Archive: 2020

The bell keeps tolling. Amelia Baker, who performs as Cinder Well, lives near a Catholic church in a small town in Ireland’s County Clare. Baker traveled here from America to study Irish music, and yet the bell sounds every day, every hour. Growing up in a non-religious, Jewish family in California, the cloistered world of […]

“I had this memory of people having guitars no matter where we were,” songwriter Alicia Viani says of her childhood, much of which was spent overseas, “and how easy it is to share music with people, which speaks to the entire point of why we play songs—to connect and not feel alone.” This sentiment runs […]

It is well-nigh impossible to find an album that more fully encapsulates an artist’s work than Cosmo’s Factory summarizes Creedence Clearwater Revival’s. Still riding the crest of the mainstream popularity begun in 1969 with Green River, the California group’s this fifth studio album (released 7/16/70) had its own share of compact tracks that became hits […]

Fredericksburg, VA country rocker Steven Bruce is set to release his debut LP Same Time, Same Place, Same Station on August 7th. Debut albums during times of uncertainty might very well be either a good or bad thing for a burgeoning artist, but make no mistake Bruce isn’t your typical twangy troubadour. With an indie-rock […]

Precious few of us get to live until age 93, even fewer can look back at that point over 76-year career, and even fewer can see a lifelong dream realized just a month before passing. The beloved saxophonist-composer Jimmy Heath certainly makes a grand exit with the final album of his career, the finishing touches […]

Today, Portland, OR-based Blitzen Trapper has shared ”Dead Billie Jean,” the third track from their Yep Roc Records debut, Holy Smokes Future Jokes, out September 11. Led by existential questions about life and death, Holy Smokes Future Jokes finds frontman Eric Earley ruminating on the intermediate period between a person’s separate lives on earth, “and […]

Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and musician Brent Cobb will release his highly anticipated new album, Keep ‘Em On They Toes, October 2 on his own label, Ol’ Buddy Records, via Thirty Tigers (pre-order). Produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchie, Bon Iver, Hiss Golden Messenger), the album features ten new songs including the title track, which was written by Cobb and his wife Layne […]

Following their acclaimed sophomore album Forever Turned Around, Whitney have returned with Candid, a 10-song collection boasting covers of artists like Kelela, David Byrne, John Denver, SWV, and more. Whitney decided to challenge themselves, finding their favorite songs that also fell outside of their musical comfort zone. Candid is available both digitally and physically on August 14 via Secretly Canadian. […]

Metallica and San Francisco Symphony’s September 6 & 8, 2019 S&M2 concerts were historic on multiple levels: They served as the grand opening of San Francisco’s Chase Center, reunited the band and Symphony for the first time since the 1999 performances captured on the Grammy-winning S&M album, and featured the first-ever symphonic renditions of songs […]

Akron, Ohio’s own, Chrissie Hynde, is back with the Pretender’s 11th studio album, Hate for Sale – a tasty, ten-track nugget that rocks, rolls and everything else in between. In just over forty years, Hynde has fronted the aforementioned rock and roll outfit with various members, and now she’s returned with a smashing new record – featuring the […]

TEOA (The End of America) is a band of friends, singers and travelers who blend three-part harmony with indie rock and folk. The Philadelphia/NYC outfit credits their name to a passage in Kerouac’s On The Road about exploration through travel. The trio drifts through styles that resonate with fans of The Avett Brothers, CSNY and […]

Nashville’s The Danberrys are somehow both charmingly old-world and very much of this moment. The married couple’s rich pastoral blues and muscly folk evoke the big-hearted storytelling of pioneering giants like the Carter Family but could only come now, as a mixed offshoot of roots music’s ever-growing family tree. In 2009, the two recorded singer/guitarist […]

Pianist Christian Sands is fascinated with the element of water – vital to life, surrounding us in so many ways, calm and beautiful and by turns turbulent and devastating. This is his inspiration for his third full-length album on Mack Avenue, Be Water, from the tranquil to the powerful, malleable and unpredictable. The album takes […]

Today, IDLES have shared a new song “A Hymn” – the emotional centerpiece off the Bristol band’s forthcoming LP, Ultra Mono (out Sept 25th via Partisan). The accompanying music video features the band driving with their parents through their hometown streets to the shops, providing a grey window into suburban English life that matches the […]

Brooklyn-based Americana singer-songwriter Kevin Daniel lays a stroke of compelling grace and folksy warmth mixed with contagious hooks: fans of Drive-By Truckers and Chris Stapleton will certainly enjoy. 2019 saw the release of his first full-length LP, Things I Don’t See.  The 11-song album brings together some of New York state’s most talented musicians and […]

Concord Jazz is set to release Chick Corea‘s new live album, Plays on August 28. On this spirited 2-CD/3-LP solo set, the acclaimed pianist engages with several of his favorite composers — from Mozart to Monk, Jobim to Stevie Wonder – as well as with enthusiastic audiences in concert halls across the Europe and U.S.. […]

Americana songwriter. Rock and roll guitarist. Dedicated cosmic country road warrior. Producer. After a slew of critically acclaimed independent albums and thousands of cross-country shows, Jerry Castle has carved out a career that’s just as diverse and immediate as his musical influences, earning everything from chart-topping radio hits to critical acclaim from publications like Rolling […]

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers were seminally vital in the development of Blue Note Records. Blakey, beginning in 1947 and continuing for over the next two decades, made more than 20 albums for the label as a leader and appeared on over 40 as a sideman. (Keep in mind Blakey has many more as […]

We last heard from Chris Stamey on his double CD vocal/orchestral mammoth project with many high profile guests, last year’s New Songs for the 20th Century Vol. 1 &2. That was a shock to many who associate Stamey with the hard-driving rock of the group he co-founded, the dB’s, as well as his work with […]