The idea was to keep it simple.  Yes, simple; unpretentious songs for a simple unpretentious album.  The model would be Bob Dylan and the...

One measure of a person's generosity is in everyday donations of time or treasure to others.  Helping a neighbor.  Rescuing a distant...

Produced by Howard Hawkes, "The Thing from Another World" is that rare Science Fiction movie to rise above the usual hokey Si-Fi fare,...

A friend of mine, once walked into a tire store, and said he needed a set of new tires for his Lincoln Continental.  And then told the...

It took 37 years, but Aretha Franklin's miraculous performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, in 1972, was...

When Barbra Streisand was twelve-years old, she underwent a dramatic and remarkable change: her ears popped, and suddenly she could hear...

Monday-Tuesday (May 18-19) -- I met my older brother John at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and together we boarded a direct flight to...

What do you get when an ex-Beatle travels to Nashville and sits in with the finest group of Country musicians this side of the...

The miracle of "The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions", is that they happened at all.  The surprise of these sessions is that the music is...

Had the Marx Brothers been a Rock-n-Roll band, they would have been The Who, the edgy, mischievous British Blues-Rock band that in the...

Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf, was a musical genius.  Yes, as much a musical genius as Ludvig von Beethoven.  The reason he didn't...

Compared with beer or wine, coffee hasn’t been around all that long.  Beer dates back to 5,000 BC. Discovered growing in Ethiopia, it was...

After graduating from college, I worked in a retail store for a large company. There seemed to be few prospects for advancement, so I...

The key to understanding Sidney Poitier's stellar film career, is that he was willing to walk away from a large movie contract, rather...

"PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MAN" is the subject of the Nisley's 2023 Christmas Letter Ironically, many of the world's favorite...

Of all the Beatles, John Lennon was the most socially-minded of the four, as evident on such Beatles' classics as,  "All You Need is...

George Harrison was tired of being a Beatle. He was tired of working with John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who over the years had...

If Christmas isn’t Christmas without snow, then you’ll appreciate the following story. It’s from “The Holly Tree” by Charles Dickens....

Every year the Hallmark Channel films about twenty Christmas stories for the Holiday Season. Mind you, these are not serious dramas, but...

It was all over. The Doors had had their run--and a very successful run it was--but it had run its course. It was clear the band was...