“Would you care to pray with us?” asks a member of the band. Stunned, the confused local radio announcer suddenly tries to look busy and excuses himself from the group’s pre-performance tradition. And if this backstage encounter was unexpected, the […]
A microphone giving a kind of CB effect hangs in front of Sparklehorse’s singer-songwriter, Mark Linkous. He alternates between this and an ordinary one, giving his voice a dual life. A mixer with numerous knobs lies at his feet. Reproducing […]
At one point during Chris Whitley’s Boston performance, after a handful of songs had already been performed, the scene onstage looked quite usual for a Whitley concert. Wearing his almost trademark white tank, the 40-year-old singer, songwriter, and blues-styled guitarist […]
The benefits of musical therapy are no secret: Music, in the right doses and of the right variety, has been proven to have a therapeutic effect for all sorts of ailments and moods. In Bob Graham and Missi Ivie’s case, […]
The ballads of mountaineers, descendants of the Irish, Scottish and German immigrants who began settling in the Appalachian mountains in the 1700s, provide the central focus of Songcatcher. Apparently, they felt the East Coast was already too full of folk; […]
Gram Parsons: Grievous grievances A little iconoclasm is no bad thing, but I hope No Depression isn’t going down the road of so many inferior music magazines by seeking to trash its former heroes for merely sensational reasons. First there […]
1 Various Artists, O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack (Mercury) 2 Old 97’s, Satellite Rides (Elektra) 3 Rodney Crowell , The Houston Kid (Sugar Hill) 4 Dolly Parton, Little Sparrow (Sugar Hill) 5 Jimmy LaFave, Texoma (Bohemia Beat) 6 Delbert […]
TOWNES TRIBUTE: September 11 is the release date for POET: A TRIBUTE TO TOWNES VAN ZANDT The 15-song collection is a joint venture between Freefalls Entertainment and Pedernales Records, the latter label a partnership between country legend Willie Nelson and […]
An unlikely source turned me on to country music twenty years ago while I was living in Nashville. In May 1981 Elvis Costello, my musical hero, came to Music City to record Almost Blue. This might not seem surprising now, […]
The history of country blues is rife with vagabonds and troubadours. From Robert Johnson to Jimmie Rodgers to Woody Guthrie, musical hobos have brought regional sounds to the world in a much more beautiful and eloquent way than the internet […]
