Eli Charleston's Ragged Time

Eli's album "Street Corner Rags" has been delayed! Whaaat!? How hard can it be to get this guy into a studio to record? Well, apparently this task has proven more difficult to the newly meticulous Eli. The original version of this classic was finished a year ago but never went to the presses. Eli has given numerous excuses for his lethargy, but the only viable explanation is his perfectionism. However, recent sources have spotted Eli at spectacular new photo shoots and say he looks better than ever. We were lucky enough to have attained some bootlegs (that's right bootleg photos) from this shoot and you get first hand view of what is said to be the spread for the new and improved "Eli Charleston's Street Corner Rags". Eli candidly admitted to our undercover reporters that he was caught up writing new material and completely 'overhauling' this new album. "The first album was a collection of many ideas that I had compiled to exercise the many facets of my personality. Street corner rags will focus one of these aspects being solo one track recording," remarked Eli reluctantly. Well we all await this well fermented solo album soon………….Pleeeeeeease!

With the advent of digital music, it is amazing to acknowledge how far music has come in less than one hundred years. At the turn of last century, we were winding up phonographs and listening to cake walks, foxtrots, one and two steps, charlestons… Now we can pack up thousands of songs into a pack of bubblegum- but you used to be lucky to get twelve songs out of one phonograph needle! The span of time and technology are dumbfounding! Some folks are looking to the past instead of the future. Many lovers of ragtime, blues, and jazz are expressing how disgruntled current music is. Yet is the world worse off now? The music business is scrambling to find out what could be the next step. All that we have to do is illegally download music off the internet for free. In the eighties the music industry had a campaign to protect their records "Home Taping is Killing Music". This motto was complete with a cassette tape, skull, and crossbones. Apparently we have been stealing music since the seventies with our home taping of vinyl. But is technology really advancing from Edison's musical epiphany? All I know is that in the twenties we had 78's, and how many people know how to make a vinyl?