Alexa is my music concierge of choice. I just tell her what to play and she does.

How did Apple squander first mover advantage? It was there earliest, with Siri, but I never use it, it’s too inaccurate, but Alexa gets it right almost all of the time.

That could be perception. But what is driving my Echo adoption is utility.

Voice-activation is the hottest thing in tech right now. It’s hiding in plain sight. But most people have not gotten the memo. But those with Echos are testifying. As for Google’s me-too product… Android put a huge dent in iOS, but Amazon is a better competitor. Because first and foremost all units are cheap. And the Echo is tied into Amazon’s sales paradigm. And Google’s product is blah, in a world where design counts, and Amazon has first mover advantage.

Echo is the dream we’ve been waiting for. The one we’ve given up hope on arriving. One wherein you talk to your computer, as opposed to typing in entries.

We’ve lived through the video revolution. All that news about Facebook focusing on the moving image?

This voice activation revolution is even bigger.

It’s not just a reduction of steps, it’s a change in conception.

Oftentimes I think of a song but don’t play it. Because to get to the computer and find my music program and type it in…

Takes too much time.

But to just think of a track and blurt out its name and hear it right away?

It’s utterly fascinating. Kinda like demonstrating Sonos nearly a decade ago. People couldn’t believe you could pull up any track and hear it instantly. They couldn’t wrap their heads around Rhapsody, never mind Spotify. And it’s only a matter of time before they wrap their head around Echo.

But Apple is out of the loop.

Supposedly you can tell Apple Music what to play via Siri. But even for the tracks I own I find Apple Music too complicated. It’s got interface issues. Funny how the company that pioneered easier user interfaces is blowing it here. I can figure it out, but my girlfriend couldn’t find shuffle within her playlists and there was just an update and today if you need a manual you don’t even bother.

But with the Echo, you just blurt out your choice.

Here’s the skinny. You make Spotify your default music service. So, you just say “Alexa, play ‘A Hard Day’s Night.'” and she does. Yup, just like that.

But you can’t do this with Apple Music. And the window keeps widening. People are becoming inured to their Echos and are not signing up for Apple Music. Because Apple Music is a walled garden. When will this change?

Apple has to admit it lost the war. It must open itself up to the Echo ecosystem, or be left behind.

But that’s not the Apple Way.

But the Apple Way used to be to create a dominant ecosystem that no one wanted to leave. Amazon couldn’t topple the iTunes Store. And now Apple is gonna get creamed.

As is Amazon. It was too late to the party with its own streaming music service. That horse has left the barn. It’s Apple and Spotify, and the latter is increasing its footprint at a faster rate.

You don’t fight the last battle, you start anew.

So, you’re gonna control your music via voice, you just don’t know it yet.

And the first mover here is Amazon.

But now you can make Spotify the default music service on Google Home too.

And where is Apple?

Nowhere to be found, on either device, never mind having a device of its own.

Meanwhile, Amazon has already sold five million Echos, talk about first mover advantage…

Make Spotify the default music player on your Echo

Spotify on Google Home

You just can’t treat someone that badly.

Forget Roger Ailes‘s harassment, station star Bill O’Reilly said she should eat it, report infractions to human resources, take one for the team.

But no one ever went to human resources, they were afraid, it was a toxic environment, and the truth is women don’t want to work in a place like that. Donald Trump may have won the Presidency, but most things in America did not change. Women want opportunity and equal rights and a safe environment to work and raise their kids.

That’s been the explanation, that Kelly took this gig so she could see her kids. And I’m sure that’s a factor, but it turns out that she did not drink the kool-aid, she was not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative oblivious to the plight of most Americans.

Never forget that Fox News missed the Trump phenomenon. That Kelly tried to attack him and lost. Sure, the right wing outlet may be preaching to delusional oldsters angry that our nation has changed, but they’re not the ones who got the Trumpster elected, those were the white disenfranchised, many of whom used to vote Democrat, they were worried about their jobs. They’ve got no problem with gay marriage and if an immigrant is not looking to take their job, they’re cool with him or her.

