Musician Barry Rillera and Aliye Aydin of Beach Greens Visit Swoop’s World

On Wednesday December 15, 2010 at 9pm PST our guests are musician Barry Rillera and Aliye Aydin of Beach Greens.

Barry Rillera, who joins us during our first hour, is a music vet in the truest sense of the word. After graduating college and teaching grammar school for two years, he went on the road with two hometown friends, The Righteous Brothers, and never looked back.

In a touring career with The Righteous Brothers, which spanned some 30 years, he served as their lead guitarist, bandleader and tour manager.

During some quiet periods in their career, Barry took time off to tour with two bands of which he was particularly proud – Ray Charles (one year) and the Southern R&B/ Rock Group, White Trash.
He also recorded with Ray Charles amongst many others, and did an album with Jerry LaCroix & White Trash for Columbia.

But, his heart has always been with the blues ever since he first learned to play by listening to B. B. King 78 records. This opened his mind to the possibilities the electric guitar had in store for the changing music scene at that time.

Barry has stopped touring as a sideman for other singers to pursue a solo career, firmly believing he has something to offer.

Barry continues to follow his passions, which are performing live and writing more blues material.

“From Where I Stand” is his first solo effort of original material, and gives an insight into his many, varied influences from a bluesy standpoint.

After Barry Aliye Aydin of Beach Greens joins us, beachgreens is a mission driven company based in Long Beach, California that delivers organic and sustainably grown produce direct from local Southern California farmers to your house, apartment, or workplace in the Greater Long Beach area.

Beach Greens strives to make organic and sustainably grown produce more readily and easily available in our busy lives through education of our community, and ourselves and through relationships conducted with honesty, integrity, respect, and with a commitment to sustainability.

Aliye started beachgreens in July 2007 in an effort to make organic and sustainably grown produce direct from local farmers more readily available for the average busy person in the Long Beach area.

She grew up in Long Beach, and having recently moved back home, wanted a way to share her passion for discovering and experiencing good food. Out of necessity, her enthusiasm for healthier ways of eating started at age 15, when she was diagnosed with a chronic kidney disease, and told to watch her sodium intake. Now 15 years later, living free of kidney disease, Aliye feels this diagnosis helped direct her path of the last few years—she studied nutrition at U.C. Berkeley, trained as a chef at the Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan, and recently received a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle, a school on the forefront of teaching sustainable business practices through its MBA program.

Her previous experiences include working in organic farm certification and on organic farms around the country, in restaurants, as a personal chef and caterer, and as a cooking instructor. She’s worked to develop a network of community and school gardens with Long Beach Organic in 2002 to 2003. “Ultimate fulfillment for me comes from connecting the farm to our forks. I love cooking, I love farming and gardening—what a better idea for a business besides the intersection of the two! A start-up company delivering local organic produce seems a logical step.”

Aliye says her Turkish heritage deeply influences her love of food, as has traveling and living in different cities. “I’ve experienced the common denominator that food is for us humans, no matter where we live or what we eat.”