The evening started with an odd bit of foreshadowing. When John Mayall and his band took to the stage, Mayall went straight to the mic to do the formal introductions calling each member out by name. To Mayall’s right was Greg […]
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John Mayall is on a roll. The fire that burned in him and made him the central figure of the British Blues movement of the ’60s continues to burn brightly. In fact, it fuels his drive to continue to record […]
Country music, like the blues, depends on authenticity to escape the tendency to become its own caricature. Often this is harder to achieve than it appears, especially in country, where the symbols of the everyman have been co-opted by dumbed-down […]
Robert Cray seemed to be sitting on top of the world from his vantage point on the stage of the Birchmere. Fronting a crackerjack band, he was in good spirits and excellent voice as he took the audience for a […]
He landed in Nashville smack dab in the middle of the ’80s with a crash — a fireball of rock and roll. Webb Wilder, tongue in cheek, with an oddball sense of humor that rode on a rockabilly beat and paid […]
For two hours on a February Saturday night, on the outskirts of Washington, DC, a little bayou magic managed to dispel the single digit wind chills. The location was the Museum of the Natural History of American Music, better known […]
Rich in Love, Colin Linden’s latest offering, is a delightfully rustic treasure chest of laid back, bluesy folk-rock. The pointed observations of human behavior and the fragility of relationships are undergirded by arrangements that testify to Linden’s penchant for smart […]
The Birchmere hosts a diverse array of artists and shows, and for a listening room that started as a bluegrass club the calendar is broad and deep and wide, genre be damned, as the venue celebrates its 50th year in […]
Grant Dermody, the Seattle harp wizard with a panoramic view of roots music styles, both old world and new, puts his versatility on display with Sun Might Shine on Me. Surrounding himself with a solid group of accomplices, Dermody is […]
Eric Bibb is a devotee of pre-war blues and folk music. On his latest release, Lead Belly’s Gold, Bibb and brother-in-arms JJ Milteau mine the rich vein of Americana that is Huddie Ledbetter. We are all the better for the effort, […]
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