Tag Archive | blues
Review: Maria Muldaur, Steady Love
Steady Love is an ass-kicking evening at the roadhouse with a surprisingly successful collection of blues numbers that border at times on R&B.
Review: Leni Stern, Sabani
Leni Stern’s new album is a worthy compatriot of the work of other Western artists who have been influence by and collaborated with Mali’s musicians, such as Corey Harris Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Robert Plant, and Taj Mahal, adding her own jazz influences and a singer-songwriter tinge.
Feature Review: Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan
A crazy quilt of musicians drawn from all aspects of modern culture.
Review: There’s More Pretty Girls Than One, McCamy’s Melody Sheiks
his album, besides its documentary value is altogether delight to the ear, nothing fancy, just some fine pickin’ and old tunes as comforting as corn bread and bean soup on a winter’s evening.
Feature Review: Stew & the Negro Problem, Making It
Stew & the Negro Problem Making It [Tight Natural Productions (2011)] For nearly 15 years, singer-songwriter Stew and bassist/arranger/composer Heidi Rodewald were a couple as well as musical partners in two groups—the Negro Problem and Stew. After the pair’s successful collaboration on the Tony winning musical Passing Strange, their personal relationship started to unravel, and [...]
Feature Review: Live from the Old Town School of Folk Music
Various Artists Live from the Old Town School of Folk Music For nearly 55 years, Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music has played a key role in popularizing, promoting, and (of course) teaching folk, blues, and world music. Over the six decades of its existence, the school has put on thousands of concerts, and seem most of [...]
Box set review: Elvis Presley, Young Man With The Big Beat
Elvis Presley Young Man With The Big Beat [Legacy (2011)] No one knows for sure who recorded the first rock and roll song. But, with the two albums (Elvis Presley and Elvis) that he released during the first year (1956) after RCA bought his contract from the much-smaller Sun Records, Elvis Presley left no doubt that [...]
Feature Review: Mississippi John Hurt, Discovery: The Rebirth of John Hurt, March 3, 1963
Mississippi John Hurt Discovery: The Rebirth of John Hurt, March 3, 1963 [Spring Fed Records (2011)] Discovery: The Rebirth of John Hurt, March 3, 1963 is an extraordinary album that tells its own story but also has a fascinating history, and it’s one of the most extraordinary folk or blues releases of the year. There’s not room [...]
Review: Tab Benoit, Medicine
Tab Benoit Medicine [Telarc (2011)] You had to suspect that artist-to-artist collaborations weren’t far behind when Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit formed the Voice of the Wetlands Allstars a few years back with such contemporaries as Anders Osborne, George Porter, Cyril Neville, Johnnie Sansone, and Waylon Thibodeaux. On Benoit’s tenth Telarc release, fellow Wetlands Allstar Osborne plays a big [...]
Review: Vieux Farka Touré, The Secret
Vieux Farka Touré The Secret [Six Degrees Records (2011)] If that name sounds familiar, well, Vieux Farka Touré is the son of the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré from Mali, the West African country much touted as the ultimate home of the blues. While the elder Touré helped to define his country’s musical heritage for the West through [...]
Show review: The Yardbirds, City Block Summer Music Series, Springfield, MA
The Yardbirds City Block Summer Music Series Springfield, MA Thursday, September 1st One of the most proficient bands to come out of the mid-1960s British Invasion, the Yardbirds provided a launching pad for Eric Clapton, Jeff Back, and Jimmy Page. Though none of the three guitarists rejoined when the group was resurrected in 1992, the [...]
