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

by Nick DeRiso The doo-wopping Temptations – five guys that had both a way with harmony and these pillow-soft on-stage moves – probably should have been an oldies act years ago. After all, a song like “My Girl,” recorded in 1964, might have held little resonance by the end ofRead More

by Pico I think I can say this with high confidence that The Isley Brothers were among the best and underrated R&B bands of the 1970’s. It wasn’t just Ronald Isley’s creamy smooth falsetto or killer material like “Footsteps In The Dark”, these guys made more than a passing nodRead More

It’s hard to put a label on Aaron Neville’s music. Even, as we saw in this interview, for Aaron Neville himself.

Get your hands on Maceo Parker’s ‘Roots Revisited.’ It’s good, organic funky soul covering classic tunes by giants like Ray Charles, Charles Mingus and Sly Stone.