From the first notes of the glorious, chiming dulcimer that dominates “Calling Madeline”, the opening track, one thing is abundantly clear. Jolene is not so much starting over as they are making a fresh start. Mostly recorded for Sire before […]
Say It Is So is a welcome return for the front man of New Zealand pop-wavers Split Enz and occasional member of his brother Neil’s band, Crowded House. Although Tim Finn has released a handful of solo albums (none since […]
In the seedier, sweatier nightclubs of the southern United States, the decor is normally secondary to the entertainment, whether it’s the dancers at a strip bar or the bands of any given live music club. Columbia, South Carolina, band the […]
These songs ring out more than just “the love between a brother and a sister, all over this land,” as some folkie once sang. If I had a hammer, I would use it to nail the door shut on indifferent […]
The last of a five-box Ernest Tubb series from the wonderfully completist folks at Germany’s Bear Family Records, Another Story encompasses the stretch from an April 4, 1966, session for one of the Tubb-less Texas Troubadours albums to the final […]
Billed as a Kitty Wells show, this was really more than that, with segments featuring the current version of the Tennessee Mountain Boys and her son Bobby Wright as well as Kitty and her husband Johnnie. Her band, some of […]
Many college towns seem to have a bar called the Library. The theory is that students in search of more than just a study hall could tell their parents, “Oh, I spent the night at the library,” when in fact […]
Danielle Howle is a staunchly independent free spirit who has done things her own way for years. She began performing in South Carolina over a decade ago with an acoustic group that got “mostly weird looks from the local bar’s […]
Jack Williams has led the long, winding life of a professional musician for the past 40 years. This is the abridged version of his journey. The Elvis Years: As an adolescent in the early 1950s, Williams was bitten by the […]
After a recent swing through the Southeast opening for the Black Crowes, a club tour back into the same areas could have been a letdown for the members of Nashville band Bare Jr. This particular night didn’t start out too […]
