The Bad Piano Player
The Bad Piano Player
John Wing Jr.
A weekly musical podcast diving into popular music of the 20s, 30s, and 40s.
Billboard Bottoms of the 70s
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player goes back to the 1970s, and finds some classics hiding in the cellar of the Billboard top 100. Hope you can drop by for the memories. Tunes ahoy!
Jul 7
46 min
Baby Songs II
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player returns to a topic that got the most downloads last season. And I’m not just doing it to enhance my popularity in Taiwan. Please enjoy Baby Songs Two!
Jun 23
36 min
Harry Warren IIII
Send us Fan Mail The Bad Piano Player returns to a stalwart, a composer everybody knows and nobody knows with our fourth Harry Warren episode. Seven fabulous songs from the master of melody and progression, with Lyrics by Johnny Burke, Gus Kahn, Al Dubin, Ira Gershwin, Edgar Leslie, Mort Dixon and Joe Young. Only the best for my listeners. Tune in for tunefulness!
Jun 9
43 min
Lew Brown
Send us Fan Mail This week the bad piano player features lyricist Lew Brown, born Louis Brownstein in Odessa , Russia in 1893. He estimated that he had collaborated on more than seven thousand songs in his career. We’re learning a small percentage of those for this episode. Tune in!
May 26
33 min
Gus Kahn II
Send us Fan Mail This week the bad piano player rights a great wrong and finally does a second Gus Kahn episode. The lyricist extraordinaire, who worked with literally every major popular song composer from 1915 to the early 1940s. First featured in season 1, episode 11, he makes his encore appearance now in season 7, episode 186. Words for the tunes, my friends.
May 12
38 min
Clarence Williams -Blues 2
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player does his second-ever Blues episode, featuring composer Clarence Williams, 1893-1965. Six of his best, five provided by our special friend Norman. Tune in for some blues history and some great blues played by a bad pianist!
Apr 28
37 min
Cy Coleman On Broadway
Send us Fan Mail This Fortnight Tuesday, the bad piano player returns to Broadway to feature a great composer who was active on the Great White Way for more than forty years. Tune in for the Cy Coleman story and stay for the songs.
Apr 14
37 min
Grab Bag IIII
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player pulls together six songs from the (kind of) miscellaneous file and makes a wonderful episode out of them. We call it Grab Bag Four. Tune in and see if you can spot your favorite!
Mar 31
33 min
George Meyer
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player goes even further back into obscure composers of the American songbook, to find George Meyer 1884-1959, born in Boston and wrote a lot of music, including the classic For Me And My Gal, which, you guessed it, we won't be doing. Tune in for the tunes, stay for the lyrics!
Mar 17
37 min
Tom Waits 4 No Man
Send us Fan Mail This week, the bad piano player finally gives a songwriter a rare fourth episode. We had to find six really depressing Tom Waits songs, but luckily, he wrote a lot for us to choose from. No repeats fourth T Waits. Tune in and wallow in the Brechtian mood swings on this one, kids.
Mar 3
38 min
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