Posts by Leslie Michele Derrough

On his latest album, American Rock N Roll, Don Felder is aiming a spotlight upon his love for rock & roll. The fun he had making it, the excitement about the music and the good times he spent working with many of rock’s superstars who guest on the album, is so apparent that you can’t […]

If you happen to be in London these next couple of days, Jimmie Vaughan and his band will be opening for Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall. Longtime friends, Vaughan is also “very excited about doing Crossroads” with him in September in Dallas, which will also feature Doyle Bramhall II, Buddy Guy, Gary Clark […]

It may have rained on Saturday, canceling the first two tiers of artist performances, but it didn’t dampen the grounds – very sparse patches of mud – or the spirits of Festers 2019. In fact, they were out in droves – eating, dancing, buying merch and eating some more. The sun may have been beating […]

What a great day to be at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. For a Friday, it was jam-packed. At the City Park Parking Lot, where a shuttle will take you to and from the Fairgrounds and let you out inside of the gates, I was told they parked over 700 cars. They said […]

This was supposed to be Jazz Fest’s BIG day, the ultimate blowing out of 50 candles on a musical cake that started back in 1970 with lots of hopes, dreams and determination. When it was announced that the Rolling Stones were coming and a day would pretty much revolve around them – special set times, […]

Turning 50 is always something to celebrate, whether it’s our physical body hitting the top of the proverbial hill, an anniversary with a beloved mate or a place or event that you love to go to, 50 is golden. And you want to throw one heck of a party for it. The New Orleans Jazz […]

With the Music Of Cream 50th Anniversary tour ending this week, the trio of guys that make up this homage to the original band formed in 1966, are feeling the rigors of the road. “Please forgive me, I’m a little tired,” singer/guitar player Will Johns apologized with a yawn when I spoke to him last […]

“The record’s about turning the darkness and pain I’ve experienced in my life into songs that can inspire others to make the best of hard times.” Shawn James wasn’t kidding. His new album, appropriately titled The Dark & The Light, has turned his inner turmoil into a volcanic eruption of soul, passion and, in the […]

When you have been in music for fifty years, you might wonder if the well of creativity might be on the brink of drying up. But an artist is an artist to the end and that creativity never really goes away. Guitarist Nils Lofgren is a good case in point. He has been on the […]

If at any point during Jackson Browne’s March 29th show at IP Casino’s Studio A in Biloxi, Mississippi, you happened to close your eyes to just listen, you would have been hard pressed to say you hadn’t been transported back to the days of Running On Empty or For Everyman; those ethereal seventies when music was […]

At 74, Robin Trower is a man whose creativity has not dried up the older he gets. In fact, he has been releasing an album every couple of years like clockwork since his first solo album, 1973’s Twice Removed From Yesterday. On Friday, March 22nd, he dropped his twenty-third solo studio album, Coming Closer To […]

They were six weeks away from releasing their sophomore album when Foreigner, still riding a huge wave from the 1977 release of their eponymous debut album, played the Rainbow Theatre in London on April 27, 1978. Barely two years old, Foreigner had that youthful, energetic passion that helps blaze a trail to success. They had […]

There is something about the sound of a Hammond B3 organ. It’s like someone has hooked a monitor up within the depths of a human soul and recorded the deep hum of a life living. The B3 has been a major part of rock & roll, soul, R&B, blues, country, psychedelia & southern rock. Gregg […]

It begins with a heady, aromatically sexy beat that winds its way around your hips. That’s when the movement begins as the jazzy swings swirl around your aura and before you’ve even blinked half an album has played past you. It’s like a molecular absorption, all the pores of the body reacting to the sounds […]

If you have yet to see Carlene Carter perform, you are not doing yourself any favors. The woman knows how to put on a show. If you’re thinking, well, she’s too country or she’s too old-fashioned, then think again. Carter kicks up her heels, cusses, dances, tells jokes and stories and sings like there is […]

Rock & Roll has always been abundant with siblings – Eddie & Alex Van Halen, Chris & Rich Robinson, Gregg & Duane Allman, Angus & Malcolm Young to name just a few. They all claim there is a special magic that happens to the music they create together and their collaborative bands lasted for decades […]

Robben Ford is one of those artists who doesn’t like repeating himself. With every new project, each new album, he puts a new spin on his sound, his playing, his lyrical focus. It’s how most artists are; otherwise they end up with dozens of songs that sound exactly the same. And that is NOT what […]

As Paul Barrere was telling me that his band Little Feat would be playing the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this year, it’s producer Quint Davis was announcing the lineup for their 50th celebratory year. Little Feat have appeared there, “At least six times that I can count,” the seventy-year old California-born guitarist said […]

When Steve Forbert walked up to the mic recently in Baton Rouge, he was holding a well-worn Gibson acoustic and a harmonica attached to his jaw. It was almost like a blast from the past, when songwriters had only themselves to rely on, to add different textures to a song and create magic with basically […]

Get Your Shit Together. There could not be a more fitting title for a record by Hunt Sales. For the drumming son of comedian Soupy Sales and member of David Bowie’s early nineties band Tin Machine, life at 64, after forty years of addiction and even longer as a working musician, Sales has put his […]