by Nick DeRiso Introspective, but brimming with a raw-boned optimism, “American Central Dust” finds a focused Jay Farrar asking questions — and being OK when he doesn’t always get them. That confidence of purpose, despite the unease of our fast-moving, recession-torn dynamic, seems to come from getting back to a stripped-down musical approach that once defined Son Volt and its [...]
by Pico Note: Today a Rerun installment is necessary to re-introduce the Something Else article on the Joe Bonamassa CD that releases today. This review first appeared on February 21, but we thought this record merits a reprint of that review, because, to be frank, it flat-out kicks butt: A year ago, we drooled a little over a power blues [...]
by Pico A year ago, we drooled a little over a power blues record by an ascending star on the blues scene, Joe Bonamassa. Since then The Ballad Of John Henry rocketed to the #1 position on Billboard’s Blues Albums charts, #103 on its Top 200, #35 Rock chart and #1 Heatseekers, in addition to seeing other chart action. Last [...]
by Nick DeRiso The Meters started out as the largely unknown rhythm section behind some of New Orleans’ most important R&B records, and eventually became, well … a largely unknown recording and touring act. Just why, after listening again to 1974′s “Rejuvenation,” continues to daze and confuse. On-the-one R&B combines with a frisky sense of adventure — the Meters, and [...]
by Nick DeRiso Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller,” a witty early-1960s story song, is one of my touchstone party records. Everything about it is perfectly New Orleans, from the pounding piano to this sizzling island-tinged percussion, from a group of yelping, mesmerizingly groovy R&B backup singers to its not one but two gotcha lyrics. Spellman, see, goes to a fortune teller [...]
By Nick Deriso An underrated artist with an eye for the offhand gem, Ry Cooder remains an all-but-anonymous, genius-grade poet in the American vernacular of brown bottles, trailer parks, stray dogs and rascals. Give Cooder a guitar, and he becomes this sweep-the-kitchen pot of bubbling gumbo, too, mastering everything from blues to dust-bowl folk, Tex-Mex to soul, gospel to mid-century [...]
by Nick DeRiso It’s fitting, of course, that singer/songwriter/keyboardist Leon Russell’s real last name is “bridges.” Claude Russell Bridges, born April 2, 1942, would one day write a tune called “The Masquerade” that, in jazz singer and guitarist George Benson‘s hands, hit No. 1 simultanously on the jazz, pop and R&B charts. It’s the footnote on Russell that got a [...]
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