But we keep hearing from Fox that half of America are takers and the rich know better and if you think this plays across our country you’re believing the b.s. they’re feeding you.

But Megyn Kelly did not.

She’s got more at risk than Fox here. They can groom another bimbo. Whereas the bimbo paradigm doesn’t work so well on the rest of the stations. That was Ailes’s genius, appealing to dirty old men like himself. But now he’s gone too, and if you think Fox News can survive you probably felt the Doors would triumph after the death of Jim Morrison. Sure, some bands haves survived the loss of their lead singer, but most haven’t. You need a visionary (can you hear me Apple?) Despite all this hogwash about team-building, getting along, the truth is one person makes a difference, can move mountains, and usually the one who does has rough edges on his personality.

Kinda like Andy Lack. Who came in to fix the record business and showed no respect, thought he knew better. Well, we fixed that, didn’t we? The rootkit fiasco was just an excuse to finally kick his butt out. Lack went back to news, he was the one who signed Kelly. He who believes he can jump from career to career, wreaking havoc and lording it over workers everywhere, has been reading too much press. You’re lucky if you can do one thing well. Pick an industry and stay in it, assuming you want to get to the top, exercise a bit of power.

Now the truth is Megyn Kelly was a creation of Roger Ailes. He groomed her. In the Fox mold, she was beautiful. But also educated and intelligent. And a free-thinker. That’s why she’s triumphed while the other one note Fox anchors have failed to gain traction with the non-believers. But take her out of the band…

A daytime show? Does she know how hard it is to gain traction? Her special failed, she’s a newsreader and should continue to be so, asking a few questions along the way. But she believes her own press and thinks she can be something more. Hell, all those correspondents on “60 Minutes” needed Don Hewitt to mint and maintain their fame, there’s still a show on CBS with that name but it’s a far cry from what once was, a joke where talking heads try to get serious but too often only skim the surface, or play for entertainment value.

And how did we get here to begin with? Where we think people reading lines on television are geniuses who we should listen to otherwise? Better to promote someone from print.

And the truth is print rules, even if it usually appears as pixels on a screen.

Kim Kardashian is about how you look.

News is about what you have to say.

So…

Used to be you left the other outlet for the ratings juggernaut. Greta Van Susteren left CNN for Fox. But now she’s gone too.

And who is going to pick and groom the new Megyn Kelly? It’s hard to start from scratch. And if you think picking stars is easy, you’ve never run a record label. Stars have this charisma, this je ne sais quoi. They shine, but they’re not easily found. And oftentimes they need seasoning. After all, David Lee Roth could not replace Howard Stern.

So, chances are Megyn Kelly will fade away. She’s no Barbara Walters, who asked the unaskable and made a career out of it. And the even more beloved Katie Couric and Connie Chung couldn’t sustain, and Jane Pauley never equaled her status on the “Today Show.”

You see sometimes it is the show, like it is the band.

I would have told Megyn Kelly to stay. Or to ask for an equal gig at a rival outlet. Host of the news every night.

But one thing’s for sure, TV no longer controls the narrative. It’s subservient to print, but the “New York Times” is still trying to figure out how to adjust to the election of Trump, paying lip service to the disenfranchised but circling the wagons around its myopic coastal liberal elite viewpoint all the while.

And the “Wall Street Journal” is an analog of Fox News. Shrinking with little content, it’s the right wing paper of record. It gave up its stranglehold on business news and now we’re not sure what the paper is for, it’s been marginalized, all by itself.

And none of these outlets have conquered the web. Just like MTV missed music online before it.

Their game just doesn’t apply. We don’t need reporters when there’s someone living the subject online. Someone who’s in the trenches of that vertical every day.

And the public is tired of the shouting. the constant debate by the bloviators on TV. I’d rather go to a boxing match, a UFC cage fight, but really, I don’t want to watch that either.

But I’m an information junkie. Today everybody’s an information junkie. What we’re looking for is facts and honest analysis. Sure, there’s skewing in the political sphere, but that does not work elsewhere. They tell us movies are good and we tell them they are bad and don’t go. The decline of marketing power is the story here. Truth and honesty rule. And what blows the mind of even Trump voters is how little truth and honesty there was in the campaign, even from their candidate.

