The Song Remains the Same—an album that captures Led Zeppelin in performance at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July of 1973—sparked justifiable criticism upon its release in 1976. Billed as the soundtrack to the film that shared its name, […]
As Martin Popoff notes in his introduction to Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs, there were already not one but two track-by-track books about the group’s music when he began work on this one. Still, he decided that […]
Fish were jumpin’ when T Bone Burnett conducted his first conference call with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant to discuss making an album together. The famed producer was up in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the Capilano Salmon Hatchery, perhaps thinking […]
Monica Heldal’s 2014 debut album, Boy from the North, was described as part Americana, part bluegrass, and part Irish folk. But the Norwegian singer-songwriter points to another genre when discussing the best concert she has seen. Heldal, who is releasing […]
On a confusing day, cold, overcast — I keep bumping into tables and walls, and electronics don’t seem to like me — I find myself thinking about the blues. I land on seven blues songs that seem like markers, […]
Let’s start the new year with an old radio friend and a real fan of the music: Big Kev Ploghoft from WLVR in in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. What I love about Kev is that he always has something to say about everything. Happy […]
Being well acquainted with the original albums that led to these expanded editions, I had this review half-written in my head before the CDs even arrived. “This is the sound of a great band on the wane,” I expected to […]
When Randy Bachman wrote the line “Here’s somethin’ that you’re never gonna forget” in Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s No. 1 single “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” he wasn’t talking about a memorable rock concert. But there was a concert 45 years ago […]
Like the heavyweight rock/soul/blues titans that came before them (think Cream, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and Led Zeppelin, for a start), Stubborn Sons kick out formidable, melodic structures both riff-conscious and eminently bone-rattling. Each solid player knows what’s needed from […]
This sixth Led Zeppelin release, which first came out in 1975, is the group’s equivalent of the Beatles’ White Album, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, the Stones’ Exile on Main Street and Springsteen’s The River—a sprawling, ambitious and eclectic statement. Like […]
