American Aquarium “The World Is On Fire” (2018)
While a fan-favorite standard-bearer of the Americana and Outlaw Country scene, American Aquarium isn’t the kind of band you’re likely to see on a Grammy stage or to receive much mainstream notoriety. Nevertheless, I suggest this as being a song for our times, our difficult and confusing times... Read More
Chris Stapleton “Midnight Train To Memphis”
I got back to the garden. Not MSG, not that garden, but the one about which Joni Mitchell wrote and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young most famously sang: at the erstwhile home of Yasgur’s Farm, the mythical “garden” of Woodstock. This summer (this week, in fact) is exactly 50 years since “The Summer Of Love”...... Read More
Chris Shiflett “Sticks & Stones” (2017)
Chris Shiflett has, for around 20 years, been the guitarist in two different bands, with two vastly different levels of notoriety: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, the greatest punk rock cover band ever (seriously, they are), and another one you’re more likely to have heard of, the Foo Fighters. Most recently, he’s set off... Read More
Whitey Morgan & The 78’s “Waitin’ ‘Round To Die” (2015)
One of my favorite regular reads is “Saving Country Music” penned with an acerbic wit and what can only be described as righteous indignation by a dude named Kyle Coroneos, aka “Trigger”, with whom I agree on just about everything he writes in defending his self-imposed, virtuous cause. Some time ago, in regard to the...... Read More
Dan Baird & Homemade Sin “Licka Sense” (2017)
Dan Baird is everything I love about rock and roll. “Three chords and a cloud of dust,” as his website proclaims. Including his stint as a solo artist, he’s occupied the lead spot in four of my favorite bands of the last 4 decades. If you wanted to package up his work in a time...... Read More
Rolling Stones “Dead Flowers” (1971)
There’s a lot of talk nowadays about what’s “real” country music. Personally, my views fall pretty much in line with a righteous fellow named Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos, whose website “Saving Country Music” has been around for over 10 years, and whose mission seems pretty self-explanatory (clue: It starts with something like Waylon & Willie, not...... Read More
The Mavericks “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down” (1995)
I’d be hard pressed to come up with a song that has a greater disparity between its dreadfully dour lyrics and the unmitigated joy of its music than this one. While singer and bandleader Raul Malo is crooning the oft-repeated depressing title line, he’s also leading his band through one of the happiest... Read More
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers “Heal Me” (2017)
See if the following three sets of statements shake you. 1) Sarah Shook is arguably one of Country/Americana music’s biggest current stars; she was born in the not-quite southern stronghold of Rochester, NY. 2) Shook was homeschooled and grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family where, among other things, music was severely restricted; she is...... Read More
Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real “Find Yourself” (2017)
I don’t get out to the movies much. That fact is not merely a matter of my laziness or the presence of Netflix. In truth, there are just very few occasions when a new movie comes out that excites or inspires me much, let alone motivates me to actually get to a theater. So the...... Read More
Blackberry Smoke “Let It Burn” (2016)
They’re the keepers of the flame. For those like me, who basked in the glory days of Southern Rock music, who gobbled up as many southern rock jams as possible and maybe chased them with a little Southern Comfort, who consider the classic southern rock bands to be as much a part of our essential...... Read More