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.

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, hisRead More

By Nick DeRiso “Two Of Us,” the old Beatles album cut, is reborn — as is a long-ago relationship — in the hands of this pair of early 1970s-era country-rock stars. Part of a new Disney children’s album “All Join In,” the tune is actually one of two by theRead More

You made out to Al Green. It’s what worked. Only later, did you realize all that had gone on in those records, starting with this — Green’s first charting hit, “Tired of Being Alone.” His is a voice that whips around, like a sparrow, from flat-footed baritone — all silky-smoothRead More

Bill Champlin has a face to match his voice — rugged and sharp-edged, a great gravelly visage.

The frontman from ? and the Mysterians once said that voices from the future told him they would still be playing “96 Tears” in the year 10,000. So far, so good.

by Nick DeRiso Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller,” a witty early-1960s story song, is one of my touchstone party records. Everything about it is perfectly New Orleans, from the pounding piano to this sizzling island-tinged percussion, from a group of yelping, mesmerizingly groovy R&B backup singers to its not one butRead More

Dr. Lonnie Smith enjoyed a Joe Henderson-styled late-career resurgence during the ’00s, capped by ‘Rise Up!’

From the first chunky guitar chords, the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” is a different kind of a song about getting dumped, and still loving her anyway, and thinking to yourself — and then saying out loud — that you’ll wait for as long as it takes for her to return,Read More