Once, after a show that included Steve Earle, I had an interesting conversation. The gentleman I spoke with disagreed strongly with Earle’s politics, but still enjoyed his music. For as vociferous as Steve can be with his view, this fan appreciated his attention to songcraft. With Songs of Resistance, 1942-2018 (ANTI-/Epitaph), Marc Ribot has made […]
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On Wednesday evening, Lucinda Williams appeared as the special guest of master jazz musician Charles Lloyd in a free concert at the Library of Concert. This event, in a small theater, offered an intimate experience to hear Williams’s music. Although Williams only performed for the last segment of the concert, her delight at sharing the […]
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This year saw many fantastic albums, and in selecting my 10 best I had to leave out many albums that I thought were absolutely superb. Some may object that some of my albums stray from the strict definition of Americana/roots music, but I would reply that all the albums I mention here received attention in […]
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Recently, the subject of musicians’ memoirs came up in a discussion between myself and Austin-based singer-songwriter Terry Klein. (See my review of Terry’s show.) Terry commented that he is disappointed in how little most of them have to say about songwriting. I replied that it’s understandable from a marketing perspective. As a musician and a […]
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On May Your Kindness Remain (Fat Possum/Mama Bird), an album characterized as a call for empathy, Courtney Marie Andrews, a young but already veteran singer-songwriter, pulls off incredibly direct and heartfelt songs without being uncomfortably earnest. In “Two Cold Nights in Buffalo,” Andrews sings, “What happened to the middle class, mom-and-pop, five-and-dimes?” This line, accompanied […]
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photo by Lisa Davidson @ Basement East in Nashville Recently, I took in and reviewed Colter Wall’s show at the 9:30 Club. Colter’s Western-cum-Canadian songwriting is enjoyable enough, but the presentation of the show made it especially good. Normally, shows at the 9:30 Club—and, to be fair, most venues—involve a fair amount of theatrics in […]
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Canadian multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Daniel Romano’s beautiful new album, Finally Free (New West Records), arrives November 30. What Romano achieves with this album becomes all the more remarkable when one considers that he played nearly every instrument on the record and produced it himself. The record has a unified vision, a psychedelic folk take on […]
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I finished playing Anna St. Louis’s If Only There Was A River and I launched an “early alternative” playlist on Spotify. In a truly bizarre coincidence, Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” started playing immediately. I noticed that St. Louis’s album bears a distinct similarity to Mazzy Star. This is no figment of my imagination. While […]
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Diving deeper into music, one learns that only the weakest relationship seems to exist between quality and success. It’s affirming, then, that I’m With Her achieved success with See You Around (Rounder Records), the superb album the trio released earlier this year. In March, they sold out DC’s 9:30 club, a storied venue with a […]
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Old Rockhounds Never Die is a sophisticated, intelligent album that works on many levels.
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