No serious conversation about old school funk-jazz can leave out this gem. “Always There” is a essentially a two chord vamp, but damn, it’s a two-chord vamp that hits squarely in the center of funk’s sweet spot. The song’s co-creator Ronnie Laws spent the first half the seventies lending hisRead More

It should probably be no surprise to anyone who is remotely familiar with us, but we here at Something Else! are not what you’d call avid watchers of MTV. Evidently, neither is Crosby Loggins; he was asked to be a contestant on their show Rock The Cradle three of fourRead More

Have I really gone this far without shining a spotlight on Grant Green? Wow. Grant Green is an all time favorite guitarist of mine. He was one of the few out there who was technically amazing and could squeeze so much soul out of each note at the same time.Read More

So far we’ve covered Canadians and children’s music but we haven’t yet covered Canadians doing children’s music. Until now, that is. Recently I was driving my eleven-year-old daughter to school and in a fit of nostalgia, she wanted to listen to the old Raffi record in the car’s CD changer.Read More

Last year I put funk fusioneer Jeff Lorber on a short list of guilty pleasures of mine. Sometimes I wonder if that was justified giving him such a back-handed compliment. I mean, Lorber’s got chops to spare and his music makes me feel good most every time I listen toRead More

Long before I was able to digest the epic, twenty-five minute meandering noodlings of Dicky Betts and Duane Allman, I deeply dug the Allman Brothers’ “Melissa.” It’s a wistful, country-flavored ballad that was easy to learn how to play on a beat-up Yamaha acoustic guitar, and since it was oneRead 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

by S. Victor Aaron Most of the times that I choose a song for this here “One Track Mind” series is because the song simply sounds good to me. Then I’ll dive into my spiel as to why it does. Today’s OTM has it’s own intrinsic virtues, too, but itRead More

by Pico Doyle Bramhall II has been around so much fame and combined with his songwriting and guitar talents, it’s downright shocking that he hadn’t become more than an underground hero himself. But, man, what a résumé. The son of drummer and Stevie Ray Vaughan collaborator Doyle Bramhall, Doyle TheRead More

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.