Better Each Day Podcast Radio Show with Bruce Hilliard

Hello hello hello and merry Christmas from the groovin’ with the tunes of Rube Tubin and the Rondonnas Better Each Day toy shop. It's a jolly little shop where each Christmas I write a new song for the occasion.

It’s a time when I compare my music to the classics like the number one selling single of all time, White Christmas. If that doesn’t humble your inner Irving Berlin I don’t know what will. Or, Little Drummer Boy by Tacoma born Bing Crosby. Coincidentally, I was reflecting back on chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The Christmas Song co-written and originally sung by Mel Torme.

Then, down the internet it came with a clatter. I clicked on my mouse to see what was the matter. An email from a promotion manager with a new song. Written and performed by the son of the Velvet Fog himself Mel Torme, Steve March-Torme has a new holiday song for you.

Steve is the son of legendary singer-songwriter Mel Torme and the stepson of well-known actor/comedian Hal March. He is a talented entertainer in his own right. Since the late 1970s, he has been a successful singer, entertainer, recording artist, TV & radio host and has toured extensively worldwide to an ever-growing fan base.

Steve has written a brand new, original Christmas song entitled I Remember Christmastime. It’s a beautiful, nostalgic, sentimental salute to fond remembrances of the Christmas season.

You’ll discover:

• How to effectively infuse emotion into mastered techniques. 

• A unique approach to memorizing a new piece– then overcoming stage fright.

• Life lessons to rekindle lost inspiration. 

• Three necessary ingredients for honing natural aural acumen and play by ear.

• The beginners course into a commercial music career. 


You’ve practiced the classics and improved your skill. Now elevate your playing to transcend melody and tell a story that reaches the hearts of your listeners—not just their ears.

In this light-hearted and humorous guide for any piano student, pianist Emile Pandolfi shares his holistic philosophy that harmonizes method and mindset to help you communicate through every chord and resonate more passionately with your listeners— for an encore-worthy performance each time you play.

The book: Play It Like You Mean It is available wherever books are sold.

When I was 2-years-old the Hilliard family, in accordance with my life plan as dictated by me as soon as I was potty trained, moved west from Bellevue, Washington, to a small timber town twenty minutes from the coast. While in Bellevue we lived in a neighborhood that is a chip shot from Microsoft campuses today. Maybe we should have stayed there but we migrated west to a small town called Aberdeen, Washington. Aberdeen, Washington, is at sea level.

This meant, to you inlanders, that when it rained 40 days and 40 nights (which isn’t at all that Biblical in Aberdeen), there’s gonna be a flood. Flood the color of mud. And we had street fountains. During high tide the holes in the manhole cover plates had jets of water shooting up about a foot through the holes. You just don’t get that everywhere. The lower city was built on pilings, apparently before floods were invented.

The weather never affected football. At age four I was a manly man like the cowboys on TV. Not the Dallas Cowboys, the Hollywood cowboys. Now back to the game, not quite in progress yet.

Sometimes I got to play with the big boys. The Big Guys were 6 to 8-years-old! Sometimes they would let me play in their game “Attack Khrushchev” (the Post Hitler Cold War version of good guys and bad guys) with them. My buddy and one of the big guys was Dan. Dan’s dad was head coach for the Aberdeen High School Football Team. I always liked both of them. I had no idea what adventures were in store with the dad, the head coach of Aberdeen High School football team when it came my time to play at that level.

The “Attack Khrushchev” Cold War Game (the home version) involved the good guys (us) and bad guys (this Khrushchev dude, whoever he was). You had to be able to ride a bike to play…or run really fast for a long, long time to keep up with the big boys on their Pee Wee Herman bikes. I didn’t own a bike yet, so I ran with the guys as fast as I could.

One day the big guys decided to play a game called football. I had heard of it. It required an odd shaped ball you couldn’t bounce because it didn’t come back the same direction. My parents had given me a toy slide projector shaped like Mickey Mouse’s silhouette. The show? Touchdown for Mickey. I was so excited about it. Mickey, as you may have guessed, scores a last second touchdown!

