Album Reviews

For better or worse, Grant-Lee Phillips‘ solo career has been heavily defined by a certain brand of easy going acoustic singer-songwriterisms. As predictably as those embracing his band, the more biting Grant Lee Buffalo, in the 90’s – eventually grew older and embraced the Wilcos and Nationals in their middle age, so too did Phillips […]

Coming on the heels of their well received 2018 release ATW, All Them Witches experienced some changes and opportunities. For their follow up Nothing as the Ideal, the group has reconfigured as a trio (gone is keyboardist Jonathan Draper) and they were also were able to record at the legendary Abbey Road Studios’ Studio Two. […]

James Lee Baker is another thoughtful, relatively unknown singer-songwriter making an impact lately. But this is much more  than just another effort. The CD has an enclosed detailed booklet with artwork, background, and lyrics for each song, some 45 pages in total. In other words, we have almost too much information for a review, so […]

Celebrated Malian songwriter and guitarist Afel Bocoum gathers a slew of guests and collaborators for his latest release, Lindé. Named after the wild expanse near Bocoum’s hometown of Niafunké, Lindé is a blend of deep tradition and daring innovation. World music giants, executive producers Damon Albarn and World Circuit artistic director Nick Gold, are behind the album which was recorded in […]

Peter Parcek is one of the most criminally underrated blues guitarists despite having earned a BMA nomination ten years ago. While folks like Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd get tons of ink, none of them have Parcek’s creativity, unpredictability, or his haunting, primal style. This writer calls Parcek’s brand “hard blues.”  If […]

Especially in recent years, it’s difficult to argue that Dirk Powell is the preeminent roots artist on today’s scene, certainly its foremost producer. He doesn’t assume the spotlight often for his own work, content in his various roles as producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and sideman.  This effort, When I Wait for You, is a follow-up to […]

Hayes Carll is not the first one to do this. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kim Richey. Lucinda Williams and others have re-imagined and re-interpreted their own material years later. Yet, Carll may be the first to do it this way. Carll teamed up with friend and frequent collaborator, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Darrell Scott, who produced, sang, and – […]

The assembled cast here was too long or maybe it was the lengthy band name that didn’t permit us to squeeze the names into the headline, but we’ll mention these glowing names at the outset. The New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Riders are Charlie Musselwhite, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus, the late Jim Dickinson, Luther […]

The blend of the electronic and the organic on Chief Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah’s studio albums, The Stretch Music concept, certainly piques curiosity about how this septet sounds live. Furthermore, this writer was scheduled to attend one of those March 2020 shows that the virus took away from us. Now with AXIOM, which leverages the […]

Collective Soul is one of those bands that hold an iconic place in the 90s rock music soundscape. After “Shine” became an underground hit, their debut album Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid was re-released on major label Atlantic Records. “Shine” would continue to be their best-known song, however, their sophomore, self-titled album became the […]

Yes, this one snuck up on us. Wayne Shorter’s birthday was 8/25 so we are just a tad late. In any case, the music of Wayne Shorter is to be celebrated every day, not just on his birthday. What’s surprising about this collection, apart from the wide chronological span of Shorter’s compositions, and the contemporary, […]

The author of Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” The Box Tops‘ “Cry Like a Baby,” James and Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet,” James Carr’s “The Dark End of the Street” and Percy Sledge’s “Rainbow Road,” just to name a few, has had enough success to never make another record. So, don’t blame one of the […]

For better or worse, the career trajectory of North Carolina’s The Avett Brothers has been an interesting one to follow. After developing a reputation as a raw, emotions-on-their-sleeves, highly energetic folk group, the Avett Brothers joined forces with mega-producer Rick Rubin starting with 2009’s I and Love and You. Since then, the Avett’s have been […]

Last week in an almost entirely empty H&M in downtown Chicago,, a few teenagers milled about the section marked SALE, perusing inexpensive chic clothes marketed directly at them. Over the speakers, sandwiched between The Weeknd and a certain Tik Tok song, played Widowspeak’s “Even True Love”. That single, the most recent from Widowspeak’s fifth album […]

California has been the epicenter of many musical movements over the past sixty years. Surf Rock and Folk Rock were born on the coast of Southern California and the streets of San Francisco in the 60s. Bands like X, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks spearheaded the Hardcore Punk movement of the 70s. Glam Rock […]

The Allman Betts Band’s BMG Records debut of 2019, Down To The River, showed plenty of promise in terms of both songwriting potential and collective musicianship. On this initial collaboration, the ensemble stated quite emphatically it could write with as much potency as it could improvise (and vice-versa), and, in displaying such versatility, the septet […]

You’ve likely heard some of the singles from Bettye LaVette’s Blackbirds already. The buzz has been building for some time now and with the social unrest, protests, and momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement, it only made sense to release Bettye’s interpretation of Billie Holiday’s 1939 classic “Strange Fruit.” Strange Fruit” was written by Jewish teacher […]

Billy Childs has more than an armful of diverse talents. As a composer he has received five GRAMMY® Awards and 16 nominations, many for composition and arrangement. Presently in continual demand for symphonic and chamber commissions, he has also innovated a collection of compositions for jazz instrumentation and strings that is unique in the American […]

Havana-based pianist and composer Harold López-Nussa captures the joyous, dancing, vibrant music of today’s Cuba with an exhilarating marriage of jazz and Cuban pop music, defiantly standing up to the doubters who failed to share his radical vision. To understand the title, many didn’t think he could pull off such a marriage on this, his ninth […]

2005 seems like an eternity ago. George W. Bush was president, YouTube was an unproven upstart, and Tom Cruise was frantically jumping on couches for reasons that remain unclear to this day. 2005 also marks the last occasion upon which the wonderfully eccentric musical dyad of Phish bassist Mike Gordon & acoustic guitar virtuoso Leo […]