Album Reviews

This is the second album (and second on Alligator) for 2019 BMA Winners Chicago veteran guitarist/vocalist Nick Moss and harmonicist Dennis Gruenling who joined forces last year for the widely acclaimed High Cost of Low Living. You could say they are riding a hot streak, thus the title of this new effort, Lucky Guy! We […]

Evergreen, the sixth album from rocking Americana singer, songwriter, and guitarist Beth Bombara, is the flip side to her 2017’s Map & No Direction.  While that album was admittedly written during a prolonged period of depression, this one finds Bombara comfortable with her vulnerable side, moving forward with a positive outlook. The Michigan-bred, now St. […]

Yes, these kinds of albums have been done before. Mark Erelli did a fine job with his album of the same title, as just one example. And, the adage these days is that the only bands that make any real money are cover bands. So, this writer’s tendency is usually to resist these kinds of […]

The band name is likely a concession to our current world of digital media where a search may turn up a hotel chain rather than a musical group. Dig just a bit deeper and we learn that we already know these two musical veterans. The principals are KP Hawthorn (formerly Kirsten Proffit) on lead vocals […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on All Your Favorite Songs, the new album from Will Bennett & the Tells, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

While much of today’s disturbing rhetoric on immigration aims to divide, Che Apalache is a band forming a bridge between North and South America, infusing traditional bluegrass with Latin stylings as an American-led band of primarily Latin American musicians. Theirs is both an amazing sound and a compelling story. Leader Joe Troop grew up in […]

Smooth Hound Smith (SMS) is husband and wife team (yes, another one in this year of duos) Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle-Smith who began in southern California, honed their craft in East Nashville clubs and opened for The Dixie Chicks,  performed at Bonnaroo, issued two albums, and now their third, the most realized album to […]

Marc Cohn and Blind Boys of Alabama have been on tour now for almost year, performing material from this collaborative album, Work to Do. It’s a well-conceived, well-executed live show that gives both major artists a fair share of the spotlight, and, more importantly, delivers soul-stirring music. Seven of the ten selections on this album […]

Part of being a true Van Halen fan is always feeling the band never gets its due. Sure, people rave about Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing. And I’ve never met someone without an opinion about David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar. The band has sold tons of albums, but does anyone respect them as songwriters? […]

Acclaimed singer/songwriter/pianist Davina Sowers has been making low budget records since 2006 and attracted plenty of notice from prestigious outlets like Downbeat in the process. This writer described her this way five years ago – “Bandleader, pianist and vocalist Davina Sowers leads a horn-based group (sans guitarist and saxophonist) that combines the vintage jazz sounds […]

Billy Price’s star is rising. The Pittsburgh-based soul singer won a BMA for Best Soul Blues Album of 2015 when he collaborated with Otis Clay. Last year’s “Reckoning” received a BMA nomination for the same award. Dog Eat Dog should keep this streak of well-deserved acclaim going. Billy’s smart enough not to mess with a […]

On “I Sing Them”, the midpoint of Ty Segall’s newest release First Taste, he declares his artistic mission statement, “I sing my song so I am free/I sing my song and sound like me/You know that I don’t care. I’ll sing my songs though no one’s there”. The insanely prolific artist just keeps pumping out […]

The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker from 1959 was long before “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, “Boogie Chillun” and ”Dimples” but the groundwork for such fare is here from this re-issue from Craft Recordings. In fact, much of the phraseology you’ve been accustomed to in blues songs is right here. “Black Snake” gave […]

Mentions of music festivals in the summer of 1969 usually bring one name to mind for most – Woodstock. Blues fans, however, point to the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, the first American festival totally devoted to blues music, and the blueprint for all that have followed. This is the strongest lineup of blues musicians ever […]

Hotel Last Resort, the 10th album from playfully abrasive folk-punk institution Violent Femmes, is a quick enjoyable listen of mostly two and a half minute songs. Singer/guitarist Gordon Gano’s vocals are front and center, the heart of the tracks – one of the band’s strongest assets if you’re into that sort of thing (which, if […]

Texas singer-songwriter Adam Carroll released his own I Walked in Them Shoes just this past April and many accompanying stories mentioned the chemistry that he, his wife, Chris, have in live performance. Since marrying in 2013, they have been touring together, first as co-headliners, then as a duo. So, this anticipated album is a result […]

Timed to coincide with his special opening Friday night concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, pianist/ Jon Batiste is issuing a live set from his residency at NYC’s Village Vanguard in the fall of 2018.  The rather short set of five selections features three Batiste originals as well as a vocal turn from Lake Street […]

Particle Kid, while for all intents and purposes considered a full band, is largely the solo project of Micah Nelson. If the surname Nelson gets your music royalty sensors tingling – and you’re not put off by the undoubtedly millions of Nelsons in the world – well rest assured they’re functioning as they should. Micah […]

Guesswork is the ideal title for the fifteenth Lloyd Cole album. The iconoclastic British expat seems to release new work, including box sets like Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Collected Recordings 1983-1988  and  Lloyd Cole in New York – Collected Recordings 1988-1996, simply to remind us how, since first making a splash in the Eighties […]

It’s surprising to realize that Fire Out of Stone is only Austin’s Chuck Hawthorne’s second album. Right away, he presents himself as a fearless songwriter with the opening verse to “Such Is Life (C’est La Vie),”about a biker’s last ride – “He smelled like marijuana/ Two finger cologne/He smoked his Regal cigarettes/ Through an ancient […]