Nomadic, amorphous, and wise, the spirit that lives in each of us finds a home in the music of Americana artist, Judy Paster. A Philadelphia native now living in Nashville, she found her voice in Music City’s hallowed halls. Paster’s songs are a personal reverie, both powerful and profound, that extol faith, affirm love, and […]
Continue Reading
“We have ALWAYS been in this together,” musician Trevor Hall responds emphatically to my question about the Coronavirus pandemic’s rallying cry for compliance, “but over time we have forgotten our connection and unity as a global family.” Hall’s point is a good one: We are all in this together implores an obvious truth recast as […]
Continue Reading
“If I had a Rocket Launcher,” Bruce Cockburn’s anti-anthem of pure rage, was my introduction to the Canadian troubadour’s already established catalog. The year was 1989, and my older brother had sent me Cockburn’s song–a reaction to the United States’ interventionist politics in Central America–as I prepared to visit El Salvador. Midway through my senior […]
Continue Reading
In the final section of Four Quartets, “Little Gidding,” T.S. Eliot writes: We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time. Exploration and arrival are equally integral parts of a paradox, in which “knowing” happens only in the […]
Continue Reading
“Just finished changing strings roadside,” Bill Bloomer texts, a few minutes past 6:00 p.m.; dinner hour for most people is driving time between gigs for Bill. “Chicago, IL for The Montrose Saloon at 8, and the club owner expects me there. Gotta fly — driving off into the sunset.” A warm and windy weekday evening, […]
Continue Reading
Can the experience of a 26-year-old self described “old troubadour style” musician, born and raised in Kenya, who immigrated to the United States to live in his Aunt’s basement in the cold Minneapolis winter–because his folk-singer hero, Bob Dylan spent his late teens performing in the artsy Dinkytown neighborhood near the University of Minnesota–be described […]
Continue Reading
photos by Glenn Cook James McMurtry was one of the most important lessons I learned in graduate school. Having arrived in Boston, fresh from the revelatory oasis of my UC Berkeley undergraduate years, I was pretty certain the world had shown me what it could. Intellectual prowess, philosophical abandon, and mindful debauchery had been fused into a fledgling, yet purposeful, identity. […]
Continue Reading
photos by Glenn Cook photography Beguiling and blinding, The Anthem’s blazing light storm bore down Friday night as Americana icon, Lucinda Williams, burned through her classic ruminations about heartbreak and loss, and Southern rock powerhouse Drive-By Truckers took a decidedly direct American stand. First Lucinda. Her voice initially a bit sluggish, as if still tuned to the sea of her […]
Continue Reading
click anywhere in bold to read more about that artist Mark Cline Bates is Lucky Penny’s latest living room troubadour. Hailing from Hurricane, West Virginia, a strong gust’s reach from DC, Mark prefers to embody the aftermath, and greets his assembling guests with a calm, and an appreciation, that belies both his youthful songwriter successes […]
Continue Reading
Today’s concert goers crave community and connection. They are getting their fix in a plethora of new or revitalized venues across DC. The Wharf’s Pearl Street Warehouse and Union Stage are two such examples. In music venues such as these, the fractured and divisive rhetoric so prevalent in the city as a whole gives way […]
Continue Reading
