They’ve been called ‘the dog days of summer’ since the ancient Greeks and Romans, when it was thought the appearance of Sirius – ‘the dog star’ and the brightest star in the sky – in the early morning hours during mid-summer, created the extraordinarily hot weather. The weeks between early July and mid-August can indeed be very hot and humid. That weather has also inspired some of our favourite songs over the decades, and I’m looking forward to playing twenty of the all-time best ‘Dog Days of Summer Songs’. I’ll cross the decades and music genres and you won’t even need sunscreen to enjoy the sunshine songs that’ll beam out of your radio.
I’ll also have another variety-packed first hour – ‘This Week in Zoomer Music‘ – recalling the Toronto songwriter Ruth Lowe, the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ album cover, the biggest concert crowd in New York’s Central Park history, and ‘The Story Behind the Song‘ ‘Be My Baby’. That’s the Phil Spector-produced Ronettes classic that some people – like The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson – consider the greatest pop song of all time. It’s certainly a classic example of Spector’s ‘Wall-of-Sound’ and it’s a helluva story too. I hope you’ll tune this Sunday (Aug. 7th) at 2pm.