Kool & The Gang, “People Just Wanna Have Fun.” The last album by Kool & the Gang, 2021’s Perfect Union, was a more mature, more sophisticated album of chill-out music that showed the band’s range and evolution. This made sense; it’d just lost founding members Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas…

If you’re a casual follower of Kool & the Gang you probably know them for “Jungle Boogie” and, especially if you attend Oakland A’s games, “Celebration.” You think of the heyday of ’70s funk music; blaring horns, frenetic energy, the whole band shouting the chorus or even the whole…

Row 1: Neil Peart, Riley Gale, Martin Birch, Peter Green, Lee Kerslake. Row 2: Ken Hensley, Pete Way, McCoy Tyner, Billy Joe Shaver and Bill Withers. Row 3: Little Richard, Eddie Van Halen, Ennio Morricone, Andy Gill and John Prine. Row 4: Florian Schneider, Fredderick ‘Toots’ Hibbert, Adam Schlesinger, Bones Hillman and…

Oakland Athletics. No juice required. Photo: Sacramento Bee. After so many long, dreary months without baseball, it has finally returned to the East Bay. And to a lesser extent, the rest of the country. In celebration of this momentous occasion, an occasion that should absolutely be a national holiday,…