Stars & Stripes & Salutes Forever A Q&A with Ronald Demkee. Conductor of the Allentown Band By Geoff Gehman There is a bridge in Allentown named for Albertus “Bert” Meyers, who conducted the Allentown Band from 1926 to 1976, during which he helped dedicate the impressively arched bridge that would carry his name. ... Read More
Falling Up A Q&A with Jeanne Jolly By Geoff Gehman Jeanne Jolly loves old-time over-the-top country heartbreakers; the bigger the break, the better. So when it came time for her to write a tribute to honky-tonk humdingers like “Stand by Your Man,” she naturally poured on the pity. She made “Tear Soup” a ... Read More
Rocky Mountain Highs A Q&A with Steve Weisberg By Geoff Gehman Steve Weisberg played lead guitar, dobro and pedal steel with John Denver from 1973 to 1977, when Denver became a pop-culture king big enough to star in a movie with George Burns as God. It was five years of nirvana, and not just ... Read More
Twice in a Lifetime: A Q&A with Jon Braun of Start Making Sense By Geoff Gehman The Talking Heads have pretty much been dead for 21 years, but their spirit has been very much alive for a fifth of that time. Launched nearly four years ago in a Bethlehem bar, Start Making Sense reincarnates ... Read More
True-Blue Troubadour A Q&A with Al Stewart By Geoff Gehman I became an Al Stewart fan in 1976, the year of “Year of the Cat,” a commercial breakout for him and an aural awakening for me. I was hooked, line and sinker, by his crisply melodic, poetic mini-movies about an ecstatic aviatrix, a gloomy sailor ... Read More
