Atlantic versi sciolti da rima A long thin scar stretches across water binding with love two worlds of pain and faith around a single mic and a bottle. Atlantic to Delta the spirit flows from emerald hills to fertile ground […]
Jim Simpson is an award-winning fiction writer and freelance music critic. A native of the wilds of Florida's Gulf Coast, he now resides on the scruffy fringes of Atlanta, Georgia.
He frequently writes about music, with his taste spanning all genres: bluegrass, Americana, classic country, alt-country, western swing, blues, classical, rock 'n' roll, punk, reggae, klezmer, and British isles folk (to name but a few).
He once sang "Happy Birthday" (with about 10,000 other people) to Joni Mitchell, and has seen such legends as Miles Davis, The Incredible Jimmy Smith, Rockpile, Blue Rodeo, King Sunny Ade, David Bowie, Joan Jett, Robyn Hitchcock, R.E.M., Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan live in concert. He has interviewed Those Darlins, John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, Marshall Chapman, Charlie Louvin, Derek Hoke, Jim Avett, the Secret Sisters, and Meghan McCormick.
Jim is a former editor for Awaiting the Flood and has written for The Atlanta Music Guide, Hellbomb, Earbuddy, The Weeklings, The Book Shopper, and The Nervous Breakdown. He recently finished his first novel, and if all goes well it should be in bookstores sometime before his death.
Atlantic versi sciolti da rima A long thin scar stretches across water binding with love two worlds of pain and faith around a single mic and a bottle. Atlantic to Delta the spirit flows from emerald hills to fertile ground […]
Trouble & Love go hand in hand down the deep worn path of grief a journey feared for its loneliness traveled reluctantly yet turning over and over like a smooth stone or brittle brown leaf discovered a season too late […]
I Was Born The little boy in shorts hugs the guitar, a future Ishmael he is, a someday Sal Paradise Boone-born of Blue Ridge near Doc, his hero. He dreams of the road, of oncoming trains, everything sounding like a […]
White Wave Chapel Brother and sister tell dark tales of trouble, debauchery In songs that span oceans, rooted in emerald folklore Older than mountains, from islands to Appalachia. There is sanctuary here on the edge of the sea. The waves […]
Little Bird Four flights in nine years to India, she said, A bird in a cage in the darkest corner. (Is the unconscious mind, she meant.) She found — at Jack Kerouac’s School of Disembodied Poetics — the glass Ceiling […]
Kin Think of Vermont: Farmhouses, maple trees, syrup amber in jars, Camembert, brie, jonagold, Honeycrisp drives through lush green country. Think of settling down, breathing once more. But also of sleeve ink, Hank Williams, John Prine, Of demons haunting a […]
In the history of breakup albums, Bluebird will likely be remembered as one of the best, even though it doesn’t feel like a breakup album. This record is so very much more than the musical document of an artist working […]
I had the pleasure of speaking with Justin Miner, founder of the eponymous L.A. folk-rock band Miner, about the band’s debut album Into The Morning , getting naked with his wife in the desert, jungle epiphanies, and much more. Miner’s […]
Every picture tells a story, don’t it? A well-crafted song also does that. Jess Williamson is adept at both. Native State marks Williamson’s return to her native Austin, Texas, after time spent in New York City studying for an advanced […]
The best folk music has the ability to take its listeners to distant lands — geographical and spiritual — peopled by compelling characters, usually ghosts with tragic pasts who met with untimely ends. The debut EP from London’s Scowlin Owl […]