These days, most music memoirs tend to be bleary-eyed and bloated chronicles in which artists recount who-slept-with-whom and tote up the quantity of the most mind-expanding, or mind-numbing, drugs swallowed or injected on tour. There’s a requisite tale of […]
During the past 24 years promoter and organizer Sixthman has presented over 150 themed festivals on the high seas. Those festivals, which push off from its Miami, Florida home port, now number 28 and permit guests (over 300,000 so […]
March in Arizona means it’s time for Cactus League spring training in Phoenix. Music promoter and festival organizer C3 Presents (Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Bonnaroo, and more) thought it would also be a great time hold a roots […]
Nat Myers It’s been a rough few months for the roots music community: fires, floods, illness, and loss. The latest addition to the list is blues picker extraordinaire Nat Myers, who was recently diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare type […]
In the 1990s, numerous women rockers emerged on the popular music scene, flooding the airwaves of college and independent radio stations with alternative feminist rock and momentarily elevating these women in the rock pantheon. As Tanya Pearson, founder […]
This week’s column takes us, in the throes of winter, up north, where two roots music events occurred on the same overlapping weekend: Folk Alliance International in Montreal, Canada (February 19-23, 2025); and Wintergrass in Bellevue, Wash. (20-23, 2025). In […]
It began here, in the safety of the suburbs, black vinyl spinning in someone’s back room, George Harrison bragging on John Lennon during the bridge in the Beatles’ “For You Blue,” a minor track from 1970’s Let It Be“: […]
This week’s column features two events at opposite ends of the country: AMERICANAFEST’s Pre-Grammy Salute to John Hiatt (February 1, 2025) at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, California; and the Vero Beach Blues Festival (February 15 & 16, 2025) […]
The 37 annual Folk Alliance International conference is off to a bang-up start this week in Montreal, Quebec. The beloved folk music community gathering started off with its annual awards ceremony, and an inspiring keynote address by singer/songwriter Allison Russell […]
As with last month’s column, I open this month not with a campaign for a new album (though those will come) but with crowdfunding campaigns of a more personal nature. The first is a GoFundMe campaign for country blues […]
