Like the Bee Gees and a handful of other bands, Fleetwood Mac were lucky enough to have enjoyed more than one life. In their first incarnation, with guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, they were a British blues rock outfit. (For the best of this period, don’t miss the superlative six-disc The Complete Blue […]
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So I’ll write about me. But I might also be writing about you. I cast my first vote on a poster sized paper ballot which I marked with a pencil, provided by the county, and then folded and stuffed into a black wooden box similar to the one LBJ had stolen some thirty six years […]
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Leeann Atherton, Fallen Angel. A somewhat hidden treasure in Austin, Leeann Atherton can walk a lot of different avenues, from soul to rock to country to blues, and come out shining bright wherever she is. Her recent album is a stunner, includes some of the best musicians who call anywhere home, and needs to be heard. This is a […]
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Folksinger Eric Andersen is probably still best known as the 1960s folk revivalist who penned such classic compositions as “Violets of Dawn,” “Thirsty Boots,” and “Close the Door Lightly.” Those are all great songs, but Anderson has arguably produced his most important work in subsequent decades, during which time his recorded output has been wide-ranging […]
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By Jeff Burger The Grateful Dead practically reinvented themselves with their terrific fourth album, June 1970’s Workingman’s Dead, which found them eschewing long psychedelic jams in favor of tightly constructed country-influenced rock that emphasized vocal harmonies and acoustic instrumentation. They remained largely on that path—albeit while injecting a bit more mysticism into a few of […]
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Allman Brothers Band, The Final Note. When it’s time to bow down in worship to musical outfits from the 1970s that really set the rock world on fire, it might be good to start with the Allman Brothers Band. Between Duane Allman and Dicky Betts’ mesmerizing guitar gyrations, dynamo double drummers, visionary bass runs and […]
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GROOVES & CUTS – John Apice Artists Under the Radar Part 2 will appear in December. This month — new Christmas/Holiday music. It’s hard to beat the classic Christmas songs but there are indeed many great holiday songs produced today. An ideal open is British singer-songwriter Leigh Haggerwood’s emotionally uplifting vocals on his song “My […]
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A Jerry Jeff Walker Anthology Underscores His Strengths Texas’s Jerry Jeff Walker wasn’t originally from the Lone Star State, nor was he originally Jerry Jeff Walker. Born and raised in upstate New York as Ronald Clyde Crosby, he reinvented himself by the early 1970s as an Austin-based proponent of the burgeoning outlaw country genre. The […]
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It’s been said that rock and roll slumped in the late 1950s, when Elvis Presley entered the army and Buddy Holly died, and that it remained in weakened condition until the Beatles and other British Invasion acts emerged to revitalize it in 1963 and 1964. In fact, lots of great artists rode the charts […]
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As the days of the pandemic drag by, Fridays are important for Chris Hillman and his wife Connie. As a founding member of the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Manasssas, Souther, Hillman and Furay and Desert Rose Band, Hillman can be found playing Trivial Pursuit on Skype. The bassist and mandolin player has a tradition with […]
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