If you’ve dismissed the Stylistics’ “People Make the World Go Round” because it might be a played of a soft-rock oldies station, take a closer listen.

by Pico He’s the son of folk singer Leon Bibb, nephew of Modern Jazz Quartet founder John Lewis, and was directly exposed to several legendary performers like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan growing up. It would seem that Eric Bibb was destined to go down a similar path as hisRead More

NICK DERISO: Produced by an actual working-class hero, touching listeners across every genre and making its case well away from the witheringly bright lights of the Sun Records myth, I’d argue that this record was when rock and roll finally came into its own. Written by legendary Frank Sinatra producerRead More

Photo by John Morris When you first hear 28-year-old Sean Costello with his soulful, emotive voice and his tasty guitar licks, it’s tempting to compare him to Jonny Lang. Born less than two years apart and both making their proper debut albums at the age of sixteen, the comparisons betweenRead More

A late period gem from a couple of old hippies you probably thought had self-destructed in a drug-induced haze years ago. Not hardly. It seems like every time you turn around, Graham Nash and David Crosby are touring in one configuration or another. Oftentimes, it’s with their erstwhile partner StephenRead More

photo by Jack Vartoogian The first thing that is usually said about Jane Ira Bloom is that she is the rare jazz saxophonist who plays the soprano sax…exclusively. With so many prominent forebears who made made memorable music on the straight horn ranging from John Coltrane to Dave Liebman, itRead More

Started as another in rock star Eric Clapton’s celebrated CPR efforts for the careers of the blues legends he loved most, this one was almost lost to the Atlantic vaults. In the end, four different producers worked this thing at two different studios. Sessions were held in 1970, then againRead More

Frank Zappa has to be the most well-known and influential weird rock star but his campiness played a much smaller role for that vast influence than most people think. Instead, it was his extreme open-mindedness in making modern music. His equal love for Stravinksy, Varèse and doo-wop created concoctions thatRead More