In 1940, Woody Guthrie released what would be the most successful album of his career, the legendary Dust Bowl Ballads. Though he was just 28 years old, his songwriting and storytelling gifts were already well developed on his commercial debut. Like John […]
Cover songs and Metallica go together like black denim and whiskey. Early on in their 40-year career, the Bay Area thrashers put together their infamous The $5.98 EP — Garage Days Re-Revisited, which features covers of some of their favorite tracks from […]
Fifty years ago, Bruce Iglauer founded a record label based on Hound Dog Taylor’s gloriously fuzzy, raucous, and rattly guitar. The six-fingered guitarist cranked out his brand of houserockin’ blues with a slide repurposed from a kitchen table leg backed […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: As album releases slow down in December, we like to catch our breath and write about albums that came out earlier in the year that we didn’t get a chance to review but we think are worthy of […]
Various Artists The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1 When John Hartford died in 2001, we lost a musical voice and first-rate humorist whose songwriting carried us down the Mississippi on riverboats and whose musical genius is with […]
He was the hippest of the hip, a master of understatement, the epitome of cool. It’s even cooler that If You’re Going to the City: A Tribute to Mose Allison was curated by his daughter Amy and benefits the Sweet […]
The advantage — or disadvantage, depending on your perspective — of a tribute album is that by glancing at the track listing you already have an idea in your head of how it will sound. Depending on your familiarity with […]
Buck Owens and Merle Haggard are the poster boys for the unique sound of their hometown, but wagonloads of musical pioneers were churning up the Bakersfield, California, dust before them two good ol’ boys rode out of town toward brighter […]
Does anyone need a 38-CD deluxe boxed set documenting the three days of peace and music that was Woodstock? Apparently 1,969 people did: the numbered set, selling for $799.98, sold out quickly. The 38-CD set, which features 432 tracks, comes […]
Seems like if a man had a Cadillac he wouldn’t have the blues. But for Chicago’s (by way of Mississippi) Narvel “Cadillac Baby” Eatmon, the blues are what made it possible to get a series of Cadillacs. From 1959 to […]
