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Showing posts from March, 2009

Baseball Players of the Seventies Who Died During their Playing Careers

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ROBERTO CLEMENTE is 3000 hit Hall of Famer and one of the most famous players to have died tragically while still active. He was the 1966 NL MVP & won four batting titles in the sixties. He made the All Star team 12 times & won 12 gold gloves in right field. He was MVP of the 1971 World Series, playing great outfield and batting over .400 in the Series with a home run in the deciding 7th game. He got his 3000th hit on the last day of the 1972 season off Mets pitcher Jon Matlack. He did play in the 1972 NLCS & his last game was Game #5 in Cincinnati. He ended his career with a .317 batting average, 240 HRs, 1305 RBIs, 440 doubles, 166 triples, & 1416 runs scored. On Christmas week of 1972 Nicaragua suffered an earthquake. Clemente soon sent over three airplane supplies of relief for the quake victims. He found out the aid packages never made it to the victims due to the corrupt government. He decided to accompany the relief supplies on a fourth flight making sure they go

Concert Review: Fleetwood Mac Unleashed Tour - Madison Square Garden

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Lets start out by saying, I am a huge Stevie Nicks fan, and she is probably my favorite female singer of all time, so this review will be bias. But no matter what, if you’re a rock & roll fan you had to love Fleetwood Macs performance at the Garden last night. 1 st off, the negatives: As great as Fleetwood Mac is, the absence of Christine McVie who has retired was noticed and she was missed. How can you retire from rock & Roll and miss a tour like this? This just gave Stevie more spotlight and that part of it is fine with me. The other negative was for most of the songs, the band just played them as they were without going off into a jam. Although the later part of the show did feature some of this, with such a good band you wanted them to jam on into frenzy. Besides the main group there was an additional guitarist & keyboard/piano player and three female back up vocalist. For Stevie Nicks fans we know them as her personal long time back ups on her solo tours; Her sister

Remembering Randy Rhoads- 27 years After His Fatal Plane Crash

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March 19th marks the 27th anniversary of the passing of Randy Rhoads. Rhoads was born in Santa Monica, California in 1956 into a musical family. His mother ran a music school in North Hollywood & Rhoads was trained in classical guitar. By the late seventies he would form the band Quiet Riot in Hollywood and would lave by 1979 to join Ozzy Osbourne. Back then Ozzy was down & out after being fired from Black Sabbath. He auditioned Rhoads & hired him on the spot as he was just tuning up. Ozzy described it like having "god enter his life". The band would be called Blizzard of Ozz & in November 1979 material for the Blizzard of Ozz & Diary of a Madman albums were recorded. The rest is Heavy Metal history as the band went on a highly successful Tour in 1980/1981 and the albums became classics. Blizzard of Ozz has sold over four million copies and the songs "Crazy Train' "Mr. Crowley" "I Dont Know" & "Suicide Solution "

Concert Review: Madeline Peyroux at Tarrytown Music Hall

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Last night we saw a fantastic live performance by jazz singer Madeline Peyroux at the Tarrytown Music Hall. The show was hosted by my lifelong friend, WFUV 90.7 DJ, Darren DeVivo. We got to hang out backstage before the show and met Madeline who was very pleasant and accommodating to us. We also hung with guitarist Jon Herington who is a great guy, & an excellent guitar player. He has recently toured with Steely Dan & Boz Scaggs, and is currently playing on Madeline’s Tour which began in Albany on Friday night. Madeline put on fantastic live performance last night, capturing the audience with her sultry jazz vocal style. She has been compared to a modern day Billie Holiday & a breath of fresh air blown into the modern jazz scene. Backed by a 4 piece band of musicians, Peyroux took center stage with her acoustic guitar a nd did what she does best- sings. She is a quiet personality that speaks softly to her audience, only interacting a few times throughout the night. The show