Good-bye, Yellow Brick Road

For more than four years now Emerald City Radio has been bringing you Oz music twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

But no more.

How the story of Emerald City Radio came to an end:

Live365, the internet radio website that hosts Emerald City Radio and hundreds of other internet radio stations of all varieties, is being forced to shut down at the end of January 2016.

The broadcasters that Live365 hosts are largely not radio professionals. They tend to be people who simply want to share their taste in music with the world. For awhile the internet made that possible at a reasonable cost. Each broadcaster pays a small yearly fee to Live365 for the ability to broadcast their chosen programming. Live365 in turn tracks and pays royalties for all proprietary music broadcast by the hundreds of stations they host.

At the end of 2015 provisions for small webcasting were not renewed by the US Copyright Royalty Board. These provisions had allowed small to mid-sized internet broadcasters to pay lower royalty rates. As of 2016 these rates have increased to such an extent that most of these broadcasters will find them prohibitively expensive.

As a result, Live365 will cease broadcasting at the end of January 2016. Unless an alternative presents itself, the majority of the stations that Live365 brought to the world will cease to exist.

Including Emerald City Radio.

So if you want to get your fill of the widest variety of Oz music on the internet, you have a few days remaining to tune in. It's free and easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just go to the Live365 website and register your account for free. Here's the link. Click the magnifiying glass on the upper right of the Live365 home page, search for Emerald City Radio (or any other genre of music you're interested in), and start listening. But hurry, you have less than a week left.

It's been an enjoyable four years collecting and broadcasting Oz music from the sublime to the ridiculous, conducting radio interviews, and figuring out how long a playlist we could fit into the space Live365 allotted to Emerald City Radio (more than fourteen hours!). If you've been a listener, thank you. We hope you've enjoyed it.

Farewell.

Where There's a Will There's a Fred

Billie Burke, Fred Stone, and Will Rogers

The American stage humorist Will Rogers, who never met a man he didn't like, was a good buddy of Fred Stone, the superstar originator of the Scarecrow role in the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz. In fact, they were so close that Will named one of his sons Fred Stone Rogers. So it's no surprise that an early episode of Will Rogers's radio show featured Fred as a guest. You can listen to that broadcast on Emerald City Radio. During the program Fred and Will sing "Travel, Travel, Little Star," a tune Fred recorded years earlier with his stage partner David Montgomery, who originated the Tin Woodman role in Broadway's Wizard. You can hear the Montgomery and Stone recording of "Travel, Travel, Little Star" on Emerald City Radio, too, and it's included on the Hungry Tiger Press CD Vintage Songs from the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz (see the sidebar of this blog to click on the link to order your copy).

The photo above is from 1935 during the production of the movie Doubting Thomas, starring Will Rogers and Billie Burke, who later played Glinda in the 1939 M-G-M film version of The Wizard of Oz. Fred Stone visited Will Rogers on the Doubting Thomas movie set and they both dropped in to see Billie Burke and submit to the obvious photo op.

The Fred Stone episode of the Will Rogers show plays about twice a day for the next week or so on Emerald City Radio. You can also hear the Montgomery and Stone recording of "Travel, Travel, Little Star" as part of our regular playlist.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So give Emerald City Radio a listen. Our current playlist is over 13 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time! 

WInkie Con on EMERALD CITY RADIO!

This week on Emerald City Radio roving reporter Number Nine conducts an in-depth interview with me about my work as Programming Director of the Winkie Convention. The fifteen minute interview plays twice daily. So come give a listen as I tell the tale of how I first went to Winkies when I was fourteen and what I have in store for attendees this year!

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So come on and give Emerald City Radio a try. Our current playlist is over 12 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time! 

Jonesing for THE WIZ

One of the more unusual WIZ related items I have is this "promotional" LP recording of an interview with Quincy Jones, the musical supervisor for the movie version of The Wiz (among many other credits). The album was sent out to radio stations in 1978 to publicize the forthcoming film.

The interviewer on the disc is rather lackluster. I suspect the idea was that the local DJ would re-record the questions and make it seem like an actual "local" interview was taking place.

There's some interesting material in the interview - one being how important Jones thought the new song "Is This What Feeling Gets?" was to the score. The song was a rather angry and bitter lament sung by Dorothy in the Emerald City Hotel after the Wiz tells them to go kill Evillene. The song serves as Dorothy's theme and appears as underscoring in the film - including a big swell just as Dorothy returns home in the snow. Yet, by the time the film hit the screen the song was cut. The full song is included on the published soundtrack album.

So now that I've whetted your appetite you can actually listen to the interview which is playing twice daily on Emerald City Radio for the next two weeks.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So come on and give Emerald City Radio a try. Our current playlist is over 12 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time! 

Emerald City Radio - Michael Riley

David Maxine & Michael Riley at the 1998 WINKIE CON.

This week on Emerald City Radio roving reporter Number Nine conducts an in-depth interview with Oz and Baum scholar Michael O. Riley (author of Oz and Beyond and owner of the acclaimed Pamami Press). The twenty minute interview plays twice daily.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So come on and give Emerald City Radio a try. Our current playlist is over 12 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time! 

Emerald City Radio

We in the Tiger Den are delighted to announce that Hungry Tiger Press has its own internet radio station. And it's available free to all listeners! Our current playlist includes music from almost every Oz musical and Oz film - songs from the 1903 Wizard of Oz on up to the latest Oz hit by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

If you don't want to hear any ads, you can become a Live365 VIP listener. Just click on the banner ad at the bottom of today's blog. It costs a few bucks a month to be a Live365 VIP, but as a VIP you can listen to a wider range of internet radio stations and you'll skip the advertisements.

Emerald City Radio allows a limited number of free non-VIP listeners. So in the slim chance you're kicked off the station or can't connect as a free listener, try again later when there may be fewer listeners. Or convert your account to VIP and you'll never have to leave Live365 unless you want to.

So come on and give Emerald City Radio a try. Our current playlist is over 7 1/2 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time!