Today, it’s our Blue & True Valentine’s Day special! We start off in Blue Valentines mode, as we celebrate the great musical legacy of the late, great Willie P. Bennett, who left this world on Feb. 15, 2008. We sure do miss him, but luckily he left behind some amazing music. Sadly, his music is not available for purchase or download ANYWHERE, which is absolutely criminal, so it’s more important than ever that we keep his music on the radio.

For our second hour, it’s some of what you might expect a sappy singer/songwriter show to do on Valentine’s Day Eve (as well as a few oddball selections, right Ron?). We delve into the huge category of Love Songs, and pull out some gems.

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We love starting our day off with great new music, and this week’s haul was exceptional. We threw in a few requests/dedications for our wonderful listeners, before heading off into “upcoming concert” territory. We finished with a dusty old pile of vinyl records, in honour of the upcoming screenings of Allan Zweig’s documentaries about obsessive collectors!

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This weekend marked the 10th anniversary of one of the most important music venues in town (if not Canada), The Times Change(d), and we relived some of the great musical moments to start off today’s show. Next weekend brings Rufus & Martha’s pappy to town, and we couldn’t let that go by without some classic songs. Loudon’s a bit of a curmudgeon, and that led us to hear a few other crusty classics. We had some great new music, a concert rumour, and whatever else came to mind!

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I’ve never been afraid to go far and wide to check out a good show, but this weekend just might be the craziest yet. Since we’re off on that crazy adventure, this show is pre-taped, but we’ll hear some tunes from the guys we’re headed to see, and some traveling/driving/road songs to keep us rolling. This week brings us some great new tunes, so we dive into some of those. And, next weekend, one of Canada’s finest female singer/songwriters, Sarah Harmer, returns to town, so we hear a bunch of her great solo work and her work backing up others.

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For the past 8 years, I have put together a compilation of some of my favourite songs of the year. I started out doing them for my own interest (and as a feeble attempt to keep up with the Reids.) I thought it was a nifty Christmas gift to give to folks that I was too cheap to buy a real gift for. I thought it was fun and I thought that maybe it would get people to listen to the show (or keep listening.) It was a hobby, a historical document, and a labour of love.

The first collection was slapped together in 2002, with very little effort (it seems.) It ain’t the fancy quadruple CD box set that we currently put together, it was just a quickie collection of songs stuck in a slim case with some artwork already pre-made by the CD burning software. It seems kind of quaint and silly now.

Even the song selection seems a bit odd, in retrospect. Looking over the playlist, some of the artists have stuck with us and can be found regularly on the playlist today (Stephen Fearing, Kathleen Edwards, Neko Case, Fred Eaglesmith, NQ Arbuckle, Scott Nolan, etc.), and others are lost to the “where are they now” file (Michelle Shocked, Mia Sheard, The Brothers Creeggan, Kelele Brothers, etc.)

It’s kind of a weird, wacky collection. I don’t usually post these to download here, but this one’s so old, I doubt anybody will send the copyright police to my door. Of course, if I’m wrong and they come a knockin’, well… OOPS! (by the way, if anyone from the copyright police is reading this, my name is Stu Reid).

I forgot to include the “artwork” in the .zip file, but I’ll fix that later and remove this message (I hope). If you want it, just email me and you can print your own lo-fi, pathetic package.

Enjoy!

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As we prepare to unveil our official favourite songs of 2010, we’ve noticed that there are a whole bunch of great ones that somehow didn’t make the cut. Some years, there’s just too much great stuff, and 2010 seems like one of those years. Much of today’s show is devoted to great releases from 2010 that deserve an honorary mention.

playlist
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