Happy New Year

Best Wishes for 2026

It's hard to believe that 2025 has come and gone and 2026 is now here. But yes, time stops for no one, and so it goes, 2026 is now beginning and who knows what the remaining 364 days will reveal. As the year commences, trouble spots around the world promise to bring misery to many, not to mention the deteriorating economy and the strange weather phenomena that seems to occur everywhere on a more frequent basis.

As in ages past, music is always with us, sometimes forming a portal from which to view to the changing world, or just as often, a way to escape the depressing reality of day to day life. In the upcoming weeks and months I intend to renew my look at the music, first by revisiting two remarkable trendsetters that recently passed away and then by exploring some of newest trends in World Music.

Can Time exist in the vast void of outer space or does it need a planetary body from which to calibrate the daily rotation and movement????

Finally, I have included a Vevo video released ten years ago. The song is called, the Sloop John B, and it features both Brian Wilson and Al Jardine on vocals. The Beachboys, which included Jardine and Wilson, helped breath new life into this old Bahamas folk tale that dates back to the late nineteenth century and sadly recounts the tragic fate of the crew of the simple fishing boat.

We lost many musicians during the course of 2025. A few of the most notable are pictured above. They include Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Cliff, Roberta Flack, Brian Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne and Marianne Faithful. See if you can match the names with the pictures.