by Nick DeRiso While much of Tony Joe White’s new recording “The Shine” feels so bare-bones as to be undercooked, the muscular “Tell Me Why” bubbles up with the rough moral drama of a storyteller’s yarn. Still standing, despite years unjustly spent outside fame’s spotlight, White hasn’t stopped believing inRead More

by Mark Saleski When I was a little kid, we used to take vacations out on Cape Cod. Back then there was a target ship anchored out in the bay, the SS James Longstreet. There was something both creepy and majestic about that ship. Of course, the boy in meRead More

A massive reissue project from Apple Records had me digging back through the old Billy Preston sides. None is more titanically funky, and lastingly influential, than “Outa-Space,” with its grease-fire groove and afro-shaking new clavinet sound. “Outa-Space” is not to be confused with his similarly named No. 4 hit ofRead More

As a Louisiana-born singing and songwriting swamp pop legend, Tony Joe White is a guy we like a lot around here but never gotten around to singing his praises. His new album The Shine, released last September 26, gives us the perfect occasion to do so. The originator of hitsRead More

Jason Kay has slowed down the pace of Jamiroquai new album releases, and Rock Dust Light Star was the group’s first since Dynamite five years ago. Nothing has changed much with the music, and since this band has long ago perfected its style of acid-jazz and retro disco, there’s noRead More

by Mark Saleski “…The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that’s my idea of a good time.” Ah yeah, tell it Mr. Zappa! One of my all-time favorite quotes concerning the instrument, Frank wasn’t proclaiming the guitar the king of instruments so much as noting that it’s theRead More

by Pico Like Jamiroquai, Icognito is one of those British bands that’s faithfully carrying the torch for good ol’ American seventies-styled jazz-funk & soul better than anybody in the USA is doing these days. And Incognito, formed 31 years ago, is arguably the first of these so-called acid jazz outfitsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron As the sixties turned into the seventies, soul, like rock, got tougher and edgier. In 1971 alone, Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and Gil Scott-Heron‘s Pieces Of A Man raised the stakes in R&B that was serious, far-reaching andRead More

by Pico The call Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul, but those too young to remember her will mostly likely know about the Queen of Neo Soul, Erykah Badu. Today she unleashes the follow-up to her dense and intense New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War (2008), which was oftenRead More

by Pico It’s the middle of January, which can only mean we’re about a month late on those year-end lists. Oooops. This past year, I’ve listened to perhaps a little less of the rock, pop and r&b records than in 2008, but the selections for my favorites were easier toRead More