compilation Archive
29 Jun 2018
Liner Notes News
I’ve been extraordinarily busy lately. After devoting a large chunk of 2017 to the writing of my first book, Reinventing Pink Floyd: From Syd Barrett to The Dark Side of […]
18 Jun 2018
Album Review: Mel Henke — 77 Sunset Strip-per
For a lot of Americans in the late 1950s and ‘60s, jazz wasn’t something they went to clubs to hear. If they heard it at all, jazz was often presented […]
08 Jun 2018
Album Review: Battleground Korea: Songs and Sounds of America’s Forgotten War
Readers old enough to remember the long-running and beloved television sitcom M*A*S*H likely know that according to its creators, even though the show was set in wartime Korea, it was […]
23 May 2018
Hundred-word Reviews for May 2018
There’s so much great new music that it’s difficult to keep up with it all. I’m here to help, but it’s tough for me to keep pace as well. To […]
29 Apr 2018
Album Review: Steppenwolf at 50
There have been countless Steppenwolf collections. I count more than a dozen best-of’s and similarly-themed compilations. And during the group’s heyday – its years on Dunhill Records – Steppenwolf released […]
17 Apr 2018
Album Reviews: Two Various-Artists RSD Releases
The Other Side of Sun, Part 2 Sun Records had seen its heyday come and go by the time Shelby Singleton bought the label in the late 1960s. But purchase […]
07 Apr 2018
Album Review: Stax Singles Vol. 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest
Beginning in the early 1990s, the labels owning the Stax/Volt catalog set about releasing impressive box sets of classic material from the venerated yet ultimately troubled Memphis record label. 1991 […]
06 Apr 2018
Album Review: More of the Monkees (Super Deluxe Edition)
Too often the Monkees have been dismissed, and called names like the Prefab Four. While it’s undeniable that the group was assembled by music and television executives looking to capitalize […]
24 Dec 2017
Boxed Set Review: Isaac Hayes — The Spirit of Memphis
Isaac Hayes was the man. Certainly, he developed an outsized public persona, with his bare chest, furry boots, wide-brimmed hat, chains and gold-played Cadillac (though not all at the same […]
23 Dec 2017
Boxed Set Review: Woody Guthrie — The Tribute Concerts
A tribute to a giant in popular music and American culture such as Woody Guthrie deserves no less than the most lavish – yet still dignified – package possible, and […]