BENTLEY’S BANDSTAND: MARCH 2023 By Bill Bentley Barbara Blue, From the Shoals. By this time, it’s common knowledge that the recording scene in Muscle Shoals, Alabama is sacred ground for soul music. Going back to the early 1960s when soulster Arthur Alexander started pumping out hits from the Shoals, the small town has been a […]
Bentley’s Bandstand: February 2023 By Bill Bentley The Animals, Retrospective. Of all the British Invasion bands of the 1960s, the Animals might just be the one who didn’t really receive the raving credit they deserve. Because their early songs had such an overwhelming blues base, it was like the Newcastle aggregation wasn’t in the same […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: January 2023 By Bill Bentley The Bad Ends, The Power and the Glory. What’s better than a surprise? When The Bad Ends album was released and holding down the drum spot was R.E.M.’s Bill Berry, it was like a circle had been completed. Berry had supplied so much of the power and finesse […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: December 2022 (Part 2)By Bill Bentley Gail Ceasar, Guitar Woman Blues. There might not be many female blues singers out of Pittsville, Virgina, but it’s a surety there won’t be another better than Gail Ceasar. Born in 1984 and taught to play by her uncle Pete Witcher, there is something so sweet and […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: Favorite Albums 2022By Bill Bentley Nicki Bluhm, Avondale Drive. This is a singer who has been making headway surely over the last decade, in bands with other artists and then fronting Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers. Now that she has gone on her own and then moved to Nashville from San Francisco it […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: December 2022 (Part I) By Bill Bentley Johnny Adams, Only Want To Be With You. It is no accident that in his hometown of New Orleans soul singer extraordinaire Johnny Adams was lovingly called the Tan Canary. He enthused such a reverence from his many fans there that they could hardly contain themselves. […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: November 2022By Bill Bentley Art of Time Ensemble, Songs of Leonard Cohen Live. An artist like Leonard Cohen is like a walking advertisement for tribute albums. The Canadian wrote so many undeniable songs of greatness there’s a chance that the tributes will go on for decades. The Art of Time Ensemble is a […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: October 2022 By Bill Bentley Rory Block, Ain’t Nobody Worried. It’s become obvious that during the pandemic years a lot of musicians had a chance to slow down and figure out what it really is that makes their mojo work. For blues woman Rory Block, it’s the great songs of the ages, and […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: September 2022By Bill Bentley Dave Alvin, New Highway: Selected Lyrics, Poems, Prose, Essays, Eulogies and Blues. At this point in his long and rollercoaster ride of a career, there’s not much that Downey, California’s favorite son hasn’t done. From a blues-soaked early education in Los Angeles clubs, forming the Blasters in the late […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: August 2022 By Bill Bentley The Allman Brothers Band, Down in Texas ’71. At the beginning of the 1970s the road was wide open for rock & roll bands, no matter where they were coming from. The wild frontier of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury ethos was not necessarily calming down, but its newness was […]
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