Listeners get lots of glimpses of the Big Apple on Jesse Malin’s The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction: the downtown drag queens and outer borough dwellers who’ve “never been past the bridge” in the haunting ballad “Brooklyn”; the three-card-monty racketeers of […]
When people talk about alternative-country, they usually mean country music that’s been influenced by rock ‘n’ roll. Similarly, when folks use the term jazz-fusion, they usually mean jazz that borrows from rock. But there’s another kind of alternative-country and another […]
As epiphanies go, it’s a damn fine one. “I heard ‘Ring Of Fire’ by Johnny Cash,” recalls Chris Clark. “And I’d heard it all my life — but [this one time] it really just hit me. It hit me like […]
It’s the summer of 1983, and it could be in Illinois or Indiana or Missouri. A brother and sister are making the festival rounds, playing the hits of the fiddle contest circuit: “Sally Johnson”, “Sally Gooden”, “Yellow Rose Waltz”, “Sop […]
HAPPY LOVING COUPLES: The big news in alt-country circles in recent weeks, at least social circles, is the November 21 marriage of renowned singer-songwriters Iris DeMent and Greg Brown in DeMent’s hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. Though their relationship had […]
1 Ryan Adams, Demolition (Lost Highway) 2 Steve Earle, Jerusalem (E-Squared/Artemis) 3 Various Artists, O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack (Mercury/Lost Highway) 4 Beck, Sea Change (DGC) 5 Norah Jones, Come Away With Me (Blue Note) 6 Wilco, Yankee Hotel […]
Rhett Miller: The Instigator, indeed Time for a reality check for Paul Kloss, who extends his loathing for Rhett Miller’s solo debut The Instigator to Rhett’s clothes, hair and indeed Rhett himself [Box Full of Letters, ND #42, Nov.-Dec. 2002]. […]
“Singles remind me of kisses, Albums remind me of plans” — Squeeze, “If I Didn’t Love You” (Argybargy, 1980) We are all, I suspect, still discovering the extent to which we have been shaped by the events and sounds of […]
GILLIAN WELCH, The Revelator Collection (Acony, www.aconyrecords.com): Built on three staged videos and nine numbers filmed at live performances in Carrboro, North Carolina and Knoxville, Tennessee, this hour-long DVD reminds us how revealing this format can be. The Revelator Collection […]
Beecher Ray “Pete” Kirby, known to country music fans as Bashful Brother Oswald, died October 17. He was 90. Oswald was largely responsible for popularizing use of the dobro in country and bluegrass music, though in his long tenure as […]
