Music

Nyquist-Shannon; The Backbone of Digital Sound

Most people don't understand how a digital recording is an exact reproduction of the analog waveform with no distortion.  Nyquist-Shannon says if you sample an audio signal digitally at twice the maximum bandwidth, as defined by the low-pass filter, mathematically the only signal that come out the other end, after going through another low-pass filter is the exact sine wave that went into the recorder. So, the digital sampling, actually can reproduce the exact analog sine wave -- all thanks to math. A Russian scientist invented Nyquist-Shannon in 1933 but it was rediscovered by Nyquist and Shannon in America circa 1964.

The KKK-Fueled Peekskill Riots, 70 Years Later – The Forward

The KKK-Fueled Peekskill Riots, 70 Years Later – The Forward

Yet Peekskill’s accomplished natives are only part of its history, one of the most notable parts of which was a stain on post-war America. There are probably not many people alive today who remember it; perhaps long-time, aging residents or scholars of American social or musical history. It is a story of terror, a cautionary tale for an America in which vituperation barely tries to pass for civilized discourse.

It happened exactly 70 years ago, beginning on August 27, 1949. The prominent black singer and actor Paul Robeson, along with other artists such as Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, was scheduled to give an open-air concert in Peekskill. This was not the first time that Robeson was to appear in the Peekskill area. Indeed, it was to be the fourth Robeson concert in as many summers. The nearby Mohegan Colony, a cooperative community that served as an experiment in egalitarian living and child rearing, had hosted the concert in 1946. In 1947, the site was Peekskill Stadium, and in 1948 it was in nearby Crompond.

Our Essential Guide To Early CCR : NPR

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Green River’ At 50: Our Essential Guide To Early CCR : NPR

It's not surprising that TV producers didn't get Creedence Clearwater Revival. During its rapid ascent in 1969, even those inside rock culture didn't really know what to make of the band. Here was a group from San Francisco that was pointedly not interested in, or aligned with, the city's most intriguing (and best-known) export, psychedelic rock. A band that was not into drugs, that positioned itself as counter to the counterculture. A band that mythologized the American South with an exotic mixture of blues, New Orleans R&B and rockabilly, despite being a product of California. A band that had a sound built for FM radio, but songs that adhered to the tight verse/chorus requirements of AM.

The commercial rise of Creedence seems torrid, almost paranormal, in hindsight — by the end of 1969, Creedence had three top-10 albums on the Billboard 200, and four top-five singles on the Billboard Hot 100. But that pales in comparison to its artistic evolution: During an incredibly prolific 18-month stretch — approximately from the recording of Bayou Country around October 1968 to the recording of Cosmo's Factory around May 1970 — the band developed a distinct and instantly recognizable sonic signature. It applied that soundprint to direct, tuneful, incandescent songs that enchanted pretty much everybody – hippies and new suburbanites, Vietnam protesters and war veterans.