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

by S. Victor Aaron They look and sound like they’ve been around forever, but the Subdudes have “only” existed for 20 years (counting the roughly eight-year hiatus from 1996-2004), mainly flying under the radar. They come out of that musically rich town of New Orleans, but have rarely been mentionedRead More

NICK DERISO: Though ever-changing subsequent lineups weakened the Platters’ considerable impact, the fact is — they still matter. The first rock band to have a Top 10 album, these 1990 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame appeared in the initial motion picture based around this then-new music,Read More

Tony Joe White is one of us, pure and simple. Earthy and plain-spoken. Southern and proud. With all the contradictions.

NICK DERISO: From the trembling strains of the first harpsichord notes here, to the rappy backbeat that follows, to the bubbling funk from later on, to the hard jazz moving through this album after that, it’s clear … Bernie Worrell — the original keyboardist with Parliament-Funkadelic— is crazy. But inRead More

NICK DERISO: Charmaine Neville – yes, she’s one of those Nevilles – didn’t want to be a singer. She wanted to tell jokes. Convinced to go another way, Neville initially split the difference. She sang funny songs. “When I was a kid, when ‘The Flintstones’ would come on TV, IRead More

In anybody else’s hands, this new Mavis Staples album would have been a museum piece, interesting but ultimately dust-covered and remote. Not that “We’ll Never Turn Back” (to be issued on Tuesday by Anti- records) doesn’t have plenty of right things to say, and certainly plenty of righteous things, inRead More

We all know that Stevie Wonder is a great singer, but former Doobie Brothers star Michael McDonald simply outdoes him here.

by Pico Ray Charles had been such a fixture on the American music scene for so long, it’s still hard to reconcile the fact that he’s been gone for over two years, now. True, it’s been a long time since he had a bona fide hit but his presence permeatedRead More

When certain major events…tragic events..take place, we often look to see how certain mucisians express their feelings about it and if it coincides with our own feelings or informs them, then that artist has delivered something special beyond mere entertainment. Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising was so heavily anticipated because heRead More