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.

If you’ve dismissed the Stylistics’ “People Make the World Go Round” because it might be a played of a soft-rock oldies station, take a closer listen.

NICK DERISO: Produced by an actual working-class hero, touching listeners across every genre and making its case well away from the witheringly bright lights of the Sun Records myth, I’d argue that this record was when rock and roll finally came into its own. Written by legendary Frank Sinatra producerRead More

NICK DERISO: “Guess Who I Saw Today,” from Nancy Wilson’s second Capitol Records recording “Something Wonderful,” always stops me in my tracks. “You’re so late getting home from the office,” she begins. “Did you miss your train? Were you caught in the rain? No, don’t bother to explain.” And soRead More

by S. Victor Aaron On prior columns I’ve made no bones about my affinity for early Chicago songs. Danny Seraphine’s comeback album is a triumph because the band’s founding drummer brought back the spirit of his old band. And singer/keyboardist/songwriter Robert Lamm’s openness for melding complex jazz with straightforward bluesRead More

With all the All Star albums of 2007 out of the way, there’s just one more piece of year-end business to take care of: my favorite song of the year. Like the top CD of the year, this one didn’t require much agonizing. It’s a song that puts me inRead More

Funny that most people finish their thoughts on outlaw country with Willie and Waylon. Because if you’re talking outlaw — real outlaw; as in your basic leather-wearing, bad-attitude-having, stringy-hair-hanging, tat-sporting, law-breaking (did I mention, bad-attitude-having?), six-gun-waving, hog-riding, too-country-for-country-radio singing outlaw — David Allan Coe is your prototype. He’s the kindRead More

NICK DERISO: One of the first R&B hits for Shreveport-based Jewel-Paula Records founder Stan Lewis was by that juke-jointy legend Frank Frost. A take-off the Slim Harpo song “Baby Scratch My Back,” it was finally collected on CD as part of the rollicking “Jelly Roll Blues” in 1991 — andRead More

The long-lost 8-track of Little River Band’s ‘Diamantina Cocktail’ has been playing in my mind, repeating the third song over and over again.

Fewer bands in rock have been more unjustly maligned than Chicago. Now, I’m no fan of the David Foster years, but being responsible for some of the shlockiest pop of that era doesn’t diminish the more innovative and ambitious output of the seventies, especially those first five albums. You MayRead More