For the past couple of weeks I've been subbing the RFL show El Tren Latino, which means "the Latin train," & which, if you search for it on the internets, you'll first find a restaurant in Irving, Texas, which is now closed, & not a radio show on Saturday nights in Lexington, Kentucky.
I know next to nothing about modern Latin music. I know almost next to nothing about Latin jazz, which is what I've been playing on El Tren Latino when I subbed, & what little I know about Latin jazz, I owe to a show that aired on KOOP radio roughly around the same time that Self Help Radio was on the station, & that show was called Soul Sauce.
Soul Sauce was the love-child of a fellow named Dan Shiman, or, as he called himself on the air, Little Danny. Danny called me up - this is how we met - when he found out that someone had promised the timeslot he had been promised (by someone else) to me. KOOP in those days had a kind of screwed-up method of giving & getting shows, I should talk about it some day. We chatted - I have a feeling he thought I'd be more intractable - & we came up with a happy solution for the both of us. We presented our compromise to a body called the Programming Committee, which really (at the time) had no real power, & they rubber-stamped it. He was eminently agreeable & we were always friendly with one another, if not ever friends.
He disappeared - I can see from the Soul Sauce link above - a year before I did, & seems to have landed in Marfa, Texas. I know that because his musical curiosity - & his love of vinyl - led him to create the blog Office Naps, wherein he shares & writes about "45 RPM curios." He also has a show on public radio in Marfa - he's one of those people you meet in radio who seem to need to be on the radio. Sort of like me, except he's better at it.
I've been thinking about him because I couldn't sub this El Tren Latino show if it hadn't been for the education Little Danny gave me with his radio show - & I'm glad to see that he seems to be doing quite well out there in Marfa!
(I'll be subbing El Tren Latino one last time tomorrow from 6 to 8pm Lexington time. You can listen on 88.1 fm in Lexington or online at wrfl dot fm. It's nowhere near as good as Dan's show, though. Listen to that on Wednesday nights on KRTS in Marfa.)
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