Wednesday afternoon The AIR brings you brand-new episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call!  You can tune in at the website, or if you’re on a laptop or desktop, you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking over in the right-hand column of this blog.

At 2 PM,  we go to India with The Beatles on Beatles Blast. Specifically we bring you a mixtape of the album, “Songs Inspired By The Beatles And India,” which is a companion piece to the documentary which is streaming now, and on sale on Blu Ray and DVD next month. The documentary tells the story of The Beatles’ visit to Rishikesh in 1967, which resulted in the band writing a ton of classic songs. The album presents those songs (and a few others) reinterpreted by some of the top artists of India. It’s a wild collision of styles that sounds pretty fantastic.

I presented these highlights in mixtape form so I could spare myself the terror of trying to pronounce these names, but here’s the playlist…

Beatles Blast 078

“The Inner Light” – Performed by Anoushka Shankar / Karsh Kale
“Tomorrow Never Knows” – Performed by Kiss Nuka
“Mother Nature’s Son” – Performed by Karsh Kale / Benny Dayal
“Gimme Some Truth” – Performed by Soulmate
“Across The Universe” – Performed by Tejas / Mali
“Everybody’s Got Something To Hide (Except Me And My Monkey)”
– Performed by Rohan Rajadhyaksha / Warren Mendonsa
“I Will” – Performed by Shibani Dandekar / Neil Mukherjee
“Julia” – Performed by Dhruv Ghanekar
“Child of Nature” – Performed by Anupam Roy
“The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill” – Performed by Raaga Trippin
“Back In The USSR” – Performed by Karsh Kale / Farhan Ahktar
“I’m So Tired” – Performed by Lisa Mishra / Warren Mendonsa
“Sexy Sadie” – Performed by Siddharth Basrur / Neil Mukherjee
“Martha My Dear”– Performed by Nikhil D’Souza
“Revolution” – Performed by Vishal Dadlani / Warren Mendonsa
“Dear Prudence” – Performed by Karsh Kale / Monica Dogra
“India, India” – Performed by Nikhil D’Souza

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM on Curtain Call, Mel Larch takes to the skies with a show devoted to Superheroes in Musical Theatre. Calm down…she doesn’t play anything from that musical.  Instead she opens with “Save The City,” the song from Rogers: The Musical, the fake show that we see in the first episode of the Marvel/Disney+ series, Hawkeye. It’s a pretty terrific homage to the grand spectacles of Broadway. After that, Mel brings us highlights from two real-world superhero musicals.

First up, from the 1966 Original Cast Recording, she presents the best of It’s a Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman, featuring music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams. You’ll hear Bob Holiday as Clark Kent and Superman, Patricia Marand as Lois Lane, Jack Cassidy as Max Mencken, and Linda Lavin as Sydney.

Then Mel brings you highlights from a musical about a young superhero fan who makes up his own stories, and begins to suspect that an actual superhero has a romantic interest in his mother. Superhero is a musical with music and lyrics by Tom Kitt, and a book by John Logan. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in February 2019 and struck a chord with longtime fans of comic book heroes.

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.