Better Days 199
Bird With A Broken Wing
Thursday, January 5th, 2006
10:00 pm to 12:00 am Pacific (GMT -8 hrs)
CFRO 102.7 fm
webcast live at www.coopradio.org

New Year's wishes to all who read here and listen to
the Better Days radio program!

So much good music has come rolling in over the
holiday period, and I'll post the new Back 40 playlist
for January 2006 in the next day or two.

Thursday night, I'll get after some of the new stuff
on the first regular show of the year. Monday's special,
three-hour show, Hands Across The Water, has now
drawn e-mail responses from 10 countries, and the
HATW cd's producers, John Cutliffe and Andrea Zonn,
phoned in during the webcast from Nashville to say
hello. They had a simultaneous chat going on AOL,
as well, about the recording and the broadcast.

The title of Better Days 199, Bird With A Broken
Wing, comes from a song that Mike Beck sent me,
Amanda Come Home. Mike's a California-based
singer-songwriter-guitarist and horse whisperer,
and the song is for his good friend, Amanda, who
is presently in Iraq working as a linguist.

The Willy Clay Band is five young Swedish fellas from
Kiruna, up in the arctic recesses of northern Sweden,
where they met at a jam session in 2003. Two years
later they were in Hendersonville, Tennessee making
a debut record with the likes of Garth Hudson, former
member of The Band. I'll feature a few tunes from
Rebecca Drive, their excellent 2005 release.

John Spillane is an Irish songwriter-singer whose
music has been in my ears a lot since I received his
music in the mail just before Christmas. Not only does
John write strong songs -- Christy Moore covered his
Magic Nights In The Lobby Bar on his recent cd --
but he sings in the sean nos spirit and lifts your heart
on the back of his voice. I'll do a feature on John's
music on Thursday's show.

Other highlights will include songs from Karine Polwart's
recent Pulling Through EP, plus Devendra Banhart,
Harry Manx, and Silver Jews, along with many more
new things from the mailbag.

Join me Thursday night, 10pm Pacific, for two hours of
the best in songwriters and worldwide roots music as
Better Days 199 goes to air.

DL