Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Ernest Tubb was a groundbreaker and an enduring star in the country music field, charting hits across four decades. Collecting early sessions with his backing band the Texas Troubadours, ORG Music’s Record Store Day 2024 release The World Broadcast Recordings 1944–1945 offers a vivid portrait of Tubb’s emerging talent, its 14 […]
Remembering Herbie Mann, born on this day in 1930. —Ed. Good morning class. I stand before you today to discuss a very important but relatively unexamined musical sub-genre. I’m talking, of course, about shirtless jazz. The “Shirtless Jazz Age” began at the dawn of the 1970s and came to an end in the mid-1980s, and […]
Somewhere in the Stars by Richard, Cam & Bert brings a healthy serving of late ’60s Greenwich Village folkie flavor to Record Store Day’s spring 2024 festivities, which take place this April 20. Consisting of Bert Lee, Campbell Bruce, and Richard Tucker, vocalists, guitarists, and songwriters all, the set is also positioned at a stylistic […]
Celebrating Ed O’Brien, born on this day in 1968. —Ed. Not long after Radiohead released 2000’s Kid A, my friend Patrick and I gave it a scathing review without having actually listened to it, on the basis that its only appeal was to depressives better served by listening to the Archies. We also surmised that […]
Celebrating John Kay on his 80th birthday. —Ed. Steppenwolf’s most excellent eponymous 1968 LP is one helluva debut. If it were a waif, I would take it in, buy it lots of cool video games, and send it to Yale. Hopefully it would provide for me in my old age. Even your pet goldfish knows […]
So once upon the time there was this band of kick-out-the-jams, honest-to-god revolutionaries (or so they claimed—they seemed far more interested in becoming big rock stars than actually bringing down the fascist American state) who came out of Detroit and played this raucous brand of “high-energy” rock and roll. And while they never sold many […]
Celebrating Herbie Hancock in advance of his 84th birthday tomorrow. —Ed. The short description of Herbie Hancock’s gorgeous 1965 LP Maiden Voyage, is that it’s the ’63-’64 Miles Davis Quintet with Freddie Hubbard subbing on trumpet. But as nicely as that reads, it’s actually much more. Hancock’s fifth and best record as leader, to this […]
Voluminous of discography with an unflagging underground spirit, Sunburned Hand of the Man has returned with Nimbus, releasing April 12 on vinyl (black or “big blue”), compact disc, and digital with cover art by Tony Oursler through Three Lobed Recordings. It’s a wide-ranging set packed tight but flowing loose with psychedelic groove jams, post-Beat poetic […]
“Let me take you by the hand/And lead you through the streets of London/I’ll show you something to make you change your mind” —“Streets of London” by Ralph McTell The folk revival that began in the late ’50s and lasted almost into the early ’70s, is often most associated with New York’s Greenwich Village and […]
The bassist, composer, and bandleader Moppa Elliott is best known for his playing in the wildly inventive ensemble Mostly Other People Do the Killing, but his creativity is manifest in various other groups, including the quintet Advancing on a Wild Pitch and the nonet Acceleration Due to Gravity. Both have new LPs out now via […]
Remembering Carl Perkins, born on this date in 1932. —Ed. Carl Perkins was one of the major shakers in the peak period of Sun Records, and these days he gets his due mostly as an architect of classic rockabilly. In that regard, one of his many hits compilations will provide an accurate if not comprehensive […]
California-based tenor saxophonist Harold Land had a long and versatile recording career both as a sideman and as a leader. Of the latter albums, The Fox, first released in 1960, is widely considered to be his best; it sees reissue on 180 gram vinyl April 12 as part of Craft Recordings’ ongoing Contemporary Records Acoustic […]
Celebrating Justin Sullivan, born on this day in 1956. —Ed. You’ve got to love New Model Army. They were once introduced on Brit TV program The Tube as “the ugliest band in rock and roll,” their lead singer went by the name Slade the Leveller for years to avoid losing his unemployment benefits, and the […]
Journey weren’t always the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world. Before they rocked the earth on its axis with such absolutely essential MOR smasheroos as “Wheel in the Sky,” “Lights” (an even greater salute to San Francisco than Starship’s “We Built This City”!), “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and “Hustler” (okay, so that one’s not […]
Remembering Merle Haggard in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed. Merle Haggard is a man who needs no introduction. His music, however, is best served by a thoughtful entry-point that reflects his emergence as one of country music’s truly singular figures. As the first LP he recorded with his estimable backing band the Strangers, it’s […]
