Terry Roland

As the song begins, it’s amazingly simple. There’s no dramatic build up, no minimalist entry way; it’s just the sound of the drums, an electric bass, and a church organ together. They wait as though they call for some sense of devotion in anticipation of a voice.

In the early 1980s, during the peak of the punk movement, Los Angeles became known as the place to go if a musician wanted to expand beyond the three-chord garage passion of the Sex Pistols and the Ska strains of The Clash. Ironically enough, Nashville-rejected country-western singer-

In American roots music history, following and tracing the movement of artists, emerging genres, and lasting legacies can be a daunting task. For most popular music historians and ethnomusicologists with a focus on the roots of American music, the common geographical outgrowth, especially over the last 50 years, has been

The roses have faded, there's frost at my door The birds in the morning don't sing anymore The grass in the valley is starting to die And out in the darkness the whippoorwills cry.           -- Hank Williams, from “Alone & Forsaken” The South in the deep, lonely

Joe Cocker, the British blue-eyed soul singer who helped lead the second British music invasion -- along with Cream, The Who, Small Faces, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin and Jeff Beck -- has died of lung cancer. He was 70 years old. Cocker will be remembered for his unique blues-soaked interpretations