“This is really a drag—and a bore,’’ the doomed jazzster Chet Baker tells director Bruce Weber in Let’s Get Lost, in response to (sympathetic) inquiries about his drug habits. The same could be said of the recent controversy over the decision […]
There must be some kind of way out of here said the joker to the thief. When I first read the announcement last week that Bob Dylan had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I thought it was a […]
Duke Robillard was a tender age when he first got a dose of the blues. “The very first blues I ever heard that knocked me out was ‘Wee Wee Hours’ by Chuck Berry,” says Robillard, the gifted guitarist who was […]
In the wake of the — to me — superb and delightful news of Bob Dylan receiving the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature this week, there has been, to quote a phrase from Dylan’s fellow Minnesota wordsmith F. Scott Fitzgerald, some foul […]
I introduced myself to Greg Vandy at this year’s Americana Music Conference in Nashville, back in September. I knew he was cool because I saw him at all the good shows over the week and then at Arnold’s “meat & three” Country Kitchen. […]
I’m a believer in stories — true stories, made-up stories, fantasy stories, science fiction stories, journalistic accounts, documentaries. Stories create and deepen empathy. They are how we understand ourselves, the world around us, the other people we encounter. A story […]
In ancient times, councils and other quasi-legislative bodies met to determine which books should be included in a canon — a set of books considered authoritative and binding for the practice of a community — and which should be excluded. […]
David Bromberg embraced Americana music long before it was cool – probably even before the phrase had even been coined. He pioneered the seemingly inconcievable mash up of country and western, low-down blues, bluegrass and sea shanties with searing rock and […]
In 1966, Bob Dylan’s career had skyrocketed over the earth. Mary Campbell summed up what had happened in a lede that contains multitudes: “1965 was the big folk-rock year in pop music and slightly built, shy-spoken, gritty-voiced Bob Dylan was […]
“The music I love is pure. It is guitar, bass, drums, and some keyboards. It’s rock and roll! My mantra is ‘don’t bore us get to the chorus’ which goes back to [playing] in the Mambo Sons. Anything I’ve ever […]
