The audience makes considerably less noise on the Rolling Stones’ new El Mocambo 1977 than on any of the group’s many other recently issued concert recordings, but that’s not because the shows it captures are any less praiseworthy. On the contrary, this Toronto recording ranks with the best of the Stones’ live LPs. Most of […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand June 2022By Bill Bentley Nicki Bluhm, Avondale Drive. Nicki Bluhm has been heading for making this album for many years. After other solo albums and some with Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers releases, Bluhm found herself at a crossroads. She had moved from San Francisco to Nashville alone, in many ways starting over […]
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GROOVES & CUTS –May 2022 – By John Apice Dory Previn – Movie Lyricist / Solo Confessional Singer Once married to pianist/composer Andre Previn the NJ-born Dorothy Langdon (1925-2012) became Dory Previn & penned lyrics for many famous 60s movies. An intriguing singer-songwriter whose career is somewhat a footnote today when she became an intense […]
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Mary Gauthier Finds a Hopeful Place When Nashville-based Mary Gauthier appeared on Hulu’s I Love You, America a few years ago, host Sarah Silverman noted that one of her staffers found the folk singer-songwriter’s music so depressing “she had to listen to Morrissey to cheer up.” It’s true that Gauthier’s albums have reflected her difficult life experiences—including abandonment by her mother when she was a child, struggles related to being gay, […]
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“Money, It’s a crime Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie Money, So they say Is the root of all evil today” Written by Roger Waters and recorded by Pink Floyd “Money” is a song off Pink Floyd’s record breaking album “Dark Side of the Moon”. Released in 1973 on Harvest […]
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Music Reviews: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Banditos, Bryan Ferry, Heidi Talbot, Zero, and May Erlewine Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dirt Does Dylan. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded versions of Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” on 1989’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. II and 2006’s Circlin’ Back: Celebrating 50 Years. Now, with the […]
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(Gareth Dunlop at the Birchmere. Photos by Kelly Wosahla) The path that took Gareth Dunlop to the US and a solo set at the famed Birchmere outside Washington, DC, can be traced back twenty years ago. There in the pubs of his native Belfast he and Lee Rogers, another aspiring singer-songwriter, spent time in pubs […]
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Music Reviews: John Fred, Caroline Spence, Abbie Gardner, the Muffs, Delbert McClinton, Abigail Lapell, and Marc Jordan & Amy Sky By Jeff Burger John Fred and His Playboy Band, Judy in Disguise with Glasses. “Judy in Disguise with Glasses” was the best and worst thing that ever happened to the late John Fred in his […]
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An Interview with Steve Forbert by Jeff Burger (cover photo by Marcus Maddox) If a young, unknown singer-songwriter left his small Southern town to try to break into the music business in New York City, you might expect him to at least consider the possibility that he’d be unsuccessful. But that thought […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: May 2022 By Bill Bentley Johnny Ray Daniels, Whatever You Need. When the higher powers of the music business make a man wait until he’s 76 years old to make his own first album, there isn’t much left to say except WHATEVER YOU NEED. That is the name of Johnny Ray Daniels’ soul-kicking […]
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