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
Lucero “For The Lonely Ones” (2018)
I recently saw the band Lucero in concert at Warsaw in Brooklyn, a cool venue in a former Polish community center where I had a kielbasa sandwich and some tasty pierogies during the show. I’m relatively new to Lucero, a 20-year veteran band out of Memphis, that’s in the country/punk family and lately has been... Read More
JP Harris “JP’s Florida Blues #1” (2018)
He may not look like it, but JP Harris is an absolute traditionalist. When he took the stage at a packed hole-in-the-wall in Brooklyn called Skinny Dennis this past Saturday night, he began by issuing the crowd a tongue-in-cheek warning: “I don’t know if any of ya’ll know who I am, so I hope you’re...... Read More
Parker Millsap “Fine Line” (2018)
This is a hit song, right? A big time, wide scale hit. Listen to it, it’s got to be (but, of course, it won’t be). There was a time when songs like this were played on mainstream rock stations, however that time was long ago. Can you imagine if groups like Marshall Tucker and the...... Read More
American Aquarium “Tough Folks” (2018)
American Aquarium has been a band for 12 years. And, they're also a brand new band starting last year. Founder BJ Barham created American Aquarium in his dorm room at N.C. State back in 2006, but as of their 2018 release, their 7th studio album appropriately titled Things Change, he’s now backed by 4 entirely... Read More