoso and is not to be missed.

For the musically literate it’s an old story but one that I never tire of telling. It was the scruffy, outlaw country singer warbling Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and the Gershwins? He wasn’t singer enough to carry it, they all said. And even if by some miracle he did, his label was convinced it would never find an audience, it would never sell. When Booker T. Jones of Stax Records fame signed on as producer, heads were scratched, skeptical eyes rolled northward and virtually everyone had their doubts.

"I’m not an audiophile but I’m very geeky about other things."