This rain-swept evening’s twin bill neatly illustrated the challenge facing young bands who rely on studio trickery and atmospheric tension to provide their music with sustainable momentum. These two British acts rolled into town on the strength of either a […]
Every kid wants to grow up and be like his daddy — my daddy just happened to write songs, record them, and shake his butt on stages all over the world. And in the eyes of my parents, there is […]
Family and self-reliance are two concepts central to Stacey Earle’s life and career. While her brother Steve’s dramatic ups and downs have been the subject of news reports and magazine profiles, Stacey has experienced considerable personal turbulence without all the […]
Troy Campbell remembers that, when he was 13 years old, he wished for two experiences that he felt would leave his life complete: “I prayed to God that I’d get to see a woman’s breasts, and that I’d be allowed […]
“This is 20 minutes before I was knocked into the decade of the ’90s,” Vince Bell says by way of foreshadowing as he slips a tape into the living-room stereo at his home just outside Nashville. The recording he has […]
Creoles, at the risk of oversimplifying, are the black, French-speaking people of Southwest Louisiana, and zydeco is the versatile term for their dances, dance halls and infectious dance music. Sometime in the 19th century, black musicians adopted the accordion-driven repertoire […]
The authors are English musicians who inaugurate a new series of books profiling esteemed songwriters with this portrait of Guy Clark. (Their next subject is the sisters McGarrigle.) Alternating between oral history and song explication, Song Builder is a quick […]
The summer bluegrass festival season begins with this annual event, honoring Doc Watson’s son, Merle (who died in a 1985 tractor accident). Or at least the festival season begins; summer itself wasn’t quite on schedule, for Thursday night there were […]
Though you’ll probably never see them on VH1, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bill Morrissey are still an interesting pair of storytellers. On one hand is Morrissey, who weaves his tales in songs that burst with exquisite detail, like well-crafted short […]
Ron Sexsmith concedes right off the top he is “beyond tired,” and it’s easy to understand why his internal clock might be frazzled. He’s in a hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia, killing time before a show after leaving his home […]
