Michael Elliott

When the chorus hits almost two minutes into “King of Oklahoma,” the second track on Weathervanes, the new Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit album, it’s like an unexpected release of tension you didn’t know you needed. It proves once again that Isbell is not only a much-heralded

When you name your band and your album The Big Bottle of Joy, roots music fans should expect to be transported, at least for a little while, to a place that will distract them from their troubles and the state of the world. Thankfully, singer-songwriter-producer Matt Andersen understands the assignment,

Following a pair of experiments that kept them busy during the pandemic in 2020 — the ambient soundscapes of We Have Amnesia Sometimes and their brief yet sublime EP of covers, Sleepless Nights — Yo La Tengo return to the beautiful noise of 2018’s There’s a Riot Going On (ND

Bob Dylan closed the 1980s with the Daniel Lanois-produced Oh Mercy, an acclaimed return-to-form after more than a decade of bad reviews and being “written off,” as his concert introductions voiced by stage manager Al Santos dryly made clear, “as a has-been by the end of the ’80s.” Oh Mercy

In September of 1957, Buddy Guy left his home state of Louisiana and, like so many of his contemporaries in post-World War II America, traveled north by train to the promise of the Windy City. There in Chicago, Guy eventually met Muddy Waters, who had made his own trek from