Marshall Crenshaw

#229 - original air-date - Apr. 16, 2016
2016 was a particularly brutal year for losses among Popular Music heroes, like Prince, Merle Haggard, and David Bowie, all within the first part of the year (and it just went on from there).
On this show we commune with the spirit of David Bowie by exploring a Vanity Fair article that he wrote in 2003 called “Confessions Of a Vinyl Junkie”. He had brilliant musical taste, so we learn a lot from this random list of 25 of his favorite albums.

#266 - Mar. 18, 2017
Here’s what I originally said about this show when it ran:

“I’m pleased to announce that this week's Bottomless Pit will be another "All 45 RPM Edition" of the program! Audiophiles, you've been warned…

And the show includes an at-length tribute to the great multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur Sylvia Robinson. She left her mark on Popular Culture in so many ways; I really don't know who to compare her to… 

All in all, we'll hear a bunch of great 45s from my personal record collection by artistes like The Moments, Ike and Tina Turner, The Flamin' Groovies, The Byrds, Jan and Dean, The Voxpoppers, Mickey and Sylvia, and many more..
That's the Bottomless Pit, Saturdays at 10 PM EDT, on WFUV (wfuv.org)…”

For her last hurrah in the music business she established Sugarhill Records and revolutionized Popular Music with masterpieces like “The Message”, and “Rapper’s Delight”. Sylvia Robinson should be on a postage stamp!

#105 - (7/6/13) Aug. 27, 2016
The slightly oddball thing about this one is that it’s a 2016 rerun version of a show from 2013- I couldn’t find the original show files…

Anyway, this is, musically one of the best BPs EVER, for my money- it’s a salute to the great record man/show-business entrepreneur Don Robey of Houston, Texas ca. 1949- 69 and his incredible family of record labels: Peacock, Duke, Back Beat, and all the others.

We honor the legacy, celebrate the history, and revel in the sounds of The Blind Boys of Mississippi, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Johnny Ace, Willie Mae Thornton, The Sensational Nightingales, and all the rest. This one will, or should, definitely make you say God Bless America!

#263 - Feb. 25, 2017
I don’t know what to call this one, or how to categorize it- it’s just a good solid Bottomless Pit show with a nice eclectic playlist. Here’s what I said about it on my WFUV blog just before it aired:

I hope you'll join me for this week's Bottomless Pit. The show is a "weekly roundup of items from my personal record collection"; everything that gets played on the show was either, purchased, received, or stolen by me…

This week we'll hear from the following artistes, plus lots more: Burt Bacharach w/ Rufus Wainwright, Duke Ellington w/ Al Hibbler, West Indian Girl, Brigitte Bardot, Augustus Pablo, Madlib, Bo Diddley

#232 - original air-date- May 21, 2016
The “All 45-RPM Show” was a recurring event on the Bottomless Pit. Over the years I did one every 10-12 weeks. Here’s a typically eclectic one.

#244 - September 10, 2016
A Tony Bennett salute! Tony’s gone now, but was alive and well on the original air-date of this Bottomless Pit show.

Here’s my original post about it from back then:

On this week’s Bottomless Pit, for nearly the full hour, we shine the audio spotlight on the utterly great Tony Bennett, who celebrated his 90th birthday on August 3rd. Phyllis Schlafly is dead and gone but Tony Bennett still lives, breathes, and sings! Sometimes there’s Righteousness in this world…

Apologies for taking a cheap shot at Mrs. Schlafly, but I couldn’t resist; I think she’d just passed away when I wrote that post. Her name doesn’t come up at all during the program itself, I promise.
Then the show shifts gears for part 3:

We'll also hear some selections from a great CD that I just got my hands on (a friend gave me his copy, actually), called "Panorama City". It's a collaboration between Double-Naught Spy Car (genius, eclectic LA Rock band), and brilliant singer-songwriter Stew. This music will have you awe-struck and laughing and the same time.

All this and more on this quite-good installment of The Best of The Bottomless Pit…

#234 - from June 4, 2016
The late great Rock artiste Cub Koda was someone that I was glad to know. He was the first Rock musician I ever knew who had his own radio show- maybe I got the idea from him.

Another recurring show motif on the Bottomless Pit was called “What Might Cub Play?”, where I’d try and tap into his own unique stream of consciousness. On this edition, I throw in lots of great Bollywood Rock and Roll and ask the musical question, “Would Cub Have Liked This Stuff?”.

#239 - the Town of Woodstock, New York (2016)
Over the years I almost never plugged my own projects on the show (sometimes I’d talk about them after the fact), but I did engage in cronyism many times. During this entire show I’m plugging, and exploring the contents of, a great book by my friend Barney Hoskyns, “Small Town Talk”.  

