A sharper direction on this new release, not to mention an all-star backing cast, helps Stanley Jordon overcome many of the stereotypes that have dogged him since rising to fame in the early 1980s. Back then, Jordan was riding a wave of attention over his use of a eye-poppingly fastRead More

In a few short years after these sides were put to tape, Buck Owens would be hailed as the architect of the Bakersfield sound, notching memorable hits for Capitol including “Tiger by the Tail” and “Act Naturally.” He was, really, still gathering his tools, and picking out building materials. Yet,Read More

by Tom Johnson The sophomore album from the sister of Rufus, and daughter of Loudon III and Kate McGarrigle wasn’t a batch of wimpy Lilith Fair material. Martha may be blessed with the pipes of an angel, but she sings about real-world angst that leaves you white-knuckled and nervous. InRead More

It might be easy to go on and on about the themes of isolation that waft through Blank Planet‘s lyrics, but for me, it’s all about one thing: the music. Honestly, sometimes the lyrics are a little pedestrian and it’s not like this isn’t a topic that hasn’t been coveredRead More

by Tom Johnson It took the late Jay Bennett a few years, but in 2006 he finally released the kind of album that made listeners sit up and think “Maybe Jeff Tweedy should have kept him around in Wilco after all.” Full of heartfelt ballads and Stones-influenced rockers, The MagnificentRead More

Asked to describe this new album, Canadian guitarist Tim Vaughn said: “It’s like Prince, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Radiohead all met Los Lobos at a bar in “From Dusk Til’ Dawn,” and Jack White was playing there with Elvis Costello.” Thing is, as knee-slappingly over-the-top asRead More

Iron Maiden fans who wanted this thing waited and waited, patiently enduring month after silent month of absolutely no word at all.

A straight-ahead jazz quartet with instrumentation as atypical as their sensibilities, the Reese Project’s Evening in Vermont is perhaps best summed up in the track “All Wood,” a nifty combination of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” and the Beatles “Norwegian Wood.” That it’s performed on flute (Tom Reese), cello (Laurie HainesRead More

by Tom Johnson Three discs and a DVD that covered the entire career of Tortoise, so far. That’s generally a formula for something pretty spotty, but like Tom Wait’s magnificent Orphans box, this one worked on the virtue that it covered so damn much territory that it kept listeners onRead More

by Mark Saleski I’m not generally known for buying best-of packages (the last exception was Tom Waits’ Used Songs, because I arrived on vacation to discover that I’d not packed any Waits. Two weeks with no Tom Waits? No way!), but Ani’s career has been so prolific that this isRead More