Building the Arizona Inn in Tucson kept Isabella Greenway busy for a while after she left Congress. She filled it with furniture bought from an organization she founded to provide work for disabled war veterans. Although she had hundreds of […]
Twisted with such subtlety you’re taken in before you know it, Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire, and their latest disc, Oh! The Grandeur, are too original to be so accessible, too arcane to be so catchy, too smart to be […]
The evening began with Chicagoans witnessing one of the city’s most beautiful sunsets in memory; everywhere in the club, people were talking about it. The clouds were brilliant with purple, orange and pink, and shifting edges of gleaming sunlight. The […]
Leroy Bach ignored the stage and microphones to stand on the floor with his guitar, under a pasteboard cutout portrait of Abe Lincoln and Christmas lights strung among the ceiling fans. He chattered and sang to those seated at tables […]
One bitter night in 1997, the Backsliders played the leading edge of a snowstorm at Schubas Tavern in Chicago for ten souls with less sense than love for rock ‘n’ roll. Like the Southern sun, the stage lights echoed from […]
Kelly Kessler and Jane Baxter Miller began their country career as the Texas Rubies in 1989 in a setting that couldn’t have been more urban: Chicago subway stations. Their favorite venues, though, were living rooms, and the biggest place that […]
In a photo on the CD jacket, flames appear to lap at an upright bass that’s autographed by Willie Dixon. It’s ex-Bottle Rocket Tom Ray’s bass, and he learned from Willie how to slap it — to keep time like […]
Punctuating with graceful gestures and winsome grins, Anna Fermin tells her story, surrounded by her band in front of a television set. They’ve gathered to hear her song “Blame Me” played to a nationwide audience in the soundtrack to The […]
Say you’re sick to death of blues — same songs, same riffs, same endless, flavorless imitations by big white bands, same cynical pandering to tourists from exurbia. You need this box. Don’t take my word for it. Hook up to […]
The descent from Dolly Parton’s last visit home, the gaudy 1994 album Heartsongs — overblown, overproduced, overcrowded, and altogether every bit larger-than-life as Parton herself — to the stripped-down, live-to-DAT musical framework of Hungry Again might give a lesser mortal […]
