Steve Cropper has long advocated for the 5 Royales, newly announced recipients of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Early Influence Award.

Though a myriad of musical fashions pepper Jamie Hoover’s ‘Two Ever,’ a potent pop feel is engraved within the grooves.

This is a review of ‘The Healing Blues,’ a special compilation of great oroginal blues songs to benefit the Greensboro, NC-area homeless.

Bootsy Collins came to North Carolina’s LEAF Festival to spread his gospel of funk.

Surely you know who these guys are, and if you don’t, you’re missing out on a lot of fantastic music! But for those not familiar with the twosome, they’re Jamie Hoover and Steve Stoeckel

On a Boston sidewalk, the brassy, sassy combo Lake Street Dive tears into an acoustic soul cover of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back.”

Kim Kalman, whose grandfather was mid-century big band leader George Kindler, reconnects with the sounds and styles of that bygone era on At Last – and reanimates some shopworn classics along the way.

Musical fashions and fads may come and go, but in the end a band will always be judged solely by their songs. As long as the tunes are catchy and memorable, that is what is important.

I’m a sucker for the storyteller. Sure, the swinging hooks and catchy riffs are great, but for all the various attributes that make an artist or band stand out, the bard card is generally what lures me into month-long catalog benders.

A nocturnal gust of sadness, Chris Stamey’s Lovesick Blues is a soundtrack to an endless, impossibly vivid night of heartbreak — dark, impossibly dark, but at the same time beautiful.