Bentley’s Bandstand: June 2026
Bob Corritore and Friends, ERNESTINE BLUES. There comes a time when this harp-blowing man goes into the studio and rounds up some heart-beating singers and playing wildcats and lets it all rip. It doesn’t matter who those buddies might be because this bandleader knows exactly what’s needed to cozy up to his harmonica so the room starts rocking. This latest collection of fun is right up there with the best of the series. Singer Carla Denise in particular sounds like you want to spend as much time around her and her succulent voice as possible. That’s just the start. When you read the playbill that goes down the left side of the inner album you might have to sit down to deal with all the greatness. Really. It’s fascinating that so many artists when they get inside a recording studio and can make the magic happen. No matter which instrument is in the spotlight doesn’t matter, because the goods are getting hot on every track. And the songs are just as sizzling. Full-blooded glory comes right out of the mind of Bob Corritore like it’s last-call at the Pepper Lounge in South Chicago in the 1950s, but bounces up to 2026 and everything comes amazingly alive. From “How’d You Learn to Shake It Like That” to”Shoes” is a glorious day with the blues, as good a one as it gets in this day and age. Which really does prove that the blues will never die. Ain’t gonna happen.
Lance Cowan, THE AIR THAT YOU BREATHE. Best Album 2026. There is no reason to hide the headline. Or hide the surprise. The singer-songwriter Lance Cowan steps into a spotlight that he surely deserves. The man has been one of America’s finest publicists for many years. His career timeline started as a newspaper writer, and he really had the abilities. Then he crossed the tracks and started promoting the gifts of other artists for years. And finally he crossed the tracks again and went into recording studios to work on his original music. This third album by Cowan is in many ways a stunner. He sounds like someone who has been writing great songs his whole life, singing them as strong as any other vocalists and then walked into this new career like he owned it. So many intriguing originals and heartmoving vocals make up this new mountain of an achievement. There’s big songlines and intricate stories that move in and out of 11 songs that clearly will be one that touches all who listen for many years to come. And Cowan’s voice has grown into one that can only be his own, as he sings in and out of different emotions like an artist in a class of his own. Producer Scott Paschall is the perfect person to fill that job. He is a master of originality and insight into what music is meant to do. By the end of THE AIR THAT YOU BREATHE the real result of feeling breathlessness is what’s just been experienced. Unreal but true.
Mary Flower & Leon Cotter, CHANTS OF RAIN. Sometimes two musicians build such a telepathic sense of musical alliance that they come together as one. It’s like when they put their instruments together, there’s a feeling of magic that comes alive. Really. Guitarist Mary Flower and clarinetist Leon Cotter have a communication ability that it feels almost like there is only one of them, playing both instruments as one. It’s totally joyous when their playing takes off into the ozone that it has to be heard to be believed. Flower’s acoustic guitar that leans to the blues and ragtime style, and is a sound that feels like it’s permanent. She never crosses over into anything but pure emotions, and delivers such a strength of an earlier period that it fills the heart. And Leon Cotter’s clarinet fills in the notes of spheres, with the ability to sing without a voice. Instead, the notes he creates take listeners to the upper world of pure sound. And their swinging original songs couple to show how the timelessness of music will hopefully ever cease. When the players are this strong and enthused it feels like the album is something that really is something from another cosmos. In a modern time when music like CHANTS OF RAIN is growing even more into a healing force that is highly needed now, it’s time to join together and become a part of their pack with chants of rain and music. Time is now.
Guitar City, 3 BALLS OF FIRE. Austin is well-known as an endless landscape of guitar factions. All the different styles of string-pullers exist there, proudly, and aren’t afraid of chasing their own visions. It almost feels like there are city statutes that every home has at least one guitar inside it. Why not? It keeps people off the street practicing and performing, allows a multitude of nightclubs and bars to stay busy, and even keeps the town full of frolic. Or something close to it. String man Mike Vernon has recorded a new swinging style of sounds where everything goes. Really. There are a dozen players on this wildly-cool collection of music, and it can’t be said there have been many other collections like it. Songs like “Living Beneath the Volcano,” “8 Miles Deep,” “Blue Beat,” “Ulan-Bator,” “Rumble in the Congo” and more spread their wings with true originality and help Austin outgrow its musical output even more. It’s obvious Vernon is his own man, and isn’t afraid to cross boundaries and even make a beautiful mess when he wants to. Vernon wrote all the songs except one, and no doubt had a blast putting the whole album together. When someone asks what Austin music sounds like, which of course is an impossible question, point them to BALLS OF FIRE. And tell them to forget categories and wander around downtown on a Saturday night. No maps needed.
