Long before I was able to digest the epic, twenty-five minute meandering noodlings of Dicky Betts and Duane Allman, I deeply dug the Allman Brothers’ “Melissa.” It’s a wistful, country-flavored ballad that was easy to learn how to play on a beat-up Yamaha acoustic guitar, and since it was oneRead More

From the God Of Hellfire to an Angel Of Love? That’s the one-hit wonder from 1968 who brought us that singularly psychedelic, bombastic classic “Fire.” Brown had been mostly out of the public focus since then, but one of rock’s most flashy and colorful characters never faded. Nah, he wasRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Last month Al Green released a new album, Lay It Down, which I’d recommend to any fan of pure, old-school soul. Later this month Chicago’s Stone Of Sisyphus, originally record in 1993, will finally be officially released. But twenty years even before that was taped, bothRead More

by S. Victor Aaron With the tragic, unexpected death of Sean Costello, the blues world lost a guy I and others thought was the Next Big Thing in that idiom. The good news is that there are still others out there working hard to put their own stamp on theRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Most of the times that I choose a song for this here “One Track Mind” series is because the song simply sounds good to me. Then I’ll dive into my spiel as to why it does. Today’s OTM has it’s own intrinsic virtues, too, but itRead More

by Pico One in a while, you come across a musician who so effectively cobbles together a wide range of styles so effortlessly you swear you’ve heard it somewhere before…but you can’t quite put a finger on it. New York City born and bred troubadour K.J. Denhert is one ofRead More

by Pico Doyle Bramhall II has been around so much fame and combined with his songwriting and guitar talents, it’s downright shocking that he hadn’t become more than an underground hero himself. But, man, what a résumé. The son of drummer and Stevie Ray Vaughan collaborator Doyle Bramhall, Doyle TheRead More

by Pico Ken Burns’ epic PBS documentary on jazz spent nearly all its time on the history up to 1960 and little afterwards. The implication was that jazz stopped becoming revolutionary and more evolutionary after Ornette Coleman ushered in the “new thing” at the beginning of the sixties. Thus, thereRead More

by Pico The title A Ride To The Other Side isn’t intended to mean anything deep, but nevertheless the music is a thrill ride to the side of that soulful funky acoustic jazz of the sixties. Trumpet player Derrick Gardner is firmly behind the wheel driving that bus. Derrick Gardner,Read More

I’m a little biased when it comes to Steely Dan. But my biases can’t shield me from the realization that this is a mediocre Walter Becker song.