The Spanish Gothic United Artists Building, the current Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, was the perfect setting for the Vidiots Foundation’s inaugural Harry Dean Stanton Award – presented to its nonagenarian namesake Sunday evening as the first in an […]
Tuesday evening October 18, musician and actor Kris Kristofferson will receive the Woody Guthrie Prize in a star-studded ceremony at Tulsa’s Cain’s Ballroom – just a stone’s throw from the Woody Guthrie Center, home to the famed troubadour’s archives. The Prize, […]
“Somebody’s gotta do it,” says Jay Sweet, producer of the Newport Folk Festival, when I ask what inspired him to take up the charge of keeping the long-running festival alive and relevant. “I felt like it was the granddaddy of […]
There’s always something on the roots music horizon. This week, I’m featuring personal favorites who have either just released an album or have something coming up, including a film. This covers a wide range, from Dolly Parton to William Burroughs, from a […]
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who turns 80 this week, is known for saying, “heroes happen when you need ‘em.” If that is so, then I’ve needed Kristofferson — in persona, songs, stories, and poems — for the last 50 years. After writing so […]
In 1977, Rita Coolidge released her version of Jackie Wilson’s “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher” on her album Anytime…Anywhere. Coolidge’s sweet mid-tempo version rings as a testimony to the power of a love that transcends the disappointments […]
Branded Man. Outlaw. Okie. Poet. The Working Man. Hag. Merle Haggard defies labels. But he has been tagged with many. Kris Kristofferson namechecks him in the superb song “Wild American,” a tribute to people who show courage, conviction and individualism […]
This week we begin doing something new. Well, two things. This will be my first column devoted exclusively to a music festival — Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Scotland — and the first time a single photographer, Carol Graham, is featured. […]
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Roaming Roots Review
