Posts by Leslie Michele Derrough

It may come as a surprise but Gov’t Mule has never released an album devoted strictly to the blues. It’s not that they’ve ignored the genre, not by a long shot. It’s just they’ve stirred the blues so well into the music they make, you’ve naturally associated their sound with having all those great assets […]

If you were in the audience for any of the Allman Betts Band tour stops this year, if it was anything like their Baton Rouge show at the Manship Theatre on October 7th then it was nonstop rafter-shaking, blues-infused jamming, and from-the-gut singing from beginning to end – and this included the openers the River […]

David Duchovny is a modern-day Renaissance Man, something that was never really in his plans. He was an academic and a jock who eventually pursued acting as a way to live inside literary characters. But life has a way of opening doors to opportunities you may not have imagined at fifteen or twenty-two or even […]

For Zach Myers and Brent Smith of Shinedown, doing a duo project was a very natural thing. But making an album came somewhat out of the blue when vocalist Smith blurted out one night at a concert that he and guitarist Myers were going to record some songs together. Catching Myers by surprise, the idea […]

The first thing you notice about Jerry Douglas is that he is a master on the dobro. The second thing is his laugh. It’s big and he does it often. Simply listening to him tell stories will make your abs hurt for a week because you’ve laughed so much. He’s like the cousin you always […]

Songwriters are our gateways to the subconscious. They provide the words and feelings for all of our emotions when we can’t find the words to express them on our own. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash were angels of mercy when we felt anger, sadness, exhilaration, frustration, loneliness and pure joy. Without them, we […]

On July 9th, The Rolling Stones released another epic concert video from their bottomless pit vault. Titled The Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang: Live On Copacabana Beach, the twenty-song extravaganza takes us back to February 8, 2006 when the Stones played Rio to some 1.5 million fans in front of the Copacabana Palace Hotel; it’s […]

Nine years between albums can feel like an eternity in the music world. It might lead you to believe there will be no more albums at all. But bands have a sneaky way of coming back to life when you least expect it and sometimes they actually knock your socks off with what they give […]

Passions and dreams never really leave us. No matter what age we are or what profession we chose to pursue instead, they always linger somewhere in the back of our brains egging us on, that there is still time to do what we’ve always wanted to do. It may be a timeless cliché but for […]

When you hear bass player Tony Franklin for the first time, it’s pretty mind-blowing. What he can do with those bass strings, the places he can take the listener, makes you wonder why bass players aren’t given more credit for making songs great. We already know that they are the foundation of any piece of […]

For his third solo album, Billy Gibbons got down and dirty in the California desert, conjuring up some Texas spirituality that he mixed with Voodoo sonics, gritty guitar grooves and heartfelt reflections. And it just may be his best solo album yet. Hardware has everything you could possibly want from the ZZ Top head honcho. […]

It’s kind of amazing how fifty-two years ago an album was released by a group of non-professional girls who liked to hang out with rock stars, and made no other albums, yet their names are still known to the rock & roll world. Thanks in part to Frank Zappa, the GTO’s – the infamous Girls […]

You are never too old, or too young, to try different things. And for an artist, it’s the true goal, to never allow yourself to become stale, stagnant, or boring. Quinn Sullivan began that explorative journey on his 2017 album, Midnight Highway, and he continues to do so on his new 12-song release, Wide Awake, […]

“Everything’s good, no complaints,” Myles Kennedy tells me as we start our fourth interview together since 2011. “Just enjoying the new lifestyle for a guy used to being on the road (laughs). But I’m not complaining.” As with everyone else in the world, Kennedy had to readjust his life due to a worldwide pandemic that […]

Nancy Wilson is stoked that her solo album, You & Me, is finally available for her fans to hear in it’s entirety. Released this past Friday, May 7th, Wilson had dropped several singles – including a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” and a tribute to her friend Eddie Van Halen titled “4 Edward” – […]

Well, it’s about darn time country music outlaw Travis Tritt got down off the stage to record some new music. It’s been over ten years since the Georgia native put out an album of songs he wrote or co-wrote. Electing to keep moving and keep playing, Tritt sold out concerts on the laurels of great […]

He’s a motorcycle riding, leather jacket wearing, guitar playing true blue rock & roller, who has remained true to his roots from day one. Teasing us since last year about an upcoming album, Gilby Clarke began by releasing a single here and a single there. Now he’s unleashed the whole shebang, The Gospel Truth, this […]

What the world needs right now, and is certainly ripe for, is feel-good music. Music like they used to make back in the day, where a good groove was enough to get you through anything. Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper has a new album, Fire It Up, coming out on April 23rd and it’s just what […]

Bruce Sudano has written plenty of hits; from suave R&B flavored songs with his band Brooklyn Dreams during the age of disco to sassy tunes for his late wife Donna Summer. A song about his parents’ divorce, “Starting Over Again,” became a #1 country hit for Dolly Parton while several of his compositions ended up […]

Continuing his collaborative compatibility with guitarist Earl Slick, Glen Matlock has released “Consequences Coming,” a rockabilly-flavored single from a forthcoming album he hopes to release sometime this year. Matlock, an original Sex Pistol who played with such artists as Iggy Pop, Slim Jim Phantom, Blondie’s Clem Burke, and Midge Ure after leaving the punk pioneers […]