Four times, now, I’ve started this CD just to hear the effortless little woebegone slide in Corey Harris’ voice as he sings, “High fever got me-e-e.” It’s not a fearful, pneumonial plea, but it perfectly imparts the considerable discomfort of […]
“I know what! This time you play guitar and I’ll play drums! He can play the trumpet!” There’s a bit of the O Jeez that puts you in mind of the Hardy Boys or Li’l Rascals movies: Somebody has this […]
In Chicago these days, a band’s mere admission of Uncle Tupelo influence is an act of defiance worthy of respect. Critics and cognoscenti sniff, “Yeah, I’ve heard ’em,” meaning: “Heard one; heard ’em all.” But Mount Pilot’s recent opening slots […]
With Invisible Hands, indie twang’s most outspoken Jewess has graced us with six lovely hymns about afterlife. Rennie Sparks says they reflect a long slump from which she sought solace in Christian radio and thoughts of heaven, which normally doesn’t […]
“I didn’t know what country was until I got my heart broken.” Jesse Dayton is explaining the unambiguously traditional country, but decidedly not retro, nature of his new CD on Justice. Track after track of Hey Nashvegas, due out August […]
A wry smile crept almost imperceptibly across his face as the casually imposing figure stood onstage — head bowed, his acoustic guitar poised for a solo performance. Over a room crowded with fans of headliner Guy Clark, the club’s announcer […]
Abra Moores acclaimed 1995 album Sing may have been ahead of the wave. Joan Osborne hadnt made a market for her voice, west-Brit techno-ballad innovators had not fully hippified new age digitality, and Americana radio had yet to break the […]
Not far from Grand Detour, Illinois — where the Rock River winds in, yes, a grand detour near the first workshop of John Deere — is the small town of Dixon (pop. 15,144), the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. Dixon […]
Don Walser likes to tell how Jimmie Rodgers learned to play guitar from an old man pickin’ blues in the railyard where he worked. The link between blues and early country music is evident in songs such as Ernest Tubb’s […]
It makes you green. On the sunny yellow and sky blue CD cover, they gaze at each other like they’re still in high school and they just met. Barry & Holly Tashian’s new record is called Harmony, and they seem […]