But back to the gridiron, it's time to choose the teams. The Big Guys lined up side by side and two of the biggest guys stepped forward as captains. There was some argument with a third big guy about what was fair about who got to be a captain. That’s probably still in negotiations.

The two captains chose their players. As usual in life, the biggest guys were selected first, the best friends chosen second. And me? Last. This underdog thing turned out to be a blessing later in life. It turns out I was usually the last kid picked for a team later in sports...unless there was a stopwatch or a tape measure to determine the winner. I would have to learn to overcome my size deficiency and the inherent politics in sports, and in life.

This meant never being late for practice, never dogging a drill, and always trying my best to be out in front of other players in order to get any attention from a coach. This is life. I was lucky to have this demonstrated early on.

The players were dressed in worn out jeans, Red Ball Jets, white T-Shirts and Dad’s flannel work shirt. This later became the grunge look. It was a classic late fifties group of boys. The original Goonies. We had nicknames and never knew each other's real names sometimes. There was a pale skinny guy we called Wormy. We had Booger...

Welcome times a trillion to the 10th degree. I’m the familiar voice of Bruce Hilliard and today’s show is Bruce Songs By Request. These are selfie recordings, all written, performed, recorded, mixed and blessed with fairy dust by me.

Be sure to click in on Thanksgiving: Bruce’s High School Football Adventure this Thanksgiving. It’s a fun look at my childhood, football and the glory days of the Aberdeen/Hoquiam Thanksgiving Football Classic.

Don’t miss it. It’s made more headlines than a corduroy pillow. Find a time to break away from the craziness and give it a listen. Some nostalgic music and speaking of music, here’s one I wrote…

When I was little I saw Darby O’Gill and the Little People, a Disney film. It had a death coach that comes out of the dark mist, picks up passengers and flies off to Florida, or somewhere. The EQ is courtesy of brother Gary. It’s the telephone sound and makes the next song CA pop! The Midnight Arrow is coming for someone.

I hope you enjoy the music.

Welcome to a very special Better Each Day show, with the one and only drummer of one of the original British Invasion bands, a pioneer blues/rock band that gave us Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Couldn’t they get anybody good? And Jimmy Page just prior to forming Led Zeppelin.

Well we’re talking about a Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame band that was formed by today’s guest, the drummer of the Yardbirds and author, Jim McCarty.

The Yardbirds were part of a mid-60s playlist that, I don’t know about you, but it takes me back to the YMCA camp AM clock radio that woke us up with Satisfaction, California Girls, Baby Love and one rowdy band from England that stuck out cool, the Yardbirds.

I recorded a very laid back conversation with Jim one rainy Monday morning.

Hello hello, can you see me one more time? The words of wisdom that open up any conversation, someone summoning you from the Mother Ship: “Hello, anyone home?”

Without ever hearing this song (I’ll play it for you eventually, after I fulfill my lifetime goal of explaining my lyrics)...without even so much as a quick listen on your device to this lovely ditty I threw together, here are a few clips from the four minute song I just mixed this morning.

But first: I’ve always found it interesting on this show to ask songwriters what they do. How they write. I myself don’t know. Sometimes a song seems to hanging in the air like low hanging fruit there for the picking. That was the case with this song I’m calling “Hello”...because that’s the way it spontaneously spewed forth from my mind.

The lyrics were literally off the top of my head, written at the speed of thought.

Hello Hello...can you see me one more time?

You’ve been living in my arms

You’ve been living here forever

Hello Hello...can’t you see it in my eyes

Again

Shoulda been the only one

I’d never gone so far away

Hello Hello

Can’t you see it in my eyes

So feel it in your heart

Feeling it forever

The lyrics and much of the song was played as if I knew it already. So, I used the original words I sang when I did the scat/scratch track.

God knows rewrites have saved many a piece of crap. But for now, here’s more from the insta-song department.