Michael McDermott, FLOWERS FROM THE GRAVEYARD. This man’s music can be spotted a mile awhile. Michael McDermott is an American singer who can dig his heart into the indescribable greatness of the land he comes from, always sharing the warmness of the nation’s heart, at the same time also capturing the hurt and hope which can make life in America such a confusion. Sometimes the sun seems to never stop shining, and others life feels like a confusion that will never be resolved. Which makes McDermott all the more valuable. Songs like “The Best We Get” and “Nobody” take the whole feelling of modern life, from the impossibilities to magic, and bring them together to make modern life beyond understanding, but also an experience that should never be missed. This is a singer-songwriter who seems like someone who didn’t ask for the job and can’t resist stepping aside. McDermott is in so many ways on a journey into the promised land only to find a handful of broken promises after all. But he also learns there is no other way forward. There aren’t many singer-songwriters today who can walk into the present without backing down. Even with all the painful surprises of how a country rips apart, there is never a spirit of giving up in these songs. In fact, all the hardships confronted there is that much sense of keeping on. Michael McDermott is full of resolve that giving up isn’t on the menu, and that for no other reason than lack of choices there is only one direction left: ahead. The man’s voice is full of strong resolve that says there can be no other way. And with a band of musicians holding strong together, there is no doubt that what is ahead is full of spirit. And there is no other way. What a time.
Johnny Rawls & Dave Keller, TRIBUTE TO SOUL. Sometimes it feels like a wave of ’60s style soul music has taken over the land. Which is actually a good sign, but the goods have to be 100% certified.The voice, the players, the songs, even the graphics have to be for real. And in the case of Rawls and Keller, it’s all there. Writers like Joe Tex, Tommy Tate, Rick Hall, George Jackson and a gang of others make their appearance on these compositions, and it feels just right, And, yes, Johnny Rawls has a voice that can handle them all, and Dave Keller isn’t far behind him. This is the style of music that has to hit the bullseye straight up, on first hearing, and not one that grows on you. Soul music has always been about the temperature of the feeling. It’s instant. It’s not something to warm up over listening. Like love, it’s something that’s there or it’s not. On this new take on an O.V. Wright classic, nothing less than glorious would turn the trick. And that’s exactly what happens here and if you can pass the “O.V. Test” then anything is possible. So it’s time to pull back the covers and let life take its own course. There are so many question marks about the world’s future it is time to let the good times roll. And these two brothers know exactly where that road goes. Wear it out.
Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport YOUNG RELL. Sometimes someone comes out of the darkness and shows such deep relations to the blues that they can’t be ignored. Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport is a son of Mississippi who was raised in Vicksburg and lived in the Delta tradition with their whole soul. Davenport’s relation to the blues is as real as it gets. His ability to play harp sounds like it comes from the heart of humans, and brings out such a sense of strength and beauty that it refuses to be ignored. And Reel’s voice takes in all the history of the greats before and offers them to listeners today who weren’t able to hear the greats from 100 years ago when the South was a whole different country. But with the arrival of this new release it feels like that ancier era is right back in life. It couldn’t come too soon, either. Songs like “Fatherless Child,” “Giving Me the Blues” and “Richland Swing” are so alive it feels like all have the fever of living bursting through. And other songs like “I’ll Keep It Hot for You,” “I Hear Some Blues Downstairs,” “The World Don’t Deserve Your Smile” brings it all the way home. This young man, still a teenager, but don’t be fooled. He grew up quick and all the way in Mississippi, and didn’t miss a lick in that time. This is another super fine release From the Little Village Foundation and America should be proud. Sometimes it just feels that blues will always be alive, and that is indeed a gift to celebrate. Say hallelujah someday.
J.P. Reali, GRATEFUL BLUES. The Grateful Dead has always been strongly influenced by the blues. And while it never dipped its whole good in the music, it always had an influence on what the Dead played. How could it not? It’s practically our country’s sonic backbone. As an electric guitarist, Reali can play just about anything, but give him an amplifier and cord to plug his electric guitar into, the man is ready to go. Taking on these six Grateful Dead classics there’s no way to lose. Opener “Easy Wind” is a good place to start, being a funkied swinger first sung by Pigpen, who was the Dead’s obvious blues cheerleader, all the way to their band beginning in 1965. And, yes, Reali can really pull it off. From there it’s a swinging stroll through the Dead’s songbook, including “Loose Lucy,” “West L.A. Fade Away” and four more. And, the best news, is the musician isn’t intent on being Jerry Garcia Jr. He’s got his own strengths and ideas and isn’t afraid in exploring his own esteemed style. This is a band skilled in being their own boss, and not a wannabe. By the end of the affair, on “Tennessee Jed,” it’s go for broke on your own. And that’s where the groovin’ quartet brings it all home. Garcia-Weir-Reali.
