THROUGH THE LENS: Nashville Boogie 2019 Brings Rockabilly to Music City
This week I cover an underserved branch of roots music: rockabilly. Specifically, Nashville Boogie, a festival held in Nashville every Memorial Day weekend. As if the music is not enough, it identifies itself as "a celebration of midcentury American music, culture and style." It includes a car show,
BLUEGRASS RAMBLES: How to Build a Band
New bluegrass bands emerge all the time. The routine goes right back to the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland fantasy movies — “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” — or the garage rock bands of the ’60s and ’70s. As with those approaches, more new bluegrass bands fail than succeed, but
In Atlanta, An Effort to Prevent a Piece of Country Music History from Wasting Away
When Ken Burns’ eight-episode docuseries Country Music debuts on Sept. 15, the first story told will not take place in Texas or Tennessee. Instead, the series’ in-depth look at the genre’s roots begins in downtown Atlanta, where Okeh Records’ Ralph Peer recorded the first country music superstar, Fiddlin’ John
Chip Taylor's Sly Humor Gets at Human Truths on ‘Whiskey Salesman’
Chip Taylor tells engaging stories of love and lessons learned from hard drinking and gambling. Best known for writing “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” Taylor knows how to draw us into a song, to drive us around its curves with a nod and wink, and to deliver the
Left for Dead, Chicago’s Carol’s Pub Reopens and Reclaims its Niche
I've eaten three fried-bologna sandwiches in my lifetime, each of them in Illinois.
The first was in Diane Rhodes' apartment at the Samuel Gompers Homes, the oldest public housing development in East St. Louis. Rhodes' teenage son, Tommie Liddell Jr., and his friend, Mark Howlett, had
Duo Paper Wings Honor the Past While Making Something Modern
On sophomore album Clementine, Paper Wings blends two distinct voices and impeccable skills as instrumentalists to create a modern, unified vision built on Appalachian traditions.
The duo features old-time music mainstay and California native Emily Mann and Wilhelmina Frankzerda, an Oregon-born, Nashville-based fiddling champion and a current member of the