r&b Archive
02 Nov 2016
Esperanza Spalding’s Musical Evolution (or D+Evolution?), Part One
Note: portions of this feature appeared previously (and in different form) in altweeklies in Asheville NC, Chicago and Salt Lake City. — bk Cross-genre sensation Esperanza Spalding is something of […]
01 Nov 2016
Fantastic Negrito: Fantastic Reinvention
The story of Fantastic Negrito is the stuff of Hollywood legends. But it has the distinction of being true: the man born Xavier Dphrepaulezz taught himself to play a multitude […]
01 Jun 2016
Album Mini-review: Mayer Hawthorne — Man About Town
File next to: Marvin Gaye, The Dramatics, Fitz and the Tantrums On his 2009 debut, Detroiter Mayer Hawthorne showed just how developed an artist he was; that album – wholly […]
20 Jan 2016
Album Review: Love — Reel to Real
In the community of pop music critics and historians, it’s common to find Love‘s Forever Changes cited as one of the great lost albums of the 1960s. Under-recognized at the […]
06 Jan 2016
Album Mini-review: Bobby Rush — Chicken Heads: A 50 Year History of Bobby Rush
File next to: James Brown, Buddy Guy, Otis Redding Bobby Rush‘s musical career has spanned fifty years, at least twenty record labels, and most American popular music genres. He’s tough […]
24 Dec 2015
Album Reviews: Five from Fantastic Voyage
The hits just keep on coming. Fantastic Voyage is a London-based label that specializes in thematically-oriented archival reissue collections. In the last few months, they seem to have significantly stepped […]
10 Dec 2015
Box Set Review: George Duke — The Era Will Prevail (Part Two)
Continued from Part One… Vol. 3: Feel Released in October 1974, Feel again featured bassist John Heard and drummer Ndugu alongside George Duke, but his guest artists lent a decidedly […]
09 Dec 2015
Box Set Review: George Duke — The Era Will Prevail (Part One)
George Duke (1946-2013) was one of the most fascinating figures in music during the second half of the 20th century. Duke was a jazz-and-classically trained musician proficient on any number […]
17 Nov 2015
Only in America: The Lloyd Price Interview, Part 2
Continued from Part One… Any biographical sketch of Lloyd Price makes mention that he was one of the organizers of the legendary Rumble in the Jungle, the 1974 prize fight […]