Leonard Cohen’s aptly pensive album You Want It Darker was released just a few weeks before the singer-songwriter’s death in 2016. Remaining from those recording sessions were various unfinished sketches (vocal parts with little or no instrumentation), which Cohen asked […]
I’m probably the last person on the planet to discover that Desert Island Discs wasn’t merely a feature in Tower Record’s free monthly Pulse magazine, but a 76-year-old radio show on BBC Radio 4. The idea for the program came from Roy Plomley, […]
I’m always on the lookout for new rootsy DJs, especially non-US ones, and I check the playlists on TwangDJ’s Yahoo Group to see what others are playing. This week, we have a reguar TwangDJ contributor from up north in Canada. […]
By the time she appeared with Billy Joe Shaver at the Open Highway Festival in St. Louis, it seemed like a lifetime ago when Amanda Shires impulsively jumped onstage to play fiddle at one of Shaver’s shows. Shaver hired the […]
This story first appeared on the Isthmus website. It is dedicated to the memory of Clark Anderson, slide guitarist, union organizer and friend. By Marc Eisen Yeah, I got a music jones. About 500 concerts and shows’ worth over 10 years. […]
An Appreciation The Cast The Band: Sons of Bill, consisting of the Wilson brothers, James (guitar), Sam (guitar), and Abe (keyboards), Joe Dickey (bass), and Todd Wellons (drums) The Guests: Seth Green (founding Sons of Bill bass player), Caroline Spence, […]
What a year, right? I hesitate to dwell too much on world events in this space, other than to acknowledge that we have all experienced them, have all no doubt been rocked by them in one way or another. If […]
This haunting, poetic album, which turned out to be the final product of Leonard Cohen’s remarkable late-career creative peak, almost didn’t happen. The project stalled because of the 82-year-old artist’s health problems and those of collaborator Patrick Leonard. Cohen’s son […]
I read the obituaries. Have for years. First thing when I open the Times every morning, I turn to the last pages of the B-section. It is not a morbid thing, it’s a small gesture of attention that I pay to […]
On the Sunday after the election, I went to the local Unitarian fellowship for no reason other then to be in the company of others, and to hear the thoughts of a minister who always seems to find comforting words […]
