When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, I was finishing my senior year in high school.  His senseless death impacted me.  I’d been accepted at the University of Notre Dame as a freshman for the fall semester where it didn’t take long before I’d become one of the “effete corps of impudent snobs” so colorfully described by vice-president Spiro Agnew.  We didn’t like war.  Or discrimination.  Or pollution.  Or republicans.  I guess that qualified me as an “effete snob” or, in the words of one conservative music blogger who no longer reads my work, a “smug hippie.”

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  The memory of his senseless death impacts me all over again.  On this commemoration of his birth, January 15, I’ll broadcast my weekly radio show.  Every tune will deal in some way with resistance, struggle and hope.  Isn’t it strange?  Nearly fifty years have passed and we’re still singing about the same things.  Listen to Life Out of Tunes at 2:00 pm (EST) on MLK day for an earful.  “Remember.  Celebrate.  Act.  A day on… not a day off.”

Life Out of Tunes radio, hosted by Joey Books
Monday, January 15, 2018, 2:00-3:00 pm (EST)
Asheville FM, WSFM-LP, 103.3 (Asheville, NC)
Streaming globally at: https://www.ashevillefm.org/show/life-out-of-tunes/