by Nick DeRiso While much of Tony Joe White’s new recording “The Shine” feels so bare-bones as to be undercooked, the muscular “Tell Me Why” bubbles up with the rough moral drama of a storyteller’s yarn. Still standing, despite years unjustly spent outside fame’s spotlight, White hasn’t stopped believing inRead More

Photograph by Amy Dey by Nick DeRiso A radiant uncertainty runs through “Maybe,” Emily Hearn’s song about the confusion and memorable pain of a lonely young heart. OK, there’s a girl, and there’s a guy, and the guy won’t give her the time of day. This, we’ve heard before. ButRead More

Here’s another one that was in the family household record rotation forty years ago. It began as a ditty for a local bank seeking to attract newlywed customers and within a year turned into a big hit for soft rock titans The Carpenters. Released as a single in August 1970Read More

The bitter end of the Beatles? The flip side of the “Let It Be” single begs to differ.

by Pico So a couple of years ago we saluted the national shopping holiday called Black Friday with some musings about a 1975 Steely Dan song of the same name. This time, we’re going to mark the occasion with another ditty by the Boys From Bard (Walter Becker and DonaldRead More

Today is a day for giving thanks for something or another, and everyone knows what Sly Stone is grateful for. And believe me, I was intent on making this One Track Mind about a 1969 hit for the Family Stone that pretty much set the template for ’70’s funk, butRead More

A massive reissue project from Apple Records had me digging back through the old Billy Preston sides. None is more titanically funky, and lastingly influential, than “Outa-Space,” with its grease-fire groove and afro-shaking new clavinet sound. “Outa-Space” is not to be confused with his similarly named No. 4 hit ofRead More

By Nick Deriso It’s no surprise that a performer who got her start working with funny funkster Morris Day settles into a lightly swinging keyboard groove from the first on “Do Something Else.” Why do anything else? After all, Gail Jhonson wrote the book on neo-soul piano. Literally: her publishedRead More

by S. Victor Aaron I don’t pay a great deal of attention to what other jazz critics say about records as I probably should; chalk it up to laziness, I suppose. But even my lazy ass couldn’t help but notice all the interest in media circles buzzing around guitarist MaryRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Love ’em or hate ’em, Styx was part of many an American boy’s soundtrack of the late 70s and early 80s. When I think of arena rock, the first two bands I think of are Journey and Styx; both bands encapsulated everything that was good andRead More