The Sky Chiefs at Reveler in Richmond “It’s a long story….” Early in the second set, Sky Chiefs guitarist Kevin Pittman intimated there might not be enough time to tell everything that brought the Sky Chiefs to Reveler in the heart of Richmond’s Carytown district. When he and Richmond native Stephen McCarthy discovered tapes they […]
If you’ve never heard of the Paisley Underground, it’s not surprising. This rock subgenre—which emphasized psychedelia, electric guitar interplay, and vocal harmonies—flourished mostly just in Southern California and only from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. Moreover, it produced just one band—the Bangles—that broke through nationally and achieved substantial commercial success. But you don’t […]
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The progressive rock band Nektar consisted entirely of Britons, but it achieved its greatest commercial successes in Germany (where it formed) and America. The group’s fan base burgeoned after the late-1973 release of Remember the Future, its fourth LP and the first to be issued in the U.S. The album, whose title track filled both […]
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BENTLEY’S BANDSTAND: February 2026By Bill Bentley Chris Ahlman, SANTA BARBARA SONGS. It’s pretty obvious from note one on this singer-songwriter’s new album that he has a very special relationship with Santa Barbara. The seven songs on his new release capture the peace and beauty of the California coastline of the town on the California coast, […]
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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 […]
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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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Bentley’s Bandstand: January 2026 Ed Alstrom, THIS IDEA OF HUMANITY.There are moments in anyone’s life when the Hammond organ sounds like the only instrument that could possibly rule the world. Its notes are ready for action, no matter the mood, and it swings with a fullness that sounds like the holy ghost has taken over […]
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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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When The Country Grieves, Springsteen’s There For Us Again In the aftermath of 9/11, Bruce Springsteen was walking in his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey when a fan yelled out, “Bruce, we need you.” The comment kick-started Springsteen into writing songs for The Rising which summed up the country’s collective grief and provided hope when […]
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