Robert Baird

Watched James Brown's widow Tomi (not Tammy, she’s touchy), on Larry King last nite. Larry, who was at low ebb last nite and looked real bored by being used as a platform in a marriage dispute, wasn't buying any of it. Larry, bad manicure and all, looks like he's interviewed enough grieving, flaky–as–hell rock star widows.

Moving. Who Doesn’t Love It?

So Stereophile has once again moved, fortunately only three floors down in the same building this time out.

While diving into the totality of Mozart, or Beethoven as was done in Immortal Beloved sounds like fun, it’s actually hard as hell.

So let get me this straight. Orrin Hatch, Republican senator from Utah, is one of the heavy hitters whose deluge of 11th hour phone calls not only springs music producer Dallas Austin out of a Dubai jail for coke possession, but it also helps to turn a four year jail sentence into a pardon?

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."

Photo:Jason Creps