The Browns’ biggest hit, “The Three Bells (Les Trios Cloches)”, has to be among the least unexpected, just plain weirdest successes in the annals of country pop. A Swiss ballad first made famous throughout Europe by French chanteuse Edith Piaf, […]
A belated Happy Birthday is in order here for George Jones, who turned 77 on September 12. May you celebrate many, many more, George. Jones, of course, has been widely recognized, and for quite some time now, as country music’s […]
Sleepless Nights is subtitled The Traditional Country Soul Of Patty Loveless. I like that, partly because it is so matter-of-fact in its assumption that describing “country soul” as “traditional” isn’t an oxymoron. Mostly, though, the description is so apt because […]
On the final night of the Democratic convention, at the conclusion of the nominee’s acceptance speech, Barack Obama beamed and waved to 80,000-plus supporters as they danced and sang along to…”Only in America” by Brooks & Dunn? Wow. Entertainment Weekly’s […]
I hope the death of Isaac Hayes will inspire those who know him only for his “Theme from Shaft,” amazing though it is, or his role as Chef on South Park, to track down his early records. Albums like Hot […]
In my far-too-long-ago last entry here (I apologize to those who may have been checking in), I ended by quoting from a book that rests very near the top of my short list of essential music criticism, A Change Is […]
In my last entry here, in a call-and-response with Carl Wilson at Zoilus, I conjectured a bit about the evolution of, or more accurately the dissapearance of, old-school signifcance in rock-n-pop music. Following Carl’s lead, I was using Elvis Costello […]
In one of those sweeping-yet-concise graphs that are becoming one of his specialties, friend Carl Wilson recently got my attention with a post at his blog Zoilus. Carl wrote: “Momofuku finds Costello…in his most incisive mood in a long while, […]
The International Country Music Conference convened in Nashville last month, its 25th annual meeting. I didn’t attend, but I wish I had — most of all because I would love to have attended the panel titled “Country Music, U.S.A.: A […]
There may be no more impenetrable roadblock to the enjoyment and evaluation of music (and art generally) than the matter of taste. Yet while it’s always lurking about even when it goes unmentioned — call it the Taste Card — […]
