Posts by Doug Collette

[rating=8.00] It might be unreasonable to expect the expanded reissue of My Morning Jacket’s It Still Moves to represent the same quantum leap in archiving as the original 2003 studio production did within the band’s discography. But even though titular leader Jim James professed publicly he sought improvements by overseeing the remixing & remastering of […]

[rating=8.00] From their very inception in 1988, The Posies have moved against the prevailing currents of musical fashion including the grunge moment as it emanated from their native Seattle shortly thereafter. And while their loyalty to pop structure, combined with emphasis on vocal harmonies, has threatened to pigeonhole them within the glib category of power […]

[rating=8.00] Mudcrutch 2 is proof positive Tom Petty regards his work seriously with the band that preceded the Heartbreakers. But then why wouldn’t he?–working with this quintet  allows him an opportunity as unique as it is practical, that is, a deliberate and valid means to revisit to his past. At the same time, however, he […]

[rating=7.00] There are multiple selling points for Eric Clapton’s twenty-third studio record I Still Do. The project finds him reunited with the producer of 1977’s mega-successful album Slowhand. Artist Peter Blake, who oversaw the cover for the Beatles Sgt. Pepper,  rendered the cover painting of EC. And the enigmatic presence of Angelo Mysterioso, actually the […]

In the very first chapter of Trouble Boys, Bob Mehr decoys his readers, rolling out the formative stages of guitarist Bob Stinson’s life in such granular detail that The True Story of The Replacements seems bound for territory as dry as a Wikipedia entry. As it turns out, though, Mehr has written one of the […]

[rating=8.00] Like the innumerable brethren within the demographic to which their name alludes, Hard Working Americans are an amalgam of distinct personalities, united within a bond of support around Todd Snider’s keenly wrought songs. The strength of Rest in Chaos, however, is the humble means by which the six individual personalities graciously assume roles that […]

[rating=6.00] Credit to where credit is due: Stephen Stills, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg refused to allow their cross-generational super-grouping of 2013 to remain a one-shot collaboration. But it’s a fact that, no matter the skill of the musicians involved in any alliance, there’s got to be some fundamental chemistry to be nurtured if […]

As intimated by its detailed cover graphics, with both flat and glossy finish on the dust-cover and a large embossing of the famous image of the man’s hand on the hardcover, Jerry on Jerry, The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews is really much more than what it’s subtitle indicates. The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews, as edited […]

[rating=7.00] The front cover graphic of Santana IV is expressly designed to evoke the band’s 1969 debut album and its most apropos. With some marked but ultimately minor interruptions, the better part of this ‘reunion’ album’s hour-plus running time finds  five of the original band members, augmented by two of the current ensemble’s personnel, vividly […]

As if The Jam’s fiercely independent, willfully defiant sense of integrity needed any affirmation in these days of songs by the Clash on TV commercials, About the Young Idea ultimately stands as a clear delineation of their will to succeed on their own terms. Unafraid to be themselves now as in the late Seventies, when […]