Released 10 years ago today, Son Volt’s ‘American Central Dust’ found Jay Farrar asking questions – and being OK when he didn’t always get answers.

James Booker’s tortured ingenuity was never given its due, partly because he mixed such a dizzying degree of elements into his sound and partly because of his legendary erraticisms. You May Also Like: No related posts.

Allen Toussaint’s languid, reverie-filled piano introduction to “Southern Nights,” a No. 1 hit he gave to Glen Campbell, is worth the price of admission to his new live set Songbook all by itself. You May Also Like: No related posts.

George Thorogood’s rough-hewn sound has become so ubiquitous — from classic-rock stations to an endless parade of movie soundtracks — that it’s difficult to remember just how nervy these two albums once sounded. You May Also Like: Sylvester – ‘Step II’ (1978; 2020 reissue) James Taylor – ‘One Man Band’Read More

‘Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective’ hurtles along with the same restless, furiously creative impetus as its subject.

Little Feat finds a welcome new focus on songwriting, versus the rangy but sometimes ultimately unsatisfying jam-based structures of more recent outings.

A dream team of Americana stars including Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), Anders Parker (Varnaline), and Yim Yames (actually Jim James of My Morning Jacket) have gathered to reinterpret unrecorded lyrics from Woody Guthrie. Preview a track here! You May Also Like: How Son Volt Got Back onRead More

Photo by Jim Eigo by Nick DeRiso People think of clarinets as this sound from a different era, and the guys who play them as having done so in black and white. The late Alvin Batiste, who initially found his muse in Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time,” was never thatRead More

You can’t fault Gregg Allman his nostalgia on ‘Low Country Blues.’ Legendarily restless, he’s still a man, and the leader of a band, that’s been through a great deal.

Irma Thomas, whose Louisiana legend of a voice has darkened into a more expressive place, is taking a similar career tack. The new “Simply Grand,” in fact, finds Thomas moving deeper into the emotional underpinnings of her best work at a time when safer environs would probably be more profitable.Read More