‘Fanatic’ arrived 10 years ago today as the heaviest thing Heart had ever produced. At the same time, however, it was a deeply confessional recording.

There was no small amount of violence in Blind Willie Johnson’s original take, and that’s boldly recaptured in this unheard version by the Staple Singers.

‘Freedom Highway Complete’ makes viscerally clear that the Staple Singers, though they’d moved far afield of gospel, could still rattle the back pews.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plP4Z2hHXvE&w=500&h=305] This sound, in the dead of night, comes rushing out of my radio — a tornadic gust of horns. Then there follows a devastatingly cool lyric, amid a suave and spacious groove. But who is it? 45 seconds in, I finally peg “Can’t Hide Love” as the newRead More

This first-time-ever collection of both Eric Carmen’s Raspberries and solo favorites also includes his first new song in some 18 years.

You’d probably assume that 1981’s The Baron, produced by countrypolitan pioneer Billy Sherrill, would do little to suggest where Johnny Cash would end up a little over a decade later with the American Recordings series. You May Also Like: Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave was a rustic, spiritual,Read More

You want to know the Johnny Winter story? Listen to the blues stuff, and there’s a heaping helping of it here.

Al Kooper’s task, in reminding us of the towering genius possessed by his late friend Mike Bloomfield, wasn’t in finding dusty unheard tracks for From His Head to His Heart to His Hands. When it comes to Bloomfield, who overdosed at just 37 in 1981, the likelihood is that almostRead More

Big Star is a band that you know, at least by sound and structure, even if you never knew them, you know? Roundly ignored across two early-1970s releases, their’s was the sound of the college-rock scene of a decade later. You May Also Like: Those Pretty Wrongs (feat. Big Star’sRead More

Miles Davis collaborator Jimmy Cobb joins us as we explore nine Columbia albums that capture the earliest flowerings of the Miles Davis legend — the moment when his muse began to match his own prodigious powers. You May Also Like: Miles Davis’ Expanded ‘Kind of Blue: Legacy Edition’ Struck theRead More