Frank Zappa's -Overnite Sensation

Music Reviews: Frank Zappa’s ‘Over-nite Sensation’ Box Set, the Feelies’ Velvet Underground Tribute, and More New Releases

  A 50th-Anniversary Edition of Frank Zappa’s ‘Over-nite Sensation’ Over-nite Sensation, which first appeared in 1973, ranks among Frank Zappa’s most significant and accessible releases up to that point. The record wasn’t quite what its title suggested, but it did give Zappa his first gold record and one of the biggest chart successes of his […]

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Bob Dylan-Complete Budokan

Music Reviews: Bob Dylan’s ‘The Complete Budokan 1978,’ plus Dori Freeman, Mike Zito & Albert Castiglia, Kristen Grainger & True North, and Peter Rosendal

When it first appeared in 1979, Bob Dylan’s Live at Budokan garnered mixed reviews. It did go gold and receive some praise, particularly in Europe, but many listeners derided its radical rearrangements of classic material as well as its use of backup singers and brassy, big-band instrumentation. Dylan may have been in Japan, but it […]

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Jimi Hendrix -Hollywood Bowl

Music Reviews: Jimi Hendrix at the Hollywood Bowl, plus Little Feat, Jon Dee Graham, the Resonant Rogues, and Danny O’Keefe

Music Reviews: Jimi Hendrix at the Hollywood Bowl, plus Little Feat, Jon Dee Graham, the Resonant Rogues, and Danny O’Keefe Jimi Hendrix released only four albums during his too-brief lifetime, but new LPs, CDs, and box sets have continued to appear in a steady stream in the years after his 1970 death. Today, more than […]

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Cranberries-To the Faithful Departed

Music Reviews: Cranberries, plus Lee Gallagher, the Three O’Clock, Sylvia Tyson, and Emma Wilson

Cranberries, plus Lee Gallagher, the Three O’Clock, Sylvia Tyson, and Emma Wilson   The Cranberries’ third album, To the Faithful Departed, garnered decidedly mixed reviews when it first appeared in 1996. Some critics loved it, but others panned the musical and lyrical changes it introduced, with Rolling Stone, for example, giving it one-and-a-half stars out […]

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Lynyrd Skynyrd-Fyfty

Music Reviews: Lynyrd Skynyrd, plus Leon Rosselson, Half Stack, Robert Finley, and Chest Fever

Music Reviews: Lynyrd Skynyrd, plus Leon Rosselson, Half Stack, Robert Finley, and Chest Fever Lynyrd Skynyrd has never been quite as innovative or important as the jazz-influenced Allman Brothers, its most obvious competitor for the title of King of Southern Rock. That said, the Jacksonville, Florida–based group has played a pivotal role in popularizing the […]

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Bob Dylan - Mixing Up the Medicine

Book and Music Reviews: ‘Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine’ plus the Third Mind, Robert Rex Waller Jr., and Luke LeBlanc

God knows, no shortage exists of books devoted to Bob Dylan and his music. There are album-by-album critiques, songbooks, scholarly works, biographies, a memoir, and other writings from the bard himself. There are also Q&A collections, including yours truly’s Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters. Believe it or not, there’s even a book that describes […]

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Joni Mitchell -Archives V3

Music Reviews: Joni Mitchell ‘Archives, Vol. 3,’ plus Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus, Tom Paxton & John McCutcheon, and Jim Wyly

Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3, plus Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus, Tom Paxton & John McCutcheon, and Jim Wyly Like the first and second volumes of Joni Mitchell’s Archives series, which respectively focused on previously unreleased material from 1963–1967 and 1968–1971, the new third volume is a five-CD treasure trove. (There’s also a four-LP edition […]

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Grateful Dead-Wake of the Flood

Music Reviews: Grateful Dead’s Expanded ‘Wake of the Flood,’ plus Benny Goodman, Mac Curtis, Adam Palma, Be, and Ed Sweeney

Grateful Dead’s Expanded ‘Wake of the Flood,’ plus Benny Goodman, Mac Curtis, Adam Palma, Be, and Ed Sweeney The Grateful Dead’s reissue program continues with a 50th-anniversary edition of Wake of the Flood, the group’s sixth studio album (following three live LPs). The self-produced record, which originally came out in October 1973, evidenced several notable […]

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Tom Waits -Swordfishtrombones-Cover

Music Reviews: Tom Waits Reissues, plus Wilco, the Brother Boys, Logan Ledger, and a Nanci Griffith Tribute

Tom Waits had already traveled some miles off the beaten path when he released his first albums, 1973’s Closing Time and 1974’s The Heart of Saturday Night. Eschewing the melodic folk-rock styles of his Southern California musical contemporaries, he offered gruff vocals, bluesy, jazz-influenced music that evoked an after-hours session in a seedy bar, and […]

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Miles Davis -Classic Albums

Music Reviews: Miles Davis, Bobby Sutliff, Mac Wiseman, Clarence White, Shadwick Wilde, and the Sextones

Miles Davis, The Classic Albums Collection. This four-CD set, which lists for about what you’d typically pay for one disc, packs in nine superlative albums and more than five hours of music from jazz great Miles Davis, all originally issued between 1953 and 1960: two excellent LPs that are both called Volume 2, plus the […]

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