I would venture to guess, just based on uncovered evidence, that America in the 1950's was probably more balanced from a cultural standpoint, than it is now.

Why do I say that? The evidence - weekend radio in America was a veritable grab-bag of music, information and culture - all laid out, usually in one place. In 1955, NBC Radio introduced a Weekend service called Monitor. It was an adventuresome idea, geared along the lines of America's then-insatiable curiosity over how things worked.

Monitor's credo was "go anywhere, do anything" and it lived up to that credo over a 48 hour period, beginning at 12:01 on Saturday morning until 11:59 Sunday night.

This episode of The Grand Ole Opry comes from that service. For a half hour (On June 22, 1955) it featured the talents of "Little" Jimmy Dickens, "Cousin" Minnie Pearl, Del Wood, Jimmy Newman, Chester "Chet" Atkins and a host of others. Strictly Americana at its most rural.

But here's the thing - right after Grand Ole Opry, Monitor went to Birdland and featured a set by Woody Herman and Erroll Garner, and a half hour after that, a set by Tyree Glenn and "Philly Joe" Jones.

And the next day, you got the NBC Symphony. Quite a blast of disparate culture, to say the least. But if you were up for it, you got one hell of an education in the space of 48 hours. And your musical taste got very broad and all-encompassing. And if you were a musician, you stumbled into a gold mine.

So as a reminder of how potentially isolated we've become as a culture, here is a half-hour of down-home rural/middle America/roots music, supplied by Mainstream Radio in the form of NBC on June 22, 1955.

The Jazz portion comes tomorrow.

Another rare, and probably unheard one from The Hollywood Bowl this weekend. This time it's Hugh Masekela, who was riding high on the crossover hit Grazin' In The Grass and appearing at The Hollywood Bowl for the first time on August 14, 1968.

Oddly, part of a Fashion Show put on by The Broadway Department Stores in Los Angeles, Masekela was sandwiched in between Fall Fashion Previews and The Shopping Experience At The Broadway. But it was still enough to make an impression on the audience, and luckily it was recorded and can now be enjoyed.

Before Hugh Masekela came on the scene, Jazz from South Africa was thought not to exist, at least in the States. Certainly, it was heard about and talked about among Jazz aficianados, but it was Masekela who turned everyone, including an audience steeped in rock and pop, on to a new and exciting take on the Jazz idiom.

Coming in at a little less than a half-hour (with one or two numbers missing and a supposed 2nd half which never materialized) it's a memorable slice of musical history from an influential and much admired musician we just don't hear much about these days.

Except here.

Get ready for Monday.

Every so often the overseas radio networks will toss a zinger at you. This past week, RSR Espace 2, the famous Swiss Radio outlet broadcast a concert given by l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by their former Music Director, the legendary Paul Kletzki from 1967 (and 1969). Joining Kletzki is the equally legendary Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux, who joins the orchestra in the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

For collectors, the name Paul Kletzki is significant. He was one of the outstanding conductors of the 20th Century whose survival under Nazism, Fascism, and the Stalinist purges occasionally overshadowed his tremendous gift as a musician. His recordings are highly sought after and his live recordings (like this one) are milestones in the area of interpretation.

So it's a special Mid-Week Concert this week and hopefully there will be others in the future.

For now - here's the rundown of what you'll be hearing:

Les archives de l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Concert hommage à Paul Klecki,
chef de l’OSR de 1967 à 1970
Enregistrements réalisés au Studio
Ernest-Ansermet et au Victoria Hall
à Genève entre 1967 et 1969
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Arthur Grumiaux, violon

Direction : Paul Klecki

- C. M. von Weber:
Euryanthe. Opéra en 3 actes (extrait), Jähns 291(Victoria Hall)

- L. van Beethoven:
Concerto pourviolon et orchestre, en ré majeur, op. 61(Victoria Hall)

- S. Rakhmaninov:
Symphonie no 3,en la mineur, op.44 (Studio Ernest- Ansermet)

The concert is broken up between two players - the top player has the Weber and Beethoven and the bottom player has the Rachmaninoff.

A little history to go with your Anti-Road Rage Wednesday.

Unless you're a violin enthusiast or musician, the name Louis Persinger may not ring any bells with you. The name has been most often associated with other violinists, such as Yehudi Menuhin or Ruggiero Ricci. In that role he was best known as a teacher and, in the case of Menuhin, the additional role of piano accompanist.

But Louis Persinger was a name to be reckoned with in his own right. An American violinist who trained at the Leipzig Conservatory and studied under legendary violinist Eugene Ysaye, he was Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and embarked on a solo career that established him as one of the preeminent violinists of the late 19th and early 20th century.

It was after World War 1, in the 1920's that he became the great violin teacher, and periodically performing the role of piano accompanist in many of the early recordings of Menuhin as well as those of Ruggiero Ricci.

But because he established himself as a concert violinist before the era of recording and by the time the medium of recording had become universal he had pretty much abandoned his career and confined himself to the role of accompanist and teacher (he was at Julliard from 1930 until his death in 1966), very few commercial recordings of him as a soloist exist.

So tonight I'm posting one of those recordings - The Duo for Violin and Viola K. 423 by Mozart featuring Persinger on violin and his son Rolf on viola. A recording made for the small and short-lived Stradivari label around 1950.

I would imagine this has popped up in reissues in recent years, but not to any wide circulation as far as I know.

If you've heard about Louis Persinger but not actually heard him, now's your chance.

After running Gentle Giant last night, it only seems fair to also offer another pioneering band in the genre of Prog-Rock. Caravan actually pre-dates Gentle Giant by a couple of years and was considered right in the middle of the Progressive movement coming out of Canterbury, England. Having initially begun as The Wilde Flowers, members split off to become another Canterbury legend, Soft Machine, as well as Caravan.

Call it the whims of fate or sheer luck, but Soft Machine went on to achieve much greater acclaim than Caravan did, even though they were very much alike musically. Caravan got off to a rough start, signing with a somewhat half-assed record label who not only didn't do much to promote them, but promptly got absorbed by the parent label the year their first album was released (1968). Soft Machine, on the other hand, got the ear and producing abilities of Chas Chandler who in turn landed them on the 1968 Jimi Hendrix tour. The exposure certainly helped.

But Caravan did have a loyal following and have gone on to achieve something of an underrated, largely unappreciated band who, even though they didn't crack the mainstream, became something of a "musician's-musician aggregate", and in that sense they proved very influential to numerous groups throughout the world.

Tonight it's one of their first sessions for the BBC, recorded just around the time their first album for Decca (UK) was released. Recorded for the Top Gear program on August 19, 1970 they cut three tracks:

1. Hello Hello
2. If I Could Do It Again I'd Do It All Over You
3. As I Feel I Die

If you've never heard them before or only heard about them, now's your chance.

No doubt there are hundreds, if not thousands of sites paying tribute to the late Ronnie Montrose tonight. His passing, at the age of 64, stunned many earlier today.

Even our sister site Crooks & Liars is running a tribute. So I thought I would toss my two cents in and offer a track of one of my favorite Ronnie Montrose albums.

Open Fire was his first all-instrumental project, and it incorporated a lot of different styles and genres and it opened up a whole new dimension in his playing and his audience.

So as a tribute to the versatility of the man and a musician of extraordinary talent who will be sorely missed, I'm offering his rendition of the classic Town Without Pity.

Thank you Ronnie. It's been a pleasure to know you.