For good or ill (usually the latter, alas), some associations haunt performers for their entire careers. Del Shannon became synonymous with his biggest hit, “Runaway,” and was typecast as an “oldies act.” Stevie Nicks will forever conjure visions of ’80s big hair, white platforms, and gauzy shawls. The name Jorma…
When many people use the “Americana” tag, they’re usually referring to rock ‘n’ roll laced with elements of folk and country music, two of its “roots” vectors. But uniquely, distinctive American music encompasses other genres and styles, too — blues, gospel, jazz, the song craft of Stephen Foster and Hoagy…
Who’d’ve thunk it? Along with windy Chicago and verdant Mississippi, Arizona is, in fact, a fertile environment for the blues. The proof’s in these two discs, with the commonality between them being Bob Corritore, boss harmonica player and owner of Phoenix’s Rhythm Room. On Travelin’ the Dirt Road, he co-leads…
Hats off to any musician who ventures out of his/her comfort zone and doesn’t stick (or bury) him/herself in a particular niche. But venturing isn’t without its pitfalls: Your fans might be disoriented by a new direction, while other listeners might think you a dabbler or pretender. Guitar wizard John…
There are several ways to play rockabilly nowadays: the gentlemanly way (Robert Gordon, Sleepy LaBeef), the roots-conscious 1955 hepcat way (High Noon, Big Sandy & the Fly-Rite Boys), glam-revival (Stray Cats, Polecats), and the mondo-demento lunacy/ribaldry of the Cramps and Reverend Horton Heat. (Can’t forget the Blasters — in a…
Blues singer/guitarist David “Honeyboy” Edwards wasn’t just influenced or inspired by icons Robert Johnson and Big Joe Williams, he actually played with them. Born in 1915 into a hardscrabble existence in Shaw, Mississippi, Edwards was literally baptized in the crucible of the blues. Oddly enough, though, despite continuous activity, he…
Ignore the cheesy cover art. Though it resembles a no-budget local LP pressing from 1970, Talk of the Town is one humdinger of a vocal album. For 40 years — you read right — Jerry Lawson was a singer with the long-lived a cappella group the Persuasions (who can count…
Rich, hardcore jazz fans are different from you and me. They demand utter dedication to this art form from both artist and listener. Jazz is America’s “classical music” — serious, high art — and, to the aficionado, “pure” jazz is the only worthwhile music, period. Those folks have already stopped…
There’s much musical lore about the Lone Star State, but what is it about San Antonio, Texas? There are many songs about Houston and Dallas, but relatively few regarding San Antonio, considering the town’s alumni include Sir Doug Sahm, the Butthole Surfers, and Carol Burnett. (Is it the water?) Add…
In the mid-’50s, while Sinatra swung and Elvis and Chuck Berry showed the world how to rock, black Louisianans of Cajun extraction — Clifton Chenier, for one — were plugging in and pumping crackling rhythm and blues into traditional Cajun dance music. The result was tagged “zydeco,” an ebullient and…
Country music is where rock ‘n’ roll was circa 1962 B.B. (before Beatles) and 1975-76 — lots ‘n’ lots of photogenic hat-hunks and pop(py)-tarts playing corporate-approved approximations of the real stuff. Dale Watson, an Austin performer flying beneath the Nashville radar, puts the “tree” back in country as an insurgent…
In movies, metal bands and their fans are often portrayed as anti-eggheads — note the knee-high nihilists and simpletons of Airheads, This Is Spinal Tap, and The River’s Edge. Well, dig this, Movie Producers of Hollyweird: Those who play metal have also attended music school. That’s right; the core members…
Rock music history is paved with the asphalt of failure and obscurity — in their respective eras, the now-venerated watersheds the Stooges, Nick Drake, Velvet Underground, and Tim Buckley moved units in the teensy-weensiest figures. But as someone in the blues field observed, “Give me the flowers while I’m living.”…
Near the conclusion of Austin Powers (the first one), Dr. Evil taunts our hero, “There is nothing worse than an aging hipster.” Veteran femme rock icon Grace Slick has said “old people” look, uh, foolish playing rock ‘n’ roll. It is a nice trick if one can manage it —…
Reality does bear out this theorem: The smaller the band, the greater the intensity. Trios have generated some of the loudest, most intense, most volatile squall: Cream, Blue Cheer, Minutemen, Painkiller (John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris), and Hüsker Dü. (Taking the point further: Japan’s math-core…
More than the Grateful Dead, San Francisco’s Jefferson Airplane defined the summer of love’s hippie ethos: lysergic lyrics (“White Rabbit”), an anti-authoritarian, us-versus-them attitude, and sonic eclecticism (rock, folk, jazz, blues, and world music). Sweeping Up captures all this, with the original Airplane at the peak of its powers. Guitarist…
The downside of achieving massive success is becoming typecast. After leaving the airwaves, many of the original Star Trek cast found it difficult to secure work because of their association with the series; Chumbawamba has a 20-year career but is remembered by most for “Tubthumping”; and, despite having appeared in…
The battle cry of the rawest punk rock and proto-hardcore bands circa 1978-84 was “louder, faster, shorter” and the attitude behind that ethos was about shearing away rock and roll’s accumulated excesses (tedious and/or showoff instrumental soloing, meandering songs). That premise is the bread and butter, the meat and cheese,…
What hath Nile Rodgers wrought? Or was it Giorgio Moroder? Whoever was the wizard who figured out how to make records without musicians has a lot to answer for. True, sampled beats and programmed rhythms come a lot cheaper than those who can actually play instruments, but pop and dance…
If “now” were the mid- to late 1960s, Jana Hunter’s There’s No Home would likely be released on the legendary ESP-Disk label. It was one of the most uncompromising American labels ever, and the New Weird America/Free Folk scene with which Hunter is identified has roots (at least in part)…
At some point in rock ‘n’ roll, creativity got confused with originality — bands and singers were suspect if their songs weren’t self-penned. Performers recording others’ songs were often seen as less “genuine” by the terminally hip. That kind of thinking is responsible for tons of rock albums containing two…
It’s funny how trends turn in terms of the cool becoming passé and the unspeakably lame becoming “the shit.” For first-wave punks, guitar solos were as voguish as a Three’s Company T-shirt; the ascendance of Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr. made nimble-fingered six-string aerobics stylish again. Generations of indie-rock aesthetes…
