Duke Robillard, co-founder of Roomful of Blues and a former member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, has earned high praise from none other than B.B. King — who labeled him “one of the great players.”

In honor of Bob Dylan‘s birthday today, Something Else! Reviews presents 7 for 70 — our list of top recordings from across the 70-year-old’s lengthy career. We were careful to select at least one project from each of his five decades in music

Sherman Ewing’s Single Room Saloon arrived with a sound that is at once intuitive and raw, but somehow well-worn and familiar, too.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer somehow went from selling 40 million records early on to becoming one of the 1970s’ more reviled rock bands by the end of that decade. The reasons were many

by Nick DeRiso There are songs you listen to with one elbow jutting out a car window, the gas pedal cutting into the floor mat. Then there are the things that open up different vistas, albums that bring you around to quieter places — sounds that force you to stop and take stock. Sherman Ewing’s rootsy new Single Room Saloon [...]

Photo by Pieter M Van Hattem by Mark Saleski I have no doubt that a lot of Bob Dylan fans will be incensed at what I’m about to admit, but here we go: if you don’t count his first Greatest Hits collection (which I inherited from my sister), the first Dylan album I bought was At Budokan. My “has to [...]

For me, “Not Dark Yet” is the best thing Bob Dylan has done in ages, this perfect enigma from a guy who’s made a career of such sleights of hand. An edgy post-modern lament downshifted into quiet Civil War balladry, “Not Dark Yet,” remains a riddle — and maybe that’s the very definition of good art: It’s something that you [...]

photo: Jimmy Katz by Pico Bob Dylan is a towering figure in folk, and as we were reminded a few days ago, his legacy extends deep into rock music, too, via the all the strong and memorable covers done by rock bands, especially The Byrds. What’s more interesting is that Dylan’s reach also extends to music forms that have little [...]

by Nick DeRiso A Bob Dylan song reimagined into something like the Beach Boys, and also something like the Beatles — and nothing like folk music — propelled the Byrds to their first No. 1. Oh, and started the folk-rock movement. Among other things. It begins with Roger McGuinn’s guitar, sustained and bright, which was then paired alongside a complex [...]

by Nick DeRiso Bob Dylan, commissioned to do some soundtrack work, kept recording with the assembled group — ultimately producing a powerfully personal result. “Together Through Life,” out on April 28 on Columbia, is a revelation in its stubborn unwillingness to move into the realm of Statements. Of Big Records. Of Career-Defining Blah Blah Blah. Dylan wants to make a [...]