A new message from LevonHelm.com confirms what many fans feared when he suddenly postponed an April 6 concert appearance, just weeks after returning from an unexplained surgical procedure: The legendary co-founder of the Band and multiple solo Grammy winner has seen his cancer battle take a turn for the worse.

The list of presenters at this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reads like, well, a hall of fame induction class

How to Become Clairvoyant is, thus far, Robbie Robertson‘s most blatantly personal solo release, taking on his split with the Band, nostalgia for his generation’s spent idealism, and the realization of a dark aftermath for the era’s hedonistic excesses.

Photo from RobbieRobertson.com by Nick DeRiso “He Don’t Live Here No More,” the edgy lead single from Robbie Robertson‘s upcoming album How To Become Clairvoyant, is a rollicking rebuke of the dark demons that stole too many friends. “I was higher than a lost kite — too far gone,” Robertson wails, channelling lost souls like Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, [...]

Photograph by David Jordan Williams/Williams Studio by Nick DeRiso We find Robbie Robertson, former guitarist with Bob Dylan and the Band, again hurtling through the Mississippi Delta, racing past old churches with scolding signs out front, hanging out with grifters and cardsharps, searching for something deeper, something real. This time, it’s different, though.

by Nick DeRiso Both the most French of American musicians, and the other way around, Cajun rock star Zachary Richard makes roots music that couldn’t go by any other name. It is about his heritage, and his people’s, in Louisiana and in Canada and back all the way to France. In fact, his newest recording, “Last Kiss,” is Richard’s first [...]

The Tuesday release by Daniel Lanois of Here Is What Is, a soundtrack to the documentary tour film of the same name, got me to thinking. After all, this one-time New Orleanian had a guiding hand as producer in creating the just-right atmosphere around several of my favorite rock recordings of the 1980s — including memorable efforts from U2, the [...]