Gene Stevens

6 days ago | zoomerradio.ca | Gene Stevens

Share on Without the songwriter, there is no song. It sounds obvious, but we often forget about the fascinating process that starts with paper and pen – or nowadays, more likely on a screen – and winds its way through rewrites and edits, fine-tuning and production, before its release, and – hopefully – to your ears. The recording artists get to be stars, but too often, the songwriters are forgotten or overlooked.

1 week ago | zoomerradio.ca | Gene Stevens

Share on It’s one of our favourite shows of the year – when we dream of a ‘V-a-c-a-t-i-o-n’, to ‘Catch a Wave’, write ‘Love Letters in the Sand’ ‘Under the Boardwalk’ and remember those ‘Wildwood Days (and Wildwood nights) … when we sipped ‘Summer Wine’ with our ‘Summer Fling’ and went ‘Dancing in the Streets’ that ‘Summer in the City’, that ‘Summer of ’69’. We stretched that ‘Hot Fun’ ‘All Summer Long’. Was it all just a ‘Summertime Dream’ – now lost to that fickle friend – ‘The Summer Wind’?

2 weeks ago | zoomerradio.ca | Gene Stevens

Share on Creedence Clearwater Revival was – for a time – one of almost everyone’s favourite bands. With eight double-sided hit singles in two years, CCR stormed the pop charts of 1969 and 1970 relentlessly. They also put out three iconic albums in one calendar year – five top-ten charting albums in less than two years – proving they were much more than a ‘singles band’. The driving force in CCR was lead vocalist and songwriter John Fogerty.

3 weeks ago | zoomerradio.ca | Gene Stevens

Share on When you think of Pete Townshend of The Who, you might see him in a Carnaby Street ‘Union Jack’ jacket, or his arm windmilling a power chord on his guitar, You can hear Roger Daltrey spitting out Pete’s youthful assertion: ‘hope I die before I get old’. Has there been a more iconic – and more ironic – statement of teenage angst? The 20 year old who wrote the line as part of the era-defining ‘My Generation’ is about to turn 80 on Victoria Day  (May 19).

1 month ago | zoomerradio.ca | Gene Stevens

What a show coming up this Sunday (May 11) on Vintage Favourites !  It’ll be jam-packed with exciting features for Mother’s Day – songs for ‘Mom’, plus the 75th birthday salute to Stevie Wonder, and the 2025 inductees to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame – including Dan Hill, Ginette Reno, Glass Tiger, Sum 41 and Loreena McKennitt.  Oh – and the usual first-hour feature: ‘The Sunday Sock Hop‘ with the great songs of the Fifties and early Sixties. I hope you’ll join me between 2:00 and 4:30pm.