When most folks hear the word blues, mind’s-eye images are of ragged old men bellowing sluggish “my baby done left me” tunes on smoke-shrouded stages. Yet blues is as diverse as folk or rock. Case in point: the Winter Blues Bash. Atlanta-based guitarist/singer Roger “Hurricane” Wilson has traded riffs with…
Don’t be misled by the deliberately cartoonish, yokel-meets-bling cover art — the Drive-by Truckers are no joke. From their Athens, Georgia, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, origins, the ace roots-rock outfit laces its crazy-quilt Americana with barbed, satirical wit, and plenty of spirit. Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance are DBT’s first two…
Irony alert: In 1972, 17-year-old Miami singer Betty Wright set fire to the R&B and pop charts (peaking at two and six, respectively) with her swaggering slice of cautionary funk, “Clean Up Woman.” Fast forward to 2003: Ms. Wright — after TV talk show hosting and singing backup for David…
While American folk music has a long tradition of consciousness-rousing songs and singers — especially in the ’50s and ’60s — there aren’t many fashionable equivalents; notable exceptions, of course, are Brit Billy Bragg and Ani DiFranco. Add to that list one Ed Hamell, better known as Hamell on Trial…
While roots rock is thriving, one doesn’t hear similar tales regarding the roots of jazz. Some older styles of jazz coexist, even blossom, alongside contemporary — bebop, swing, soul-jazz — but the music’s New Orleans origins are often overlooked or written off. Truth is, the real stuff — Luis Russell,…
What’s the principal difference between the altered-consciousness shoegazer and psychedelic genres? The former utilizes fuzzy distortion mainly on instrumental solos, often with wild abandon; the latter has a resolute, translucent haze of distortion blanketing everything. Were-Floridians-now-Texans Baby Robots derive inspiration from both (“shoegazadelic?”) as evidenced by their 2001 release Lakitu:…
James “Baby Huey” Ramey (1944-70) is legendary to soul/R&B collectors. Back in the ’60s, the Rolling Stones would squeeze into packed clubs to see him. Popular locally but unknown beyond Chicago, he and his band the Babysitters seemed poised for national stardom, but Huey — cursed with a serious glandular-induced…
Blue Note has always been one of America’s — and the world’s — premier jazz labels, bestowing upon us classic platters by such luminaries as Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter. But the past few years have found the label expanding its focus, releasing albums by hip-hop artist Madlib and jazz-influenced…
Television emerged from the same NYC punk-rock milieu as Blondie and the Ramones. But those bands often disregarded (or clearly fought against) technical proficiency. Television was (gasp!) a musically accomplished band that played with a lean and mean edge but featured (gasp!) actual guitar solos, then anathema to the punk…
The late Jeff Buckley (1966-1997) had a singularly amazing voice — a trait shared with his father, avant-folk troubadour Tim Buckley (1947-1975). Like his dad, Buckley could purr like a jungle cat, sigh like a Delta bluesman, improvise like a jazz singer, and shriek like a half-mad banshee from some…
Anyone tuning in to Ian McCulloch’s latest solo album expecting to hear another Echo & the Bunnymen release will likely be disappointed. Though McCulloch, that group’s singer, is only in his mid-40s, Slideling could be seen as his counterpart to Frank Sinatra’s September of My Years, made when Ol’ Blue…
Back in 1982, the group Monsoon had a British top 20 hit with the charming “Ever So Lonely,” a then-novel reinvestigation of the ’60s phenomenon known as “raga rock,” a fusion of Western pop/rock sensibilities with the folk and classical music of India. The best-known exponents of this genre were…
