Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you a special new episode of Curtain Call plus a new Beatles Blast.  You can tune in at the website, or if you’re on a laptop or desktop, you could just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM Beatles Blast returns with a new show  that presents “The Little Girl Tapes.”  In July, 1967, two young girls from New York visited London in the hopes of meeting their idols, The Beatles.  Surprisingly, they got lucky and met both Paul McCartney and George Harrison, who invited them into their homes for a chat.  The girls had a portable tape recorder and preserved the two conversations, which are unlike any other interviews with the Beatles. The sound quality is abysmal, but the contents, which also also includes George’s visitor, Klaus Voorman, are priceless. We present both interviews in this episode of the show.

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch salutes Dame Angela Lansbury, who passed away just last week. More than simply the “Murder She Wrote” lady, Lansbury followed in the footsteps of her mother, Irish actress Moyna MacGill, and broke into movies in Hollywood at the age of 17 in the movie classic, Gaslight. She starred in movies, radio and television before making her Broadway debut in 1957.

Making her mark in a big way, Lansbury’s first Broadway musical was Stephen Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle, and she followed that by creating the role of Mame in Jerry Herman’s musical, which resulted in her first Tony Award for best actress in a musical.

She won additional Tony awards for Dear World and the revival of Gypsy in the 1970s, and closed that decade with her fourth Tony Award winning role as Mrs.Lovett, in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeny Todd.

Of course, after that she spent much of the 1980s as the star of Murder She Wrote on TV, and lent her voice to Disney’s Beauty and The Beast as Mrs. Potts. This week on Curtain Call we salute this supremely talented star of stage, screen and radio with a mixtape of her musical highlights. Most are from Broadway cast albums, but we did dig into a couple of her movies, just to show her range. Check out the playlist…

Curtain Call 117

Angela Lansbury
“Worst Pies In London” Sweeny Todd
“Some People” Gypsy
“That’s How Young I Feel” Mame
“Manic Depressives” Prettybelle
“A Step In The Right Direction” Bedknobs and Broomsticks
“Me and My Town” Anyone Can Whistle
“Rose’s Turn” Gypsy
“A Little Priest” Sweeny Todd
“A Parade In Town” Anyone Can Whistle
“When I’m Drunk I’m Beautiful” Prettybelle
“Kiss Her Now” Dear World
“You’ll Never Get Away From Me” Gypsy
“Not While I’m Around” Sweeny Todd
“And I Was Beautfiul” Dear World
“By The Sea” Sweeny Todd
“You Never Looked Better” Prettybelle
“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” Gypsy
“Beauty and the Beast” Beauty and the Beast

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM, a new edition of The Comedy Vault features Neil’s Heavy Concept Album, which is a very special treat for fans of The Young Ones. The Comedy Vault can be heard every Wednesday at 11 PM, with the new episodes replayed a couple of weeks later, Monday at 8 PM.