“I did not have singing ‘In Spite of Ourselves’ and dancing with Emmylou Harris on my bingo card.” Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll’s remark drew a laugh from the crowd at Wolf Trap, but it also captured the spirit of A Songwriters Tribute to John Prine. The June 9 concert gathered an extraordinary collection of performers […]
Bentley’s Bandstand: December 2024 By Bill Bentley Tommy Castro and the Painkillers, CLOSER TO THE BONE. Blues today comes in all shapes and sizes, attitudes and colors. It’s hard to keep track of the last 60 years of the blues journey. What was once a sound that lived mostly in the ghettos and didn’t escape […]
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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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