By Bill Bentley Will Birch, Cruel to be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe. English rock & roll always seemed to try harder than its American equivalents in trying to make its mark on history. Maybe that’s because the Brits were shooting from the other side of the ocean and had to aim […]
Joseph Arthur, Come Back World. If there is a present day hidden missile waiting in the rock ranks ready to explode, look to Joseph Arthur. With decades-long dedication to chasing his inner muse, sometimes in the open and others in the darkness, the Akron, Ohio native has never wavered from the course. His albums […]
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Pieta Brown, Freeway. There aren’t any other singers like Pieta Brown. She has a sensuous way of blending the sound of air with music notes that result in magic. It’s as if the clock stops and life’s fascinating mysteries are frozen on the edge of a falling leaf. Her voice is evocative of a time […]
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Shane Alexander, A Life Like Ours. Is it possible to find an album that feels so right, so true, so, well, spiritual, that it feels like life has just turned the bend into the 1970s and the past fifty years of broken promises and dead ends hasn’t occurred? It’s not a retro experience either, as […]
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Tyler Childers, Country Squire. Let’s hand it to RCA Records. In signing new country music hero Tyler Childers, surely they knew they were getting into business with a rebel, and these days Nashville’s halls of wisdom aren’t really in the rebel business. They’re hard to sell, impossible to control and generally aren’t that popular on […]
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By Bill Bentley Dave Alvin, King of California. Downeyite Dave Alvin would be the first call if California names a new State Musician, but that would actually be short-sheeting the musician because in reality Alvin’s multi-dimensional songs cover the whole nation and then some. He may have started as a rootsy booster of all things […]
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By Bill Bentley Matt Andersen, Halfway Home by Morning. When the soul starts flowing and the music starts going, there is no holding back an artist like Matt Andersen. Even though he’s a Canadian, it’s like he parked himself in the South spiritually at some point in his life and absorbed everything great about the […]
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By Bill Bentley Matt Andersen, Halfway Home by Morning. Sounding like it was recorded in a soulful sweat lodge, this is music meant to twist the heart into unique shapes and remind the world that love is a many-splendored thing. Canadian Matt Andersen has a voice that never fails to make the spirit shudder, and […]
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