by Nick DeRiso First off, this doesn’t start off with any piano, but also not the churchy wistfulness of the Cowboy Junkies’ 1987 breakthrough The Trinity Session. Instead, there is a gnarled electric guitar from Michael Timmins, a mashed-down organ and an updated worldliness in Margo Timmons’ familiar alto. They’reRead More

Here was Billy Joel: talented, confident and getting ready to bust out into superstardom.

A Fragile Tomorrow builds out from the country-rock synthesis of pathfinders like the Band and the Byrds – but there’s something else here.

Was thinking about the aptly titled Buffalo Springfield Again, and this brilliant grungy mess, after hearing news that the band would reform for a tour later in the year. Recorded in 1967 for the second of what would be a brief three-album tenure for Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul”Read More

“Naw man, don’t buy that record, the rest of the album is no good,” said the long-haired, moustached guy at the record store. I had just heard Billy Thorpe’s “Children of the Sun” on the local album-rock radio station and I just knew that the long player of the sameRead More

by Nick DeRiso “Like Sonny,” reportedly based on an element of a Sonny Rollins solo — perhaps during “My Old Flame,” from Kenny Dorham’s 1957 Jazz Contrasts record? — illustrates the remarkable attention to detail that still makes John Coltrane’s music not just interesting but important. He wasn’t a stylist,Read More

The bitter end of the Beatles? The flip side of the “Let It Be” single begs to differ.

A massive reissue project from Apple Records had me digging back through the old Billy Preston sides. None is more titanically funky, and lastingly influential, than “Outa-Space,” with its grease-fire groove and afro-shaking new clavinet sound. “Outa-Space” is not to be confused with his similarly named No. 4 hit ofRead More

The Doobie Brothers return with the same rich blend of acoustic and electric guitars, the strutting rhythm and those sumptuous backing vocals.

One of my favorite funk-jazz albums of all time isn’t by a crossover act like the Crusaders or Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, but by Lou Donaldson.