Divine Horsemen, Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix. This Los Angeles group, fronted by singers Chris Desjardins (aka Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, were one of the aggregations at the frontline of the rock barricade in the 1980s. Wherever they played, it was guaranteed there would be sonic overload and a jacked-up audience ready […]
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Music Reviews: The Monumental ‘R&B in DC’ plus Bob Marley, Gene Pitney, the Faux Paws, and Brad Vickers Major record companies like Sony’s Legacy, UMI, and Warner’s Rhino have all produced great box sets, but nobody can match the ones from Germany’s Bear Family label, which has been turning out meticulously researched, beautifully packaged, and […]
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When Neil Young pulled out of Farm Aid breaking a more than thirty year September tradition, he cited worries about COVID. In comments on his website, he called concert gatherings super-spreader events. Against a rampant surge of cornavirus in recent weeks caused by the Delta variant is the pent-up demand for live music. On […]
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AUGUST 2021 – By John Apice GROOVES & CUTS – Legendary Drummer Buddy Rich Insults Country Music In 1971, jazz drummer Buddy Rich (who I admire) erroneously on The Mike Douglas Show stated that he couldn’t stand country music. He said with a determination that this country needed to grow up. Mature in their musical […]
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Music Reviews: ‘The Jimmie Vaughan Story’ plus Suzie Ungerleider, Connie Smith, Karen Jonas, Matt Jaffe, and Ward Hayden Texas-based blues-rock singer and guitarist Jimmie Vaughan marked his 70th birthday this year, and we get the present (even if we do have to pay for it): a limited-edition box set due out September 17 that includes […]
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“Charlie’s pretty good tonight,” a fan yelled out after “Rocks Off” two summers ago at FedEx Field outside Washington, D.C. “Get down tonight Charlie!” It was a line he borrowed from Mick Jagger who coined the phrase “Charlie’s good tonight, ain’t he?” on the band’s live album Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out, the cover featuring […]
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When Bob Dylan saw Girl from the North Country on Broadway right before the pandemic temporarily closed the show, he was bowled over by the performance, which draws all its music from his catalog. “The play had me crying at the end,” he told journalist Douglas Brinkley in a New York Times interview last year. […]
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James McMurtry: Traffic Jam In the past week, I have driven past the immediate aftermaths of two horrible car wrecks. The first was a single car roll over with no apparent survivors. On a dirt road that led off a two lane highway in North Texas, a small crunched up four door sedan was sitting […]
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Music Reviews: Beach Boys’ ‘Feel Flows,’ plus Colin Hay, Gram Parsons, and Ellen Foley The Beach Boys will undoubtedly be most remembered for the first two chapters of their career. In the first, which ran from 1960 into 1965, they produced a long list of irresistible harmonic numbers about surfing, cars, and young love—songs like “California Girls,” “Surfin’ Safari,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” and “Don’t Worry, Baby,” […]
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Music Reviews: Archival Releases from Nina Simone, Plus Dallas Burrow, Son Volt, Mick Kolassa, & Kate Taylor If you knew nothing about Nina Simone or her discography, the contents of Little Girl Blue would probably lead you to guess that it was at least her dozenth album. In fact, this newly reissued LP is her […]
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