The Bad Piano Player

Feb 04 2025 155 ep. 34 mins 784
The Bad Piano Player Podcast artwork

A weekly musical podcast diving into popular music of the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

  Music  History
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Two Movies - Six Songs

Feb 04 2025 35 mins  
Send us a text This week, the Bad Piano Player takes two Bing Crosby movies from the mid 1930s, and pulls three Gordon & Revel songs from each one. Hence: Two Movies - Six Songs. We throw in some synopses and a plot or two, some scenery ideas. You know, maybe some throw pillows. Elroy thinks the Nepotism Studio would look better in purple. Tune in for the songs, stay for the st

Oscar Losers

Jan 21 2025 42 mins  
Send us a textWe begin season six of the Bad Piano Player Podcast with a look at Oscar nominated songs from the 1940s -- that did NOT win. Some lost to better songs. Others lost to, well....crap. But we picked some corkers for you, our loyal listeners. Tune in and enjoy.

Season Finale: Turk & Ahlert

Dec 03 2024 36 mins  
Send us a text It's the Season finale, friends! Season five has come and gone and we celebrate with a great songwriting team and their hits. Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert wrote some classics for you to rediscover today! Thanks for all your support and we'll see you January 21st (That's a Tuesday) for Season Six!

Grab Bag II

Nov 19 2024 36 mins  
Send us a text The penultimate episode of season five finds the bad piano player doing a second grab bag episode featuring two Oscar Levant compositions, a Johnny Burke we missed for his episode, a Hy Zaret restaurant classic, and many more. Okay two more. Tune in to find out and be the music, kids

Ray Henderson

Nov 05 2024 35 mins  
Send us a text This week, the Bad Piano Player features composer Ray Henderson, charter member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, writer of Animal Crackers In My Soup, Bye Bye, Blackbird, Don't Bring Lulu, The Birth of The Blues, The Best Things In Life Are Free, The Thrill Is Gone, and you're not going to believe this, but we're not doing ANY of those! Tune in to hear the six we di

Celtic Songs

Oct 22 2024 32 mins  
Send us a text This week, in response to many emails and texts, the Bad Piano Player decided we couldn't wait until Robbie Burns day or St. Patrick's day to do another Celtic songs episode. The demand was too great! So we learn six songs from the cradle of golf and whiskey. Aged in the wood, and sung with our special mediocre care. And of course I'm kidding. We didn't get any email

Johnny Burke

Oct 08 2024 35 mins  
Send us a text This week, the Bad Piano Player introduces a lyricist-slash-songwriter we've featured before, but never in his own episode. The wonderful Johnny Burke, he of "Pennies From Heaven" and "Moonlight Becomes You" fame gives us six of his best! Tune in and smell the music.

Mark Knopfler II

Sep 24 2024 39 mins  
Send us a text This week, the Bad Piano Player takes his second crack at the Glasgow-born, Newcastle-raised Mark Knopfler, with seven songs (Seven? YES! SEVEN) from his solo career. Including YOUR favorite! (I hope). Tune in to listen to a guitar virtuoso interpreted by a bad piano player. It's gonna be scary, kids!

Mitchell Parish II

Sep 10 2024 38 mins  
Send us a text The Bad Piano player first featured lyricist Mitchell Parish in his own episode four years ago. Episode five, season one. We thought it high time this prolific poet had a second six songs featured. We wish we could promise no Arms-Charms rhymes, but we can't. Them's the breaks. Tune in and hang with the cool kids, kids!

Lew Pollack

Aug 26 2024 33 mins  
Send us a text This week, we feature composer Lew Pollack, born in New York City in 1895. Have you heard of him? No? Well you've heard his music, I feel reasonably sure. The bad piano player would bet this episode on it. Tune in for the classics and the obscures.