I believe in a day without tomorrows

Yes and I believe you’ve never done me wrong

Woa, I believe in a world where you’re a wild one

Yes and I believe you’re never coming home

“I believe in a day without tomorrows” is something that needs to be explained. Our subject was saying, “hey, let’s live for the present” like there’s no tomorrow. And he sarcastically says “I believe you’ve never done me wrong”, which they both know is a lie.

Then he says “I believe in a world where the wild one” and that she’s never coming out of whatever world she morphed into…”never coming home.”

Is it us or does this Pacific Northwest child of music sound a touch like Jackson Browne?

Singer, songwriter and performing artist Ian Jones is releasing a new EP on October 22nd. Being a Pacific Northwest kinda guy, Ian calls his latest work, Evergreens. That’s fitting for fifty-one-year-old Ian Jones who you’ll hear in this interview is young and ever green, like his music.

His EP dropped October 22nd...check it out on your favorite streaming platform.

Singer, songwriter and performing artist Ian Jones is releasing a new EP on October 22nd. Being a Pacific Northwest kinda guy, Ian calls his latest work, Evergreens. That’s fitting for fifty-one-year-old Ian Jones who you’ll hear in this interview is young and ever green, like his music.

His EP drops October 22nd and in honor of that occasion, Ian and band will be playing at the Tractor in Ballard WA on October 20th...show starts at 8:30.

You can pick up a physical copy of the EP and meet Ian at the show or check it out on your favorite streaming platform.

As drummer for Vanilla Fudge, Carmine Appice set the grooves for the groundbreaking band‘s 1967 psychedelic debut, inadvertently inventing Stoner Rock in the process. The Fudge had no precedent. The band was totally unique. No rock group, up until that point, had ever took poetic license with well known pop tunes like the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” and “Ticket To Ride,” Curtis Mayfield‘s “People Get Ready,” Sonny & Cher‘s “Bang Bang” Rod Argent‘s song made famous by the Zombies, “She‘s Not There” and, most famously, the Supremes‘ Motown classic “You Keep Me Hangin‘ On” taking music to new and improved hippie heights.

You wouldn’t know it but Carmine is the drummer on Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.”

And after authoring books, mentoring upcoming drummers, touring, recording and staying healthy at age 74, Carmine’s latest release “Energy Overload” is out of the oven. Carmine Appice and Fernando Perdomo (on guitar and keyboards) collaborate to become the Appice Perdomo Project...and here’s what they sound like.

I have never worked up a full set with a female vocalist. And some of my original songs have never been played outside of the recording studio, and with me doing all the parts. So, why not mortally wound two Byrds with one stone and audition at least session singers based on how well they interpret and perform my songs.

Then rehearse well, play live, rinse, repeat...record.

So far, it’s been 95% my voice on my songs. It’s always great when an enthusiastic singer grabs the song and runs...and sometimes when the moment is right just flat kills it.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, my songs are potentially great. I’m a good writer, arranger, team player and I’d rather hear someone else sing my songs sometimes.

People normally hear something and say it sounds like the Beatles, Pink Floyd or someone they associate the sound with. For me it’s Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.

I always tell people I want to sound like Whitney Houston. Hell, and look like her too. I’d never leave myself alone. But if I was Whitney Houston, and had her magic, this is what I’d sing to myself.

What an ending. And to the song too. Melissa Etheridge could really do justice to my melodies. She has a way of knocking some of the sugar off what normally would sound like a saccharin overdose.

I would dial the numbers

Just to listen to your breath

And I would stand inside my hell

And hold the hand of death

Pat Benatar. So bad she stole her husband’s last name.

Ann Wilson. She’s great on and off stage.

Maybe there's a young and ambitious Stevie Nicks clone waiting in the wings.

And Linda Ronstadt. My latest crush impossible. She sings this, “Somewhere Out There” with James Ingram. It’s a song from the soundtrack from a 1986 Disney film called An American Tail.

Joan Baez can make any song sound great. Written as a lullaby for his eldest son Jesse, born in 1966, Dylan's song relates a father's hopes that his child will remain strong and happy...Forever Young

I can hear an angelic female voice telling this story about a little girl's pretend world of little ponies.