Author Archive
01 Jul 2009
Review: V/A – 2131 S. Michigan Avenue
The whole Nuggets thing has finally become something of a cottage industry. The Lenny Kaye-curated 2LP Nuggets set was unleashed on an unsuspecting (and largely disinterested) world in 1972. I […]
30 Jun 2009
Album Review: Ray Charles — Genius: The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection
The word Genius is thrown around far too cavalierly. At this writing, Michael Jackson (the self-proclaimed King of Pop) has been dead only a few days, and tributes everywhere call […]
30 Jun 2009
Ray Charles = Genius. Michael Jackson ≠ Genius.
Against a backdrop of TV news/infotainment’s wall-to-wall, undeservedly reverential adoration for Michael Jackson, I found myself tasked with considering the meaning of the word genius. Here’s what I came up […]
26 Jun 2009
Preview: My Talk With Howard / My Dinner With Jimi
This evening I had the honor and pleasure to speak at great length with Howard Kaylan. Known to some as “Eddie” (as in, Flo and Eddie), vocalist for FZ’s Mothers, […]
04 Jun 2009
The Leigh Glass Band – Even Southern Gothics Get the Blues
Asheville-based blues troubadour Leigh Glass put the first lineup of her band together in 2003, but her own musical history goes back much farther. “I took piano lessons when I […]
31 May 2009
DVD Review: Johnny Winter — Live Through the 70s
The DVD kicks off with a true oddity, a performance that is bizarre in any number of ways. This excellent-quality Danish TV clip from 1970 finds Winter playing with his […]
30 May 2009
Album Review: Johnny Winter — The Johnny Winter Anthology
First things first. Whenever a career-spanning anthology crosses this reviewer’s desk, three questions immediately come to mind: Has this artist’s career been summarized on disc before? How’s the sound quality […]
29 May 2009
Album Review: Wattstax: The Living Word
With apologies to Sir Walter Scott, “oh, what a tangled web we weave, when again we practice to re-release.” The 1972 Wattstax festival was black R&B’s excellent (if belated) answer […]
28 May 2009
Album Review: Stax: The Soul of Hip-Hop
This compilation would have been an inspired, brilliant idea, had it not been done already (see review of the 2008 Blue Note compilation Droppin’ Science). So instead it’s merely a […]
27 May 2009
Album Review: Various Artists — Stax Does the Beatles
Before succumbing to the vicissitudes of the record biz, Stax Records was one of the coolest labels in the 60s and 70s. Rawer and earthier than Motown, the black-oriented label […]