But they wanted change. They wanted someone to listen to them.

So they flipped the table over.

Megyn Kelly moving to NBC may flip the table over at Fox, but basically it’s inside baseball, most don’t care.

And last I checked they didn’t care about the NFL either.

That’s one of the big lessons of 2016, that the conventional wisdom is wrong. That nothing is forever. And if you don’t think change is coming, you’re gonna be wiped out by the tsunami.

So Megyn Kelly jumped from a sinking ship. She’ll get paid, maybe she’ll land on her feet.

But one thing’s for sure, Fox News has taken two bullets in the last six months. People die from less. How are they gonna staunch the bleeding?

They’re probably not.

That’s the big news here. Who’s gonna fill the vacuum?

Someone will. And it won’t be a pretty face, but a visionary, like Shane Smith of Vice Media or some other young ‘un in touch with what their generation wants.

Because believe you me, the younger generation does not want to sit down in real time and watch pretty people argue about the news.

That’s an oldster’s pastime.

Youngsters want the facts on demand. He or she who delivers this will own the narrative in the future.

The only one missing is Justin Bieber.

Then again, maybe he’ll make a guest appearance with DJ Snake.

Classic rock is dead. The oldsters are in the rearview mirror. Even booking Radiohead was a risk. Because, you see, Coachella is a rite of passage for SoCal teenagers, and Radiohead peaked nearly twenty years ago.

Unlike Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar.

We did not expect it to go down this way. After getting old, we expected Pete Townshend and the other survivors to rule until they died. Only last year some of them did die. You may hate the Eagles, but if Glenn Frey can expire that means you can too. You’re just one health crisis away from passing to the other side.

Unlike the youth. Who might be victims of misadventure, just ask the Hard crew, but otherwise feel they’re invulnerable.

It’s a passing of the torch. Doug Morris has been kicked upstairs and labels are run by people who were not around when the business was built and in the next ten or fifteen years it will be taken over by millennials with completely different values from their parents. Millennials believe in money, but they also believe in transparency. They cannot understand the obfuscation of the modern music business, and when they take the reins…

It can only get better.

You see the old farts are cynical and set in their ways. For far too long Coachella has been featuring reunions of bands its audience does not care about, giving slots to those who were someone once, but who are no one today, other than in their fans’ memories.

And these fans don’t go to Coachella.

One of the reasons Desert Trip was such a success was because it was upscale. You didn’t have to eat hot dogs. You were treated like an adult. And that’s what adults want, only they do not realize this lifestyle does not run the culture. It’s those without who push the envelope, who take risks. And the only risk a classic act takes is to dye their hair and get plastic surgery, believing image is everything.

But image is fading in this social media world where your warts are revealed. Honesty is on its way back.

And the honest truth about Coachella is it’s about the fans, not the lineup. They want to mingle, they want to ogle each other, take pictures and post to Instagram. Today you are the star of your own production, who is on stage…not so much.

I’m not saying that the performers are not heroes to some, just that too many look outward instead of inward. Art is not branding and money is a byproduct, whereas too many of the modern acts believe otherwise. Then again, their idea of an oldster is Mariah Carey, a woman who was the antithesis of classic rock.

So this changing of the guard is a good thing. We’re wiping the slate clean so a new generation of acts can triumph. We’re admitting rock is dead and hip-hop rules. And EDM is the building block, the core, the nougat of all these festivals. The kids want to party. The sound is just grease. Doubt me? Then you don’t remember the last time Radiohead played in the desert, when their audience continued to shrink as everybody went to the Sahara tent.

Further risks can be taken. A country act could be put on the Coachella bill. After all, they rap too. And the audience genre jumps, they listen to everything. If you wanna be cool you can book Sturgill Simpson, but the audience wants to see Thomas Rhett.

And the fact that two African-Americans are headlining proves…

That music is far ahead of the government. Where Obama is exiting and the white men are entering. African-Americans control popular music. It’s about time lilywhite Coachella acknowledged this.

