WPKN Celebrates... Music from Stage & Screen... Your Radio Station... Your Soundtrack! A special fundraising event Monday and Tuesday, Feb 13 and 14. Get a great gift with your donation! Your contribution helps WPKN, a 501(c)(3) organization. Choose a great subscription with your sustaining donation to WPKN! I have been on the ‘PKN airwaves thirty years (yikes!) - feels like a few lifetimes - and I also served in several positions on the station’s board of directors. In my other life, I have worked as a clinical social worker for way too many years, am a longtime resident of New Haven, ...

Joni Mitchell's Birthday and an Americana Music Celebration! November 7 and 8, join WPKN for a fundraising celebration of folk and Americana music! We'll help Joni Mitchell celebrate her birthday! The best donation you can give us is a monthly donation to our station. For a monthly donation above $15 per month we will add in a digital subscription to the Washington Post or the New York Times. Get a Great Gift with Your Donation!→ Your contribution helps WPKN, a 501(c)(3) organization. ←Choose a great subscription gift with your sustaining donation to WPKN! Al Bell celebrates the Blues and R&B, ...

‘PURE’ with howard thompson is broadcast every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month at 1 p.m. (Eastern). Sometimes he does an overnighter. howard thompson hosts ‘PURE’ - you’ll find it around these parts, 1st & 3rd Fridays of the month, at 1pm (eastern) howard loves all kinds of music and has collected records ever since his uncle gave him Rock Around The Clock as a 6th birthday present howard worked in the music biz so he could get more free records and meet wondrous people Learn More Listen on Soundcloud

British Invasion! From the beginning of the record industry, American blues, jazz and rock-and-roll inspired musicians all around the world, particularly in Britain. In the mid-1960s, the proverbial turn-tables turned when British music and culture took the United States by storm. This phenomenon has come to be known as the British Invasion. American youth frenzied around British pop and rock groups such as The Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, and, perhaps most notably, the Beatles. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, America was ripe to accept the spirit of The Beatles music. Walter Cronkite featured a special on the Beatles in December of that ...

Write On! A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk-acoustic tradition, although this role has transmuted through different eras of popular music. Get a Great Gift with Your Donation! Your contribution helps WPKN, a 501(c)(3) organization. Al Bell celebrates the Blues and R&B, playing songs in accordance with his own unique desire to hear one creative piece in juxtaposition with the next. Learn More What inspires me about ‘PKN is that amidst all the differences, there is a ...

Muscle Shoals Sound Join WPKN on December 16 and 17 for a special fundraiser celebrating the Muscle Shoals Sound. In 1969, The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, widely referred to as “The Swampers” started a recording studio. The founders, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Jimmy Johnson, were originally session musicians at Rick Hall’s FAME Studios and, together with Hall, they created the “Muscle Shoals Sound.” The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section provided musical backing and arrangements for major hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and the Staple Singers. Success in soul and R&B prompted rock and pop performers to record at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Recordings included Elkie Brooks, ...

BRILL BUILDING A two-day fundraising special – September 9-10! The Brill Building is located at 1619 Broadway and 49th St. in New York City. The 11 story building was built in 1931 and is famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American songs were written. It dominating the pop charts in the early 1960s. The “Brill” name comes from a haberdasher who operated a store at street level and bought the building. Composers and Lyricists at the Brill Building Burt Bacharach, Jeff Barry, Bert Berns, Bobby Darin, Hal David, Neil Diamond, Luther Dixon, Sherman Edwards, Buddy Feyne, Gerry Goffin, Howard Greenfield, Ellie ...

80 Years - Bob Dylan Birthday Special celebrates Bob Dylan who has been a major figure in popular culture for more than 6 decades. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist. Some of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963) and “The Times They Are a-Changin’” (1964) became anthems for civil rights and anti-war movements. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and within 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), ...

Join WPKN for a special fundraising event American v. British Folk from 7 am to 10 pm on Friday, March 26, 2021. It’s now half-a-century since British folk rock became A Thing, with the early practitioners breaking new ground and inspiring an entire scene that peaked in the late Sixties/early Seventies. Earnest young post-Dylan singer/songwriters moved away from the intimacy of the folk clubs in favour of the nascent college/university circuit. Countercultural iconoclasts The Incredible String Band became a seismic influence on a whole raft of bands now categorised as acid-folk, Pentangle’s use of acoustic instrumentation within a nominally rock framework attracted many emulators (though arguably no real equals), ...