Matt Berninger, Serpentine Prison. The National has been a major league band for 20 years, even before they were popular, and lead singer Matt Berninger has proven himself over and over to be one of the most moving interpreters alive of modern songs. Yet his first solo album goes to a place not many people […]
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By Bill Bentley Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite, 100 Years of Blues. When Elvin Bishop whips out his Big Dog red Gibson guitar and Charlie Musselwhite begins blowing on his Seydel Mississippi saxophone harmonicas, it is clearly all over but the shouting. This a Southern-bred pair that is not kidding around. Between them, they’ve played […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: September 2020By Bill Bentley Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Just Coolin’. Leave it to drummer Art Blakey to know how to tear up a bandstand full of hot-blooded players. Blakey was one of the seminal musicians who took over the jazz world in the early 1950s with a sound that could not […]
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Dedicated Men of Zion, Can’t Turn Me Around. When gospel music comes rolling out of the ozone and takes over, it always feels like a bigger presence has arrived to visit. There is a bouncing glory in the music, and a committed zeal in the songs. Like there is a higher calling in the house, […]
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By Bill Bentley Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways. “Today tomorrow and yesterday too / the flowers are dying like all things do…” Bob Dylan has done hoodooed the hoodoo man on his heart-splitting new album, which begins with the aforementioned words, and lets it be known he sees the end and doesn’t […]
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By Bill Bentley Marshall Chapman, Songs I Can’t Live Without. When it’s time to throw some black cat bones and light the voodoo candles. this new Marshall Chapman album would be a good listening companion. The woman whose voice often sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the spirit world rounds up some favorite songs […]
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By Bill Bentley Joe Ely, Love in the Midst of Mayhem. Is it possible after 50 years to make the very best album of a long and illustrious career? If you’re Joe Ely it absolutely is. With this new release, recorded in the long shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of Texas’ favorite sons comes […]
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Leeann Atherton, Fallen Angel. Once every few years a song appears that sounds like it’s always been here, something that has to be heard immediately. That’s Leeann Atherton’s “Smack Dab in a Miracle.” It rises and falls and fills in all the missing pieces like an answer to life. Atherton’s mighty voice is powered by […]
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Michael Doucet, Lacher Prise. Beausoleil’s Michael Doucet is surely one of the high priests of Cajun music, and has been for a very long time. On his latest go-round of the rollicking music he loves so much, Doucet throws caution out the back door and lets the good times completely roll. His new solo album […]
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By Bill Bentley Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band, Just Like Moby Dick. If there is a renaissance person alive in the world today, better make it Terry Allen. Between his paintings, plays and music, Allen has whacked out his own swath the past 50-something years in all kinds of directions. He made most […]
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