You could call the structure of this column “songwriters up front, instrumentalists in back,” but in reality the line between them gets blurry. Canadian chanteuse Basia Bulat, Jayhawks mainstay Gary Louris, and rising star Kora Feder all have distinctive […]
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“: […]
The top two picks in this month’s roundup are a study in contrast, and yet there’s overlap. At 84, Ringo Starr remains one of the most recognizable recording artists on the planet, with all of the Beatles’ catalog plus […]
Near the bottom of my stack of indifferently folded black t-shirts rests a relic from 2003, a wry marker from the career of the late Nashville singer-songwriter David Olney. “David Olney’s World Tour of Nashville,” the back reads, listing six […]
By Peter Blackstock As we approach the end of the year, there’s no particular rhyme or reason to these six selections — just a bunch of records I’ve been digging lately, and perhaps you might as well. Keep on rockin’ […]
The curse of Linda Thompson is that she is known principally for the exquisite agony of 1982’s Shoot Out the Lights, the divorce album she recorded and toured behind with soon-to-be-ex-husband, Richard. And for her voice, no small gift […]
We’ve hit the middle of 2024, and first-rate new albums seem to be coming fast and furious. Here’s a look at five of my favorites released in May and June, all of which may well end up on my […]
More often than not, I use these Founders’ Keepers columns to highlight artists you might not already know. There’s some of that this month, too — but we’ll bolt out of the gate with some star power. Mark Knopfler […]
Sometimes — this morning — one is given to suspect that we are little more than aggregations of the stories we tell about ourselves and each other, stories that haunt and inform and seek temporarily to connect or distance […]
About a year ago, celebrating Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday at the Hollywood Bowl with an all-star cast of dozens, I was reminded how much Norah Jones and Sheryl Crow have contributed to popular music over the past few decades. […]
