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Light On Light Through

You'll hear a little of this and lot of that on Light On Light Through - my reviews of great television series and movies, my interviews with authors and creative media people and their interviews of me, my media theory and political commentary, thoughts about my favorite cars and food and space travel, discussions of my music, and a few of my readings from my science fiction stories. In the first years, starting in 2006, I put up a new episode at least once a month.  More recently, it became more or less often than once a month, usually less often.  But in the Summer of 2020, I began getting more in the mood to podcast, and on 17 October 2023, I began publishing a new episode of the podcast every Tuesday at 12:01 pm -- a minute after Noon (New York time).  - Paul Levinson 

24 October 2021: Interview about Light On Light Through podcast

26 December 2023: Chuck Todd interviews Paul Levinson about Alternate Realities on The Chuck Toddcast  

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  2. Shoutout for Starland Vocal Band

Shoutout for Starland Vocal Band

Aug 4, 2007

I first fell for the Starland Vocal Band in the summer of 1976.  My wife and I were on our honeymoon in London, and the BBC was playing "Afternoon Delight" at least a couple of times an hour.

The record has everything - vibrant harmonies, catchy tune, and a clever and well crafted lyric.  I agree with every word of it.  Why wait until the cold dark night if you can have it right now, in the afternoon.   Plus, it's fun easily seeing the person you're making love to...

Bill Danoff wrote a classic song.

The Starland Vocal Band is often cited as a classic one-hit wonder.  Although Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert Danoff (half of the Starlight Vocal Band) had earlier written "Take Me Home, Country Roads" with John Denver, and often performed with him, nothing much happened with the Band after "Afternoon Delight".

Doesn't matter.  Bill and Taffy and Margot Chapman and Jon Carroll made a record which, although it's only one, can stand up to the best of the Mamas and Papas and the other great harmony groups.

Why I am a writing about them now?  I just came across their page of MySpace, and put in them in my Top Friends - which, in a way, they've been for years...

One other thing ... I just noticed - I may have already known but forgot - that the Starlight Vocal Band's second album is titled Rear View Mirror.

Like Light On Light Through, Rear View Mirror is a phrase that Marshall McLuhan loved to use...

 

 

at the 1977 Grammy Awards... (The Starlight Vocal Band won a Grammy for the Best New Artist of 1976) ...