Her album is populated with songs we’ve heard too often, sung in front of a band that’s bland and not engaging. It’s a lot for Pam Saulsby to overcome, but she does, and she does it with vigor.

There is a sensuous, lush quietude to this recording, which notes on the front that it was “inspired by water.” Ritter’s playing — trickling and ruminative one moment, bubbly and adventurous the next — certainly echoes the theme.

Boston-native Bob Margolin has spent his life around blues music’s most recognizable figures, famously working as a member of the late Muddy Waters’ band

by Nick DeRiso Keith Horn is a tinkerer, someone who hammers things together to see what they can become. But, as with every workshop, having the right tools can make or break a project. Luckily Horn, a Los Angeles-based television composer since the early 2000s, has the cinematic chops to match a sweeping vision. “Macho’s Nacho Thing,” the musically varied [...]

by Nick DeRiso Taking on Nina Simone, a singer of dusky persuasiveness, might be foolhardy enough. Remaking this song, a Top 20 pop hit off Simone’s celebrated 1958 debut Little Girl Blue seemed like the worst idea of all. But Canadian singer Kellylee Evans finds a new light, even if it’s only a small sliver, within this dark tale from [...]

by Nick Deriso  A remarkably open and spiritual recording, “Then Sings My Soul” reveals the most touching of sentiments for the deeply religious Ronnie Milsap. Gone is the brassy everyman bravado of familiar country-soul and pop hits like “Stranger in My House,” “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World” or “Daydreams about Night Things.” In its place: a clarity [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Dave Fox teaches piano courses at Greensboro College in North Carolina, but the stuff he’s puttin’ down with his combo The Dave Fox Group couldn’t be any more opposite of what you’d find in a classroom setting. It simply has too much panache for formal academic study. The DFG, consisting of Fox on various keyboards, Jon [...]

by Nick DeRiso Coming as this debut rock release did, amidst the mid-1990s’ copy-cat grungery, it’s still a wonder “Weave” is any good at all. Chalk that up to Queen Sarah’s ceaseless woodshedding, said then to take place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day in the basement of drummer Zeke Hutchins’ parents’ house. Oh, and playing everywhere that [...]

by Pico Of all the sax-organ-sousaphone-drums ensembles out there, John Ellis & his Double-Wide ensemble really do stand out. That might be because there aren’t any other such ensembles out there. To get to this point where he’s leading such an unusual combo, North Carolina native John Ellis had been on a musical odyssey that took him from singing hymns [...]

NICK DERISO: There are funny stories from when the Goo Goo Dolls were nobody. These tales were, before “Dizzy Up the Girl” made them matter, just about the only thing that might help you forget that dumb band name. Almost. The band will talk about the time in Raleigh, N.C. After driving for 18 hours, GGD — not yet the [...]