Rick Fink and co. have always succeeded at translating their boundless live-show exuberance to studio waxings. So the hand-clapping/foot-stomping audio acrobatics here come as no surprise (though they are wonderfully welcome). The band’s inimitable, punk-fuelled swingin’-for-the-bleachers jump-blues/jazzy/billy rages grinningly. […]
Linda Gail’s pert twang and drawling allure combine as commanding center as all around her swings and storms. Lucky listeners find themselves at the dancefloor nexus of spirited bop and old-ways country ambling. When a rock’n’roll freight this big ticket […]
Not soulless, accommodatingly contemporary, processed product geared toward make-everybody-happy Holiday Inn crowds who demand that ‘wildness’ be calculated and parceled out, but old-school rock’n’roll that shouts its human condition testimonies in tongues wonderful and diverse: garage obstreperousness, rockabilly boppin’, jumped-up blues, […]
In each howling note, chunkablock riff, and snapped-tight downbeat of this open-faced party-on-disc thrives the undeniable truth that the men on deck are so intimately proficient in and just plain in love with rock’n’roll’s capacity for uplift that it would […]
The story of legendary guitar-slinger Dave Edmund’s artistic arc is one of exaltation, enrichment, and grand evolution. It isn’t every musician’s journey. But it is Dave’s, and a superb and admirable one it is. In the 1970s and 1980s, he […]
Rock and roll originated from a variety of racial, cultural, and regional sources, and osmotic excitement at burgeoning cultural flux. It represented in the early 1950s exactly the social unity that voices of divisiveness — including Jim Crow-allegiant political, educational, […]
Redray’s gospel-singing youth left singular imprint on his warm vocal manner, and it is ever apparent in this 6-song set – at turns electrically animated and soulfully bluesy. A former David Byrne touring band cornerstone, Redray opens up his heart […]
Lance is the big bass-slappin’, song-crafting founder of the storied Hillbilly Hellcats and a longtime first-chair musician in his own right. Neo-rockabilly, psychobilly, hillbilly…if it rocks, Lance has played it – and better than most, too. Have doghouse, will travel. […]
Its footloose freedom from care an immediate attraction, this economical, effectual five-cut EP slides listeners up into a retro hip-shaking party dimension, one from which few are likely to seek return. The finger-popping, clapped satisfactions of the forward ’50s/’60s-type rock’n’roll […]
Does Dale Watson realize how important he and his music really are? The man upholds and advances traditional country music — the genuine, real people kind that reflects the aspirations, heartaches, and end-of-work-week, shout-and-stomp barroom release that a million corporate […]