Curtis Salgado, LEGACY REWIND: LIVE IN ’25. When the call goes out for a modern soul singer who can take it to the river and is accompanied by the kind of band that knows where the real music comes, it’s time to listen to Curtis Salgado and his band. There really aren’t that many left who know where the real deal lives. But Salgado has been showing his stuff for decades and always finds a way to keep getting better. It’s like a wonder of nature. And the lucky thirteen songs gathered on this new live soul deep is a stunner. There’s nothing else to call it. Somehow the Pacific Coast man is in some ways someone all to himself. He can get down in the alley in a heartbeat, and turn around and soar to the ceiling. Every track here is full of feeling, not heard every day, and as the tracks roll forward. everything keeps building in zest. Recorded at the Triple Door in Seattle, the cream of the rhythm & blues crop in America fill the bandstand, and Salgado and the band can stop on a dime and give the stirred-up crowd a nickel back in change. And then, when necessary, a blasting horn section kicks in and lets the loudly appreciative live audience know they are in good hands. If it’s been too long since a blazing band has been in the house, do not miss this album. It’s all here, and near the end when they take on the new classic “20 Years of B.B. King, ” it fills the air with the true joy of some of America’s greatest music. And the future starts to feel better knowing what has been accomplished in modern times, and what can still be done. Accept no substitutes.
Speedy Sparks, O.K. LET’S PLAY. If there has been a Mr. Rock & Roll in Austin the past 50 years, let it be Miller “Speedy” Sparks. Starting out as a doorman at the pivotal Soap Creek Saloon it didn’t take long for the Houston-native to pull out his Fender bass and join in the onstage action. And Sparks has been in on that fun ever since. From outfits like Joe “King” Carrasco El Molino, The Bizarros, Sir Douglas Quintet, Roky Erickson, Texas Tornados and a dozen more that Speedy Sparks had earned the honor Have Bass Will Travel. And while he passed away early this year, it really still feels like he’s still here. His unstoppable soul is just that way. And, yes, finally a full album of Sparks’ absolute love of rock & roll has been released to commemorate his life by collecting all kinds of recordings he made and put them all together. The fact that the rocker has written them all except for Norman Petty’s original for Buddy Holly, “Heartbeat,” shows how deep Speedy Sparks has always gone. He knew what he loved and that’s what he played. And his depth of commitment for the music was rarely equaled. If Speedy Sparks was in the band there was no way jubilation and swing was going to be missing. When he started his own label back in the 1970s, he tagged it Dynamic Records and that was the way he played all these years. In so many ways there has never been a friend of rock & roll more devoted than Speedy Sparks. And make no mistake: now that he’s on the other side of the realm he’s just as swinging. And this album O.K. LET’S PLAY means exactly what it says: turn on, plug in and let it rip. Guitarist Mike Vernon makes sure of that here. And if Speedy Sparks was on the bandstand there would always be rock & roll played from the heart and listeners there to hear it. Turn it up.
Reissue of the Month
Allen Toussaint SONGBOOK
If there is a musical American who deserves a statue in Washington, D.C. let it be Allen Toussaint. The New Orleans hero wrote songs for all kinds of different artists. Blues, soul, rock & roll, jazz and even classical. The composer-musician-singer had a way of making whatever different genre he was working in feel that it was his own. And being from New Orleans it always felt like Toussaint was writing his personal history of the area. There has never been anyone quite as varied as this man. When the album SONGBOOK first came out a few years ago, it was time to celebrate just how exciting Toussaint’s abilities have always been. And now that the original release has been expanded into even a deeper dive of all that the musician has done there can be nothing but extreme jubilation and the chance to spread his accomplishment even wider. Joining the original live album is a wider collection of songs that take his musical gifts to even further borders. Watching Toussaint play a live set at the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival feels like a national holiday. It’s almost unreal how the songs and sounds and sheer ethereal feelings feel across the South like a holy experience. There will never be another artist like Allen Toussaint. There’s just a way he collects sounds, lyrics, feelings and other beauties into one person’s accomplishments. But these two discs are in a class of their own, and capable of down home holiness. Yeah you right.