Bleeped is a new podcast about censorship and the people who stand up to it. Coming June 18th. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joe Stone is the youngest son of the founder of TK Records, Henry Stone, and wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. Henry, however, refused to allow any of his children to work in the music industry. Listen as Joe chronicles how he convinced his father to take a chance on him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you attend a baseball game today, during the seventh inning stretch you’re likely to hear the entire stadium sing, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” We’ve grown so accustomed to singing the song during ballgames that it feels like the ritual has been around forever, but if it wasn’t for a device called the magic lantern, first-wave feminism, and a sportscaster named Harry Caray, our familiar custom wouldn’t exist. This is the story of how a simple Tin Pan Alley ditty embedded itself in baseball tradition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1978 set the record for most album sales with disco surpassing rock & roll for the first time ever. Industry insiders predicted the following year would continue to break sales records, but an economic downturn and a fierce anti-disco backlash proved their predictions false. This is the story of how disco became a four-letter-word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1970, two deejays discovered they had the ability to take the dance floor on a journey by playing records back-to-back, continuously throughout the night. Soon clubs all over the world adopted this style of deejaying, and a new culture and music genre called "disco" emerged. Eight years later, in 1978, disco was the best selling music genre in the world. This is the story of how it got there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Colored American Opera Company was born at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church — the first all-black church in the nation’s capitol — where an Italian priest invited a white Spanish American veteran of the U.S. Marine Band, and teacher of march legend John Philip Sousa, to teach a French style of opéra bouffe to an African American choir. In doing so, in 1873, just a decade after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, together, they created the first American opera company — black or white — in the nation. Listen as Shelley Brown, producer and former artistic director of the Strathmore theater in Bethesda, Maryland, and Patrick Warfield, a professor of musicology at the University of Maryland and author of Making the March King: John Philip Sousa's Washington Years,1854-1893 discuss this hidden American story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When “Time of the Season” became a hit song in 1969, the Zombies had already disbanded. Yet for some reason, there was a band touring around America calling itself the Zombies. Listen as Daniel Ralston, author of the article “The True Story Of The Fake Zombies,” talks about unearthing this forgotten piece of music history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the story of boy band impresario and convicted Ponzi schemer, Lou Pearlman. Listen as Pearlman biographer, Tyler Gray and talent manager Jeanne Tanzy-Williams discuss an individual who was larger than life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vaudeville was once America's most popular form of entertainment. Audiences flocked to the theaters to watch an array of performances ranging from standard singers and comedians, to shadow puppets and a man who eats weird stuff. A few savvy businessmen recognized vaudeville's popularity early on, and ruthlessly built vast networks of theaters. They transformed popular entertainment, for the first time, into big business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1915, Joe Hill, a Swedish-American labor activist, was unjustly convicted and executed by the State of Utah, but not before leaving behind a body of work that would inform the next generation of American folk music. In this episode, we talk with William Adler author of the Joe Hill Biography titled, "The Man Who Never Died," and Clayton Simms, a criminal defense attorney working to get Joe Hill exonerated more than a century later. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.