?Among the blues musicians of today, you’ve got your stars like Robert Cray, Jonny Lang, Shemekia Copeland and so forth, and then you’ve got the remaining 98% who are toiling away at this blessed craft in relative obscurity, anonymous to all but the patrons who catch their shows in barsRead More

by Pico Here’s a One Track Mind that’s also a One Hit Wonder. Remember Dionne Farris? If you do, then this song must have made an impression on you, too. This is usually the part where I delve into the artist’s background and deliver the setup to the song ofRead More

by S. Victor Aaron There was a time during my carefree youth when I was listening to little else outside of jazz and fusion but funk. We’re talking Prince, Gap Band, The Time and several other lesser known acts on the scene at that time. Right up there with theRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Les Dudek is one of those guitarists you may have never heard of but you’ve certainly heard him. He was the harmony guitar part on The Allman Brothers’ first major hit “Ramblin’ Man.” He added slide and dobro to Steve Miller’s dual classics Fly Like AnRead More

by S. Victor Aaron As a nation is transfixed on the destructive fires going on in Southern California, the fate of millions living there seem to rest on something Man has no control over: those Santa Ana winds. Hot, dry gales that blow in from the desert to the eastRead More

by Pico Songs that I’ve known for a quarter of a century don’t tend to stay in my brain’s record rotation continuously for that long, but this song popped up out of nowhere in my consciousness once again. Maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to write about it. “ThatRead More

Richard Thompson seems to put out a live album every year and being a sucker for his clever songwriting and maximal guitar playing, I usually lap it up all the same. The former founding member of that seminal British folk-rock group Fairport Convention, Thompson has not only been a partRead More

This week my contributions to the pile of music reviews got a little bit off the road with William Parker then Bill Frisell. Since we’re already off the pavement, I might as well head straight into the culvert with a panegyrist over a Tom Cora performance. Tom Cora, you ask?Read More

by S. Victor Aaron From the first two words of this group, you already know that it’s a combo that features King Crimson’s all-everything rhythm section of Bill Bruford (drummer extraordinaire) and Tony Levin (bassist extraordinaire). This side project of theirs produced just a self-titled studio album in 1999 andRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Chris Rea is something of a lingering figure in popular music. He had a top 20 hit way back in 1978 for “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” and then a smaller one in 1986 with “On The Beach.” Both of these songs casted him asRead More