review 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 […]
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 […]
26 May 2009
Album Review: Various Artists — Malt shop Memories
I’ve made a similar point before, but it’s worth saying again: in general Time-Life musical retrospectives haven’t got a long history of credibility. In general they’ve been viewed as cash-ins, […]
25 May 2009
Album Review: Droppin’ Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab
This is one of those projects that makes you ask, “Why didn’t someone do this sooner?” Many artists on the famed Blue Note label have had their work sampled over […]
24 May 2009
Album Review: The United States of America – s/t
It’s easy to forget that in 1968, getting weird and unearthly sounds on your album (assuming you wanted them; plenty did) was no easy task. There were no presets, no […]