6OG Special: WOWD-LP Sunday Midday Show Exploring Passover

As we’ve noted over time, 2 of the 6 OGs co-host a radio show (yes, a radio show and not a podcast; we mean it when we say Old Guys) on the amazing WOWD-LP in Takoma Park, MD, just bordering DC. The community station boasts an incredible array of diverse programming and has recently gained attention when, after retiring from NPR Music, the legendary and inimitable Bob Boilen, founder of the Tiny Desk concerts and so many other things, became the Program Director.

Periodically, we plan to post the playlists from the shows, which always have a theme of some kind, and maybe some of our notes, partially to make sure we recall them (again, we’re old) but also because we think they can add to the appreciation of these songs and the way they fit together.

So for the first one, we’re posting a show that OG Brad did on Sunday April 20, focused on the end of Passover (and one at the end about Easter). The playlist is found here. And if you click here before Sunday May 4, you can hear the show in the archives. The playlist moves the “bed music” or the songs playing underneath the talking to the end because the songs flow better that way, but they are noted at the end of each set.

Here are the notes, somewhat adapted to make it make more sense here:

As Passover comes to an end tonight, we’re going to spend an hour with songs connected to the names, the places, the events in one way or another. And where else do you start but with Moses?

The first set features artists whose names connect to the main characters, and as I noted, where else does one start than with Moses? In our case, it was the indie R&B singer Moses Sumney. He made a splash with his 2017 debut, Aromanticism, and has been churning out a fairly genre-defying mix of songs ever since. The track we heard makes that clear - a 2021 cover of Metallica’s 1991 mega-hit, “The Unforgiven.” And the lyrics to that track are, in a way, a reverse of the Moses of the Passover story, as the singer bemoans a life in which he was “never free, never me.” Moses did set himself free, for the most part, in the story, and to do so, he needed to deal with Pharaoh. We heard from the veteran MC Pharoahe Monch and a song called “Broken Again” from his 2014 album, PTSD, a track that, like the Passover story at the community level, focuses on being a slave to addiction and seeking salvation. Monch has been on the scene since the late 90s, part of a collective called Organized Konfusion and always super complex and intricate in his lyricism. This is due in part to his lifelong suffering from asthma, which he’s said has made him have to adjust how he delivers bars, not dissimilar to the fact that Moses, according to many scholars of the Passover story, suffered from a stutter or other speech impediment. And because he did, Moses often turned to his brother Aaron to deliver his words, and so we heard from neo-soul singer and Baltimore native Aaron Frazer. Frazer is better known for his drumming, songwriting, and singing with Durand Jones and the Indications, but he’s released a couple of solo albums, and we heard “I Don’t Wanna Stay,” more or less the theme of Moses and Aaron’s pleas to Moses, from his 2024 release “Into the Blue.” (Underneath the break, we heard from Sunday Midday favorite Sault, and their song channeling the core theme of Passover, “I am Free," from one of their six albums in 2022, Untitled (God).

The second set begins with another member of Moses’ family: Miriam; Miriam Makeba in this case. Miriam in the Passover story is Moses’ sister and often overlooked. So, too, is Miriam Makeba’s catalogue beyond her mega hit “Pata Pata.” The South African singer made a number of landmark albums in the 60s and 70s, including with Harry Belfaonte and her husband for a time, Hugh Masekela. Analogous to the Passover story, Miriam Makeba lived a life of several exiles due to activism, first from South Africa because of her speaking out against apartheid when she came to the U.S. and then from the U.S. when she and second husband and Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael relocated to Guinea. She would move several more times in her life, eventually returning to South Africa. We heard her cover of Van Morrison’s “Brand New Day,” which focuses on finding freedom from across the way, like the Jewish people did, from her 1970 release “Keep Me in Mind.” We stayed in Africa for the second song, which was by Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. Seun is the youngest son of the late great Fela Kuti, who we’ve played many times on this show, and we played Seun because he took over leading Fela’s band after his death - a band called Egypt 80. The song we heard was “Move,” from their most recent record from 2024, called Heavier Yet Lays the Crownless Head. Move, of course, is what the Jewish people did out of Egypt, and they wandered for 40 years eventually to the Land of Israel, which is the name of the song Johnny Cash sang for us. It comes from his 1969 album, The Holy Land, which is a sort of travelogue of Johnny’s when he toured with his new wife June. Johnny sings that he was at the top of “Sigh-neigh-eye,” which is not the traditional pronunciation, but I guess we’ll let Johnny say whatever he wants; we can especially underline his prayer that there be no more sorrow in the land. And in the vain of ending sorrow through music, during the break, we heard “Ami ya Gamal” from the remarkable collective The Nile Project and their debut album Aswan from 2013. The Nile Project brings together artists from Egypt all the way along the Nile’s flow into Central Africa and shows the incredible unity and peace music can bring amid conflict. With the last full track from Johnny Cash in the early part of his career, we turned for the third set to the original version of a song the Man in Black made famous in his later years to honor some of what made the Jewish people’s move to Egypt possible.

The third set featured part of what made Moses’ pleas to Pharaoh work, i.e. the 10 plagues. We heard songs connected to 3 of them. We began with Bonny Prince Billy and the song “I See a Darkness” from the 1999 album of the same name. This was the first album released under the moniker Bonnie Prince Billy, which is the project of Will Oldham, who had recorded earlier in the 1990s as Palace Brothers, Palace Music, and just Palace. Bonnie Prince Billy has stuck, and he has released a number of stunning records, but the first remains perhaps the most intense. And came to greater renown when Jonny Cash coversed the song a year later on American III. Darkness is the 9th plague, but we jumped up to the first two after that. The song “Frogs,” which is the second plague that befalls the Egyptians, came from the Handsome Family and the 2013 concept album Wilderness, which also features a song in honor of the 4th plague, “Flies.” The Handsome Family is a husband and wife duo who began in Chicago but have been based in Albuquerque for more than two decades, making a unique version of haunting country-infused rock. And for the first plague, we began where much of modern music of the last 50 or so year begins, with “the only band that matters,” The Clash. We heard “Corner Soul” from 1980’s Sandinista, during which Joe Strummer asks whether the music is calling for a river of blood, which was the first plague. (Underneath the break we heard Metallica’s legendary retelling of the Passover story in “Creeping Death,” when they were at the height of their powers, on 1984’s Ride the Lightning.)

We ended the third set with The Clash’s Sandinista and transitioned to another timeless classic from the same era for the final set, 1977’s Exodus by Bob Marley. His masterpiece that drew together so many themes of freedom, of divinity, of humanity. We heard “So Much Things to Say.” From Bob Marley, we turned it up and went to the late great Portland band The Thermals. Their 2006 album, The Body, the Blood, and The Machine brought together many religious themes and withering criticism. We heard “I Might Need You to Kill,” which references both locusts (plague #8) and Moses making the sea part in the core part of the Passover story — but also much of what came after. We are living through a time when it can be hard to reconcile the meaning of a festival like Passover, celebrating freedom and a need to end slavery and oppression, with what we are experiencing in the world these days. The Thermals created the perfect soundtrack for that dichotomy. Finally, we ended that set with a slightly lighter note on what many Jews had to say at the start of Passover, “Goodbye Bread.” That’s Ty Segall from his 2011 album of the same name. (Underneath the break, we heard Clem Snide singing a song called “Bread,” which we celebrated at the end of Passover. That comes from their 2000 album Your Favorite Music.)

Finally, we end the show with an ode to Easter, and my favorite song ever about the meaning of a resurrection: “How a Resurrection Really Feels” by the Hold Steady, the closing track from 2005’s Separation Sunday. (Brad)