Sign in Become a member

David Cantwell

Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.: Deluxe Edition

On an oppressively sweaty summer night back in 1987, I saw Dwight Yoakam and his Babylon Cowboys perform at a club in Kansas City, Missouri. Yoakam was already a "star" at this point, with four or five top-10 country hits on his resume. So it was no surprise

Roy Orbison - The Essential Roy Orbison Sings Lonely and Blue Crying in Dreams

People reach for adjectives like "weird" and "otherworldly," "eerie" and "haunting" when describing Roy Orbison and his music. These word choices mean to underscore the ways in which Orbison stood apart from his rock-and-pop contemporaries. But such descriptions have the effect of

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Yell Fire!

At the close of Yell Fire! and the song "Is Love Enough", just before the final strum of an acoustic guitar fades away, Michael Franti says, "Believe in coexistence." It's not just a pretty thought. Franti and his band Spearhead walk the walk not

David Ruffin - The Great David Ruffin: The Motown Solo Albums, Vol. 1 / Eddie Kendricks - Keep On Truckin': The Motown Solo Albums, Vol. 1

No vocal group has ever had or is ever likely to have two lead vocalists any better than the Temptations of 1964-68. Most of their leads went to David Ruffin -- he's the one beaming, pleading and sobbing on "My Girl", "Ain't Too

Darondo - Let My People Go

Darondo is this season's hip soul man rediscovery, and one that unlike, say, Shuggie Otis, lives up to the hype. In the early '70s, it's said, this local legend cruised around his San Francisco neighborhood in a white, vanity-plated Rolls Royce, purchased with money he&

Ain't Got No Cigarettes: Memories Of Music Legend Roger Miller

Every serious Roger Miller fan will want to read this book, and every one of them will be frustrated. Ain't Got No Cigarettes is only what its subtitle says: a series of interview transcriptions done by Lyle Style who, after discovering Roger Miller at the late date of

Various Artists - The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 3: 1963

By the end of 1963, Billboard had temporarily ceased publishing an R&B chart because, as Craig Werner explains in the liner notes to Volume 3 of The Complete Motown Singles, "it was pointless to print the pop list twice." Motown played a key role in this