While plenty of bands have mixed bits of hard rock or punk flavoring into their Americana / Alt Country sound — Whiskeytown, the Waco Brothers, Old 97s and Uncle Tupelo all come quickly to mind — few have completely changed course and jumped directly from rock’s basic aesthetic, with its three-chords- and-some-angst sonic palette, to […]
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I had not had a chance to see Josh Rouse in person before, despite having been a fan of his nuanced songwriting and impressively diverse catalog for decades, so I was not quite sure what to expect when I caught him at The Locks at Sona in Philadelphia last Friday night. To my delight, I […]
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photos by Jimmy Faber Watching The National Reserve and Sarah Shook & the Disarmers play back-to-back at the Ardmore Music Hall last Saturday night, I realized that I was witnessing two nascent Americana bands literally headed in opposite directions. Shook & Co. were on their last stop of a four-shows-in-four-nights East coast mini-tour, having been […]
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Review by Michael Magoolaghan (https://americanahighways.org/author/mack-hooligan/)Photos by Jimmy Faber Photography (https://www.facebook.com/JimmyFaberPhotography/) What if I told you I’m in love with a band that was named after its mastermind’s pet snail? And that said band promoted itself for a time by representing its music as having been produced by a snail — and that its label (Yer […]
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The Dawson Street Pub is a tiny neighborhood bar in the hilly Manayunk section of Philadelphia, where parking is damn near impossible and — if you do manage to find a space — you’re sure to be graced (like I was) with a ticket by the ever-zealous Philadelphia Parking Authority. The Pub itself is […]
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Imagine you’re Philadelphia born-and-bred, Grammy award-winning songwriter Scot Sax. You’ve been living in Nashville for the past few years, making inroads on the local music scene and showcasing your performing chops via a rollicking “Philly Soul Revue” that pays tribute to your former hometown’s rich R & B, soul and funk heritage. You and your […]
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It’s not every day you get to see a universally acknowledged master of his craft do his thing. At 78 (!) Delbert McClinton may no longer be at the very top of his game — though he’s still impressively close to it — but the Texas roadhouse blues master put on an energetic and memorable […]
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Marah’s Christmas shows are justifiably legendary. Now based in central PA but originally hailing from the Conshohocken area of Philadelphia, the band clearly knows how to throw a kickin’ party. This year’s festivities were held at the City of Brotherly Love’s Underground Arts, a dark, industrial basement venue that probably hasn’t experienced such pure musical […]
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[Click on anything in bold to read related interviews and reviews on Americana Highways. Click icons to buy. Scroll to the bottom for playlist!] I have to be honest here. Music writers are people too, so their year-end top-whatever lists tend to be the soundtracks to their lives for that year, whether they’re conscious of […]
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While the Eagles-Cowboys rivalry played itself out to exhaustion in an over-lit sportsplex a few miles to the north of Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood, Richard Buckner treated his audience to the polar opposite of that corporate-sponsored mega-spectacle: an intimate, quietly soul-stirring evening of folksong and storytelling. The evening’s warm, congenial tone was set by the John […]
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