Here’s what I said about it at the time:

It's an in-depth survey of the musical legacy of the Town of Woodstock, NY, a place that I know super-well; I lived there from 1987 to 2005. Barney's book struck an emotional chord with me and was a vivid reading experience. 
This Saturday on the show we'll hear lots of beautiful and brilliant stuff by Karen Dalton, Tim Hardin, Bob Dylan, Karl Berger, Sonia Malkine, Levon Helm, and various usual and unusual suspects.

So, it’s another mini-documentary style installment of “The Best of The Bottomless Pit w/ Marshall Crenshaw”.

#170 - from Nov. 15, 2014 
A salute to the Danelectro company, of Neptune City, NJ, it’s founder Nathan Daniel, and some of the great artistes who helped immortalize the brand, like Randy California, Rene Hall, Jack Bruce, Vinnie Bell, Joey Spampinato, and many more.
 

#248 - original air-date, Oct. 8, 2016
I used a book as a roadmap for this show, one called Drummin’ Men, by Burt Korall, all about the great drummers of the Swing Era. These are the guys who grabbed the world and shook it, you might say. This is one of those Bottomless Pit shows that is sort of like a mini-documentary, where I put the music in context, describe all the amazing characters who made the music happen, etc…

This show revolves two favorite recording artists of mine, (1) guitar genius Bill Frisell, and (2)  the troubled, infamous, and pioneering UK record producer Joe Meek.

During Pt. 1,  I pick up where I left off from the previous week’s show with a salute to Bill’s 2014 album, “Guitar In the Space Age” - I really flipped for that one when it came out.

This is what I had to say about Pts. 2 and 3 in the show’s original blog post:

Then we'll hear a bunch of stuff that was filtered through the brilliant and deranged mind of legendary record producer (and murderer), Joe Meek. The building in London where he "Lived, Worked, and Died" is a National Historic Site!…

His story is a tragic one, but the music lives on…

#224 - from Mar. 12, 2016
Most of what I played over the years could be described as Americana of one kind or another- on this show we get into the “Americana”, genre, with Kurt Vile, Porter Wagoner, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, et. al.

Original air-date: Oct. 1, 2017
One of the last Bottomless Pit shows. Once the show switched to Sunday nights, I was then occupying part of what had been, for 30+ years, Rich Conaty’s time slot. His show, “The Big Broadcast” was a NY radio institution; he was a fanatic for, and authority on, early Jazz, and the Popular Music of the 1920s and 30s. His show was amazing, and he was a great guy. After he was gone, every three, four, or five weeks I would pay tribute to him, and to the era of music that he always explored so brilliantly. This show is an “all-Brit Edition,” featuring Ray Noble, George Formby, Vera Lynn, Ambrose and His Orchestra, et.al, plus we sneak back over to the US to hear The Mills Brothers, and The Boswell Sisters, Rich’s two favorite vocal groups, and two of mine.

#285 - from Sept. 24, 2017
A roundup of items from the “Electronic” playlist in my iTunes music library, and it’s a pretty diverse range, including Silver Apples, “Verve Remixed”, J Dilla, Madlib, Andre Popp, etc.

#43- circa 2011-12: 
One from the very early days of the Bottomless Pit on WFUV (I don’t have the exact broadcast dates on the first few dozen shows because of the weird way I used to index them).

This one starts off with a two-part salute to the Fender Jazzmaster, which is of course an iconic American object from the mind of American genius Leo Fender. It made its debut in the Fender catalog in 1959, is of course still popular, and has been used over the years in ways that Leo Fender never could’ve imagined. His intent was to create an instrument for the Jazz guitarists of the day- it didn’t quite work out that way, but again, the instrument is still beloved, and still inspiring people. I’ve had a couple of nice ones over the years, but I mostly like to hear other people play them.

Tune in and hear the sounds of Lightnin’ Slim, Roy Lanham, Rich Fifield, Tom Verlaine, Nels Cline, and other legends.

And then Pt. 3 of the show is another tribute to the late great Cub Koda- just a brief one this time, but worthy.
 

Original air-date: Aug. 8, 2016
People of all ages agree that 1960s music is “the gift that keeps on giving”, and with that in mind, during pt. 1 of this show we throw the audio spotlight on The Monkees- they did a really nice reunion album during 2016, produced by the great, and tragically late, Adam Schlesinger. Then during pt. 2 we hear some tracks from a beautiful 2016 album by Adam’s erstwhile Fountains Of Wayne partner, Chris Collingwood. And of course, there’s much much more…