Blues & Beyond - Info & Facts & FAQs - updated 2/9/2012

The Blues & Beyond is a weekly one-hour program of blues, jazz, international folk, world music, and other related styles. The host and producer of The Blues & Beyond is Jonny Meister.

A new program in The Blues & Beyond series typically goes up at PRX on Wednesday each week.

The format is:

0:00 - 59-second intro/billboard, host talks over opening theme - - One second of silence at the end of the billboard.

1:00 - host intros a song. This song is called the "option song." Song plus host intro runs until 5:59, at which time there is one second of silence. This song can be played, or skipped by stations that want to run the five-minute NPR newscast during this time interval.

6:00 - host re-intros show. Program (Part 1) proceeds until somewhere near the bottom of the hour.

approximately at 30:00, there is a bottom-of-hour break. After host outro, 59 seconds of music plays followed by a second of silence

approximately at 31:00, host reintros show. Program (Part 2) proceeds.

Each show comes with a timings and cues rundown info indicating exactly when this bottom of the hour break occurs.

At approximately 58:05 closing theme starts and host outros the show over it. Voice is usually out by 58:30

At 58:59, one second before 59:00, closing theme fades out, and the program has concluded.

Playlist files are now being supplied as tab-delimited text files with each show, and also as Excel workbooks, named by the program number in the program's continuing series.

Example: beyond293playlist.txt is the text playlist file for show #293.
beyond293playlist.xls is The Excel playlist file for show #293.

The "official" date and time of an given program in the supplied playlist (see below for playlist details and contents) is the Sunday after the Wednesday that the show goes up, at midnight. Thus a show posted on Wednesday, February 8, 2012, would be dated as Sunday, February 12, 2012 at midnight. Thus date and times of events in the playlist will reflect that the show aired Sunday, February 12, 2012 at midnight. (This is the first day and first hour of the new week.) The file can be opened in Excel and saved with an xls or xlsx extension, as well as being used in Word, WordPad, or Notepad.

The text version of the playlist file gives the following bits of information, each separated by a TAB from the one before it, for each piece of music played:

Artist Name	Song Title	Album Title	Duration	Label	Year	Date/Time

Example: John Coltrane plays 36:15 into the hour, and is followed by the Stanley Clarke Band 43:57 into the hour.

John Coltrane	Acknowledgment	ALoveSupreme	00:07:42	Impulse!	1964	2/8/2012 00:36:15
Stanley Clarke Band	Labyrinth	The Stanley Clarke Band	00:05:55	Heads Up International	2010	2/8/2012 00:43:57

You can easily change the date and hour using global replacement. If you air the show Saturday February 7 at 7PM (19:00:00 in 24-hour time), instead of Sunday February 8 at midnight, hit Control H and:

In the "Find What" box, put 2/8/2012 00:
Then in the "Replace With" box put 2/7/2012 19: 
Click "Replace All."

Now your playlist says the show started at 7PM on Saturday February 7th, instead of midnight on Sunday February 8th.

John Coltrane	Acknowledgment	ALoveSupreme	00:07:42	Impulse!	2/7/2012 19:36:15
Stanley Clarke Band	Labyrinth	The Stanley Clarke Band	00:05:55	Heads Up International	2/7/2012 19:43:57

You can do the same with the Excel version of the file.

This playlist should satisfy all reporting requirements. Note that song durations include a field for hours! Few songs exceed an hour, but I'm told SoundExchange wants this... that's why it is set up thus.

Questions, comments, ideas?? Send to bluesandbeyond@gmail.com. Thanks.