So where does the festival go from here?

Rumor was we were no longer minting new headliners, that you had to overpay oldsters to play.

But then Beyonce dropped the album of the year, with videos, and Kendrick Lamar was acclaimed the most credible artist out there.

Who next, Chance the Rapper?

You’re gonna have to pay him beaucoup bucks, he can sell out stadiums all by his lonesome.

So it’s not your father’s music business anymore. They don’t make Oldsmobiles and everyone has seen the classic rock acts, they’ve been hiding in plain sight, and only a small number of people want to see revivals of the cult favorites.

Last year our heroes died.

And this year we’re starting over with a whole new generation.

It’s about time.

Gamblin’ Man – Spotify

“Sweet Forgiveness” was Bonnie Raitt’s comeback album. After starting off as a critics’ darling with her four track made in Minnesota eponymous debut she wandered into the wilderness, changing producers with each record and having less and less success. So it was decided she should work with a certified hitmaker, Paul Rothchild. Their first attempt, 1975’s “Home Plate,” was slicker than what had come before and there was no hit but the team decided to stay the course and 1977’s “Sweet Forgiveness” finally yielded a radio track, a cover of Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” But Bonnie ended up in no-man’s (no-woman’s?) land. Her old fans shrugged their shoulders and not enough new fans signed on and she shifted to a woman’s best friend, Peter Asher, for her next LP, but that resulted in a collection even sweeter and who knew what to do?

Bonnie ended up making a rougher, rootsier album with her then boyfriend, Rob Fraboni, entitled “Green Light,” and there began the walk into the wilderness, Warner Brothers was done, their investment had never paid off, eventually she was dropped. Not that you could blame the Bunny, after eight albums and no breakthrough it could be argued it was time to cut their losses. Who knew nearly a decade later WB execs newly ensconced in the Capitol Tower would sign Bonnie and she’d end up being not only the favorite of the critics, but the whole world, with “Nick Of Time.” Credit Don Was, who let Bonnie be Bonnie. He engineered a return to what once was, that initial LP from ’71, albeit with modern technology. You see Bonnie Raitt always had an edge, and if you tried to clean it up, cut it off, you removed her essence.

Meanwhile, over on RCA, the Record Cemetery of America, there was a band with little traction that had a track on its second album that ended up gaining momentum and breaking through long after its initial release. That act was Pure Prairie League. That song was “Amie.” The writer of that number was one Craig Fuller.

Now purchasers of “Bustin’ Out,” the Pure Prairie League album containing the hit, knew it did not stand alone, because when you dropped the needle on side two the opening cut was a magical, harmonious number that set your mind adrift before the picking for “Amie” began. That’s right, scratch a baby boomer and they’ll be able to sing “Falling In And Out Of Love” as well as the hit, they see them both as one long number, a veritable suite, hell, as you reached the end of “Amie,” “Falling In And Out Of Love” returned.

I got e-mail from Craig Fuller.

I assumed it wasn’t him. After all, I regularly hear from Mike Campbell, a guy from Canada, not the guitarist extraordinaire in Tom Petty’s band. You’d be surprised how many people have your name. Then again, it was the real David Gilmour, and one of the privileges of my work is if I write about someone they read it, and oftentimes they do reach out. So when I got wished a Happy New Year by one Craig Fuller I decided to investigate. His e-mail address had a “49” in it and Wikipedia told me that was the year he was born in, so I asked…

And he said:

“I presume you mean the musician and not the former White House staffer; that would be me. Read your thoughts on things everyday; well done.”

And that made me tingle. Reminded me of those Pure Prairie days, the work with Little Feat and in between, the partnership with Eric Kaz, and for two albums Steve Katz and Doug Yule too.

I bought those American Flyer LPs. Which were on United Artists, so they could not break through. If only they’d been with the Bunny. But I played them and there was one cut that truly stuck out, “Gamblin’ Man.” But did Craig Fuller sing it? I knew Eric Kaz wrote it, I pulled my vinyl, there was no detail, I scoured the internet and came up with nothing, so I decided to ask my new buddy Craig himself…

“No that was Eric Kaz; he wrote it and did a bang-up job!  I think he sang it a lot better than Bonnie R..”

