Young Tennessee old-time fiddler/banjo player Joseph Decosimo’s album, Sequatchie Valley, is one of my jealously guarded treasures. It’s an album filled with unexpected delights: beautiful tunes and songs learned directly from elder musicians from Joseph’s home state. The fiddle tunes […]
STEVE MARTIN & EDIE BRICKELL Love Has Come For You (Rounder) Steve Martin is currently in the fifth decade of a varied and accomplished career as a comedian, actor, author, playwright, banjoist and songwriter. His fellow Texas native Edie Brickell […]
It was announced earlier today that folksinger Richie Havens died of a heart attack in New Jersey. He was 72. In 1969, when he sang out, “Freedom,” to a half-million people at the historic Woodstock Festival, it was more than just […]
If you judged Mali by its music, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was the most peaceful and happy place on earth. A few months ago, I reviewed Ballake Sissoko’s meditative and beautiful, ‘At Peace’ whose heartbreaking kora […]
The sign of a promising new talent? When a fairly effective cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow” is easily forgotten after listening to the whole album. No, there’s nothing wrong with singer/songwriter Jamie Lee Dale’s take on “Yellow”; in fact, she does […]
Bob Dylan has announced dates for a six-week summer tour of North America with Wilco and My Morning Jacket, under the banner of the “Americanarama Festival of Music”. The Richard Thompson Electric Trio, Ryan Bingham and Bob Weir (solo and […]
y bar favourites, the Ruminants, celebrated the release of their debut album on April 19 with a barn burner at Mikey’s Juke Joint. Which was only fitting, since the self-titled album was actually recorded in a barn. It was a […]
The Preachers started life in a rather unlikely manner. As a Corb Lund tribute band, their aim was to spread the musical gospel of Alberta’s favourite former punk now reborn country roots musician, and, while doing so, play every hotel […]
Paula Cole is a piano-playing poet and provocateur, a loving daughter and mother, a Grammy winner and seven-time nominee, a dramatic voice of affliction and affection, a risk-taker in a risky business. These days, though, she is mostly a fighter. […]
Joey and Kelly Kneiser (as well as Todd Beene, off camera) performing Shoulder To Cry On It’s only taken ten years, but at last Glossary made it to Europe. Better yet, they took time to stop off at the Gilded […]
