Al Green’s return-to-form ‘Lay It Down’ arrived a decade ago this month with new hip-hop producers and a bevy of guest R&B singers – but it was no sell out.

“Tired of Being Alone” has the greatest lead vocal on any officially released Chicago song – and that’s an insult to no one.

Papa Mali’s “I’m a Ram” is an intriguing voodoo of sex and danger, something that seems to always surround the best Louisiana music.

That there wasn’t one already seems unfathomable. Now that the Memphis Music Hall of Fame has been created, however, its inaugural class can assembled with a snap resembling the legendary hometown Stax Records logo. You May Also Like: No related posts.

In the same way that the Beatles were the undisputed kings among 1960s classic rock Desert Island Discs, Stevie Wonder owned R&B in the subsequent decade. You May Also Like: How an ‘Antique French Garage Band’ Nailed the Whole Soul Music Vibe Bluey of Incognito: The Albums That Shaped MyRead More

Charles “Skip” Pitts, one of the architects of soul, R&B, and funk guitar and a member of the Bo-Keys, has passed away at the age of 65. Pitts is best known for creating two of the signature guitar riffs of all time: The Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing” and 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

Click through the titles below for Something Else! reviews on a number of last night’s key Grammy-award winners, including Robert Plant and Alison Krauss — who must have charley horses from going up and down to the podium so often. We also review B.B. King, whose terrific “One Kind Favor”Read More

by S. Victor Aaron Last month Al Green released a new album, Lay It Down, which I’d recommend to any fan of pure, old-school soul. Later this month Chicago’s Stone Of Sisyphus, originally record in 1993, will finally be officially released. But twenty years even before that was taped, bothRead More