It’s amazing to me that we’re still talking about the band so many years later, even if it’s because R.E.M. has called it quits.

Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, a former sideman with Muddy Waters who became a Grammy-winning performer in his own right, has died. You May Also Like: How Muddy Waters Came Roaring Back With ‘Hard Again’

by Fred Phillips This is the song that should have been Warrant’s defining moment. You May Also Like: Left Lane Cruiser’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table amped up North Mississippi blues Richard Turgeon, “Learning to Fly” (2020): One Track Mind

Late last night, I saw the email light blinking on my phone. A single new message had come in from one of my writer cohorts. The subject line read “Blood Brothers” … and I knew. You May Also Like: Leon Russell (1942-2016): The Last of the Bird-Flipping Genre-Busters Alan White,Read More

Musician and street poet Gil Scott-Heron, best known for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” died today. Cause of death was not immediately known; he was 62. Scott-Heron started out at the dawn of the 1970s as a jazz-inclined R&B singer and spoken-word performer, a rapper years before the genreRead More

The jazz world suffered a significant loss Monday with the passing of violinist Billy Bang. Reportedly afflicted with lung cancer, Bang, born William Vincent Walker, was 63 years old. Given his stage name from friends as a youth, a name taken from a cartoon character, Bang’s life was anything butRead More

Pinetop Perkins, a rollicking piano player who performed with bluesman Muddy Waters for more than a decade, has passed at 97. Perkins, born in Honey Island near the Delta town of Belzoni, Mississippi, died on Monday at his home in Austin, Texas, reportedly after suffering cardiac arrest. You May AlsoRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Even early on, from the time I first began to explore jazz, I sensed there was something different about the Dave Brebeck Quartet’s drummer, Joe Morello. When I began to spin my Dad’s scratchy old Brubeck records, I’ll never forget hearing weird time signatures for the firstRead More

by Something Else Reviews Gary Moore, former guitarist with Thin Lizzy and Skid Row, has died at age 58. The Belfast-born Moore, perhaps most famous for his 1979 hit “Parisienne Walkways” with the late Phil Lynott, was found dead in a hotel room Sunday while vacationing at the Costa delRead More

Editor’s note: Here’s a repost of our review of 1978’s City to City by Gerry Rafferty, who died today in London from liver failure after a lengthy battle with alcoholism. Rafferty scored Top 10 hits first with Stealers Wheel (“Stuck in the Middle”) and then with his own “Baker Street”Read More