by Nick DeRiso Billie Holiday’s voice, fragile and thin at the end, belied the strong-willed fighter she always was. This record, dotted with tunes she’d once owned two decades before as a bubbly bird in front of big bands, makes the argument for her. By the mid-1950s, the hard-living HolidayRead More

by Nick DeRiso Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, a spirited, bluesy and always fun performer, seemed to burst out from a series of early live recordings during a period when that was rare. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were just too many logistical nightmares, from getting good takes inRead More

by Nick DeRiso An honorable, if ultimately somewhat superficial, tribute to the thing that makes Robert “Jr.” Lockwood such an important element to modern blues. Lockwood was something of a stepson to Robert Johnson. The doomed Delta bluesman would stop in to stay with Lockwood’s mother in Helena, Ark., duringRead 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

by Nick DeRiso General Patterson’s “Shackville,” recorded with former bandmates from north Louisiana bar-band legends Howard Shaft, moves like a warm, rustling breeze through the treetops. Surprising, indeed, for an on-stage performer known for his rumbling Southern-fried blues grind. Where Patterson’s shows typically push out from the stage with aRead 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

by Nick DeRisoThough Jimmy Smith is the principal voice of the Hammond B-3 in jazz, finding an entry point in his long discography can be difficult. Some might argue for 1956’s “At the Organ,” featuring Cedar Walton, Pepper Adams and Chick Corea. For me, though, that one doesn’t pop withRead More

by Nick DeRiso Violinist Mark O’Connor continues one of the most fascinating, brilliantly original re-imaginings of classical music in our time with “Nos. 2 and 3.” He works not in the dusty pages of the familiar, but in a refreshing vernacular — and, along the way, imbues this OMAC RecordsRead More

Only Michael Jackson could have done so much so quickly to obscure the ass-shaking, barrier-breaking brilliance of his own music. He was that famous. It’s always pissed me off, and never more so than today — when Jackson finally succumbed to the swirling demons of his own life. I thinkRead More

Refined, yet deliciously groovy, 72-year-old Johnnie Bassett’s music — and his bearing — belies his family’s rascally bootlegger roots. It’s perhaps no surprise, though, that many of the more well-known Florida-area bluesmen of the Prohibition era — Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red — would stop by toRead More