Since time began we’ve marveled at the notion that we could create a machine and go back in time. Growing up watching Samantha Stevens of Bewitched, slipping back into history was as simple as twitching your nose. This week it felt like Carlos Santana had perfected the art of transporting us between yesterday and today. […]
At one point watching Kasey Tyndall barrel through twenty plus songs barely stopping to catch her breath, I became convinced that having come into the world and given her first cry, she immediately reached for a mic and never let go. The saying goes that you can’t choose your parents and Tyndall is a hybrid […]
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It was a Sunday we’ll never forget. On a morning when the country was still reeling from the tragedy in El Paso, we woke up to learn of the massacre in Dayton. Amid the disbelief that “it can’t happen here,” was the sobering realization that yes it can and it is seemingly happening all around […]
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“You’ve heard of the three tenors,” Jim Lauderdale said to the audience gathered at the Hamilton in Washington, D.C. “Well this is the Cosmic Honky Tonk Revue.” There was no resemblance in pitch or look to Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo. Jim Lauderdale was referring to himself and friends Chuck Mead and Jason […]
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As is sometimes the case when going in the studio, Jim Lauderdale is prone to call friend and co-writer Odie Blackmon with a question. “Hey Odie, do we have anything?” For Lauderdale’s new album From Another World, Blackmon responded with a yes, reminding his friend that they had written “When You Can’t Have What You […]
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“Now that the singer is gone…..where shall I go for the song?” The question was posed by lyricist Robert Hunter in the aftermath of the death of his writing partner and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. If history is any guide, the question was answered long ago. Just go on the road. For the past […]
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What is history? The French poet Victor Hugo described it as “an echo of the past in the future and a reflex from the future on the past.” And artist Marcus Garvey put it this way: “People without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” For author […]
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I’m in a new Joan Baez video. But you won’t get to see it and I’m certain I won’t. It was filmed on her Fare Thee Well Tour when she stopped at the Ferguson Center on the campus of Christopher Newport University in Newport News. I’m pretty sure only Joan will look at it. […]
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“It’s great to be here at the Astrodome,” Adam Carroll said in a sly Texan drawl. “I’ve always wanted to play here.” Standing onstage in the cavernous basement of Hill Country Barbecue in Washington DC, Adam Carroll and his wife Chris Carroll must have felt like they were a long way from home. But here […]
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As anniversaries and May dates go, this one is special. It was fifty years ago this month that a then seventeen year old named Nils Lofgren walked into the Cellar Door in Washington, DC upon a band called Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The Maryland native approached the singer who handed him his guitar and […]
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