Jimmie Rodgers is often called the Father of Country Music, and for good reason: no one looms larger in the genre’s early years. Also known as the Singing Brakeman because of his employment with railroads, he made records that featured yodeling, vocal gymnastics, and colorful, instantly relatable lyrics. He drew inspiration from multiple genres, including […]
99 Hits from 1956 and Two Blasts from the Blasters’ Past Most multi-artist anthologies have a musical theme, such as a genre or subgenre (The Bakersfield Sound 1940–1974, for example) or the work of a particular artist (Ladies Sing Lightfoot, for instance). One exception is a series of box sets from Acrobat, a reissue label, […]
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What music comes to mind when you think of rock and roll’s earliest years? For many people, the answer is probably the sort of material that signaled a major break from the overly polished, sanitized pop that previously dominated the charts—manic, upbeat rockers like Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Elvis Presley’s “Hound […]
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Garage rock is an amorphous label, embracing virtually anything from the mid-1960s that sounds intense and energetic and isn’t overly polished. The term has been used interchangeably with punk rock and has been applied to surf music, psychedelia, and more. That’s one reason why you’ll find extremely disparate material on the three-CD Steppin’ Out: The […]
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Lucinda Williams’s nearly half-century recording career has always been characterized by literate lyrics and strong musicianship, but just as importantly, by heartfelt sentiments. It still is, though recent events have ostensibly prompted the singer to change the focus of those sentiments. On early standouts like “Passionate Kisses,” “Something About What Happens When We Talk,” and […]
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The career of England’s Orange Bicycle was as commercially unsuccessful as it was brief. Thanks to a mistranslation of the text on a French EP’s cover, the psychedelic pop sextet has often been said to have had a chart-topping single in that country. In fact, Orange Bicycle had no hits, much less chart-toppers, anywhere on […]
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Music Reviews: Fabulous Thunderbirds, plus Lester Young and Anthologies of Rockabilly and Appalachian Music The Jimmie Vaughan Story, a limited-edition five-CD set released in 2021, includes performances from every stage of the Austin, Texas–based blues-rock guitarist and singer’s career. If you missed that compendium or want more, however, you can find it in The Jimmie […]
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Music Reviews: An Anthology of Beatles Covers, Ward Hayden Interprets Springsteen, and a Record about Records Another Box of Beatles Covers Particularly during the years when the Fab Four dominated the charts, countless artists from a wide variety of genres couldn’t resist jumping on the band’s wagon. The new With a Little Help from My […]
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Music & Video Reviews: Rolling Stones’ Black and Blue Box Set, plus Robert Gordon with Link Wray, and Melissa Carper’s Christmas Album Just a few months shy of a half century after its release, the Rolling Stones’ Black and Blue is back in a “super deluxe” edition that includes four CDs (or five LPs) and […]
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Music Reviews: Boxing Up the Bangles, plus Rock the Plaza and Kim Wilson’s Slow Burn It’s about time we had a box set from the Bangles, whose well-hooked, harmony-laden tunes provided some of the brightest moments on Top 40 radio in the 1980s. Emerging from the West Coast’s Paisley Underground movement, the group featured four […]
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