Bobert, this one's for you...

Toward the end of my drive from Tucson to Long Beach, after the radio-less desert, and the drift from one public radio station to another from Palm Springs toward Riverside, I finally came into the zone where there are more stations than you can take a swat at (yes, I just got out of the truck after 8 hours...), and I could surf and find more than one that wasn't playing something I'd already heard...

Don't remember which number it was on the dial, but they were playing the show "The Story", from American Public Media.

Tonight's feature was Beijing Blues, about a band called "Woodie Alan", "Beijing's premier blues and jam band". The interview was with band cofounder Paul Alan, who is also senior editor and writer for Guitar World magazine.

It's a great story, about the band that was named for its two founders: Paul Alan and Woodie Wu, and I don't want to spoil by giving many more details. Except to let you know that after a jam band start, by the end they were touring outside Beijing, even hitting the Pan-Asian Harmonica Festival. (As one album reviewer said, "who knew?")

There are links at the APM site to the band's website and whatnot.

I highly recommend giving it a listen.

~ Becky in Long Beach (finally)