I agree.

The odds are down and the track looks slow
Sure don’t feel like a sure thing

And speaking of things, the Triple Crown is still one, especially the Kentucky Derby, but basically horse racing is going the way of duckpin bowling, it’s fading away. But fifty years ago, it was still burgeoning.

Your horse gets jumpy when the pack runs wild
It don’t like a good thing

Trains and gambling. For most of the twentieth century those were standard songwriting subjects. But trains have faded from songdom the same way westerns have faded from moviedom, there’s no romance left. And gambling…it’s been institutionalized, you can still lose your life savings but the state needs the tax revenue, so the renegade element has been eviscerated from society.

You must be crazy
To gamble this way
The children hungry
And the rent ain’t paid
Gamblin’ man
Ramblin’ fool
Sure must be crazy
To gamble on you

We don’t choose who we love. I know, I know, you can go to a good school and try to build a dynasty through matrimony but the truth is the heart wants what the heart wants and even though you may have money in the bank your heart yearns for something different. This is the conundrum of love, so often what you want is bad for you.

So who better to sing about a gamblin’ man than the blues rock mama herself, Bonnie Raitt.

Now if you want to go back to the nadir, the album that caused the label to connect Bonnie with Rothchild, you’ll find an opening track so mellifluous that to hear it once is to be taken away to a place of reflection you enjoy inhabiting so much you spin it over and over again.

That’s right, Bonnie’s 1974 album “Streetlights,” produced by Jerry Ragavoy, was a dud, it was so soft that it nearly put you to sleep, but despite getting no traction at the time it contains Bonnie’s signature song, her cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” and the aforementioned opening cut, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “That Song About The Midway.”

I met you at a midway at a fair last year

That’s another thing no one writes about anymore, the carnival, the fair, a place where rogues caroused and sans cellphone cameras anything could happen.

You stood out like a ruby in a black man’s ear

I’m not sure you can say this anymore, political correctness and all, but the point is it’s funny who gains your attention, you’re just minding your own business and then your eyes lock on to someone and they can’t let go.

You were playing on the horses, you were playing on the guitar strings

That’s right, once upon a time bands were not brands. Sure, musicians were entertainers, but they didn’t fit into regular society, they enjoyed the freedom of the hours to live an alternative life, which they ultimately sang about.

So, this guy was betting on the ponies…

And so was the guy in “Gamblin’ Man.”

The deal is down so you slip right in
You’ve got the deck but you can’t win

Dreamers. We fall for them time and again, until we learn our lesson. We’re infatuated by the tales they spin, until we realize most of them don’t come true, and that their purveyors fail even if they have the ammunition in their arsenal. You know the type, charismatic with a wink in their eye, they’re hard to resist.

And Bonnie’s singing about him with such swagger we know she’s headed for heartbreak. That seems to be the story of the blues mama’s life, right? Livin’ hard, being taken advantage of, never finding true happiness.

But Eric Kaz’s rendition is more fatalistic. The hope is absent. It’s a cautionary tale by someone burned enough times to be wise.

I bet you Craig Fuller is pretty wise.

It was a different era. You had to have skills to play, you had to practice to get there. And so few passed muster. And then you got a smidge of fame and…

Bonnie Raitt had an unforeseen renaissance, in her later years she’s become something akin to America’s Sweetheart, but sans sweet stickiness, Bonnie’s the sister at the soiree, the one you worry about but always manages to survive.

American Flyer broke up. And its albums were in the rearview mirror until the internet unearthed everything that came before. To the point where you can now hear American Flyer’s version of “Gamblin’ Man.”

The cards are cold and the cut is thin
You’ve got the deal but you won’t win

That’s right, despite all the advantages, most don’t win. And that seems so unfair. You work hard, but mistakes made when you weren’t looking, like signing with the wrong label, employing the wrong producer, keep you from grabbing the brass ring.

But you keep on keepin’ on, there’s nothing else to do.

After all…

You’re a gamblin’ man.