The Avett Brothers The Second Gleam Yours truly first discovered this North Carolina trio — two brothers and their buddy on bass — in 2006 at the remarkable Telluride Bluegrass Festival and was immediately impressed. A fusion of folk, rock, and, yes, a bit of bluegrass, its high-lonesome sound is…
Although it begins with an affable embrace, Gulf Coast Blues ambles toward darker terrain as it winds on, with songs that spin a sinewy, seductive tapestry of blues, folk, gospel, and country. Now settled on Texas’ Gulf Coast, Franke builds her narratives around a cast of characters that inhabit the…
In the world of rock, few artists have played in one meaningful ensemble that will provide for their pension. Gruff-voiced singer Paul Rodgers can bank on three, all of which ensure instant immortality. His present liaison with Queen seems an unlikely pairing, but it’s a reliable paycheck. His first band…
Why “Subterranean Finds”? Because we unearth music radio rarely plays and the critics fail to tout… exceptional sounds residing below the surface and well worth exploring. John Wicks and the Records Rotate Back in the late ’70s, the Records took up the gauntlet laid down by the Beatles and the…
It’s fair to say there’s no one who’s more adept at interpreting other people’s songs than Emmylou Harris. Never mind that she’s a superb writer in her own right; Harris’ ability to turn in a performance that’s both intimate and inspired elevates her to a rarified strata all her own…
Hailing from San Francisco, Journey originated as a progressive-rock outfit in the mid-’70s, transitioned to reliable radio staples in the early ’80s, and repeatedly reshuffled in recent years after the loss of lead singer Steve Perry. Of course, losing your frontman is never fortuitous – just ask Queen, Van Halen,…
The last thing the world needs is another rant by some snooty music scribe who actually believes he can peg the next Coldplay or validate some MySpace wannabe. Don’t worry; yours truly doesn’t make any such presumptions. You won’t find any holier-than-thou prognostications here. These artists fly well below the…
Considering that 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of a year that produced innumerable musical milestones, it’s surprising how little has been made of it so far. While pundits were quick to offer retrospectives of 1967, the year that ushered in Sgt. Pepper, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Cream — not…
Ask Shawn Snyder to summarize the past five years of his life and you’ll find he has a flair for the dramatic. “Grabbing the aspiring beast of a music career by its uncertain horns has amounted to its own rodeo bull-ride of starving artistry,” he reflects. The Kendall-born folk singer…
It takes only a cursory listen to Aimee Mann’s alluring new album to affirm that the only thing possibly forestalling a commercial connection would be its inexplicably feisty title. Too bad; the songs on this disc are among the best of her ever-evolving career. While there’s some similarity to Mann’s…
It’s not often that one can claim to have witnessed history, but yours truly had just such an opportunity one fall evening back in 1976. The events transpired in rather innocuous surroundings… specifically, a shithole of a dive in West Palm Beach. I’ve forgotten its name, although I still recall…
One of two surviving members of the Fab Four, the former Richard Starkey has become a global music legend, mainly because the entire world knows him as Ringo Starr. Within the Beatles, he was relegated to a mostly supporting part, taking the spotlight for the occasional vocal, some comic relief,…
Here’s some trivia to bandy about when you’re having conversation over cocktails. Ask who can name a band that’s still intact 30 years after its inception. Better yet, ask how many they can name that still have the entire original lineup. The Stones? The Who? The Allman Brothers? Nope. These…
She may give the impression of being the sensitive type, but Kris Delmhorst isn’t your father’s folkie. Nor for that matter is she is one of your dad’s old-school singer/songwriter types, i.e., the James Taylor/Jackson Browne/Joni Mitchell brood that defined the genre back in the ’70s. That’s not to deny…
We Americans often seem averse to immersing ourselves in other cultures, especially when it comes to the arts. Take, for example, Indian music. To the untrained ear, it conjures up notions of studious musicians plunking out sitar scales or furiously thumping tablas, all the while caught up in a meditative…
She whirls like a dervish and seems to evoke thoughts of witches, dreams, leather, and lace. But Stevie Nicks’ career extends further than the chiffon-garbed earth mother she portrays on stage. When she and former lover/collaborator Lindsey Buckingham were recruited into the ranks of Fleetwood Mac — after attracting the…
When you’ve got a guy with a guitar, chances are he’s got to be either incredibly entertaining or a self-indulgent bore. Happily, Colin Meloy leans more toward the former on this aptly dubbed effort recorded at various dates during his 2006 solo tour. Meloy, one of the lynchpins for the…
“Can blue men sing the whites?” That is, of course, a twist on the age-old argument about whether white musicians have suffered enough to sing the blues with any credibility. Modern masters like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Duane Allman certainly suggested they can, but the debate is a…
They certainly didn’t invent Americana music or, for that matter, reinvent it, but the BoDeans were responsible for one of its biggest hits, courtesy of an irrepressible anthem called “Closer to Free.” Thrust into the genre’s top ten after the television show Party of Five made that tune its theme…
Perched behind her piano at center stage, Hilary McRae looks positively radiant… and for good reason. For one thing, she’s opening for one of her heroes, the inimitable Todd Rundgren, at the Fillmore in Miami Beach. For another, tonight’s show just happens to coincide with the release date of her…
A certain amount of insurgency might be expected from an artist whose last name is Earle and whose debut comes courtesy of Bloodshot Records, a repository of upstart Americana. Surprisingly, 25-year-old Justin Townes Earle, son of Steve, veers away from the renegade regimen that distinguishes other famous alt-country offspring —…
On first encounter, the voice actually sounds ageless, a supple, sensuous caress that quietly croons about romance and longing while evoking the feel of smoky cabarets. It would be easy to identify those vocals with a well-known diva or to imagine they came from a weathered soul who’s faced too…
